The Press.
London, England, 1854-07-08 00:00:00

REVENUE RETURNS.

TILE revenue return published this week
shows very different results from those we
have lately been accustomed to expect. There
is a decline on the year ending sth July, as
compared with the previous year, of 474,3691.,
and on the quarter, as compared with the
corresponding quarter of 1853, of 812,789/.
We take the gross totals. An analysis of the
items might modify or might exaggerate these
results, but the fact of a very considerable
decline on the quarter just ended admits of
no dispute.

And this decline is the more remarkable as
the increased malt duty came into opera-
tion during the last quarter. The yearly
revenue from this increased duty was estimated
at 2,450,0001., and for the two months which
have elapsed since the resolution took
effect an amount should have been realised at
the least of 400,0001. If this sum be added
to the deficiency it will raise the total to
1,212,7891.; and, though any fair allowance be
made for the effect of the duties reduced by
Mr. GLADSTONE'S budget in 1863, the decline
will still be found so considerable as to argue
a serious reduction in the means and industry
of the nation.

Further, be it observed, that this decline is
coincident with a vast increase in the national
expenditure, an increase to be estimated at
not less than from ten to twelve millions per
annum. Such an outlay would in the ordinary
course of things tell upon the revenue, by
stimulating consumption. But whether it be

SATURDAY,

that the war is producing, as we must expect
it to produce, sooner or later, a depressing
influence on our industrial and social state—or
that the insecurity of the Ministry, and the
financial vacillation, blunders, and partiality
which have marked the ride of the Exchequer
under its present Chancellor, are beginning
to produce their usitural effects in drooping
confidence and indujori4 depression—we here
have the ominous combination of a declining
revenue, with vastly augmented expenditure
and increased taxation.
Often as it has been proved by experience
that in matters of increased impost two and
two do not make four, the lesson was lost on Mr.
GLADSTONE. There is a limit in taxation which
cannot be overpassed. Any article of general
consumption will yield a certain amount of
revenue and no more, and the aim of an
enlightened financier should be to discover
that point of taxation which yields (and the
two interests will often be found identical)
the largest return to the revenue with least
inconvenience to the consumer. We fear that
in the great and, inasmuch as it was partial,
unjust increase of the malt duty, the safe
limit of taxation was overstepped, and that
the public was burdened without any corre-
sponding.benefit to the exchequer.
There is another circumstance which may
partially account for the decline in this return.
Capital is of all things the most sensitive.
It instinctively shrinks from touch. No
human contrivance is subtle enough to grasp
or hold it. The sudden doubling of the
income tax has had the effect of diminishing
profits, and of retrenching expenditure. Direct
taxation diminishes capital in the first in-
stance, but it presses in sure course of pro-
gression upon every class in turn. To tax
capital is the most certain and even oppres-
sive means of taxing labour.
That amount which is contributed to the
income tax must be drawn from a diminution
of expenditure, from the accumulations of
capital, or from the wages of industry. The
operation in the first of these cases would be
the least injurious, yet, as necessary or even
luxurious expenditure is diminished, the trade
of the country must necessarily suffer ; while
to diminish the accumulations of capital is to
diminish the motive power which sets all
industry in motion.
Though an income tax may be the most
popular of all imposts with those who are not
directly subject to its collection, it is, perhaps,
of all taxes, the most injurious to their in-
terest. They cannot escape its burden. All
income must be raised from industry, and the
general pressure of taxation must of necessity
he sustained by the whole body of the people.
If a manufacturer, for instance, be charged
upon his profits, and those profits only repre-
sent (and, on an average, they will do no more) a
fair return for his capital and service, he will
not rest until the amount be made up to him
in some other form. To charge the profits of
capital is, in fact, but to burden the wages of
labour, and hence it is to be expected that,
with every material addition to the income
tax, there will be a corresponding diminution
in the means and comforts of the masses of the
community.
The principle that in war, as in peace, the
income of the country shall be made to meet
its expenses may sound plausibly, and, ex-
pressed with all the advantages of rhetoric,
may be received with much applause in a
popular assembly; but we greatly doubt the
prudence or the possibility of its practical
adoption, and certainly this return supplies
no argument in its favour.

TIRE RESUMPTION OF LANDS IN
INDIA.

ONE of the most peculiar features in the pre-
sent system of governing India is the entire
change in the views held by the Administra-
tion on the succession to feudal properties. In
former times when the chief of an indepen-
dent State had submitted to our authority his
rule descended, subject to the tribute agreed
upon, to his heirs, whether natural or adopted,
agreeably to Hindoo law ; and all feudal fiefs
descended in like manner. When the conquest

I

JULY 8, 1854.

