The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-26 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY MAY 2G.

Tilt House of Commons has once more standing
Beat spec its "Orders of the Bay" that now constant
dish, the Income Tax Bill. 3lr. GLSII,TONE'S long
speech on the budget seems to have had the effect of
'pplying his enemies with arguments, and con-
vincing his 'fiends that arguments pro and cue come
in the cud to nothing, as—like Kilkenny cats—they
rentrally eat each other up. There is no denying
that the speeeh was a great dialectic effort, almost
exhausting the argument's and facts to be employed
on both aides. The result, however, seems to have
been ether uncoutiortabie, since it has made the
friends of the budget laze, acting upon the feeling
that little can be brought against the tax which
Mr. Gt. %Peruse cannot refute, while it has made the
enemies active, inasmuch as the CLIANCELLOR has
banded over to them a bundle of arguments, of
which they have lost no opportunity of making mis-
chievous use. Poltava, however, the worst effect
has been that it has induced many to repose comfort-
ably in the eunviction, that alum all taxes arc neces-
sarily imperfect,—that since there is no tax against
which a thousand ohjectiolis cannot be raised,—since
all propositions tor amendment of a tax may
be very Wide met with counter-propositions,
—there/ere all attempts at reform are useless. The
Doles, once very viol( nt on the subject of the
injustice of the itteidente of the Income Tax upon
Talton. portions of the puhliz, leu adopted this view,
and now practically acts up to the principle that as
no differential at can be made which would
not be obnoxious to some objection, we had better
erase objecting altogether. Iu other words, since it
is demonstrable that no tax can ha perfect, give up
all hope. of reforming any. To carry out this reason-
ing consistently, the House of Commons ought to be
ads ised to abdicate one half of its functions, and the
CIIANCLLLOR of the ENCLIEQPEIt he left to concoct the
Budget, a la LOUIS NAPOLEON, at his pleasure.
Mr. Beate, in defiance of this doctrine, has on the
paper for to-night ao amendment to the following
purport :—" That all persons assessed to the Income
Tax (on account of incomes derived from trades and
professions) be charged wily so much of incomes as
exceed 301. a year. E.g.—A B, a man of 1301. a year ,
would pay on 1001., or 100 sevenpences, 21. les. 4d.
CD, a man of 1001., would pay on 301., or ao seven_
pence., 11. 9s. 2d."
The two principles upon which this amendment is'
founded arc these : First, t hat it ie obviously unjust that
a certain income being taken as an exempted income,
another merely differing. teem it by a mere fraction,
should pay a heavy tax in respect of that income.
For instance, under the prevent law it is monstrously
unfair that while a clerk with an income of 1491. a
year pays nothing, a clerk with 11. a year more
should pay 130 sevenpences tax: that is, that in-
stead of paying a tax on one pound, which is the
who'm difference in his income from that of the man
who pays no tax, he should pay the tax upon 1501.
If there are certain extenuating circumstances which
induce the imposers of a tax to excuse the possessor
of an income of 1491. from paying any tax
at all, those circumstances ought to apply to the 1491.
out of the income of the 1111:1 possessing 150/. The
ease would be transparent enough if taxes were
collected in the ancient primi,ive planner, the Cileel-
CELLOR calling upon each man to render a true
account of his receipts, in order that Government
might make a deduction therefrom adapted to each
man's ability. It would be self evident that a mon-
strous injustice would be committed by taking from
the possessor of an income represented by 150 sheep
a slice from each, while from the man with an
income represented by 149 nothing at all should
be taken. The flagrant absurdity of a tax of this
nature would be a sufficient condemnation of the
practice. The second principle upon which the
amendment is founded rests upon the assumption,
which it is impossible to gainsay, that there aro cer-
tain incomes which, being but just able to supply
the holders thereof with the bare necessaries of life,
nothing can be extracted from them for the purposes
of government. A man who can barely keep life in
the bodies of himself and family can pay no taxes.
Mr. Huse contends that a limit of this nature may
be placed at acv. ' • in other words, that a man is not
to be considered taxable until his income exceeds
501. Mr. lit ata would then consider the excess as
being a fair subject for taxation, and the excess only.
