The Express.
London, England, 1848-10-16 00:00:00

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LONDON.MONDAY.OOTOBER 16.
ALTHOUGH the question of the Moms tax may not
be seriously discussed in parliament until the session
after next, it is still incumbent on the middle dames
sot to let the subject sleep, sines the two great mo-
dern arguments of bury and necessity turn out uni-
versally the most efficient onus for staving off end
debating those popular demands, the fundamental
Peace of whin. cannot be disputed. Lord J. Rus-
sets's (=MO for leaving temporary income subjected
to the sum taxation as permanent income was,
his inability to devise any fair scheme of
distribution within the short limit of a twelvemonth.
We moot take este to leave no minister such an ex-
cuse in I&SO. The memory of present and possible
prime ministers (few they unfortunately are) must
be jagged, Y order that they may set their own
brains, or the brained their many well-informed and
web-endowed Mends, to work, and not come before
the public, like the mthetitut. players, *eking leave to
read their part, hided ad acting it.
Fortunately, the thinking portion of the commu-
nity ere :wither idle oar inattentive. In addition to
the societies established at Liverpool and else-
where for pointing out ways of public eco-
nomy, and throwing light upon financial reform,
Mr. STUART MILL has treated the question of
tannins at length in his great work whilst a writer
of the whig party, in the last number of the Edinburgh
Burnie, has ease forward with a special proposal for
a scale of income tax, graduated indeed, but bounded
above-and below by a mariminti and a nainensen.
According to this scheme all incomes above 2,000/. a
Jeer would pay five per cent., whilst for every 2.50/.
km than this the tax should be diminished one-half
Per cent. down to 230/, those between 2501. and 1004.
receiving a further relief of one and a half per cent.,
exempting altogether incomes under 1001. a year.
No one combats more strongly a graduated income
tax, that is, " the levying a larger per engage upon
a larger sum," than :Sir. MILL. But uhe proposes to
limit the amount of property transmissible totem per-
son by bequest, and se he would admit the state to
sham in the rise of valor, acquired by land for ex-
ample, throogh no efforts of its owner, but merely
through the industry and wealth of the rest of the
community, the burden of a large pvportion of en
income tax upon overgrown properties need leas be
mauled on in his system. And yet we cannot alto-
gether coincide with Mr. Wm.'s opinion. With-
out standing up for graduated taxation, geometrical
et arithmetical, we agree with the Edinburgh
'Reviewer .hat the very rich owe more and can afford
more in proportion to the state than the pomessor of
humble income. The rich demand amore e: is
and complicated protection for their property than the
poor do, and the security which they derive for their
wealth, vested u it may be a thousand ways, is many
times more valuable and should be paid for dearer
then the limited protection which the pocrenan requires.
Look at the state of France and Germany, where a
whin amount of protection has been withdrawn
from priority. The rich have kat infinitely more
in proportion than the poor, and would pay infinitely
more in proportion to remover their ret security. More.
ovec.taxing the very wealthy man is almostnecesiarily
a tax upon income, whereas the taxes which Mr. Mu.L
and Mr. Burnam would substitute, viz. the sub-
traction of a large portion of the sums descending by
inheritance, must in most cases be a confiscation, of
capital.
There is another question connected with the in-
come tax that Mr. MILL moots. Indeed, he not only
questions, but utterly denies, the justice of levying
mere upon realised property than al" property
floating in business and employed in commercial
transactions. A great deal of realised property, he
says, exists in very small portions. Mists one of the
strongest lemons for establishing that graduation of in-
come tax that Mr. MILL repudiates. But there
is another and a very pregnant consideration
'which is, that the realised property of the country must
be considered as more especially liable to the burden
end interest of the national den, than the fruits of
the industry of future generations. We are well
aware that it would be impossible and unfair to tax
the ranked property of the country, amounting to
°net one hundred llions annually, with the interest
of die national debt, which amounts to one-third of
that gun. Bat we will my that the capital of the
Bret gnats: of the mount century ought to pay a
LlZtrials:ftlehat:4lnilervirtichwerheasteen=
diem ce is in course of being seamed now.
We my this, however, more in the way of diem-
den then fres a desire totem or to propose any ikon
illtemato upon it. The riot, we think, and especially
See risk of realised and permanent property, might to
aiigentsr....gree teinsome-tax, moseething after
that the nraxi.ri;;; 2ght beEchmentudresighir up, endszernsiitsn
of 6,0001. a year be made to pay a greater per centage
limn these of 11001. This should be to
the meek peaky proportion, which poor. and
Memo gq ever and drive the nob IR all terse on
aseeerplisa When we moan that tea, ease, seer,
temmited Eggers, sebum% end diluter
=e:if popular semempties Swett one half of
OW revenue—that is, the pear and humble con-
sumer, who is taxed 40, 00, 100, 1,000 per cent.
as those items, of whisk the rich consume and
an which they pay a emy trifling proportion—
when the enengement Of the window tax, the
stamp duties, end ea mew ethers are considered, all
ezesepting large
.fortness we
mg
the small—
ea these eamMerausee we mg deemed e graduated
Yams and a higher repeals& of direst taxation
Ira the deb, es some esearmatien far the undue
weight of Wired -lessities ea the poor. Some,
indeed, wed reeeidi thinly ding away with Lodi.
rat t adios eitsogemm. list what we have just said
of the peeped:km of malted property even to the
mire interest of the debt stews- this to be impossible.
Who would timid'. altogether the tobacco duties, in
friar to increase the iesems tax to 6 per cent., merely
te replaoe them ? We are deemed for a too g time to raise
the ter part of the seised income by indirect
t. which mesas tied we are doomed to supply
air enemas mirmileere by taxing the comforts and
nessmeries of the peer. Nor is it the very poor who
war meet from this, but the men of moderate earn-
!ad profits, the persons who earn or have from
frr%s, ir to two or three hundreds.
he gmeration of the middle, en-
ligMemd, pretend sesamereial dames—the
very sue and beet et war soeiety, the great
robin of opinion, and the ebment of the electoral
body. This is the class which our fiscal partiality
crushes and beeps down, tiebrutes and discontents,
making them pay date kr peer and for rich, for the
expensive follies of pest generations and the wilful
extravagance of this.

THE monthly bulletin of the Board of Trade
conveniently calls attention to ore of the most
remarkaqe festaree in the present state of our
sommtrce. Everybody complmos —that is everybody
who happens to be a seller—that everything is cheap.
Cotton is cheap—so cheap that it hu well nigh ex-
terminated the race of Liverpool speculators : sugar
is cheap—eo cheep that it has become a perfect mye-
ter, hnw the considerable shipments from Bengal are
to be disposed of : wool is cheap, and so are all the
materials which u dyes or chemicals enter so largely
into the industry of the northern counties: flax ts
cheap, and hemp is plentiful : indigo Is very cheap,
and the plausible speculations, prompted by the explo-
sion of the Union Bank and the abandonment of the
factoriea, so long fertilised out of the capital