The Express.
London, England, 1861-09-07 00:00:00

TO OUR RZADZRS.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A !ate edition of the Express is published every
evening during the racing season, containing the
results of the day's ram.

'rue Country settles down with unexampled
facility to a war expenditure in time of peace.
Disbursement on an immense scale is taken as the
sign and seal of safety, ami the suggestion of re-
tnichment is becoming almost treasonable. No
one expects any important alleviation of our na-
tional burdens. " Profligate expenditure "is
sincerely denounced, but nevertheless proposed.
With the experience, we lose the hope, and with
the hope the desire of economy. Demands of
money which a few years ago would have asto-
nished Parliament plead their insignificance beside
the grand total to which our annual outlay has
amounted and are conceded. While the boar out of
the woods is at large in the vineyard, we do not
think of the foxes—the little foxes that spoil
the grapes. But we have no intention of troubling
on readers with a dissertation on retrench.
ment. So far from that, it is our wish to
treat the expenditure, which once would have
been considered lavish, but is now styled liberal,
simply as a normal fact, and inquire what adapta-
tions of other parts of our public administration it
renders necessary.

One consequence then, of acquiescence in expen-
diture at the average rate of the last five years, is
the confirmation of the Income-tax as an integral
part of our financial system. Hitherto whatever
theorists have hoped, hypochondriacs feared, or
cynics suggested, the Income-tax has been treated
by public men as a temporary resonrce. It was
an engine, invaluable when great transitions were
to be effected or extraordinary emergencies con-
fronted, but one which in ordinary times ought
to be dispensed with, lost a crisis should find
us without a reserve. Nor were the objections
to the permanence of the tax derived only from
considerations of political expediency. As late as
1853 we find Mr. Gunwrome saying, "In my
" own individual opinion it is perfectly plain,
" from the manner in which the Income Tax was
" put an end to at the termination of the war,
" that it is not adapted for • permanent portion
" of your ordinary financial system." And further
on, in the same speech :—" Even if you could
" remove its inequalities, there would still remain
" in my mind objections of the gravest character."
We do not quote these passages as involving in-
consistency in the right hon. speaker. For aught
we know Mr. Gksrorroms may retain the convic-
tions which he thus expressed eight years ago; but
the circumstances, and with them the mood of the
nation, have changed.
The point to be noticed is, that while men have
been vainly complaining, the Income Tax has
become a more and more important, and, in rela-
tion to the augmented expenditure of the State,
an indispensable part of the public revenue.
Whm it was introduced, or rather revived, in
1842, we were spending about fifty millions •
year, and the tax produced about five and a half
millions. In one year only—in 1858-9—has it
dipped below its original rata of sevenpence in
the pound, even in time of peace. In 1853 it
was extended to Ireland, and in the same year it
was imposed, at lower rates, on incomes between
1001. and 1501. per annum. In this present year
the tax is levied at the rate of ninepence in the
pound, and the estimated expenditure of the year
is sixty-five millions, a sum which will not cover
the outlay.

But the Income Tax, u • part of our ordinary
financial system, will be regarded by the public
with a very different scrutiny from the Income
Tax as an expedient renewed for this or that
reason from year to year. If the reflecting tax-
payer sees himself compelled to surrender the
hope, we may say the promise, of its total re-
mission, he will ask that at length it shall be m-
ooed:acted, in order that at least some rude ap-
proximation to justice may be effected. This was
the feeling represented by the majority which
puled Mr. HVISBAIRD'IS motion for a Select COO-
mittee last February; and, being founded in reason
and justice, it cannot fail to make itself heard in
tie next session of Parliament. The instinctive
feelings, and the rational, moral judgment of
men agree in accusing of injustice a law
which, under cover of a formal and out-
ward equality, treats incomes earned by per-
sonal exertions, precarious at all times, and car
tainly ending with life, upon the same footing with
incomes the spontaneous produce of realized pro-
perty, perennial and transmissible to heirs. The
morality of the age makes foresight and self-denial
• duty in the head of a family, and justly con-
demns the professional man, who, without the
excuse of misfortune or early death, leaves his
wife and children at his decease to contrast the
home they must leave with the desolateness of the
world in which they have no assured place. But
the law ignores, with one exception—which makes
the injustice of the rule more apparent—the neces-
sity which lies on the father who would do hisduty.
To it the earned income—although a large part of
it, sacred to provident uses, is not available foe
expenditure—and the produced income, subject to
no such deduction, are the same. And why not?
asks some expectant Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer; a thousand • year is • thousand •
year, whether won by efforts or spontaneously
produced, and it is taxed only as long
as it lasts. Moat true; and if the figures'