The Express.
London, England, 1853-03-11 00:00:00

erortoo.

1.0 COR::Y.SPONDENTS.
y,:ton The 1.:1;c7e•o," eretalsim the tarn, eecuiriei
e • to rib'.1.!..e,1 el.:, Tuevday and Enday %two
, The Li. ream," Leet:es E,t. Q:l4 piper,
a• • we•IX,C, 3cuverlt.Arcert, SJ tW ieioek OD the

• • •
a! a Pu

tut •1 AVAV-::: AT 11.1NIION BRIDUR
tri, „ . r. Ms- Afterion, sk
43. Va.
1344r43..w.-Mu; 7 Mi. JZI.. 4; J. Afiirooo.l. 3a.

Mr.-DWI, FRIDAY, MARCIE 11.

A evaract body of educated, business-like, and
influential pr...`es&tonal men, last night, forced upon
ih,eata.ideration of tl:e llouse of Commons the goes-
ticn —why they should pay a special tax for leave to
enerki‘e !heir culling. A debate ensued, and those
aka advocated the catt;•: of the legal profession, put
forth the arguments which hid been carefully pre-
pard to, the occasion. Tho fact that five several
i
alvs4its in t'ae House of Commons hid affirmed the
pr.ueip:.• of the unfairness of the yearly tax upon
.at„ritt:, 1,11%.5, of course, not forgotten. lu the words
of tae...i,ocates of the repeul of this impost it was

urge. that .
.• ISe to which attorneys are subjected are, first, a
rt7Tai, of upon the articles of ..;:erkship and this 05
rn
tr,:Age p.odurrs annually 72,000/. ; a tax of 2sl.
producin/ annually 12,0001. ; and thirdly,
the• tax a which they complain its an intolerable grievance,
g lv, 121. I'i:eel for a certificate, if practising in Lim-
a... I:4.,thargh, ar DaLlia, aka SI. yearly if premisiug
iu
say -Ma psi; of the Un'ted Kin7.tiorn ; this producing
• iy ormaidA of llt4oof. This treble taxation, amount-
i„ the whole to opwar,l, of 200,,0001. per annum, the
sttnacy• i.ies !Mae fur a long series of years. No other
peg.main or trade is bunlosml with a treble personal tax
fur t e prisileec of exercising the callin, whether levied
b y arta' of a stamp or a lie, nee,g whilst no other
.is suidect to a prescribed scale of charges, rigidly
• el Vn taxation, which no special contract is allowed to
er sup. ;sedc. The licences of auctioneers, hankers,
pot nbr o:erf . , producing to the revenue 103,9371., are
the un.y , f duties charged upon the permission to
„trek ;my ,e;;;ng that bear the slightest resemblance to
the aatitlil e. ttiliette tea on attorneys, proctors, and no-
taris—all *dams Deism charged not un the person but on
articles luta to excise and other duties, and therefore
pal! is rixt iy IA: &movie, rs. Bet the repeal of the cer-
%dices las gone of the three personal taxes, and the most
piteous to which attorneys, proctors, and notarize are
ifighle) cannot in ar.y way affect the continuance of the
revalue deriecd from licences. Two of the three personal
tar ti. producing upwards of 81,0001. per annum, will

