The Press. — London, England, 1857-01-24 00:00:00

JANUAItY 24, 1857. bth of April next, being one year after the actual termina• tion of the war. The motion was agreed to unanimously. Mr. Stmrsoa, manufacturer, moved That the present systan of levying the income and property taxes, by taxing permanent and precarious in comes alike, is manifestly unjust, and has now beoome an intolerable burden upon the professional and trailing classes of the country. And this meeting is of opinion that nothing short of an entire revision Gf the mode of assessment will satisfy the country. Mr. Huvwoon, M.P., thought the reason 'of the injustice and inequality of tho tax had been a matter of routine more than anything else. His own feeling on the subject was that the Government ought to take off the extra tax on the very first opportunity that they can do so with due regard to the honour of the country. He should be very glad it they could do it in April, but the honour of Go. vernment was pledged, and they must stick to their principles; but he Wily agreed with the meeting on the inequality of the tax. . . . . Mr. PARKER, M.P., concurred with the motion, but would not pledge himself to any particular course of conduct. Sir G. STRICKLAND supported the motion, which was agreed to unanimously. The following propositions were also adopted by the meeting : That this meeting condemns the practice of allowing a per centage to the collecting officers upon the amount assessed or collected. That this meeting pledges itself to use every legitimate means to carry into effect the resolutions just passed, and to support a petition to the House of Commons embody in., their substance ; and this meeting also requests our borough and county members of Parliament earnestly to support its prayer. The hon. gentlemen present gave the solicited promise, and the meeting separated. A meeting of the inhabitants of HxcittiEY, con vened by the churchwardens, was held at the parish house on Tuesday morning, at ten o'clock, the senior churchwarden, Mr. W. Turner, in the chair. A letter from Mr. C. S. Butler, M.P., was read, expressing his opinion that the income tax ought immediately to be reduced to 7d., and, as soon as possible, totally abolished. The first resolution, moved by Mr. G. Offor, seconded by Mr. J. Macintosh, was : That the present charge of 10d. in the pound is felt to be peculiarly oppressive by persons of limited means, who form by far the larger class on whom the income tax is levied ; and as at the time of passing the Acts of Parlia ment by which the tax was increased it was declared that they were to continue in force fur cne year only after the termination of the war, this meeting is of opinion that those acts ought to he repealed at the earliest period con sistent with the discharge of all claims to which the honour of the country is committed. The second resolution, proposed by Mr. Joshua Ramsey, and seconded by Mr. Charles Green, was:— That experience would seem to prove that annoyance, injustice, and fraud, are unavoidable elements of an in• come tax. Annoyance, by its irritating, inquisitorial cha racter; injustice, by its charging the most certain and the least certain incomes in the same proportion ; and fraud, by its bringing plain truth and pecuniary advantage into direct collision. This meeting would therefore hope that the question of an income tax at all, as distinguished from a fairly adjusted property tax, may shortly undergo re consideration by the Legislature, with the view of provic'• ing a substitute—should any substitute be really necessary —less burdensome and offensive in its operation. A petition, founded on these resolutions, which were unanimously carried, was directed to be sent to the House of Commons, and the members for the county and borough requested to support its prayer. A special meeting of the Town Council of HULL was held last week to consider the propriety of petitioning Parliament for a reduction of the income tar, when the following tesolution was adopted:— That while this council fully admits the necessity there existed during the late war with Russia for raising the property and income tax from 7d. to Is. id. in the pound, it considers that the war being now at an end such part of the above•mentioued tax as was levied for the purpose of carrying it on should be forthwith abandoned, and re solves that a petition from the council be presented to the House of Commons, praying for the reduction referred to, and also for the revision of that portion of the tax which may be retained, with a view to a more equitable distribu• ion of the same among the various classes of the com• munity, A petition to Parliament embodying this resolution was adopted. A meeting was held at WALSALL on the 10th inst. to petition against the income tax. The mayor, Mr. Thomas, presided, and Mr. Forster, M.P. for the borough, was present. A resolution in favour of abolishing the war 9d. having been moved and seconded, Mr. Forster, M.P., addressed the meeting, and, alluding to the rumoured intention of the Government to take advantage of the delay in signing the ratification of peace, he said though he ( Mr. Forster) could not answer for the intentions of the Ministry, he could assure the meeting that an THE PRESS. attempt at fraud—a violation of the spirit of the law —would, if made, receive his most strenuous opposi tion. Other speakers followed, and, the resolutions having been passed, a petition was adopted, which Mr. Forster was requested to present to the House