The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-04-24 00:00:00

• THE
SECOICD COALITION ADMINISTRATION

A commercial treaty, as is very well inosart, stets in
former times a. special relaxation of a universally pro-
tective system in favour of some particular nation. By
means of such a treaty, a people did that, or part of that,
for some favoured ally, which free trade, bids them do
spontaneously for the whole world. But it is quite
clear that when . a nation has adopted free trade, all
scope for such conventions will have vanished. We
cannot mitigate" restrictions which no longer exist. Two
other points to be borne in mind, before we examine
Mr. Gladstone's budget, are, that duties levied upon
imports not•dompeting with any 'native produce are not
protective duties ; and also, that the abolition by
foreigners of their duties upon our exports, is not eaeas-
sarqy any boon to the.people of this country in general,
but only to particle= classes. Uuless we bear these two
principles in mind very steadily, we shall not be able to
form any clear idea of the nature of Mr. Gladstone's budget.
In reducing the duty upon French-wines, then, he' was
not making cheaper something which. the people
found it necessary to have already, and for whichthey had been paying dearer to benefit the home pro-
ducer. He speculated on creating a demand; and the
reeple to be d.r.:etly benefitted are not so mush the
English consumers as the French producers. On the
other hand, he obtains from the French Emperor the
abolition of the duty upon English coal. Here still it '
is not the English consumer Who is benefitted, but the
English producer. The priCe of coal will rise ; and,- as
it is an article of which the _supply canm t be indefinitely
increased to meet a' new demand, the price will probably
for some time continue at a higher rate. Thus, the
French consumer and the English le calucer will be 1
benefitted together, at the expense of the English con-
sumer. Coal .and wine, moreover, are not articles of
manufacture. A stimulus to the coal trade or the wine
trade is -a stimulus to those trades only. When coal
pays better, more capital may perhaps be invested in it,
so that the price wily be brought down. again in time.
But that capital must he abstracted from some other
business, which will languish in proportion to the loss.
The gain to the community at large, therefore, by these
two pine articles of the treaty, is not much. The
gain to the producer alone is not to be taken into
account. The revenue remains to be considered, which
it is said will lose nothing by the reduction of the wine
duties, because of the increased consumption. But,
unless we hope to increase the amount of drunkenness
which exists-among us at present, we must expect that
the increased consumption of wine will be accompanied
by a decreatA consumption of some other exciscable
liquor. A considerable deduction, therefo e, must be
made from the profits of the increased consumption; so
that it will turn out we are to pay something like half
a million per annum, in order the people of this country
may drink bad French wino instead of beer, coffee, or
spirits—not a very brilliant stroke of financial genius,
even if we paid no more. But, when we. add to this the
additional income-tax which is necessary to cover the
deficit augmented by the abolition of this and other
minor duties, we are, honestly speaking, astonished at
the obsequiousness of that "blind majority" which
enabled Mr. Gladstone to carry through so irrational a
scheme. To cheapen necessaries by the aid of an income-
tax, is a justifiable and often laudable expedient. To
cheapen luxuries by these means, seems to us, with all
deference to Mr. G;alstune, absolutely insupportable,
and utterly opposed to the -spirit, of Sir Robert Peel's
legislation. It. is taxing the poor for the sake of the
rich, instead of the rich for the sake of the poor. A
clerk with Sl5O a year is called on for-tenpcnce in the
pound in order that he may drink claret. But he
doesn't want claret. He can't pay his butcher or his
shoemaker. His ordinary drink is beer. His general
economy is rigid. Yet round comes the tax gatherer,
and demands his annual contribution to the national
claret fund. What mess exactions, or other social
tyrannies of a similar kind, can surpass this?
We lay-no stress on the doctrine of reciprocity... We
don't say that we ought not to have reduced the wine
duties, or the duties upon brandy and silk, unless the
French .had, for instance, abolished their differential
duties upon English shipping. But we say that, .if
anything can be gained from a nation which is not yet
a free trader, by taking advantage of the doctrine of
reciprocity, we 'are bound to do so. Here was an
excellent opportunity of obtaining this' concession from
the French, and we ought at least to have made a great
effort to obtain it, even though we had made up our
minds to reduce the wine duties at all events. But
then that is on the .supposition that some other inde-
pendent good was to accrue-to us by means of such
reduction. If that is not the case—if we gain nothing
by it, either by reciprocal concessions on the one hand,
or the independent action of commerce on the other,
while at the same time we burden ourselves heavily iu
consequence—what is the inevitable conclusion ? Either
that-the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not under-
stand his business, or else that, in making tip this
treaty, he was actuated by other than commercial con-
siderations. * . .
It is scarcely necessary to point out that in minor
particulars, and in minor arguments, Mr. Gladstone's
budget is vexatious, and sometimes .bOrders On- the
ridiculous. His penny tax on packages is a good instance
of the first ; a tax which has been condemned as an
-intolerable nuisance by almost all the men of business in.
the city. One of his arguments in favour of the aboli-
tion of. the paper duty is a specimen of the second an
argument which seems so totally unworthy any men of
ordinary common sense, that we suspect Mr. Gladatoec
must be losing- his. " Nearly everything which the
poor man buys," says he, "is wrapped up in paper."
Therefore give hint cheap paper. But what will be the
use of the paper if he cannot afford to buy the articles
Which sire usually wrapt up in it ?
.- Quid inihi 4ivitiis, si non concoditur uti ?