flt:litn.
111,se points are carefully and cleverly put, and have
much truth behind them ; anti on the other side it can
eel; he urged that the Governmentmustraise revenue,
and teat the lawyers are very well able to bear
di, it quota of the country's burthens. This is, how-
cser, a poor reply; and no one was last night sue-
prind e..cn the Government was beaten ou a died-
Asia Ly.a rii.joritv of .7,2.
The truth is that our whole system of taxation
requires revision, and if Mr. GLADSTONE has the
ouirage to grapple with the broad necessities of the
cut, lte may gain a name in the social and govern-
= at4l history of his country such as few Ministers
have the chance of winning. We have been accus-
tomed to deal with the question of national needs
and national taxation upon the reckless and spend-
thrift maim of stopping the present gap in the
easiest way, and leaving to-morrow to take
care of itself. After nearly forty years of peace
and an unparalleled growth of national resources,
this short-sighted and ignorant mode of finance
is becoming too disgraceful to be much longer tole-
rated. It has again and again been shown that by
the proper adjustment of a few wisely-levied taxes
we might get rid of all such galling and mischievous
imposts as those which interfere with the grov-th of
manufactures or the extension of trade, cr which
cripple personal exertion. Half our present fiscal
impositions are perfectly suicidal. We order
our • Custom-houses to levy unwise dative on
certain products, and those products in con-
sequence reach us in such small quantities
that the tax un them barely pays the cost of collec-
tion ; we seed excisemen into paler mills and into
soap boileries, and other seats of industry, to gain an
amount of revenue miserably deficient, when Com-
pared with the sum total of mischief done to com-
mercial progress ; and whilst continuing these barba-
rous and unprofitable modes of getting the money
wanted for the State, we neglect those large
anti simple sources whence, by wise and
equitable legislation, all that should, or need
be, asked might be liberally, cheerfully, and
easily obtained. By a fairly reformed and carefully
adjusted Property and Income Tax, by an evenly dis-
tributed duty on all Probates, by a reform of the
House Duties, we might in this country obtain a
very large proportion of the money requisite for
supporting the Government, and be enabled to re-
move such taxes as this one on the solicitors,—as the
shameful eighteen-pence levied on each advertise-
ment of people asking work and of traders seeking
customers,—as the tax on soap and on paper: we
might sweep from our tariff many scores of duties still
standing there, mere proofs of former unwise legisla-
tion—fossil relics as it were of by-gone fiscal stupi-
dity, ugly, obstructive, and unprofitable. All that
is needed to do this is a Chancellor of the Exche-
qt..r equal to the opportunities of his time.
After Easter we are to have the Budget—the
Budget of the Coalition, in which we hope to have
all the manifestations of all the genius for finance of
Whigs, Radicals, and Peelites. Under Lord ABER-
DEEN we have certainly gained some steps in advance.
Our ships arc to get an instalment of fair play ;
oar letters are to go to the colonies on wiser
and more generous terms; the old grudge with
Canada about the clergy lands is to be settled on a
basis of liberality and wisdom, and fiscal im-
provements thus be possible by rendering a less
costly military establishment needful for our
North American dependencies. These are instal-
ments, we say, if but small ones. It is still
open for the CIIANCELLOR of the BECTIEQUER to
follow such early indications by a broad and judi-
cious measure of financial improvement; by a reform of
the Income Taxwhich shall make the people look upon
that tuede of raising revenue not only as philosophi-
cally wise, but as practically expedient and accept-
able. England is rich enough to pay all that can
be needed to support her in the pre-eminence she has
now long enjoyed. She has millions enough in
stored up capital, and hundreds of millions enough
in the skilled and willing labour of her industrious
People. to pay everything that may be proper
for a generous Court, a gallant army, and
a navy to be unequalled on the oceans of
the world. She can afford to be as great,
as liberal, as generous, as she claims to be
free. But, whilst ready to supply all that can be
fairly asked, she may not unreasonably. in return
demand that her industry shall be unfettered ; thal
the race of commerce shall be on a fair field, favour-
ing none, or all alike ; that the taxes to be levied for
national safety and for the redemption of national
faith shall be soadjusted thatthey press with the least
possible inconvenience on those who are to bear
them, and that the principle of their imposition
shall be one tending to the abolition of paltry
licences, mischievous excise duties, and obstructive
customs—in favour of a few wisely-arranged imposts
which men shall acknowledge to be as just as they
are needful.

THE second reading of the Bill for the Removal
of Jewish Disabilities is fixed for this evening. The
disemsion of a question so often debated is not likely,
Primps, to Mat beyond a single night, for there are
few who have a vote to give upon it whose minds
am not long since made up its to the course which
they will take. It is of some importance, however,
that the fullest muster should be made of the friends
of religions toleration on the present occasion. By
6'n!e fatality, or some combination of accidents, the
majority on the first reading of the Bill was less
turacious this session than in previous ones. In
a House containing two-thirds of the United Com-
mons of Great Britain and Ireland there appeared
to be but • preponderance of twenty-nine
in favour of the admission of the Jews. The
seeming falling off was indeed accounted for at the
hale, by the absence of many stanch friends
of the principle who from various casualties had
been precluded from being present. And it has always
been understood that the division of chief importance
an any Bill is that upon the second reading, the ini-
tlakry stage being in point of fact rarely disputed
at ah. Properly speaking, therefore, the present is
the irst opportunity fur testing the disimition of

the new House of Commons on the principle of re-
moving Jewish Disabilities. For the honour of the
country and of the age, it is to be hoped that no
tendency towards retrogression will be manifested
on the subject.
Having said thus much with regard to the general
object of the measare and the duty of promoting it,
we must be permitted to express our regret as to the
form which it now for the first time assumes. In-

