The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-10 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 10.

WE have often had occasion to repeat of late that
the best of principles require to be carefully deve-
loped, wisely worked, and not left to their own force
of truth as all-sudicient for their triumph. Maxims
and principles, to endure, must suctwed, must show
themselves of practical benefit us well as of theo-
retic force ; nor should any amount of popularity
and assent render us too confident of a principle un-
less it be productive of the general welfare, and
compel general assent. We said this of toleration, and
expressed fears that, if carried to extremes, it might
be damaged by. untoward and unexpected results.
We may say this of free trade itself, which might
be riddL too hard, and overworked. And we will
say it of direst taxation, likewise,--another most ex-
cellent and progressive principle, but which never-
theless requires wise and wary manipulation.
We are now laying—or we ought to be laying.—
the foundations of it ; and if we do not succeed in
' making them equable,solid, and just. the more weight
the legislature may afterwards place upon them,
the more surely will the edifice crumble. To build
direct taxation upon the schedules, which had been
driven hastily, like piles, into the bed of the national
wealth,—one of them into its solid earth, another
into its moving sand, while a third r.sts, blunted,
midway, and can be driven no farther - upon these
can be built nothing that is not temporary, unwork-
manlike. and unsatisfactory to all.
But what tells even more agaia..t the income tax
than its inequality, is the smallness of the sum it
produces, compared with the pain and distress that
it causes. There is the tobacco duty, which produces
u much, and who feels it ? The income tux is in-
finitely more sound in principle, and more just in its
imposition, yet who would double the income tax to
repeal the duty on tolauxo? If we are to render
direct taxation successful, we must render it produc-
tive, and we must render it productive without ren-
dering it more onerous. 'fhis is to be dorm
by condescending to imitate and adopt the
great quality of indirect taxation, universality, de-
priving it at the same time of that great defect of in-
direct taxation, its falling on the very lowest elausof
consumers exclusively and unjustly.
This is only to be effected by graduation, and by
including all short of the unskilled labarer. We
can see no justice in exempting men of from 75/. to
INV. a year first from the income tax and then from
the house tax. Let the former he made more strictly a
property tax, and except those who have HO property.
That we can understand. Butt, at least, do not give the
double exemption, for by spiking towed' the largest and
most prosperous classes in the country is put out of
the law in respect of taxation. They viii nut consume
so much malt, and spirits, and tohatwo as the la-
bourer. They escape a great proportion of indirect
taxation, and we are legislating to exempt them
from all direct taxation. And yet what hard-
ship to these prosperous artisans, or respect-
able earners, to pay some fourpoice in the
pound on a rent of 1.3/. or Iste ? It is, in fact,
nothing to them, whilst it is everything to the state.
The occupiers of houses paying let to 201. a year
out in county towns are, we maintain, as well able
to pay this per-et:Wage on that rent as any class in
the kingdom. And if it lw electioneering reasons
that cause them to be leniently treated by the Cues •
CELimit. such masons ought to be scouted by the
House of Commons.
Then. why should houses containing shops be less
rated than similar houses inhabited by professional
men ? The reason, no doubt, with the Cersstestuma
was, that shops were exempted under the window
tax, and justly so; for windows are the very essence
of a shop, and to pay for the liberty of displaying its
wares was unjust. But in a general tax on the rent
of houses we do not see why premises to make money
in should be especially exempt, and premises solely
to spend money in over taxed. Vs e repeat it, we
can find no principle in this, save the only principle
of the CitINCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, expediency
and conciliation.
Whether the principle of graduation ought to ho
applied to a tax on income may be questioned. But
of this we are certain, that graduation ought to be
observed in every tax upon expenditure. 1k a man
ever so rich, he may employ his whole income for
industrious, reproductive, and economical purposes;
but in cases of large expenditure, such
as a large house is taken to indicate, the great pro-
portion must go in luxuries--luxuries, at least, to the
occupier. And this was so matailest to our legisla-
tors that, without reasoning the matter, and by the
mere instinct of good sense and fairness, they
did graduate such taxes. The old house tax
was a graduated tax. Dear houses paid more
in proportion than cheap ones. The window
tax, we all know, was a graduated tax, or at least
was intended to be so. The rate rose with the number
of windows. But here, forsooth, we repudiate such
old notions of fairness, or of differenee between rich
and poor. The class up to a certain rent we exone-
rate indeed altogether. But the struggling middle chess
of from 200/. to -1001. is overwhelm wd with every tax.
Those above them pay no more ; those below pay
nothing.
Wo are ready to admit the dangers of graduated
taxation, in extravagant or unfair hands, or laid out
by the rules of geometry or proportion. But such
danger is visionary, and is certainly far less great,
than to create sensible discontent in than middle and in-
dustrious class, possessors of intelligence and already
wielding political power. If all houses of above No/.
a year were to pay one shilling in the pound ;
and houses from 10/. to 20!. fourpenee, the house
tax would form an important part of the direct taxa-
tion of the country, and, we verily believe, would un
that account, be less liable to be raised in any ease of
sudden emergency.
It forms with the rest of the assessed taxes,
the expenditure-duty of the country. The indircyt
taxes are another expenditure-duty, and they,
we know, are graduated by their very na-
ture, so as to fall heaviest on the low,
and lightest on the high. The house tax being a
direct expenditure tax ought to make some compen-
sation. But it ought also to aim at being as
universal and productive as fairness will admit. For
if direct taxes prove unproductive and nugatory in
proportion to their burdens, we may depend upon it
that the iniquities of indirect taxation will be main-
tained.

ARCIIDE WON MANNINO, a near connexion of the
MrttAnitteoney.s, and lung a leader of the tractalian
party, has at last followed the example of so many
of his friends and entered the Itoinish church. With
him, too, has gone over Mr. JAMES HOPE. a learned,
accomplished, and very deservedly-popular Queen S
Counsel. It would, of course, be 'affectation to treat
as trivial or unimportant the loss of such a man as
Mr. IforE. Yet, rightly considered, his perversion,
as that of the acceding tructarians generally, is to
be regarded as an illustration favourable to, rather
than adverse to, protestantism. For it is another
proof, if one were wanting, that if what the tracta-
rians call catholicity be indispensable to the true
Christian chant', the most logical, the most learned,
and the most candid of the party have all ended
their search for it in the church of England by
not finding it there. And, in fact, the only church
where such attributes as are included in that teen
can be discovered is that great eceksiustieal organisa-
tbm which pretends to be the sole witness on earth
of divine truth, and which bases, on such pretensions,
prerogatives over the minds and consciences, and
I conduct of men, such as are incompatible with free-