The Express.
London, England, 1848-02-01 00:00:00

',presentative' as soon as the financial business of the
approaching session begins. They ought to insist that
as proposal to impose new taxes or increase old ones
belas. upon a thorough revision of oar system of tax-
ado, with a view to remedy the anomalies and injus-
tice that now exist,im and above all to remove all fetters
upon industry posed by the present modes of
levying tams
If the cottons of Manchester, the woollens of Leeds,
the hardwares of Birmingham, or the silks and
ribbons of Norwich bad been for the last 200 or 160
years honoured with the superintendence and prate°.
tine of the excise, as soap, paper, and some other
commodities have been, there can be no doubt that the
number of persons employed in our staple
national manufactures would have been fewer
by some tens of thousands. Tho quantity of
their products exported would have remained
at a low figure in the folios of the excise
and customs. The truth is that the excise is a mode
of taxation which could only. have been originally
devised in a country possessing none but domestic
manufactures. It was a rude method of making
every one give up to the public service so many
pounds of his home-baked bread, so many quarts of
his home-brewed ale, so many of his home-dipped
rushlighta, or their value in money. It was, from the
beginning, en impertinent, prying, rudely extortionate
tax; but for the development of our colossal menu-
teetering system it was not the impediment, the dead
palsy to industry which it has since become. The ex-
cise is a tax of an obsolete state of society, retained
in new social and industrial relations, among which
it is an intolerable nuisance.
The truth is that tie excise is tolerated solely on
amount of its partial and unequal incidence. Com-
mon sense says that if the excise is a proper mode of
levying revenue, it ought to be extended to all trades
instead of being confined to a few. Suppose, for a
moment, that this view was acted upon ; that our
cotton, woollen, and hardware manufacturers were
obliged to pack up their goods in a prescribed fashion;
that they were obliged to stick labels on all their
packages containing a vast variety of information,
each label being adorned by autographs of the super-
visor and officer; that they were obliged to invite the
officers of the excise to be present at certain stages
of their manufacturing process ; that they were ob-
liged to keep looms, anvils, and labourers working
under the lock and key of the excise. The excise
laws would not survive for a week such an entension
of their sphere of operation. They are allowed to
exist because they oppress only a minority of the
industrious public. Their unfair, partial, application
is what imparts to them their tenacity of life.
Another circumstance that renders people tolerant
of the excise is the nature of the commodities upon
which by far the greater proportion of the excise
revenue is levied. People fancy themselves virtuous
when advocating heavy duties and restrictions on the
preparation of spirits and malt, as they did of old
when displaying zeal against cakes and ale. For our
parts, we confess that it' people will have spirits—and
we suspect the CHANCELLOR OF Toe EXCHEQUER
would be sadly taken aback by a univerwil adoption I
of Father MATHEW'S pledge—we think it desirable
that a mode of levying the duty upon them which,
notoriously promotes the substitution of an unwhole-
some for a wholesome spirit ought to be altered. We
think that the plan of taxing the half-manufactured
article malt, and then again the whole manufactured
article whisky, with a bungling and inadequate ma-
&Wary of drawbacks superadded to alleviate the ex-
-1104011, is unfair, not only to the distiller, but to the
Wey grower. Distillers, maltaters, and licensed
victuallers, are men, after all, and as such equally en
titled to fair play in their respective callings as other
members of society.
Bat if in adopting these views we have shot ahead
of the liberalism of our age—if the public, which is
so sensitive to the claims of the negro, and so tender
in its care of the convict—is not yet prepared to re-
cognise in the distiller " a man and a brother," surely
it will admit the claims of the soap-boiler and paper-
maker to this distinction. On this head, however, it
would be unwise to be over-sanguine. Not very long
ago we read in au Edinburgh newspaper that a
certain peeress had taken a fancy to visit an extensive
paper mill in the vicinity of Modern Athens. She
viewed, in apparently apathetic silence, the various
interesting processes of the manufacture. Bet when
she was shown the great quantity of the finished
article which had accumulated in the bonded ware-
house, her pent-up feelings found utterance in words:
" Well, what a great deal of mischief paper has done
in the world ! "