What is the use of cheap paper with dear tea and
s.ugar It is the funniest thing we evei heard of.. The
peasant cannot live upon paper ; and when he returns
at night. cold and wet to his cottage, a sheet of whitey-
brown nill be. a very poor substitute for the comforting
and wholesome beverage of which he is deprived. Nor
is this all. What can we expect from the severe pre:.sure
of the income-tax tipm the small farmers, the clergyman,
and the doctor, who are in different, ways considerable
employers of labour in a country villa;-e,. but that such
employment will be stopped or cheapened; and then
again, when Glcs returns home to his wife on Saturday
night with so many shillings less in his pocket. and
sends a petition to his landlord for a further delay in the
payment of his rent,' it will he another very small con-
solation to him that he has a cheap sheet of paper to
write it on. Yet this is the practical chancellor; the
popular chancellor ; the chancellor who is determined
that the incidence of taxation on the poor shall be
lightened to the very utmost:
When we ponder upon all these things ; when we
observe the unjustifiable and perilous speculations by
which the leading features of this budget arc dtstin- •
gittshed, and the thoroughly unbusinesslike and unprac-
tical character of its minor. details : when we remember
that the spirit in which it is conceived, end the circum-
stances. in which it is presented to the country,
.boar an
ominous resemblance to those iu which the Itidget. of
1853 was framed and presented : when we again see
the-present aggravation ce* a great financial evil recom-
mended as its future cure in defiance of all cnntingenciee;
and. a scheme of which the success, according even to
its author's most sanguine calculations, depends upon
the prolonged continuance of peace, imposed upon the
people of this country when the horizon is black with
war clouds, when the -no'e; of prepa-ation arc echoing
through tha length and breadth of England, and the
cost of our armaments is still the heaviest item of our
expenditure : when we see the experience of the past so
totally disregarded, the possibilities of the future again
so unwisely drawn upon, and the portents of the present
again so unaccountably neglected : when we sea all
these things, and then look round upon the attitude I
of the British people, lulled into security by the speous
eloquence of a second John Law, or stunned into silence
by the noisy gratulations of a selfish and cosmopolitan -
clique, we unfeignedly declare that we are filled with
indignation and terror. * * * *
Thus much of Mr. Gladstone. Dull he certainly is
not. We could find it in our hearts to wish he were.
But akintoxication sometimes produces the same symp-
toms as inanition, so his disposition and action at the
present time reminds us very strongly of the effects
ascribed to that " Cimmerian dew" with which the
goddess besprinkled her favourite Theobald ; and the
lines in which they are described seem so suitable to
Mr. Glad Stone's recent performances, that. we cannot do
better' titan take our leave-of him in the very Vvords--
Then raptures high the seat of sense o'ertleir,
Which only heads refined from reason know ;
Hence from the straw where Bedlam's prophet nods,
He hears loud oracles, and talks with gods.
Hence the fool's paradise, the statesman's scheme, .
The air-built castle, and the golden dream.
5c * •
• The'present Government, hacked up by Mr. Bright,•
bid us appeal to the good sense and intelligence of the
people. But those are just the very virtues to which
Lord Derby's reform bill did adpeal, and Lord John
Russell's does not. We can trust in the good sense and
intelligence of the lower orders; but we cannot believe
that these qualities are evenly distributed through the
Whole mass of the lower orders. in order, then, that
they may be appealed to with effect, we must subect the
whole body to the action of some test by which their
preseuee can be detected. Is the .£6 rental such a test.?
Why, even the £lO rental has almost ceased to be
test. And as money gets cheaper, and rents consequently
higher, neither the title, nor the other will have the
slightest- pretensions to such a character. But then very
shortly will come up the cry of the householders, as
being quite as good men as the £6 householders; and,
after them, the cry of the entire mob. Now. upon what
principle will it be possible to resist these successive
deciiauda ? It is impossible to give to a merely arbitrary
distinction The stability and permanence of a principle ;
and that the former will avail us nothing against
the most insignificant clamour for further change,
is manifest from the experience of the last ten
years. When the provision; of tht Retbrm Act of '1832
came to be called 411 question, what had its champion to
fall back upon? Positively nothing but what might,
have been pleaded with equal justice by the parliamentary
opponents of that measure ; though in the case of these
bitter the plea was only a mere outwork of the strong
and solid arguments which they drew from other quar-
ters. But it was said ten years ago that the new system
had worked well : that it had given us many 'liberal
measures : that there was no real'eagerneis for refrain :
that perpetual ehangess were inexpedient. Now, all
these assertirms might be true enough'; but, had they
been sufficient to stay parlamentary reform, we should
never have had the first Reform Bill. For every ..one:'
of them might be • predicated of the old state of thingS
as well as of the new. The old House of Comnioni was
cut off iu the midst of a career of liberal legislation
and up to 1830 there was no great national excitement -
on the subject. But when once-_the public. mind had
once really laid hold of certain theoretical anomalies,
and hid become exasperated by the injudicious attitude
assumed by the other side, they. were not to be answered
by the argument of practical expediency. The reply to
such an argument always is, that these good results,
have followed, not in virtue of, but in spite of the'
anomalies in question. But the real strength of the'
anti-reformers lay in the fact, that our representative
system, previously to 1832, flowed directly from the
heart of the-British constitution. Time freehold franchise
' and the freeman franchise wore the direct offspring of
our feudal and municipal institutions; and to interfere
with these was really to inflict a radical incision in the
constitution of country. They were founded on a
principle, and they lasted for six- hundred years. The
present pecuniary franchise is founded on a purely
arbitrary-distinction, and it has lasted for twenty-eight
years. We would not be understood to mean that no
reform bill was requ‘red in 1839. 'We believe, on the
contrary, that it -Ives required. But that is no reason
for following out' pen then pursued with blind and
irrational --Servilitr. o use an argument; frequently