The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-08 00:00:00

THE STATE OF AFFAIRS.

THE storm in a puddle, which certain Liberal
journalists fancied that they had raised a fort-
night ago, has now nearly subsided; and things
are daily assuming a more calm and settled
aspect. The Liberals in Parliament had twice
succeeded in entrapping Ministers into an am-
bush ; and then the Liberals in the press were
ready to exult over " their miserable plight."
But no real damage ensued from either of those
two mishaps; and the lesson so learnt will
warn all Conservatives not to expect straight-
forward or honourable dealing from the people
who now occupy the Opposition benches.
We speak of those two affairs as ambushes,
and by what other phrase can they be accurately
described ? A plan for the Woolwich examina-
tions was left in the War-office, approved by the
late Government, when that Government quitted
Downing-street. It belonged to General PEEL
to carry that plan into operation. As a man of
honour himself it was natural for him to expect
honourable conduct in others. But all such
hopes were doomed to be disappointed. When
the question came on for decision, whether the
plan should be carried into effect, almost all
the official men of the late Government either
left the House or voted against the plan ! The
next night there came on Mr. Lociu KING'S
motion, which Lord PALmEnsrox had resisted
last year, and in which resistance he was only
saved from defeat by the aid of the Conserva-
tives. This year, Lord PALMERSTON quietly
absented himself; and his subordinates were ready
to play over again the game of the preceding
night, and again to put the Government in a
minority ! Mr. DISRAELI only avoided this by
not dividing; for which he was bitterly up-
braided by the Times. The object was, to be
able to talk of " two Government defeats in two
days." Yet those two defeats, if they had both
been inflicted, would have covered with shame,
in the eyes of any reasonable man, the Opposition,
not the Ministry. It would have been made
apparent, that the people who have so recently
res►gned were ready to vote anything and to
desert any principle, so that they might but
get back into office.

However, the Government escaped from these
two ambushes with little loss. The main hopes
of the Opposition then centered on the India
Bill. They were at all times ready to disavow
all desire " to make so great a question a mere
battle-field for party ;" and yet in every club
you heard their avowed hopes that " Lord DERBY
would be defeated on his India Bill, and that he
then could hardly avoid resigning."
.Whether Lord Joni RUSSELL had any
friendly feelings towards the Government, or
whether he merely meant to say to both the late
and the present Government, " I have A better
Plan of operations than either of you," we can
never know. But, whatever his inmost purpose

may have been, it was obvious that much might
be said in favour of the course he suggested.
Hence it became the most natural thing in the
world that the Government should accept Lord
JOHN'S proposal, especially since it accomplished
that which Ministers honestly desired, and that
which Lord PALmEnsToN professed to desire,
namely, the construction of an India Bill, step
by step, without any considerable triumph or
defeat being given to either party. By this plan,
all the main provisions of the Bill would be set-
tled, clause by clause, before any Government
measure, as a whole, came before the House for
a vote. Clearly, this plan possessed the great
advantage of enabling the members to vote freely
on each proviso of the Bill, without being forced
to consider how each vote might affect the posi-
tion of the Ministry or the Opposition. Already
this sedative has visibly operated. The whole
measure seems likely to be agreed to, point by
point, with comparatively little manifestation of
party feeling. This is undoubtedly a great gain.
Meanwhile, in other respects the prospect
brightens. The Budget was the most successful
that we have seen for several years past. The
Government having already reduced the estimates
prepared by the late Ministry, is not likely to
meet with any serious annoyance from JOSEPH
HUNEE'S successors. It is possible that Mr. LocME
KLNG'S Bill, and Sir JOHN TRELAWNY'S, may be
forced through the House of Commons, to be
rejected by the House of Lords ; but this would
equally have happened had Lord PALNIERSTON
remained in power. It is no defeat of the present
Ministry. •

The really troublesome questions, however, are
those which are equally troublesome to all Go-
vernments; those which concern the connection
of Church and State. An active minority—for
we know it to be a minority—is resolved, by
pertinacity and insolence, to overbear the voice
of the great mass of the people, and to get rid of
the Established Church. Already has this
arrogant assumption succeeded thus far,—that
while the bulk of the House of Commons consists
of Churchmen, a considerable majority of votes
has been obtained against the Church! Some of
the Church's friends are coerced by a few noisy
constituents; others are deceived by the pretence,
"It is for the interest of the Church to abolish
Church-rates." Equally rational would it be to
say, "It is for the interest of landlords to abolish
rents, and to depend on the ' good feeling' of
their tenants for voluntary offerings."
This question, however, and the kindred one
of the Oaths Bill, are unquestionably the chief
difficulties which lie before us. They are not,
indeed, questions which particularly embarrass
the present Ministry. The Governments of Lord

r, and of Lord ABERDEEN, and of

Lord JoiD; RUSSELL, were equally perplexed by
them.

Meanwhile, it is not an insignificant fact, that
on Wednesday last, as many as 120 " Liberal

It'.',
s.