of Commons. An influential meeting was on Friday night, the 16th inst., held in the Town•hall of HAvEnvoubwEsr. The chair was taken by the mayor (Mr. Rees), and the meeting was fully attended. Several speakers addressed the audience, and resolutions were passed to the effect that the property and income tax im• posed on the country for the support of the war more than one year after the restoration of peace wirs inconsistent with the spirit of the Act of Parlia ment and a breach of faith with the public ; and that the tax in its present form was unjust in principle and oppressive in practice. A petition embodying the resolutions of the meeting it was agreed upon should be drawn up and forwarded to their member, Mr. J. Phillips, with a request that the same be pre sented by him to the House of Commons. A meeting of the inhabitants of DONCASTER Was held at the Guildhall on Tuesday evening, at which the following resolutions, and a petition embodying the same, were unanimously agreed to, the speakers all condemning the inequality and obnoxiousness of the tax : That this meeting, considering that the necessity for the additional income tax of ninepence in the pound to meet the expenses of the late war has ceased, shall petition the House of Commons to take off the additional impost at the close of the present financial year. That, moreover, the petition shall pray the house to take into consideration the manner in which the income tax is levied under Sche dule D, with s view to its equitable adjustment ; and that in the event of their not being able to devise any fairer mode of imposing the tax, it shall be entirely repealed. Mr. Edmund Denison, M.P., was requested to pre sent the petition and to support its prayer. A special meeting of the Town Council of NORWICH was held on Tuesday, at which the income tax was discussed. A petition to Parliament praying that the additional 9d. be removed on Aptit next was agreed to, and ordered to be placed in the hands of the city members for presentation. Mr. J. H. Foley, M.P., presided at a great meeting at STOURBRIDGE to petition Parliament against the income tax. After some discussion a petition to Parliament was agreed upon, protesting against the continuance of the income tax. At WELLS a petition to Parliament, praying for relief from the additional lad., and for the entire revision of the mode of levying the tax, was agreed upon at a crowded meeting held on Tuesday last. At the meeting of the MARYLEBONE Representative Council on Saturday, held at the Court-house, Mr. Greenwell, the vestry clerk, brought up from the committee appointed to consider the subject of the present obnoxious income tax, a petition to Parlia ment, praying for an immediate repeal of the acts which increased the tax from sevenpence to sixteen pence in the pound, and that early measures to secure a more equitable adjustment of the tax and an improvement in the mode of assessment, or a total repeal of it upon trades and professions, should be taken. Mr. Taverner moved that the petition be adopted as the petition ef the vestry. Mr. Wingfield seconded the motion, and it was carried. A very full meeting in reference to this subject was held in CARDIGAN last week, when it was resolved to petition Parliament against the present objectionable form of the income and property tax. SIR EDWARD BULWER LYT TON AT GLASGOW. THE installation of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., M.P., as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, took place on Thursday week. As early as twelve o'clock large numbers of students had collected at the college gates, and reinforcements kept pouring in till about half-past one o'clock, when the doors were thrown open and the area of tho Common hall was speedily filled, the galleries being previously occupied by ladies. Principal 11PFAnr.afiE having opened the pro ceedings with prayer, the statutes relating to the appointment of Lord Rector were read by Professor Weir; and, Sir Edward having taken the oaths, the Principal called upon Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., M.P., who on rising was greeted with loud and prolonged applause. On its subsiding, Sir EDWARD delivered a long and eloquent inau gural address. He said : I am sure that no student who has honoured me with his vote, from agreement in my political opinions, will misunderstand me when I say I am well pleased to believe that it is less as the politician than as the man of letters that you this day reward my labours and dignify my name. I would fain link myself in lasting fellowship to every student amongst you—and politics can but join us for the day; literature uuites us throughout the age. I think that I am the more justified in assigning your kindness to this bond of assosiation, because the candidate who was not un• reasonably preferred by some of you, a young nobleman, whose vigorous intellect and brilliant promise would have done credit to your choice, happens (no matter what diffe rences of opinion on isolated questions may or may not exist between him and me) to belong with myself to that great party of which his own father is the acknowledged chief. It is not to men who have matured their full renown —it is not to your acknowledged chiefs of erudition and science that I could presume to offer suggestive remarks or persuasive counsel. Here it is my duty to address to that other part of this audience, which, comprising their pupils, represents, as it were, the generation of their own children. How cautious should