stead of a Bill for the simplification of the oaths to be
taken by members of Parliament, and for the sub-
stitution of one uniform teat of loyalty which men of
all persuasions might conscientiously comply with,
the Legislature is now, for the first time, call, d upon
to relieve the Jews from a particular disability ; while
at the same time it is asked to protest against the
concession being drawn in precedent with regard to
the removal of other disqualifications to which the
Hebrew race are likewise subject. Out of six sec-
tions, five are devoted to reservations and exceptions
to which the principle of the Bill is not to apply.
In so far as these relate to the Church, nobody
would of course dispute their propriety, were
they really necessary, which we may be per-
mitted to doubt. But with respect to civil
offices, and to the holding of professorships,
or the taking of degrees at the Universities, we
cannot d;sguise our disappointment and dissatisfac-
tion that the present Government should seek a re-
enactment by implication of such unworthy and un-
wise restrictions. There is a peevish particularity
is their enumeration, and a grudging spirit betrayed
throughout the whole which is calculated to deprive
the measure of much of the grace which usually
belongs to measures ofreligious concession. In point
of argument, moreover, the latter class of reserva-
tions to which we have referred arc wholly indis-
=le. If a Jew is not fit to be admitted to a
of A.M. at Oxford, he surely cannot be
worthy to occupy a seat in the Legislature. And
if the Jew be not fit to teach the prosody or
syntax of his own ancient language, it is
something very like a farce to entrust him '
with the power of deciding on what manner of
education shall be pursued throughout the kingdom.
It is of no use to argue that the specific grievance the
Bill proposes to remedy is an exclusion from Parlia-
ment ; not from offices of state or collegiate dis-
tinctions, and that whatever disability new exists
with regard to the latter is only left as before. It
this be so, the reservation clauses aro mere surplus-
age, and therefore may, and we hope will, be struck
out in committee. No one who rotes for the second
reading can of coarse be 'abound to vote seriatim for
the constructive exceptions and negations to which
we have adverted. All that is good or sound is
contained in the first section, and the remainder is,
to say the least of it, ungracious and unnecessary.
There is, we are aware, another view which may
possibly bo taken of the pious lumber in question. It
may be intended as a peace offering to the House
of Lords by bigotry and exclusiveness, all former
propositions for the relief of Jewish disabilities having
unfortunately been resisted. Aod your very knowing
politicians are apt to intimate, with a nod and a
shrug, that the five objectionable claims are but
five pennyworth of salt intended to be flung on the
tails of certain episcopal birds, whereby it is cun-
ningly hoped they may be caught. We cannot say
that we share in these astute anticipations, and we
greatly distrust the esoteric system of those who, cal
the phrase is, undertake to manage the Church. We
shrewdly suspect that intolerance in high places
will ever bo found incapable of being thus " marl
naged," and we should be in no way surprised if the
sole result of the attempt to propitiate its enmity by
these equivocal concessions should prove to be an
attempt to torture and twist them into additional ar-
guments against any change whatsoever.
While we caunot help thus expressing our regret
that Lord ABERDEEN'S Cabinet should have de-
parted front the statesmanlike simplicity of form
adopted bylLord Joust Busse-Lt.'s Administration, we
do not wish to be misunderstood as desiring to
weaken in any degree the zeal of those whose duty
it certainly now is to endeavour to carry the Bill.
With all its blemishes it will undoubtedly be a de-
cided step in the right direction; and it may, as we
have already observed, be disencumbered of some of
its useful clauses during its progress through com-
mittee. One of the reservations, for example, to be
found in the Bill as it now stands is obviously directed
against the claim of Baron ROTHSCHILD to take
the oath of abjuration without the contested
words "on the true faith of a Christian,"
unless he goes through the form of being re-elected
for the City of London after the Act shall pass.
This is to repeat the same pettifogging blunder in
point of policy which was committed in 1829, with
regard to O'CONNELL. When the Catholic Relief
Bill pawed O'CONNELL woe member for Clam, hay- i
ing been duly elected by a vast preponderance of
votes. But having refused to take the oaths as then
prescribed for all persons without distinction who
claimed to sit in Parliament, he was not permitted
to take his seat. The return for Clare, however
having been duly made, the seat could not be dot
I 111010 t, and no new writ could be issued. A
lipseial clause was inserted in tho Ministerial
measure of emancipation disabling any person who
had been elected previously from availing himself
of the benefits of the Act. And as it was notorious
that O'Corneett. was the only individual to whom
the exception would apply, the invidious and foolish
limitation was justly objected to at the time by the
liberal party in the legislature. Baron ROTHSCHILD'S
position is in every respect identical, and we sin-
cerely hope thaj the Parliament of 1833 will show
itself to be animated by • more generous and com-
prehensive spirit than that which swayed its preds-
moor a quarter of a century ego.