The Express.
London, England, 1853-04-21 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 21.

MR. GLansToses five hours' speech has been fol-
lowed by the publication of two folio documents,
covering fifty pages of paper. The one gives " the
Resolutions to be proposed by Mr. CHANCELLOR of
the EXCHEQUER"- the other glories in the title of
" Expository Statement to accompany the Resolu-
tions." Like most Parliamentary speeches and nearly
all Parliamentary publications, these supplements to
the financial statement are unwieldy and unattractive,
yet there is within their compass a large number of
points on which the public cannot be too completely
informed. Every page has its leaning more or less
on national well-being, and unless they are all
thoroughly mastered by the House of Commons and
the country, the dis:ussions about to hinge upon
them may bo taken on false issues, and the results be
less beneficial than might otherwise be the case.
The first nine pages are devoted to the Resolutions
on the Customs, and show what articles are to be
benefited under this branch of the new arrangement.
On the general wisdom of this portion of Mr. GLAD-
STON es scheme there can scarcely be two opinions.
Ours has already been given. To lead off the state-
ment, we have an alphabetical list of 116 articles
now charged with duty, and hereafter proposed to
be admitted free. This rescue of more than a hun-
dred things from the claws of the Custom-house
Officer will cost only 52,5941. a year; whilst
in the list we have a number of articles
the free import of which will be highly beneficial in
various ways. The catalogue, amongst the rest, in-
cludes several kinds of tbod—all furniture woods
(with four exceptions)—pictures and frames—and
bricks and tiles. Next comes the new scale of Tea
Duties ; then the list of articles of food on which
duties are to be reduced, including butter, cheese,
eggs, and apples. The catalogue of other products
on which a lesser tax than heretofore is to be levied
follows, and then we have ranged—also alphabeti-
cally—the things to which simplification is to be ap-
plied by the levy of fixed instead of ad valorem duties.
In the long string of articles to be affected by the
proposed customs reform we find many items
under which not one penny of revenue has been
netted, yet which have heretofore been kept in the
list of things chargeable.
After Customs we have its brother impost the
Excise, under which is given in formal shape
the change to be effected in Licenses. These changes
will affect all dealers in coffee, tobacco, and snuff—in
other words, all grocers, chandlers'-shop-keepers, and
cigar shops. The new duties are to be levied upon
the principle of letting off the humble shopkeeper
more lightly than his wealthier rival. Hereafter a
101. housekeeper is to have a license to sell coffee,
tea, cacoa, chocolate, and pepper, for I is. Gd. a year,
but for every pound additional rent he is to pay Is. ad-
ditional license duty. Thus the chandler's shop
in a back street in Whiteehapel or Bow may
have to pay one pound a year for license to sell tea
in pennyworths, whilst the great dealers in King
William-street or the Strand paying their 2001. or
300/. a year rent, will have to pay 101. or 15/. a year
for leave to carry on their larger and more lucrative
trades. The same principle of heavier license fee for
larger trades is applied to dealers in tobacco, manu-
facturers of tobacco, maltsters, brewers, and soap-
makers—for whilst the duty is taken off soap the
makers of that help to cleanliness are to take out
licenses as heretofore. Three lines are enough to
contain the best morsel of the Budget—the pro-
posed removal of the Soap tax; following which
comes the proposed change of the duty on
spirits -the tippler's tax; then the new scale of
duties on licenses to let horses tor hire, rang-
ing from a for one horse or one carriage up to 351.
for 20 horses, and 51. for every additional ten horses.
What may be called the Cab Tax stands next on the
' list. This is henceforth to be one pound a year for the
license, with five shillings a week more during its
continuance.

