The Express.
London, England, 1848-12-26 00:00:00

The first of these reasons is a mere play upon words
—a taking shelter behind the technical jargon of
reel
the
courts of law. The limes does not deny that
estate, entailed and imentailed,was withdrawn Rom the
operation of the legacy and probate duties against the
will of Pll7, who introduced those deities, the corm-
spotding bill on real pro_perty having been flung oat by
thecountry gentlemen. It does not deny that reale/state,
ithefift;:dutit ijistatots;:htheo7racyfthedtaxeywgiTiodratilla
vreisbalkthes"trtPrffilayemiltaks:ok6foperbjeet2l:lolo...thatirs
of Commons, and by its instrumentality made o
ur
laws. This is the important fad, and thls
!tones cannot call in question. The Tinsel ass
sects that all leasehold property is liable to
or legacy duty (a mistake so far as Woes
Miterrt for
of lithversaremeoonestropledis,), ananddthaat 'consi' the
dgrearrabister
portion of the house property end other building's
throughout the whole kingdom is held for terms of
mayearLa
buildVinerittertatie
the lawyer,
lmilawlyoerwn. edr holds
shh fectory
opis
keeper,
and all of the industrial classes who have houses of
their own, generally hold them upon a building Imre ;
and they are subjected to the probate and legacy
duties, while the ground landlord is exempted from it.
This is precisely what Mr. (banes oomplains of:
the Times has proved his case.
The assertion that the landlords ought to continue
exempted from legacy and probate duties because
they are subjected to peculiar bardeus is equally 7.41.
UMW&
*The conveyance of landedaroperty is burthened by
heavier charges than the transfer of penionali:y."
True; bat the charges are paid, not to the state, but
to the lawyers, and they are paid in consequence of
laws made by the owners of that kind of property.
It is no answer to a complaint on the part of the
industrial classes that the landlords have exempted
themselves from a heavy contribution towards the
support of government, that they are foolish enough to
uphold a system by which they are taxed for the pri-
vate emolument of legal practitioners. The landlords
(our law-makers) might relieve themselves of this tax
for the benefit of trade, and government be not a
penny the poorer. That they choose to indulge in
the luxury of an expensive system of conveyancing
is no reason for exempting then from contributing their
fair share towards the expenses of the state. They
might as reasonably claim suck an exemplon on the
ground that their turtle, pine-apples, and champagne
are more expensive than the labourer's bread and
beer. Toey are the law-maker., and the industrial
class gains nothing by the foolish laws they have
made to injure themselves. The privilege of making
the laws as an axe with which they bare cut and
hewed at LI around them. If from their awkward
ness they have hit their own shins en one occasion, is
the silverly over-taxed public to be mulcted to pay
for a plaister?
Again, saith the Times, "real property pays more
than sax millions a year to the relief of the
poor; personal property This is simply un-
true. Poor rates are charged, not on the owners
but on the occupiers, of real property. The
warehouseman, the shop-keeper, the manufac-
turer, the house tenant, the mortgegee, the rail-
way shareholder, all pay poor rates. - The landlord is
assessed directly : his tenants are assessed indirectly :
but in point of fact the industrial class are subjected
to the poor rates as well as the land-owning law-
making class. There is not a merchant or manatee-
tuner in Yorkshire or Lancashire, there is not a
householder in London, who cannot by the production
of the collector's receipt for poor rates disprove the
assertion of the Times, that the class wl ich bee
exempted itself from taxes to the amount of
1,600,0001. per annum pays the whole of the poor
rates.
The Times &tee the case of landlords taxed as high
as me fifth of their income for the relief of the poor.
All we can my of such cases is, that they must be
Irish landlords or much at in to them. Landlords
hiveror-rats very mach under their control ; and,
of paying owe fifth of their income to them, as
the Times exemplifies, they very often may nothing at
• a-d fling the residue of their workmen and the
support of their paupers upon districts where the non-
landlord class abounds.