be he who would animate the exertion of youth not to discourage the audacities of genius, nor, on the other hand, to shrink from enforcing the sober doctrine that t• all genius labour is essential ; that the genius which would realise the palace of Aladdin must still be the genius of the lamp. Above all, students of Glasgow, he who addresses you should have a spirit so warmed by sympathy with the generous aspirations of youth, so embited with the remembrance of what your fathers have been before you, that his mind may escape from every sentiment unworthy the ears of that young chivalry which Scotland rears and sends forth to the battle of human life, with her lion at their hearts, and her white cross of St. Andrew on their shields. (Great applause.) Referring to the great agencies of science, philosophy, and literature which had been at work during the present century, Sir Edward Lytton observed : But how and where have these benignant agencies of the nineteenth century been the most manifestly at work? Howe Not by the disrtipture of their old social ties, but by their renewed cement. Where ! Not in those lands in which, to borrow Danton's despairing cry, " Revolution, like Saturn, devoured its own children." No. But on this stedfast island, where liberty has not violated order, nor philosophy presumed to depose religion. Look back at the commencement of this century—contemplate the work of that generae.on which you are now rising to succeed. See what your Scottish fathers have done to snatch the fire brand from the hand of those drunkards of knowledge who, reeling here and there amidst palaces and temples, fancied that they illumined society by the conflagration of its fabrics. That brand your fathers snatched, not to extinguish its living flame —no, but to place it, aloft and calm, upon stately watch-towers, a guiding light, and not a consuming fire. Sir Edward Lytton then alluded to the influence of the Scotch metaphysicians, who had paralysed or " the ..bald builde► - of the atheistical Aspersed • riL _ ouilders Babel" of the last century; and, having eulogised the labours and the works of many eminent Scotch men, and compared them with the literature of con tinental Europe during the early part of the present century, he remarked : The first great literature produced by this century, which spread over the civilised nations, thrusting back into dusty shelves the verse without soul and the prose without muscle, which had joined the circulating library of Europe—the first great literature that strode forth to civilise and to conquer, restoring the ancestral past to its due place in human reverence, recalling from exile truth and virtue, binding man to man in the genial chain of character and humour, refreshing this work a•day world with a joyous holiday of romance ;—the great first literature which poured its own young blood into the century, and, rushing over Europe, found a home on every heart, rose in these islands, and, paramount in that literature, gave our countrymen in fluence not less beneficent than supreme, towers your im• mortal Walter Scott. Sir Edward Lytton then at considerable length urged upon his hearers the importance of classical litera ture ; and he argued that its study was useful from its very difficulty and the cont;nuous and symme trical exercise of the faculties which the contest with that difficulty requires, and from the discipline of the powers of mind, whatever be our calling in after life. Sir Edward then impressed upon the students the value of a "definite purpose" Having cnce chosen that calling which then becomes your main object in life, cling to it firmly—bring to bear on it all your energies, all the information you are elsewhere variously collecting. All men are not born with genius, but every man can acquire purpose, and purpose is the backbone and marrow of genius—nay, I can scarcely dis tinguish one from the other. For what is genius ? Is it not an impassioned predilection for some definite art or study, to which the mind converges all its energies, each thought or image that is suggested by nature or learning, solitude or converse, being habitually and involuntarily added to those ideas which are ever returning to the same central point, so that the mind is not less busily applying when it seems to be the most released from application. That is genius, and that is purpose—the one makes the great artist or poet, the other the great man of action. And with purpose comes the grand secret of all worldly success, which some men call will, but which I would rather call earnestness. If I were asked, from my expe rience of life, to say what attribute most impressed the minds of others or most commanded fortune, I should say " earnestness." Take, for instance, the House of Commons as the highest type of a popular assembly. What is the preat secret of success there ? You all remember that Demosthenes placed the threefold art of the orator in de livery. I think the word he used was acting or stage play. Hut though delivery, no doubt, is the appropriate excellence of the mere orator, the threefold gift of the parliamentary speaker is earnestness. Have but fair sense and a comp; tent knowledge of your subject, and then be thoroughly in earnest to impress your own honest conviction upon others, and, no matter what your delivery, though your gestures shocked every rule in Qutntilian, you would command the ear and influence the debates of the most accomplished, the /UM fastidious, and, take it altogether, the noblest assembly