The vexed question—that rock-a-head of the
Budget, on which Mr. GLADSTONE has played off his
obstinacy, over which discontent is now brooding
and on which the foes of the Cabinet are building
their hopes and basing their calculations—the
Property and Income Tax comes next. We printed
the Resolution on this subject yesterday, and
have published our opinions on the tax again and
again during mouths and years past. Next
follow the Assessed Taxes on servants,
horses, and carriages, of which we also spoke
at length yesterday. Dogs come in here,
and about them one word may be said. At present
the majority of dogs, be they what breed they may,
pay usually only the lowest duty. It is notorious
that thousands of people keep dogs for sporting
purposes which are entered generally as mongrels,
and escape for Bs. each. Who is to swear to
the pedigree of one of these quadrupeds ? What
tax-gatherer troubles himself to decide on the purity
of canine blood and breeding ? Henceforth every
dog, except greyhounds (about which there
never could be a mistake of character) is to
be charged at 12s. This will be, therefore,
a practical increase of taxation. The shepherd, who
wants 'fowler for real work, is to pay an extra im-
post for his dog, and so also with the dowager Lady
TOM NODDY, and the spinster Miss SPINES, for their
respective King Charles's, Fides, poodles, and pugs,
to say nothing of all the black-and-tan wonderful
Billy., who kill their forty rats in thirty minutes.
On all these the,tax will be raised to an even 125.,
and instead of losing the 10,0001. a year that he
talks about under this heading, Mr. GLADSTONE will
make money by the change, if his collectors are not
negligent. After dogs, the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER deals with the Heraldic wares, putting
the respective taxes of 21. 128. 9d, 11. 6s. 4d., and
13s. 2d. respectively, as the rates at which the gentle
vanity of or and argent, gales and azure, in all their
various ingenuities of shield or ensign, quartering.
and elaborations, may be alone legally " called, used
or worn by any person."

The long list winds up with the weightiest of its
contents—Land Tax Redemption and the Stamp
Duties. Under the latter we have the concession to
Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR and the Attorneys ;—a
seeming rather than a real concession to Life As-
surers,—the new and good plan for using penny
postage heads as the only needful and legal receipt
stamps upon payment of money—and another valu-
able proposition that a cheque may be legally drawn
at any place distant more than fifteen miles from
the place where such cheque is made payable to
bearer on demand, provided the cheque bears
a penny label stamp. Heretofore such docu-
ments were illegal, unless stamped as bills ;
hereafter a man may in the country write
and date cheques payable to bearer by his town
banker, if he first affixes a penny Queen's-head
stamp on the paper used—writing across it. Consi-
derable sums will accrue to the Exchequer from
these two new and sound plans. At present—as all
men in large trade know—hundreds of thousands,
we may say millions sterling, are paid by cheque
and otherwise, and no stamped receipts demanded or
given. The coat of the old receipts; the bother
and the trouble, about getting stamps, stood
in the way of a hat the law required to
be done. Hence the comparatively insufficient
revenue from this source. Hereafter, all that will
be needful to make a legally binding receipt, will be
the affixing of a penny adhesive stamp on any piece
of paper, and the writing across it the receipt. Tho
old duties ranging from 3d. on sums of 5/., gradually
up to 10s. on larger sums, were practically evaded
three times out of four. Money was paid by cheque.
Hereafter a receipt for any sum, from 2/. up to a
1,0001. or more, being made a legal document by the'
penny stomp—and penny stamps will assuredly
be used in myriads. A cheque signed across
the affixed head by the receiver, will be a
stamped receipt, and the custom should and
u ill undoubtedly be, henceforth, to require the
penny legal receipt. Mr. GLADSTONE tells us be
shall lose 155,0001 a year by this reform of receipt
stamps, Instead of this, it would be a safe wager

that be gains money, instead of losing it, by the
change.
The reduction of stamp tax on policies of life•
assurance is more nominal than real. On small
policies—that is, policies up to 5001.—the charge is
to be 6d. for every 501. insured. At present the lowest
stamp is half a crown. So that if a man now insures
a hundred pounds on his life he pays—say premium
13/. 35., and du:y 2s. 6d. ; making 3!. os. 6d. By Mr.
GLADSTONE'S plan he pays exactly two shillings less,
or 31. 3e. 6d. This is all the relief he would get, for
on life policies the tax is paid only once. It is in
fact a stamp tax on the policy, and not an annual
tax on the life--differing in this vital respect from
Fire Assurances, which pay a shamefully high tax
year after year as long as they last. When a
man insures his life, the mental question is
not whether he can pay the 3/. ss. 6d. when ho
takes out the policy, but whether he may venture
to mortgage his future, as it were, to pay 3/. 3s.
annually as long as he lives. It is not payment
number one that is the difficulty—not the two and-
sixpenny stamp on the hundred pound policy—but
the vista of annual payments that are to attend each
year of his existence, that makes up the sum of the
act of proper self-sacrifice he proposes to commit.
Any endeavour to extend assurance is admirable,
but this stamp proposition of Mr. GLADSTONE sa-
vours somewhat more of clap-trap than reality. All
taxes on prudence ought to be abolished, but ped-
dling with them, as in this case, is vastly like wast-
ing resources under mistaken—not to say false—pre-
tences. In this case the price of the experiment is
put down at 29,0001.