or revolution had been effected which brought
such lands under our sway, all anxiety on the
part of the holders of them terminated, and
the increased security and consequently in-
creased value of their lands as property
reconciled the owners in a great degree to the
loss of the political power that before attached
to them. A change of rule in India was like
our English Revolution of 1688—the Sovereign
was changed, but the possessors of estates
under feudal tenure remained in undisturbed
possession.
By the old school of Indian statesmen, and
even by the modern school of conquerors, Sir
CHARLES NAPiER included, this plan of preserv-
ing the feudatories, while we punished with
dethronement the treachery of the Sovereign,
was held to be an act not only of justice to the
great proprietors, but n measure of the most
vital benefit to ourselves. The interest of the
Sovereign being thus separated from the inter
eats of the whole of the influential classes in
his dominions, the fate of the former was soon
forgotten, and no extensive intrigues in his
favour could be got up. While the feudatories
found a compensation in the increased value of
their properties, the moneyed classes were re-
conciled at seeing their loans and mortgages
secured, and the mercantile people found i n
the retention of a wealthy class of proprietors
a sure basis of industrial prosperity. It was a
strict attention to this system that made our
conquests so comparatively easy, and our hold
on every successively-conquered province so
secure. It was an attention to this system
that made Sir CHARLES NAPIER so affectionately
regarded by the Belooch chieftains whom he
conquered, and enabled him in the first Sikh
war to denude Scinde of its soldiers, and trust
for the tranquillity of the province to the
fidelity of the newly-conquered race.
It may be that such a system somewhat
reduces our land revenue, but the loss is
made up to us tenfold in other ways. Nor
can there be a greater mistake than that com-
mon fallacy of revolutionists that the plunder
of the nobility really enriches the State. If
all the landed property iu England were con-
fiscated to-morrow the Treasury would be
poorer. instead of richer, for the transfer, as by
such acts the springs of the prosperity of a
country are dried up. Nor is the result in
India different. Resumption progresses, but
the land revenue decreases as it goes on.
One province that, to its native proprietor,
produced nearly two hundred thousand
pounds annually is, in our hands, only pro.
ductive of loss; while, with confiscations to
the amount of four hundred thousand pounds
annually in the Punjaub (two.thirds of the
whole proprietary), the land revenue is less
than it was in the time of RUNJEET SINGH. The
present chief of this new school of policy is the
Governor General ; and resumptions to the
extent of about a million sterling are the
fruits, so far, of the plan. Meantime, the
commissions of inquiry into titles are pushing
their measures actively, and a law has been
passed which will entirely extinguish all pro-
perty of this kind at no very distant period.
The most violent hostility has been shown by
the natives to the system, and not unnaturally,
though our power is at present sufficiently
strong to put down opposition. But, at the
same time, it cannot be doubted that a spirit
is being engendered in the minds of the most
influential class in India and of all the hun
dreds of thousands who depend on it, which,
whenever fortune turns, will be most dan-
gerous to our rule, and that, in ruining this
class, we are pulling down those who, in
every country, are the main pillars and best
supporters of the Crown.
The upholders of this new school of policy
are very plausible in their reasoning, but their
doctrine amounts simply to Socialism under a
very thin disguise. They argue that all the
land in every country belongs indefeasibly to
the community, and that the Sovereign, as
trustee for the community, has no power what-
ever to alienate it; that if former Sovereigns
in India have violated their trust that is no
reason why we should do so; but, on the con-
trary, that it is our duty to re-enter into
possession as soon as we can find an oppor-
tunity, in the badness of title, or, if the title be
good, in the death of the present holder. It
does not, however, appear how the community

THE PRESS.

at large is to be made richer by the transfer of
the revenues of their nobility to the East
India Company's pockets.
But such is the doctrine asserted by the
Government of Lord DALHOUSIE, and the ques-
tion is,—whether it will be approved by the
Legislature and people of this country ? For
our own part we conceive it to be no less
reprehensible as applied to India than it
would be if applied to England. That many
grants have boon made by the Crown in both
countries during successive reigns improperly
is a fact too notorious to be disputed ; but in
such cases good has in the end come out of
evil, and the transfer of the vast estates held
by the Crown and by the Church before the
Reformation to private hands has been in
truth the mainspring of all the wealth and
grandeur and prosperity of England. If we
would have India follow in the same path we
must begin by widening, and not by destroy-
ing, the foundations of property in that
country. Nor have we been so successful in
the treatment of our own serfs there hitherto
as to make it desirable to add to our domains
in this unscrupulous fashion by resuming the
estates of the native princes and nobility, men
who hold their properties by what, till Lord
DALHOUSIE went to India, was as good a title
as that by which he holds his own estates—
feudal grants by former Sovereigns, supported
by prescriptive right and immemorial custom.

