The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-14 00:00:00

/ MI I • for the gradual reduction of the duties. Mr. OlAdstone, having doubts as to sufficient sup ply, and called upon to make his proposal when the last news shows that the Chinese empire is not only in a state of chronic civil war, but of absolute revolution, in order that he may transcend Mr. Disraeli " in the City," makes a dash at the tea duties which astounds even the financial reformers of Liverpool, over whom his particularly prudent brother pre• sides, and allots only three years for the space during which we are to lose three millions of revenue. If the House of Commons be wise, they will pause a little about these duties, and wait for the next China mail. The time is most inappropriate for this experiment, and if, as is not improbable, the tea districts become the seat of great and prolonged disturbance, we shall not only lose our revenue of three millions, but the price of tea will probably rise. and notinconsideramy. Mr. Disraeli proposed only one new tax ; that was the extension and increase of the House Tax. Even Mr. Gladstone could scarcely escape from supporting this measure ; for in MI he had not, only voted fur the proposition when. made by his predecessor, but had spoken warmly in its favour, and in an unwilling house had forced a division on it. The mea sure of Mr. Disraeli would have increased the proceeds of the house tax something more than 900,000/., and a sounder and more mo derate measure was, perhaps, never brought forward. Pledged to its principles, to its in crease, and its extension, Mr. Gladstone was in a somewhat difficult position when he had to rote to turn out the late Government on this very item. A plea was wanting for such a des perate course, anti Mr. Gladstone, turning up the whites of his eyes, found one in the hor rible fact that the house tax was to be doubled ; the real question being, not whether the . house tax ought to be doubled, but whether its amount, as proposed, was moderate anti juts tifiable. Mr. Gladstone, after this, could hardly propose an increase of the house tax. so he has fallen on a system of Trade Licences. which, in feet, t;urnt an aggravated house tax, and quadruple the amount of the existing one. But. if Mr. Gladstone's principles are cor rect, why any new tax at all '? Why not await that accruing surplus, the consequence of the new commercial system according to the fol lowers of Sir Robert l'eel, and devote the pro ceeds to the remission of taxation in natural course ? The Soap tax, like all other tax's, an evil, but why substitute for it other evils in the shape of taxes on property. or on distil levies, or on retail trades ? Merely to make a splash, and to surpass Mr. Disraeli, who had at least a theory to put in practice. Mr. Glad stone has none ; on the contrary, his practice runs counter to his whole theory. Instead of his budget being a great scheme, it is a mass of incongruities. Its main charactetistic is to mai° Mr. Disraeli in his own way ; but, as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli set out from contrary premises, it follows that the conclu miens of one of them, under such aroma ttances. must be wrong. Tea must be dealt with, because Mr. Disraeli had occupied that ground ; Ireland must have a complete income tax, because Mr. Disraeli suggested a partial one ; the house tax assumes the enormous shape of trade lieenees ; an obscure hint about stamps and probates by his predecessor is in stantly expanded into a tax oil successions. Mr. Disraeli, in his groupings of taxation in his lust memorable speech before he retired from office, adverted to the necessity hereafter of re vising the amsessed taxes, and terminating the excise on paper and soap. Mr. Gladstone is immediately at everything in the ring. Mr. Disraeli acted on the principle, that, artificial prices being abrogated, the cost of production must be reduced to the last limit. Mr. Glad stone denies all this, and then, laying down as his fundamental truth that the revenue of a Mate should be raised from the income of a 'f taxation, WIWI vi5a...a.... ...... - ---- 4 4 . try, proposes a remission of taxation, % v 4 4.. entirely depends on Parliament agree- ,,:. 4 . ‘'4'.,...i.‘„.' ge and permanent tax on the pro- ." s-vp .- .• i • country! %., ..• 41„o n w . , , I. ‘:• 4: r,/ /1 41: A AND WINE DUTIES eN l • I. i di tithout clear foresight, and a iii•- • rtence to what is already in in - ‘s A, i ' ',... . ~ .. . .tion. that Mr. Disalau.t. in a late ' I I ' ‘ MI.Oi s % . * i r o e i-. • e budget, warned the CHANCELLOR o ie , Vita 47AL THE PRESS. of the EXCHEQUER that the reduction of the duty on tea (assuming it to operate as he con templates, without disturbance from the causes we have ad verted to shove), and his premature ex pression of opinion as to a remote alteration in the import duty on wine, would ere long involve the necessity of an entire readjustment of that enormous mass of taxation which is at the present moment raised from intoxica ti ng liquids, and of which the revenue from malt and British spirits forms so prodigious a pro- portion. It does not attract sufficient attention that, putting aside the proceeds of the income tux, nearly one half the income of the United Kingdom is raised from the sale of drinks, either exhila rating or fermented. Taking the revenue (minus that impost) at forty.six millions sterling, the excise and customs realise upwards of seven teen millions from wines, spirits, and beer, and between six and seven millions from coffee and tea. And Mr. Disraeli is not singular in the belief that the increased consumption of the simply exhilarating beverages has already exercised a perceptible effect on the di minished use of the intoxicating class. Pun. TES, in his " Progress of the Nation," some years ago called attention to the fact, that, on the reduction of the duty and cost of coffee and tea, their increased consumption through out the kingdom had been signalised by a simultaneous decline in that of spirits and beer. But this intimation, significant as it is, affinqls an inadequate conception of the change that has been induced, and the extent to which the use of the highly-taxed and home-produced articles has been discouraged, by stimulating the introduction of their foreign rivals. Taking the consumption of tea, coffee, and cocoa at the rate of the year 1836, and calculating the ex pansion by the mere ratio of population, the increase has exceeded all