BENTHAM and MILL have adopted the same princi-
ple and the same limit. Whether the exemption
should be 301. or 1001. we will not now stop to
discuss.
_

It has been argued against this proposal that it
adopts the theory of graduation ; in other words,
the theory which awns that different per oentages
should be affixed to different incomes. It has been
shown, however, over and over again, that a gra-1
dusted tax on incomes is in the nature of a suns
law which is always both unjust and ' t .
The, graduation is attempted to be proved thus : At:-
seeding to Mr. Humes scheme 1001. per annum will
pay 60 seven-pences, or 100 three-pence half-pennies,
shish is at the rate of 30. in the pound.
1604. per annum will in like manner pay 100 seven-
penosxor 150 four-pence half-pennies nearly, which
is 4 Id. in the pound. Similarly, the posseaor of an
income of 2001. pays, according to this calculation,
shout bd.; the possessor of one of 2301., nearly 6d.
in the pound. Here, say
.the opponents, you have
the whole obnoxious principle of graduation. From
1001. to 200!. you have as much as 2d. in the
.pound
difference in the tax. The fallacy here is in the
supposing that the bOL is a real taxable income, con-
trary to the original assumption. On the contrary,
Mr. Hums asserts that 501. is not taxable, because it
is necessary to support life; and if a man
has only that much, Government can only
extract taxes from him by getting the parish or
HOMO one else to pay them for him. If on the con-
trary he has more income than that, if he has to pay
tax upon the whole, he can only do so by diminish-
big his surplus income by a very heavy per centage.
The supposition is that no governmental machinery
sun squeeze an bream Tax out of a man with an in-
come of only 601. per annum without diminishing
his means of subsistence. If, however, when has
income rises to OIL you make him pay 61 seven-
pence*, oe U. 9s. W., he will have to band
over the 11. of surplus to the tax-gatherer,
and come upon the parish or his friends
for the 9s. 9d. In the meantime you have levied a
tax of U. 9s. 9d. on a taxable income of U., or nearly
130/. per cent. The assertion, then, that you intro-
duce graduation by the proposed amendment, can
only be maintained by an utter denial of the prin-
t:4gs upon which the amendment is founded—and
this, we believe, has never been contested.
It has also been asserted that it is impossible to fix
a perfectly accurate line of demarcation between
taxable and non-taxable incomes, which may
be admitted. An argument founded upon this ,
assertion that therefore there should be no limit'
drawn, can only be admitted by. denying that •1
tolerable approximation to justice is to be refused in ,
all cases, even although perfect justice should be im-
possible of attainment. On these grounds we should
have to rewrite the proverb, and declare that " Half a
loaf is not a whit better than nobread." Of all the pro-
L.:tamendments to the original proposal, that of
un has the greatest claim upon the attention
of the CHANCELLOR, and we trust that it will meet
with due consideration from the House of Commons.

'Curie is, we fear, no doubt that, so far as the
island of Cuba is concerned, the African Slave Trade
is reviving. In spite of the increase of our naval
force on its coast, a slaver of unusually large dimen-
sions has been able safely to discharge on its shores
not fewer than 1,100 Negroes—a cargo worth pro-
bably from 400,000 to 600,000 dollars; and by the
latest accounts from the western coast of Africa,
the Slave Traders were there, reappearing under
circumstances of audacity remarkable even for
that desperate confederacy of piratical scoun-
drels. Vessels, American built, of greater speed

and larger size than ever, were being delivered
on the coast, where masters and crews are ready to
receive and navigate them ; extensive arrangements,
obviously of some previous standing, had been made
for their reception and loading at several of the old ,
slaving ports, where many of the former capitalists
or their agents had started up; and other human
cargoes than the one mentioned had, it is known,
been run." Even in the neighbourhood of Sierra
Leone, these unmistakeabla symptoms had been
observed; and strong apprehensions are entertained'
that our recent warlike and diplomatic pro-
ceedings in the Bight of Benin, and at :he
ports of Dahomi, and our interference in the
internal disputes of Abecokuta, so far from really
tending to suppress, have re-opened a footing fur the
Slave Trade in spots where it once flourished.
