The Press.
London, England, 1853-06-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

132

*lit* The Report of the Adjourned Meeting of THE COMMISSION OF
ENQUIRY ON THE PRESENT MINISTRY, which is in type, is postponed
till next week.

TO THE WHIGS.

LETTER V.

GENTLEMEN, You have rallied round Mr. GLADSTONE'S Budget as
round a banner. The Budget is popular, I grant it. But why ? Be-
cause of the political principle that lies concealed amongst its financial
details. It is popular because it flatters all those whose passions are
yet warmed by the remembrance of the long disputes on the Corn
Law-. It revives the ignes suppositos by the eineri dolooo. It renews
the triumph over the landed interest by a fresh attack upon the
land. I have said in a former letter that we would consider
why the complaint against the assessment of the income tax,
once so loud, was now so silenced. I invite you to that consi
devatiou. You cannot deny that at the commencement of
the present Parliament it, was generally computed that not one hun-
dred and fifty members could he found who would vote for the reas-
sessment of the income tax, according to the principle upon which it
had been imposed and continued. Now, Mr. GLADSTONE has obtained
a willing majority not only to the renewal but to the extension of the
tax, unmitigated in its stern principle—and how ? By annexing to it
the new duty on successions. Take from the Budget this tax, and
where would be Mr. GLADSTONE'S popularity—where the acquiescence
in the renewal of the income tax, which, like that grim impartial
visitor described by the poet—

" Xrytil pulbat petle pauperuu► tabernaw
Regtunque turreh- ?

It, may or may not be true that the now tax on successions is but
a claptrap for popularity—that it will little injure the land—that only
.100,0001. will be raised from that description of property. Not so, at
least, was the proposition regarded by the Movement, who cheered
the assault on aristocracy, and the shopkeeper who silenced as a Radi-
cal the complaints he had uttered as a Tradesman. It became popular
solely on the ground that it inflicted on the principle of hereditary
aristocracy a something that had heretofore been resisted as detri
mental to its existence. The popularity was increased because the
attack was unaccompanied by one conciliatory measure towards the
class it assailed—not even an attempt to mitigate the expenses of the
sale or the mortgage which the tax might not unfrequently compel.
Do the democrats pause to think whether the gain from land will be
less than half a million? No! to use the language of their own press,
" they have inserted another wedge into the tree."
I say nothing on the general question as to whether real property
imuld or not be exposed to the legacy duty ; or whether it be a
sound principle in political economy to relieve our own incomes
by deductions from the capital of posterity. All that I say is. that the
time and the mode in which the duty is now imposed convert a ques
tion otherwise financial into a measure especially political.
The income tax was mainly defended as an instrument for the aboli-
tion of protective duties. Aud now the sole prospect of our release from
that burden is made to rest upon the profits of a new tax on the very class
which the abolition of those duties had most galled and most injured.
You thus ultimately pay for free trade out of the pockets of those
whom free trade had impoverished. You conclude your war, not by
grace to the enemy who has retired from the field, but by an act that
is meant to charge him with its expenses. You have cheered on your
followers by the shout of " Ve viols!" and in the spirit of Eastern
despots have made the proof of your victory consist in the fine you
have levied on the vanquished. Titus it is that Mr. GLADSTONE purchased
the popular consent to the inequalities of his income tax. And Lord
,lona sate beside Mr. GLADSTONE, and Lord JOHN subscribed to the
impost, because it was a symbol of political insult.—having during his
whole career as a 'Whig opposed the impost as a measure of finance !
And do you think that this fresh triumph to the Peelites is no fresh
damage to the Whig: !
Mr. GLADSTONE'S Budget itself, regarded purely as a financial mea-
sure, has some great me. its ; and amongst them that which is only
second to o ig'nality. v:z., felicitous imitation. Mr. BRODIE'S pam-
phlet s-pplies the conception of the new succession tax—to Mr. Dts
aAE'. 's Budget we owe the mitigation of the tea duties, the relief of
the shipping interest. Then; is one authority, indeed, to which Mr. GLAD-
STONE never turned his classical taste, whether for paraphrase or trans-
lation, viz., the Bud ets of the Whigs.
But that which predistinguishes the scheme of Mr. Gtstistotot. from
the propositions of Mr. DISRAELI is notable and significant. It is the
utter absence of ever: desire to remove the irritation and to gain the
affections of the vast class trnployed iu the production of wealth,