The next plea set up by the Times is the funniest of
all. The landowner pays tithes! He has received,
or he has purchased has estate, and with the full
knowledge and condition that a certain portion of its
belongs not to him, but to the church. The
'!pears Calls this a tax upon ihe landholder. It might
as well designate rent as a tax upon the farmer. The
next thing the Times will propose is ire doubt the
repeal of this tax, the abolition of this tithe. It
might as well turn communist, and abrogate rent!
The land tax is mother exclusive bardeu, accord-
ing to the 7lrnes. What, however, was the land
tax origivally, but a substitute for a f. udal service,
or for a rent actually charged by law on landed pro-
perty, and commuted to this tax, which has dwindled
to a diminutive fraction of the profits of land, aug-
mented as these have been to enormous dimensions,
not by the culture or industry of the landlord, but by
the rise and increase of mercantile industry around
him ?
The Times, in making up the landlords' account,
does not spare an item. The county rates are
another exclusive burden. Pray, what are the
rates for the paving and lighting of towns?
Cannot the country gentlemen trot or el• ive over the
town pavement without &charge, whilst the towns-
man, if he sends his cart, arid turns his horse Ler
the road and bridge paid out of the county rate, is
compelled instantly to pay his quota in the shape of •
turnpike toll? As to lunatic asylums, police, asd all
the so. dries of the Mu s, does not the town tenant
pay them out of his personal property ?
But we see the reason why the Times has selected
this one, and th-most unassailable portion of Mr. COB-
DEN'S budget for attack. It is, that by exciting and
exacerbating controversy on this pointir may blow and
widen the old quarrel between the reformers and the
landed interest ; the inklings of which for the cause
of retrenchment are, above all things, mostdreaded by
the oligarchy. In this, however, the Times e all be
disappointed. We claim nothing but a fair appor-
tionment of taxation, local as well as general. We
wish to destroy that old juggle of taxing by compen-
sation, and of loading different classes with different
burdens, and exciting mutual jeslouslN, in order that,
owing to their divisions, the oligarchy may have more
facility fur overburdening and despoiling both.

TIN little interest excited by the trial of Mr. OAVAN
DOVIPT, and the indifference with which its somewhat
peculiar incidents seem to be regarded, even by the 1
political idlers of Dublin, attest the accuracy of the 1
conviction we have so frequently expreeed, that 1
Young Irelandism was, after all, but au empty and
evanescent bubble, which, from its own tenuity, must
have inevitably buret, had it not been destined to ex-
tinction by its first contact with rude reality. Its
ablest chief has stood at tee bar of justice, day
after day Owing the past week, charged eitb
meditating the most serious offences against
society of which the law takes coguisanoe ; net
few persons, even in the vicinage of the Commission
Court, would surmise that a trial of any unusual de-
scription was going on within its walls; while the
interior of the solemn edifice indicates no greater
amount of popular curiosity than is ordinarily mani-
fested when cases of sordid or vulgar criminality are
pending. We note the circamstis ce in no spirit o
harshness towards the unfortunate gentle man thus
arraigned. We neither desire tor pr. sums to antici-
pate the issue, to him of so much moment. But we
wish to mark the fact that the 1131184 of *he community
evidently feel that it is of none to them.
Of the order issued by Judges Planets and
Iticiteaes, forbidding the piecemeal publication of
the proceedings, or of any comment thereon by the
Dublin new.papers, more than enough has been said
by several of our irascible contemporaries. We own
we think the order, so far as relat. s to publication
merely, a somewhat nee 'less straining of a very just
and salutary power; but the notorious misuse of the
liberty of comment in previous oases, both by officad
and popular organs, rends red Dome check &tem-
luttly indispensable. The most unblushing efforts
had been made, during the progress of former political
trials, to damage the character of witnesses, to dis
credit their testimony, to disparage the authority of
the bench, and to sway, by improper sad illegitimate
motives, the minds of jurors. Every disp,detionate
lover of justice and of its impartial administration
viewed ths abuse of public discussion with indigna-
tion and regret; and the only question worthy of
serious considerason is, how it is possible to discrimi-
nate clearly and broadly between repotting and de-