The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

TO THE WHIGS.

LETTER 111.
GEwrisum—l have said that Lord DEnav's Government took pre
cisely that ground which the Whigs should have appropriated.
Brief-lived as that Government was, never since the time of Lord
GREY'S Administration has any Cabinet evinced equal energy in the

redress of popular grievances.
What was the loudest complaint throughout the kingdom ? The
abuses of the Court of Chancery. And here the Reform that had been
put out to nurse, swathed and coddled by it Commission until it
see ned to have lost all power of movement, at once assumed vitality
and vigour , all that the Whigs, throughout six long years, had been
proposing to do, was done by a Government that scarcely lasted six
months ; the spirit of BENTHAM united itself with the learning of
Lord ST. LEONARD'S, and became practical. What complaint, now so
smothered (and why it is smothered we shall see later when examining
Mr. GLADSTONE's budget), was then loudest amongst all subdivisions
of labour and skill? The unequal assessment of the income tax. All
Governments before had refused to deal with the injustice. A Whig
Chancellor of the Exchequer had proposed to double it. The Govern-
ment of Lord DERBY founded its financial scheme on the remedy of this
popular grievance. What had been for the last four years the urgent
demand of the mercantile world ? The extension of our trade with
China by the diminution of the tea duties. The demand was conceded.
In a like spirit the complaints of the shipping interest, long neglected,
wore promptly heard. There remained the grievances urged by the
colonial interest, and still more loudly by the agricultural. Here,
free trade once established as a fixed principle, it was only in the
power of the Government to give such redress as that principle
permitted. It is true that the Governinent could not here restore
immediate prosperity ts► diminished capital. But it could at least
achieve one object of immense national import►nice—it could conciliate
discontented classes.
- - - •

-------To ----
judge of the budget produced by Mr. DianAtm in the dry spirit
of a financier is to do signal injustice to the grand political principle
that presided over the whole scheme, and should have won favour to
a hundred petty errors in detail. That principle was the conciliation
to an inevitable commercial policy of all whom the effects of the policy
had, for the time, most alienated front the Legislature and the Consti-
tution. That principle went farther still—it went to the foundation of
our representative system—it animated the ancient liberty that exists
in the Right of Petition—it connected the supply of subsidies with
the redress of grievances.
Its merit here was precisely that which the Whigs had ever affected
to identify with the wisdom of liberal legislation—the merit of reco-
vering to the State the alienated affections of some large division of
the people. Thus, the Derby Government having conceded
Reform to all who appeal to law out behalf of property—having met the
complaint which, day by day, the trading public and the press had
united to utter against the iniquity of taxing precarious income at the
same rate as that derived from realised capital—having taken into con-
sideration the just assertion contained in the Report of the Committee
on the Income Tax, that the whole of the burden was at present borne
by about 350,000 persona, and that under such an assessment one person
contributed not only his own share to the expenditure, but the share
justly chargeable on three other capable persons—having given to the
merchant the boon he most demanded—having earned the grateful ac-
knowledgment of the representatives of the shipping interest—it
turned to the class most suffering front the effects of free trade. It
could not repeal free trade for the sake of that class : was it, therefore,
to exclude that class front the benefits it was conferring on those
whom free trade had most enriched ? What was its language to the
agriculturists ? "We accept your own cry at the hustings ; we will
" seek to carry Out free trade fairly. You assert that the excise duty
"on malt cripples your industry in the direction of your capital: that
"assertion no political economist can deny. The relief, in such re-
" duction as we can effect, may he small ; but, in dealing with the malt
" tax and taking off one moiety, we will at least try to do you this
" justice—we will prosecute free trade for the enlargement of your own
" energies, the freedom of your own capital." And something far more
important than the reduction of a malt tax is the conviction of English
fair play in the minds of men in whose loyalty England reeognises the
best defence for her domestic institutions, and the firmest guarantee for
that safety from a foreign foe for which, at this moment, you
are levying your militia and manning your naval armaments. And
yet, all that you, the Whig gentlemen who aspire "to make demo-
" eracy Conservative," could see in a measure framed with this obvious
end was the miserable question—whether the gain upon a pot of beer
would be a farthing or a penny !

Well, but the late CIIANCELLOII of the I?xeH}:Qt•t:R /imposed to bring
the ten•pound householders within the pale of taxation. Audacious