Members" of the House of Commons assembled
together, in one of the Committee-rooms of the
House, not to consider how the late Government
could be restored, but, we might almost say,
how it could be kept out of office! Mr. HEAD-
LAM, of Newcastle, was in the chair. He said,
that " the object of the meeting was to express
a general feeling that the Liberal party had not
been fairly treated—that, in fact, it had been
betrayed. . . He was convinced he spoke the sen-
timents of that meeting when he said that office
ought not to be in posession of a clique, or a few
families ; and that a wider basis was absolutely ne-
cessary." Mr. BAss, of Derby, moved a resolution,
" That the meeting cannot express satisfaction
with the Governments which have hitherto relied
upon the Liberal party." Mr. BAITER, of
Montrose, complained that "our Governments
were little better than a family party. He would
not advise any steps for the overthrow of the
present Ministry." Mr. CLAY, of Hull, said,
that " Lord PALMERS'TON had forfeited the con-
fidence of a large portion of the Liberal party,
and the country was tired of the old Whig blood."
After these followed Mr. FORSTER of Walsall,
Mr. Loci of Southwark, Mr. AywroN, Mr.
EWART, Sir A. Evros, and Mr. TURNER of
Manchester. To find so considerable a section of
the House, led by such men, and using such
language without dissent, portends the failure of
any present attempt to re-seat the Whiga in
power. This, as we have said, is no unimpor-
tant circumstance, in the present state of affairs.
Here are one hundred and twenty members pre-

sent—representing, there is no doubt, at least
150 in the aggregate, or one-fourth of the whole
House of Commons—who boldly declare that the

" cliques" and " family parties" by which the
Whigs have been ruling for the last dozen years,
must come to an end; and that they will tolerate
them no longer. This spirit, if it cannot be
either quelled or moderated, seems to render either
a Palmerston or a Russell Administration, just
now, almost impossible.

THE INCOME TAX AND OUR FOREIGN

RELATIONS.

THE public have received during the past week,
at the hands of two distinguished Members of the
House, differing widely and remarkably in every
imaginable characteristic, two disquisitions upon

financial policy and administration which can
scarcely be passed over in silence. Sir Conzrz-
WALL LEWIS, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer,
objects to the Budget because the maintenance
of his Sinking Fund of 1855 is not made its first
object; and Mr.
the expenditure which
he asserts, the result

or foreign relations

ceives it, if we do

equally the fault

Constitution that

BRIGHT denounces
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434

with France and have in these times with France
an alliance ; that we have married a Princess of
England to a Prince of Prussia ; and that only a
narrow channel crossed by a steamer in a couple
of hours separates us from our neighbours—cir-
cumstances to which we owe our military, naval,
and civil expenditure.
These objections were severally stated by Sir
CORNEWALL Lxwis in a speech unexpected, 'long,
and prosy, and by Mr. BRIGHT in that forcible
language and emphatic manner with which he is
so remarkably gifted, and which so often to many
makes the worse appear the better reason. Sir
CORNEWALL LEWIS has advanced a proposition
that we were certainly extremely surprised to
hear maintained by a statesman and a financier in
the year 1858. He contends that the maintenance,
the present satisfaction indeed, of his Sinking
Fund is a matter of more importance and an
obligation more binding than the engagements
undertaken by Parliament in respect of the In-
come-tax. The nation is bound, says Sir
CORNEWALL LEWIS, to levy superabundant taxa-
tion—that is, a surplus of taxation over ordinary
expenditure—so long as the War Loan of 1855
or any part of it remains unliquidated ; and, as
the Income-tax is the only impost by which this
surplus can be created, Parliament is debarred
from abolishing or reducing it.
Now, what were the conditions and pretences
upon which the Income-tax was first created in
the present century ? What were the grounds
upon which it was asked for and accorded ?
Upon what foundation, also, was the Sinking Fund
established which Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS clings
to with such paternal affection ?

The origin and purpose of the Income-tax was
perfectly set forth in the Resolution in which
Mr. HERRIEq, in April, 18.51, raised the question
of its continuance. That Resolution, pro-
pounded at a period when, as now, we had a
rising revenue, stated that " the Income and
" Property Tax and the Stamp Duties in Ireland
" were granted for limited periods and to meet
" temporary exigencies, and that it was expedient
" to adhere to the declared intentions of Parlia-
" went, and in order to insure their speedy
" cessation to limit the renewal of any portion of
" those taxes to such an amount as may suffice
" to provide for the expenditure sanctioned by
" Parliament and for the maintenance of public
" credit." That was a sound and, as has since
been generally admitted, an incontrovertible re-
presentation of the character of the Income-tax.
It had its origin in the maladministration of the
Whig Government for the five years prior to
1840. It was proposed and maintained by Sir
ROBERT PEEL expressly for special and tempo-
rary purposes, and its continuance in 1848 was
only granted to Lord JOHN RUSSELL in con-
sideration "of the unparalleled difficulties of the
crisis." This interpretation was afterwards not only
acknowledged but acted upon by Mr. GLADSTONE ;
and when Sir C. LEWIS, in 1855, instituted,
as far as a bald Act of Parliament could
institute it, his Sinking Fund, he did so in
the face of an engagement entered into two
years previously by Parliament that the Income-
-tax should fall to sd. in the present year. He
had no right, therefore, to calculate upon any
receipts from that impost beyond the amount
which the sd. would create for the maintenance
of his Sinking Fund. It is evident from the
speech which he made upon propounding his
scheme on the 20th of April, 1855, which want
of space only prevents us from verbally quoting,
that not only did he not calculate upon the
Income-tax, but that, in fact, he had not any
distinct idea, still less any positive knowledge, of
the source from which his Sinking Fund was
to be yearly supplied. It was proposed then
simply as a sort of satisfaction to the popular
financial fallacies of the hour, and it is insisted
upon now solely with a view to putting a thorn
in the side of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.
There is nothing identical, there is nothing
homogeneous in the grounds upon which the
engagements to reduce the Income-tax and to
liquidate the War Loan respectively rest. In
policy, in equity, and in good faith Parliament is
bound in the highest degree to postpone the latter
to the former obligation ; and we rejoice that
Mr. DISRAELI has had the sagacity to see the
truth, and the firmness to stand by his decision.
Mr. BRIGHT, representing a most persevering
school of politicians, takes a widely different
view of our present financial position, of its origin

•