Few public men would plead guilty to any sym-
pathy with the views of this noble lady, yet it is diffi-
cult to account for the subjection of paper to the
excise tax and eapimuzge, except on the supposition
that it is regarded as a sub•ministrant to popular ex•
oftement, and its manufacture discouraged accord-
ingly. The average value of a ream of paper varies
from 2s. 6d. to 139. Every ream must be labelled, and
written upon, and entered separately in a register, both
by the manufacturer and the excise officer. No other
exciseable article is required to be thus labelled; and
yet though paper is the only article which carries
on its label a prima facie evidence that the duty has
been charged, it is the only article subjected to a de-
tention of twenty-four hours by law—and in practice,
of double that time. No other excieeable article is now
detained a moment after the duty is charged. Glass,
while liable to duty, was at one time detained for
twelve hours, but this period of detention was subse-
quently reduced to four. Paper, like whisky, is a
rambled article.
A few years ago the tax on cotton wool was re-
pealed in consequence of the urgent representations
of the cot.on manufacturers and spinners. The re-
turns from that tax (about 700,0001.) nearly equalled
the returns from the duty upon paper. But the tax on
cotton wool being a customs duty involved no in-
terference with the time of the manufacturer
and his workmen, such as is consequent upon the
labelling and stamping system in the paper trade.
The waste and scrapings of the cotton mills are liable
to a duty of lid. per lb. before they can be sold in the
shape of paper. The value of this refuse is net more
than one-eighth or one-tenth of the unmanufactured
cotton wool, and yet the duty on the refuse is three
times the amount of the duty on the more valuable
cotton, which it was found expedient to repeal.
Isolated grievances are generally allowed to remain
unredressed grievances. All trades subjected to the
excise will act wisely in making common cause, and
in adding to their number all members of the general
public who indirectly suffer along with them.
The question is too extensive and too com-
plicated to be satisfactorily disposed of in
one or two sessions, but it is so important
that an earnest beginning cannot be made too
soon. There is no public question at present agitated
upon which a member of parliament. ambitious of the
honourable character of a really practical and useful
legislator, could more securely base it. Surely such
men are to be found among the ranks of that party
which so recently celebrated at :Manchester its
triumphs in South Lancashire and Yorkshire. But
even supposing them to exist, they will require co-
adjutors out of doors. The LORD-ADVOCATE of Scot•
land was not far wrong when he said, at the late
general election, that without agitation no arguments
for the remission of any duty were likely to succeed.
It is to be presumed that his lordship's countrymen of
the Anti-Excise League are acting upon this hint, and
that the northern representatives will be duly urged
to co-operate earnestly in parliament towards the
emancipation of some of our useful manufactures from
the bondage under which they groan.

DENMARK. COPENHAGEN, JAN. 22. -- The
lijobetislurn's Post contains the following address from seve-
ral hundred citizens, chiefly consisting of students and
mechanics, to the representatives of the burger class and de.
puties of the vides the undersigned burgers and in-
habitants of Copenhagen, hereby call upon the states, depu-
ties, and the repress ntativ es of the burgers of the capital, to
adopt measures conformable with the importance of present
circumstances, and, as the organ of the people, to seize the
right moment for bringing before his Majesty the wishes of
the people—At the taking of the oath by the students at
Copenhagen on the 22nd, there were loud exclamations of
" The constitution for ever." Many of the students and
candidates joined in this cry. The ladrolandet states that
the address to the detilies of the states and burger representa-
tives was signed by about 400 students, who delivered their
petition, it is said, to Professor Dr. Klausen.
Ducar or HOLSTEIN.—Ou the 25th inst., the
civic guard took the oath of fidelity at Altona, to King
Frederick VII., as also, on the 2bth, the dragoons stationed

ARRIVAL OF SPECIE AT LIVERPOOL—The Colum-
ba, New York packet-ship, arrived on Sunday with 6,0001.
The Columbus, from the same port, brought 14,0001. The
SE R. Peel brought 12,0001.