The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-02-20 00:00:00

of the ordinary revenue, for which the Budget
provides, and which, as we have before shown, are
by no means necessary, and many of which would,
in all probability, never have been thought of but
for political considerations which are • more than
questionable, seeing that they involve sacrifices
of great national interests to a foreign potentate
of whose designs there is but too much reason to
be suspicious,—but for all this, we say, that
promised reduction of the Income-tax might not
improbably have been fulfilled. The Conservative
amendment, therefore, is one which well deserves
the approval of the country, as we trust it will re-
ceive that of the House of Commons. It can never

be expedient to add to a financial deficiency by
diminishing the ordinary revenue, and more espe-
cially when, in doing so, it is necessary not only
to continue but to increase an impost so grievous
and oppressive as that of the Income-tax. Be-
sides, the necessity of providing for an increased
expenditure in the coming year has been mainly
owing to the suspicions which that very poten-
tate has himself excited in the public mind
of England, for whose benefit that impost
has to be continued and augmented. This is a
fact which, of itself, were enough to make the
House of Commons pause, ere it committed itself
to such a scheme. It is a penalty to pay for an
alliance with the French Emperor, far beyond
the value of any advantage that may be expected.
" ' Twere an exaction,
Most pestilent to bear ; and to bear it,

The back is sacrificed to the load."

Only too true is such a description as this when
applied to the Income-tax; and only too real will
it be found in its practical operation by too many
of those upon whom so pressing an exaction will
fall.

At the root of all this evil, then, lies this Treaty
with France—a Treaty which, were it even
desirable on political grounds, can never justify
our throwing away millions of revenue, and
rendering it necessary to increase our taxes, and
stimulate the export of those sinews of our own
manufacturing energy, coal and iron, which will
only put it in the power of France to rival and to
injure us. As the Morning Herald has well
declared,—" For this we inflict a blow on a hundred
important interests in our own land, abandon
the principles on which our fiscal policy is
based, and hold ourselves up to Europe as blindly
obeyingthe behests of our formidable ally.' But,"
adds our able contemporary, " the intelligence'
and the patriotism of the nation alike revolt at
the degrading contract. It is felt strongly that
to sanction this Treaty would be to forfeit our
independence, and to proclaim to the world that
we abandon all pretension to an equality with
France ; and that an attempt is being made to
coerce us into a course against which our national
instincts, and our common sense alike caution us.
Lord PALMERSTON has mistaken public opinion.
It is the Conspiracy Bill repeated—the bugbear
of French power held up to frighten us into
the acceptance of a peddling and un-English
policy." And, this being the case, well may the
friends of national independence, and the admirers
of political consistency, be called upon to oppose
such a scheme,—oppose it, "as false to every
principle of sound political economy, unjust to
our heavily-taxed population, ruinous in its effects
upon our financial system, degrading in its sub-
serviency to a foreign ruler, and dangerous in the
animosities it is certain to engender between the
French and English peoples."