The Press. — London, England, 1857-02-07 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 7, 1857. years previous, and about 14,000,0001. more than they were in 1835, when economy was pushed too far to be judicious or safe. To suppose that the country will permanently submit to a burden of 25,000,0001., or any sum approaching to it, for its armed establish ments, is simply ridiculous. From 16,000,000/. to 17,000,0001. is, we apprehend, the highest amount at which our peace establishments can permanently be maintained. On the supposition that a resolution be taken to return to peace establishments at once, no obstacle—at all events no insu perable obstacle—would exist to the general features of the financial settlement of 1853 being observed. The plain, practical question before the House of Commons and the public now is, whether certain broad principles of finance, conformable to the compact of 1853, shall be laid down at once, or whether the onus shall be thrown on the House of Commons of dis puting the estimates which the Government may think proper to propose, and of cutting them down item by item ? The resolutions of which Mr. DISRAELI has given notice will, no doubt, practically fix a limit to the public ex• penditure, by determining that certain sources of revenue shall cease; and it is in this man ner only that war expenditure in time of peace can effectually be checked. By those resolutions a great practical ques• Lion will be submitted to the Legislature for decision. Shall the Income Tax, according to the terms of the Act of 1853, be reduced to fivepence in the ponnd from the sth of April next, and totally cease from the sth of April, 1860? Or shall this impost, in violation of the compact of 1853, remain a burden on the coun try, to be either the subject of perpetual agi tation on the score of its inequality and injus tice, or to fall with peculiar severity on real property in flagrant violation of the compact of 1853? That compact we observe was admitted in distinct terms by Mr. GLADSTONE in his speech on Tuesday evening. He said that the Suc cession Duty—a tax on real property estimated to produce two millions yearly—was imposed on tl►e understanding that the Income Tax should totally expire in 1860. It was a com pact, he said, not made with a section of the Government supporters, but a compact made with the people of England at the table of the House of Commons That compact cannot now be repudiated without a gross violation of legislative faith. The resolutions of Mr. DISRAELI will ask the House to recognise and affirm the settlement of 1853, and we greatly doubt whether the Government will be so ill- Idvised as to oppose them. If the Income Tax be totally removed, it will exist, as Lord DERBY urged, as a great and powerful resource when emergencies arise to justify resort to it. Future Chancellors of the Exchequer will know that should war unhap pily prove necessary, a revenue of sixteen, of twenty, or of twenty-four millions may be at once:made available for the national exigencies. But if this tax is so modified and adjusted as to fall mainly on realised property (which must be the result if it is made a portion of our permanent revenue), it will be lost as a resource in periods of urgency. If it should be objected that the Foreign Policy of the Government renders a return to peace establishments impracticable, the ques tion returns whether that policy must not be essentially false and pernicious? The great Powers of the world, alive to the benefits which spring from industrial pursuits, are anxious to reduce their forces. Is England, by the maintenance of threatening establish ments, to prove an obstacle to so desirable an end ? This consideration should not be with out its weight on the minds of the members when Mr. DISRAELI'S resolutions come on for discussion. Their practical signification is,— Efficient Peace Establishments, and Abolition of the Income Tax. TIIE FALKLAND ISLANDS. IN another portion of our columns will be found a letter from Mr. RENNIE, late Governor of the Falkland Islands, commenting upon our recommendation of these islands as the site THE PRESS. of a penal colony. Mr. RENNIE is, of course, a gentleman who is well entitled to a hearing upon this subject, and whom, we own, we would much rather have for us than against us. And, as it is the absolute necessity for transportation, rather than the overwhelming advantages of any particular locality as a con vict settlement, that we have so constantly insisted on, we should feel no difficulty about the surrender of the Falkland Islands, were we once convinced of its justice. But Mr. RENNIE will excuse us for saying that we scarcely catch the point of his argu ment. Suppose we grant that his letter dis sipates to some extent the notion that the Falkland Islands could ever become the seat of a lucrative trade. What then? He does not disprove their fitness for a penal colony. Allowing its full weight to Capt. SuLivAN's evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords, that grazing farms alone, and not agricultural, could be carried on in these islands, what are we to think, in the face of other countries in which the predominance of grazing land was never found a hindrance to their efficacy as a penal settlement? We do not want the convicts to grow rich ; we only want them not to starve. And we have found nothing in Governor RENNIE'S letter to make us consider the latter alternative probable. There arc, however, other authorities, and more recent ones, which run directly counter to Mr. RENNIE'S assertion that nothing but grazing farms could exist there. These we have already indicated on a previous occasion, and shall not, therefore, at present discuss the probability of the Falklands becoming a corn growing country. We would only remind our readers that it is by no means a settled point that corn cannot be grown there, and that in the meantime, with a good supply of beef and vegetables, the convict's lot would not prove such a very hard one. A good