FRENCH STRICTURES ON THE ENGLISH
CONSTITUTION.
IT is not unnatural that our French neigh-
bours, used to their peculiar form of executive,
should occasionally fall into mistakes on the
practical working of the English Constitution.
In turning into ridicule the weakness of Lord
ABERDEEN'S Ministry, the Journal des Dibats
of last Tuesday confounds the ordinary nature
of a Cabinet with the exceptional and passing
character of a Coalition. It is very just in its
strictures upon the weakness of our present
Ministers, and it gives a catalogue of their
defeats with admirable precision. But we
cannot agree with the Dibats' arguments
against our mixed Constitution drawn from
the too obvious infirmities of a Ministry that
violates all our parliamentary traditions. The
Debats scoffingly asks, how can fifteen Minis-
ters carry on a war ? And it sneers at our
Cabinet as a little Parliament in itself, with its
antagonisms and discordance.
On this subject we must remind our con-
temporary that forms of government are not
necessarily to be condemned on account of
the incapacity of ephemeral statesmen. Be-
fore an able Cabinet, existing in sympathy
with parliamentary habits, the weakne sees
described by the Debats would disappear.
There was no change in our Constitution when
CHATHAM took the place of NEWCASTLE, or Mr.
Pirr succeeded Mr. ADDINGTON. The best
tools are useless with bad workmen, and brave
armies have been destroyed by imbecile gene-
rals. A Coalition is the rare disease, rather
than the regular habit, of our free Govern-
ment ; and its very defeats cited by the Dibats
show that it exists in defiance of general
opinion. " Never has there been so wholesale
" a massacre of the innocents ! " cries the
Debats while it records the Ministerial failures
at portentous length. The facts, but not the
conclusions, of our contemporary are indis-
putable. When Lord DERBY was in power
the external form of the Cabinet was the same
as now, hut it worked harmoniously in its
various parts. The peace of Europe was pre-
served, the French alliance was begun and
perfected, and beneficent reforms were accom-
plished. It is not to the British Constitution,
but to a Cabinet existing in defiance of its
leading principles, that we are to trace the
evil of a Ministry divided among themselves
and distrusted by the Legislature and the
country.

,627

THE MAYNOOTH DEBATE.

MINISTERS had a very narrow escape of being
beaten on the Maynooth question. A majority
against them had been reckoned upon, but
several members had left the House, anticipa-
ting a protracted debate. A division was dex-
trously forced on by the silence of the Minis-
terialists, and a transient triumph gained by
the small majority of sixteen.
A striking change of sentiment has already
taken place on this subject. Several influen-
tial members who had supported Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S endowment opposed it, this week,
with their votes. We regret that many
of these distinguished gentlemen had not
opportunity for explaining their more
mature views on this important question It
would not be very difficult for them to find
overwhelming arguments to justify the change
of their opinions. External circumstances in
relation to Maynooth have altogether changed.
The toleration of Protestantism has been
treated by Popery with contempt.. Open
aggression has succeeded to abject whining.
An endowment of thirty thousand a year for a
sacerdotal institution has been followed by a
Romish hierarchy. We were asked to repair
Maynooth in Ireland, and we found that our
liberality was misapplied to building a new
Vatican for England. Sir ROBERT PEEL in his
simplicity talked of "a message of peace," and
the " Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster"
answered with a Papal bull.
Numerous other reasons might be quoted
by those who have adopted Protestant and
national opinions on the Maynooth endow-
ment. It is felt that a stand must be made
against further aggression, and that the " Libe-
ralism " which shut up the Bible and
patronises the Pope must be disclaimed by all
who are anxious to preserve true religion and
genuine freedom. The number of converts to
the anti-Papal view of Maynooth, as shown in
the late division, will have an animating effect
upon public opinion throughout the land.
The proposal of Mr. Sergeant SHER to rob
the Irish Church, by taking a hundred thousand
pounds from its annual revenues, is too
monstrous to discuss. The question is one,
as Lord DERBY said twenty years ago, "of
principle, not arithmetic." Sir JOHN YOUNG
stated only the truth in saying that " parties
" now viewed the Irish Church as a settled
" question ;" and the facts and arguments ad-
duced by Mr. NAPIER and Mr. HAMILTON in
their excellent speeches on the progress of
Protestantism, the exodus of Romanists, and
the new social phases of Ireland, render it a
moral impossibility that a Cabinet could be
found with such temerity as to propose in
Parliament any measure for injuring the
" United Church of Great Britain and
I " Ireland."

628

singular proof of combination among workmen of all
trades which the strike afforded. The struggle has
been longer than any which preceded it, and could
only he ended by a combination of masters equally
unprecedented in extent.

REPORTS TO THE BOARD OF HEALTH.
Two reports are before us addressed to, and published
by, the Board of Health, from the inspector ap-
pointed to examine into the state of Falmouth and
Devonport. They are drawn out inconsiderable detail
and penned in a style much too discursive. In the Fal-
mouth report we have, among other matter, the
history of the town, meteorology and geology of the
district, climate of Cornwall, remarks on allotment
gardens, some general observations on the distribu-
tion of charity, and an essay on the kind of orna-
ment most suitable to the laying out of burial-
grounds ! That on Devenport is less objectionable ;
but an inspector, however convinced of the sound-
ness of his observations, has no right to print them
at the public expense in the form of an official docu-
ment. The account given of the sanitary condition
of both these towns is deplorable. Mr. RAwmwsow
has succeeded in convincing the inhabitants that
much of the disease they endure is preventible—that
filth and fever go together—and that, as sickness
seizes most frequently and most severely on the able-
bodied labourer, thus throwing his family on the
union for support, the suffering of the individual is
equalled by the pecuniary loss to the community.