The Express.
London, England, 1852-12-09 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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LONDON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9.

LORD Jowl Russet'. and Mr. GLADSTONE have
respectively signified their intentions with regard to
the extended Income Tax and augmented House Duty.
The followers of both will probably coalesce in sup-
porting the propositions of each for amending, or
rather for negativing the most prominent features
in the ministerial plan. And there is a large section
besides who represent more directly, perhaps, than
either, popular sentiment and feeling, who will
doubtless combine with the Whig and Yeelito
contingents in resisting the new scheme of taxation.
In a greater or less degree each of these sections
are pledged to the principle of direct taxation. But
with each and all of them direct taxation has been
always viewed as a means of carrying out the prin-
ciples of Free Trade, and not as a means of insidiously
seeking to work its overthrow. Like every thing
else, direct taxation may be honestly used for good
purposes or dishonestly used for bad ones. Sir RouERT
l'ast proposed the income tax in 1842, to replenish
an empty exchequer, and the country approved of
the proposition because it was one that .erred to re-
store its credit and self-respect. Again, in 1843, Sir
ROBERT PEEL proposed to renew that impost in
order that he might sweep from the schedule of
Customs du ties hundreds of i tem. that fettered trade and
encroached on the poor man's comforts and necessaries
of life. But the pretext which Mr. thottozu sets
up fur extending the income tax to numerous
classes that have never paid it before, is of a very
different kind. His professed aim is to make a pecu-
niary present of about 2,500,000 f. a year to the landed
interest. No single item of Customs or Excise is to
be abolished, and fur from having a deficiency to
provide for in the Exchequer, Free Trade has left
him a surplus there. So in like manner regarding
the inhabited house duty. When the Whip abo-
lished the window tax two years ago they found
that a house tax of two-thirds the amount would
yield as much revenue as was required. The
Tories propose to double that sum. And further,
they ask that the liability to the charge
should be extended to every 101. householder.
And what is this for? Not for revenue, and not for
the abolition of any imposts whereby the industrious
many are to be relieved; as we have said before, to
suable a landlord government to say to the class to
which they belong, " These ate the gifts and com-
pensations we promised you for acquiescence in
Free Trade."
Are we quietly to permit additional direct taxes to
ba imposed neither to benefit industry, nor to meet
tbs wants of the state, but to mulct the many for the
barefaced purpose of bribing the few ? How much of
the bribe will remain to the landlord, and how much
will be clutched by the brewer, is a question we have
already separately considered. Certain it is that
the farmer will gain nothing by a remission
of half the malt tax, or half the hop duty;
were the whole of either charge abolished some ad-
vantage might doubtless accrue to him. The worth
of hope would no longer be limited to three or her
counties, and barley might then, without hindramee,
be malted for cattle. Two sources of wasteful expen-
diture—namely, in the Excise collection—would be
got rid of ; and with perfect free trade in malt or
hops, a step would be gained towards reducing the
price of beer. But in the main, the difficulty which
stands in the way of such reduction is the monopoly
which the great manufacturers of the article enjoy,
and of which the most impregnable bulwark is the
present licensing system. Hence it is that the price
to the consumer has remained unabated during the
last six years, notwithstanding tho fall in the
price of barley. And hence it would be assuredly
found that the present price would still be kept up,
though a partial remission had taken place in the
duties now paid on hope or malt. Entire abolition
would render it possible, though seldom convenient
or profitable, to brew for domestic purposes at home.
'And whenever the time shall come when the revenue
ean with safety afford such total remission, the gum-
Hon may fairly be raised whether taxation on such
an article as beer ought to be finally abandoned.
But to sacrifice so much revenue without diminishing
Goat of collection or lowering price to the consumer
is financially an obvious blunder. And when
it entails, besides, the necessity of resorting to
a two-fold scheme of extended direct taxation

and bears on its front the ineffaceable stain of class
jobbery. and exaction—a climax of folly and
wrong is presented to us for which the financial
history of the country hardly affords a parallel.
Direct taxation for the purposes of revenue is irk-
some enough at the best of times; but a thinking
and intelligent people are ever readyady to bear it with
patience, if not with good humour. Direct taxation
for the purposes of rent is a roost impudent fraud,
which no people of thought or enlightenment can be
expected to bear with equanimity foe a single hour.
Yet this is what Mr. DtstAxts has the coolness to
propose. To the thousands who live in houses rated
from 101. to 201., and who at present pay no House Tax
whatever, he offers a new and burthensome yoke,while
to many of them, he at the same time extends the
pleasant privilege of contributing out of their limited
means to the Income and Property Tax. We are
confident that the class in question posess as much
patriotism and loyalty. as any other in the whole
commuuity, and that in any case of their country's
need they would submit without murmuring to these
or even to greater burthens. But they must be down.
right sinip!etons if they consent tamely or tacitly to be
fleeced in the fashion proposed by the DZIOT Govern-
ment fur the benefit, not of the State, but of that
selfish and exacting class who tax the people'. bread
for their own private pocket, and who now propose to
tax the people's dwellings for the same unworthy and
unwarrantable object.
It is not impossible, moreover, that during next
year the prices of food and other necessaries may
rise considerably beyond what they have recently
been, and the sinister calculation, no doubt, of our

landlord rulers is this, that under such circumstances
and with income and house taxes to pay, popular dis-
content might be excited against the system of Free
Trod..., and the public mind might be gradually pre-
pared for reactionary measures. If, therefore, there
be any genuine faith in the policy of PEEL, it is
essential that this treacherous trick should be met
and baffled peremptorily and promptly. Diree: tax-
ation must not be degraded into a mere weapon of
class warfare or sullied by being perverted to base
I and insidious purposes. It must not, for instance,
bo carried down to the very verge of the elective
franchise in order to tempt tho humble householder
toldenude himself of his political rights, while ho
1 escapes from the landlord burthen. Citizenship is
I not to be made subject to direct penalty in this
I shameless fashion, nor is a tax in itself simple and
ju.,t, to be rendered odious and loathsome in the eyes
of Ow people, by reason of the purposes to which it is
applied.

Aii.ert•rtsx is raising its'bead again in Spain ;
but twenty years o►, at least partial, freedom has
crt Med a public spirit in that kingdom which, at all
events, will give the Absolutists sumo trouble. The
plot against constitutional government was too
'coarsely and rudely organised, too impudently and
audaciously exposed; it was prepared by hands too
corrupt and heads too weak, not to rouse all the better
sympathios of honest man, irrespective of their poli-