anticipation. For example :—The consumption of entice in 1836 was, in round numbers, twenty-three million pounds, and in 1830 it ought to have been twenty-seven millions, but the returns show it to have exceeded thirty-four millions. In like manner the tea consumed in 183 K was . thirty-six million pounds in 1830 it ought to to have bees forty-two millions, but it exceeded fifty millions. And of cocoa, of which one million pounds were used in 1836, upwards of three and a quarter millions were taken in 1.N311, whereas, the strict calculation would hove indicated less than half the latter quaff tity. But mark the effect of this unexpected movement upon time consumption of wine, spirits, and beet—applying to them precisely the same conditions as to coffee, coma, and tea : Gallons. Tim consumption of ;ur in I`4lll was 6.110,311 In I mAti it might to lnit-o in ii lint it only amounted t,l 6,1 The consumption of !, r n s in NM 16,330,1 XX) Taking the increase 01 population in it ought to have he, Hut it fell to 13,14:1,651 opirils by the :411I1P Stallthird showed in DM a entoonniai - ot of 24,710.1aa And ought to have riso3 in 1..40 to 1t4.673,63A Hut it fell to In other words, whilst the consumption of tea. coffc,., and cocoa exceeded all calculation of legitimate lucre:ow, its effect upon the consumption of wine, spirits. and beer, which ought to have exhibited an increase of 100 million gallons. was to produce a failiny qf 40,000.000 yawls a year. It was not, then. without just grounds for anticipation that Mr. Disraeli warned Mr. Gladstone of the change which he is precipi tating by still further stimulating the consump tion of the uuintoxicating beverages to the jeopardy of the enormous revenue which he now extracts from their rivals. It is manifestly unjust to the producers of these highly taxed articles in Great Britain to remove year after year the import duties from the foreign pro ductions which contend with them for public favour, without holding out the assurance of au early reduction in the imposts which press upon articles the growth of our own land, the produce of our own industry. And, bearing in mind the startling results which we have exhibited above, it will be seen with how much foresight the late Chancellor of the Exchequer has conveyed to his successor SATURDAY, in office the friendly intimation that in his cal culations of the probable revenue of 1860, when the income tax is to be abandoned, it will be unsafe for him to rely on that exuberant reve nue which he now derives from spirits and beer, if their consumption and productiveness are to exhibit this uniform decline which the experience of the pant leads us to anticipate from their unequal competition with the lightly taxed production* of China and Brazil. IMPLIED CONTRACTS AND SPECIAL DENIALS. WE do not recollect at this moment to whom the English language is indebted for that happy combination of words which describes some persons as " economists of truth." Last week will certainly supply, in the discussions of the House of Commons, some illustration of the felicity of the phrase No miser ever clutched his guineas with more desperate tenacity than some Whig gentlemen, in the progress of those discussions, hoarded their facts. No miserable Hebrew under the pressure of the torture ever gave out his gold with more reluctance than these personages have yielded to the successive applications of the press by which some little of the truth has been pain fully squeezed out of them at last. To " squeeze blood from turnips" has—we know not upon what authority—been vulgarly consi dered the ne plus ultra of such feats. More educated schoolboys read with wonder of the Florentine experiment in which pressure com pelled the water to ooze through solid gold. Parliamentary science, we doubt not, will re cord as a greater triumph of moral mechanism the more than hydraulic pressure that eau force the details of an awkward secret from the conscience of a Whig official. Lord Aberdeen's whipper-in has manifested a most creditable and almost incredible power of withholding facts. Talleyrand himself never exhibited more marvellous dexterity in the use of the language that conceals our thoughts than did the right hon. member for Wells in those skilfully-framed denials by which he so long evaded the disclosure of that conspiracy which we suppose we must now teen the Hay-ter and O'Connell intrigue. The whipper-in, perhaps, almost from association, takes lessons from the fox. N ever, certainly, did Reynard make more shifts, and winds, and turnings before the hounds than did poor Mr. Hayter last week before the yelping pack that have at last fairly run him to earth. Once or twice they overran the scent, and had to try back, giving, us is usual, no inconsiderable quantity of tongue ; but run to earth poor Reynard, beyond all question, is at last. If our metaphors are varied, it is merely be cause the dexterity of which we speak ex hausts all ordinary powers of description. Let us ask the attention of the reader to the plain fi.cts of this rather singular case. We may presume that the House of Commons have at last done with the subject. and that we know all of the matter which it pleases the high contracting parties that we ever shall know. We venture briefly to sum up the incidents of a transaction which we cannot help thinking reflects but little credit upon the principal actors ; or, indeed, upon the system under which the affiiirs of this great country are ma naged. We now know, beyond cavil or dispute, that in December last a number of gentlemen who have figured in parliamentary nomenclature, under the various fanciful appellations of " the " Irish Brigade," " the Pope's Brass Band," or, as they choose—we cannot help thinking a little audaciously—to call themselves, " the " Irish members,"—it is now. we say, incon testably established that these gentlemen as sembled in some chamber, hereafter no doubt to be classic in history, but the locality of which is now unrevealed, to determine what Ministers should hold the reins of power in this country. Chance, and the unprincipled combination of parties against the Conserva tive Government, have thrown this power in their hands. We are not able• unfortunately, to give the names of those who constituted this illustrious congress, who, while the House of Conwons was supposed to be debating the fate of Ministers and parties, were, in truth, de ciding that fate in a little separate conclave of their own. Hewtil•, indeed, must the 7