supply of these two articles, we still believe, would be procurable. And here we must notice a little inconsistency in Governor ItEstnE's letter. After quoting Captain Sum- VAN'S evidence to the effect that grazing farms would be the principal attraction to set tlers, he goes on to say that the wild cattle of the islands could never be collected in herds, because the pasturage is too poor to maintain them beyond the proportion of one to twenty five acres. What, then, becomes of Captain SULIVAN'S grazing farms ? But we suspect that the Captain is in this case nearer the truth than the Governor. Other accounts tell us that the natural grass of these islands, though permitted to run to waste at present, is capable under cultivation of furnishing a copious and nutritive supply of fodder. We can only recommend that the question be thoroughly investigated. We have, we need scarcely repeat, no interest in the matter. We dread nothing so much as that the question should fall into the hands of interested parties ; and that the disposal of our felons, than which no graver question can agitate a civilised com munity, should ultimately settle down into a job. SECRET MURDERS IN IRELAND. THE closing article in the January number of the Dublin Review is a remarkable literary pro duction. It deals with the question of perverts to the Church of Rome, and of " Irish cha racter." On the latter subject, under the artful veil of affected impartiality, its state ments are not highly flattering to our Irish fellow-subjects,—a matter which need not be a cause of surprise, when the obvious paternity of the article is observed. The Lutinised diction, the quotations from the Vulgate, the prolonged air of pomposity weakening the effect of innate astuteness and acquired casuistry, all register the authorship. One sentence in it, we venture to foretel, will often be recalled to its writer's recollection. "From 123 " all forms of nationality, preserve us from " Irish gentility !" A more offensive sentence has rarely been penned by a public writer, and it adds to the characteristic rashness of its ecclesiastical penman, that the organ in which he ventilates his anti-Irish sneer should be (falsely) called " The Dublin Review." We ate not blind admirers of our Irish fellow-subjects. We have sometimes been pained by their faults, but their virtues and genius often make amends for their defects. " Irish gentility" is the same as seen in Protestants and Catholics, in the drawing-room, in the hunting-field,— ay, or in the battle-field. The remark, coming from so peculiarly placed a personage, might well have been spared. It would have been better if the learned writer had studied the Irish character more circumspectively. We should much like to know his opinion on the highly important question—" Why secret and undetected mur " dens have so much increased in Ireland of " late years?" We may yet state some pro blems on this point, of which, for juridical purposes, it would be very desirable that a proper solution could be obtained. A harm less Italian boy was murdered a few years since close to Dublin under circumstances of extraordinary mystery. His body was found close to the gate of the noble park then pos sessed by the Marquis of ELvland now owned by Lord Justice BLACKBURNE. Detectives failed to discover the perpetrators of the murder. Lord NORBURY was shot in the noonday in his owns demesne. He was not a harsh landlord, nor was he personally obnoxious. Again the detectives failed. Lord NORBURY was a Pro testant and Tory ; while, on the other hand, Mr. JAMES SCULLY was a Roman Catholic and a Liberal. The latter gentleman was noticed that he shoul I be murdered. He took pre cautions. Towards the dusk of a winter after • noon, one of his own domestics cajoled him, with diabolical artifice, out of his house. " The wild fowl, sir, are now down in the pond, " and you can have a shot at them, sir." Mr. SCULLY went to the end of his lawn, and just as he was approaching within range of the wild s fowl, he fell a corpse, shot at. by two men in ambush. He was a gentleman of fortune, the son of DENIS SCULLY, author of the " Statement of the Penal Laws," which was a text-book of Catholic grievances. Again, in that case, the detectives failed. So, also, in the recent case of Mr. CALLAHAN, a Dublin attorney (and a Roman Catholic), who went to take possession of his land. He was killed in broad daylight on the Queen's highway. Mrs. KELLY was treated in a similar way, butchered in broad daylight on a summer evening, within sight of several men and women. In both those instances the detec tives failed. And now that the detectives have again failed in Mr. LtrrLE's terrible case, it seems desirable that the increase of secret murder in Ireland should be discussed with more attention. The subject is a most important one, and several grave issues are raised. Why, in the first place, should there be an increase of secret murders, when the detective force was never so numerous or so highly organised ? The justice of the law is oftener now•a-days frustrated in Ireland than in former times. Is it that the Executive is weaker, or that criminals are more numerous ? Or is there connivance at criminality amongst a class which ought to be the foremost to give up the criminal? Aro there other '• harbourers " of murderers be sides persons of their own rank? These are questions which open up a variety of views, both social and religious. We have not space to discuss them at present, but on a future occasion they shall receive the attention due to them. What we here desire to fix notice upon, is the fact that "secret'' murders have fearfully increased in Ireland ; that the detectives often egregiously fail, and that there must be some peculiar influences, of a most remarkable kind, which aid a murderer in Ireland. In the meanwhile, it is impossible for Government to avoid giving some account of what has been done in the ease of Mr. lArruz. The subject is well deserving of Parliamentary explanation. 104 ...111, 4