SATURDAY,

through its earliest and deepest source—the cultivation of the soil.
When our Hannibal of the Exchequer has gained the summit of
his Alps, and looks down on his Italy of Relief, a divine com-
passion seizes him for the sufferings of all—except the class
which alone has suffered. He thinks the case of the post-
horse-masters " very hard " he reserves a corner of his heart
for the wrongs of attorneys—ponies and dogs come under benignant
consideration ; but the husbandman, whose earnings had been seized
to defray the cost of ascending the Alps, is excluded from all the bene-
fits showered down on the rest of the Italy ! The land is ignored for
relief—it is only remembered for taxation. And therefore the old
grudge still remains, and the golden opportunity of effecting concilia-
tion between town and country upon easy terms is irrevocably cast
away. Meanwhile the Parliament stands pledged for six years to the
continuance of the income tax, with all the grievances which will
again find voice when the hurrahs that cheered the new tax upon
bloated landlords have passed away,—remaining in full force, and extend-
ing to a wider range all the feelings that weaken respect for property,
and all the temptations which can demoralise the honest. In the
speech by which Mr. DISRAELI introduced his budget he contemplated
the future extinction of the income tax, while redressing, for the pre
sent, its inequalities. But on what did he rely for aid to the resources
obtained from the termination of the Long and other Annuities?
Upon the diminution of expenditure in the Public Works. The two
millions which Mr. GLADSTONE is in six years to obtain from a tax that it
now seems is to disappoint popular expectation, and fall rather upon
humble houseowners than opulent landholders, Mr. DISRAELI would
have raised, perhaps, in three years, by drawing only on that MAGNUM
VECTIGAL PARSIMONIA which has no place in the calculations of Mr.
GLADSTONE. " Retrenchment " was one of the three conditions of Lord
GREY when he entered into office ; Lord DERBY'S Government took up
the long-dormant principle upon which the Whigs had based their
pretensions to power; and the Whigs turned aside, to cry out, with
Mr. GouLauaN, "Dangerous and abominable principle! to count on
retrenchment for the future repeal of a tax." _

And now, gentlemen, I close my appeal to you. You have united
yourselves with men opposed to all your past policy, for the purpose
of suspending your present existence as a party, and for the prepara-
tion of a measure which must either complete your unpopularity by
its tnilurc. or destroy all the elements of your future power by its
success. Meanwhile you have the fullest opportunities to cultivate
the virtue of patience under affront. My Lord JOHN has had the pre-
sumption to speak for himself on a question he might well be sup-
posed to understand—my Lord ABERDEEN disavows, on the part of
himself " and many of his colleagues," the sentiments expressed by
the nominal Leader of the Commons. Periods polished with literary
care, and delivered with the frigid solemnity of elaborate preparation,
are excused as expressions liable to be " misunderstood," indiscreet
ebullitions from the " heat of debate." The apology that would damage
the raw tyro in politics is applied to the colleague grey with the ex-
perience and conflicts of forty years ; and the services of Mr. KEOGH
arc repurchased by the marked humiliation of the ci-decant First Mi-
nister of the Crown. Your India Bill, purely Whig, is already ex-
posed to contempt by the defenders of that part of the Cabinet which
is purely Peelite ; and the grave troubles in the East introduce into your
councils every ancient subject of discord that can distinguish a PAL-
MERSTON from an ABERDEEN. But such differences of policy are insig-
nificant compared to that which Lord JOHN himself holds in reserve. Let
the seeds of disunion lie interred through the present session—the crop
will be richer for the repose of the fallow. Another year, and the old posi-
tion of the Whigs will be gone for ever. You must then do as others have
done before you—make your bold choice between abjuring your creed of
moderation, and passing as Radicals to the expectant camp of Mr.
COBDEN,—or carrying that creed into the forces that gather round the
standard of Lord DERBY. The brief Government which you overthrew
lasted long enough to suffice for proof that a Ministry which never
pledged itself to finality can comprehend the necessities of progress ;
that to redress grievances, conciliate classes, retrench expenditure,
reform the laws, take into council Public Opinion, are not only within
the power, but become the essential duty, of those who call themselves
Conservatives,—simply because they would preserve to their children
the constitution once reverenced by the Whigs.
I do not doubt the choice to which intelligence and patriotism
will compel some amongst you, and those not the least eminent, nor
the least liberal. And looking to your uneasy and undignified post in
the present Administration, certain that all the motives which
guide human conduct forbid you long to retain it,—conscious
that you cannot, for years to come, form an Administra-
tion solely from your own ranks, I foresee that fusion be-
tween the more thoughtful of the chiefs and supporters of
the present Government and the leaders of the present Opposition
which will terminate in the creation of such a Government as
will bring all the forces of the constitution to bear upon the cure of