As yet, however, this revival of the infamous
trade is exclusively Spanish—a fact established not
only by our knowledge of what Brazil has done and
is still doing in the question, but by the superior ca-
pital, organisation, and arrangements which charac-
terise these proceedings on the coast. This circum-
stance, whilst narrowing the counteracting policy
of England, increases, in ono point of view at least,
the responsibility of our Foreign Office. For, as we
have repeatedly pointed out, it is neither off the
shores of Cuba nor on the coast of Western Africa,
but in the Court of Madrid, that the Spanish Slave
Trade can be most successfully attacked ; and there, if
Lord CLAIILNI)ON wishes now to nip the evil in its
bud, ho will insist on its termination, in terms
' the most peremptory, and language that cannot be
neglected. The Spanish Slave Trade depends alto-
gether on the policy of the Court of Madrid. It did so
even when the Cuban planters thought their welfare
and prosperity dependent on large annual supplies of
Africans piratically imported ; for, during the re-
gency of ESPAKTERO, it will be recollected, how
completely General VALDEZ,-14 hen energetically sup-
ported and encouraged by an honourable government
to Spain,—checked the trade, and how severely he
punished those who dared to violate the laws of their
country. But recent events in the island of Cubsitsell,
the high state of prosperity which it has attai3cd,—
and, let us hope, the progress of morality, as well as the
advent of well-fouuded fears und just apprehensions—
have of late years produced amongst the proprietary
dames of that island great changes of opinion as
to the identity of their permanent Interests with the
Slave Trude. It may, perhaps, be deemed a bold
assertion, but is not, we arc assured, far from the
exact truth—that, with the planting interests of the
island, the Slave Trade is not now popular; that its
present revival does not emanate from, and is not
inspired by, the planters; and that, in their delibe-
rate judgment of their own future welfare, the
Slave Trade ought now to terminate. To what
influence and source are we then to trace
the renewal of the traffic ; and how are
we to reconcile this proprietary indisposi-
tion to encourage the Slave Trade with the fact
of its revival ? The fact, from all that we can learn,
appears to be that the Court of Madrid, to which the
prolonged misrule of Cuba is so profitable—rather
than seriously set about those reformations and im-
provements in its colonial system, by which only the
connexion between Spain and Cuba can be preserved,
—seeks to strengthen and promote its interests by
giving encouragement and support to that which in
its ignorance and stupidity, it supposes the Colo-
nuts still regard as the foundation of their
prosperity—the Slave Trade. And to this general
consideration of supposed policy is to be added
those special pecuniary considerations which play
such important though subordinate parts in direct-
ing everything Spanish—be it a projected public
company or the administration of a great and noble
colony.
Thus, though tho revival of the Slave Trade is not
an economical or agricultural want of the Island of
Cuba, and though any great increase of its slave po-
pulation has become a anoint political danger, ne-
vertheless the Court of Madrid in its corruption and
selfishness thinks that it can best conciliate
the free inhabitants of Cuba to its wretched
system of administration, by giving facilities to a
horde of Spanish (not Cuban) desperadoes to import
Africans into the island. The political impetus of
the revived Slave Trade is Spanish; the capital and
means by which it is carried on are Spanish; the
profith are Spanish—Spanish, we mean, as contra-
distinguished from Cuban; and therefore it is we
insist that it is in Spain, and at the fountain head of
all Spanish miseries, the Court of Madrid, that
Lord CIAZENDON must now assail and attack it.
Cuba itself is at present much in the same position
Brazil was some three years ago. The current of
enlightened public opinion is turning against the
Slave Trade; and if in Cuba free expression could be
given to public opinion, and Cuba had anything like
a free press or a rational government, the result
achieved in Brazil would also be quickly witnessed
in Cuba. But whilst Spain itself is in the hands of
its present oppressors, the prospects of its principal
colony seem hopeless.