The Express.
London, England, 1861-04-16 00:00:00

NOB_ WATCII AT LONDON' WOOL

T DlllOniiii&siCnTo:77. IX 41a
To-aissaav —Kaska& Ilk WParstira.

LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 16.

Ws do not expect that those who last year
warned us that Mr. GLADIIITOPI'II policy was luring
us along the road to ruin will be moved by a
sense of common generosity or justice to confess at
Ilingth that they were wrong ; but if we are to
judge by the first important stage of the journey,
wee they must in candour own that rain is not a
bed thing after all. Here we are at the clone
of Gee d the most unpropitious financial years
whose insidenb tho present generation can recall ;
at t►e oommenoement of which our rulers advised

us " to throw away," as was said, scores of minor
km, sod to cut down others of more importance ;
yet at the end of the twelvemonth's experiment,
whisk wee to have landed us in a slough el deficit
avid eeefotion, we have not only no deficiency to
provide for, but the sole difficulty el the
awn:auxin of the Excel:ouzo is bow to
dieresis of a surplus of well nigh Two Millions
eterbeg. Well might the Wiliest financier,
m he aemonnoed the fact to an espy and cations
Home of Commons, rveur with pardonable
triumph to the prolific crop of prophecies of ill
whisk des* last summer and autumn grew up in
almost diffing luxuriance around him ; well
might he laugh aloud at the withering of the
false prophets' gourds. It is indeed provoking,
almost beyond enduranoe, that after months of
thiostenieg augury no sinister portent is dis-
cernible; and after all the incantations of the
privileged seem

Tie ery d ealeviliy will sot rise,
L glee el dila prayen ad preplbeeles.

Whet fans are they now to put upon the matter f
at hew will they pretend to meow& the solvency
of the revenue, which ought by this time to have
been bankrupt, with the maintenance of their
claim to political second-sight?
To estimate correctly the worth and meaning
of Mr. Otateross's vindication of his policy in
1860 it is necessary to peruse carefully and can-
didly the elaborate analysis of its results last night
presented to the House. Parliament having in every
instance save oue trusted to his judgment for its
guidance in the remission, retention, and imposition
of taxes, be naturally felt bound to rest his justifica-
tion for the past, and his claim upon their con-
fidence for the future, upon the inexorable testi-
mony of facts. Far from evincing any disposition
to suspend the course of his searching experiments
in financial alchemy, he boldly refers to the MOMS
of what he has already done as a reason for ask-
ing further power to accomplish what he desires
still to do. There is no shirking the logical conse-
quences of the great principles of taxation
laid down by him last session. Mr. GrAnerross
is content to abide by them all. He is
more than ever persuaded of the wisdom and duty
of lightening the burdens of the community asl
fast and as far as it is possible to do so, not only
became it is strict and simple justice to the in-
dustrious millions whose toil supplies the means of
taxation, but because it is the truest policy for the
sake of the revenue itself. The Cnaisenizoa of
the EICNINCEE proposes, accordingly, to devote
his present surplus of 1,923,0001. to two objects,
namely, the reduction of the income tax by a
penny in the pound, to take effect from Mid-
summer next, and the abolition of the excise duty
on paper from and after Michaelmas. To the fin*
there will be, we apprehend, no objection raised
within the walls of Parliament; to the latter these
will probably be a good deal. For our part we
are glad ci any curtailment of the means of ex-
cessive and wasteful expenditure ; but looking at
the dearness of provisions, and the improbability
of their becoming cheaper during the present
year, and having regard to the fact that the con-
sumption of both these primary neesseatise of
life amongst us has rather diminished then
otherwise during the twelve months gone by,
we will say at once, that we should have been
better pleased had a reduction of the war duty on
tea or sugar formed an element in the new budget
of benefits proposed. If both together theyseenied
too much to deal with,why not at all events reduce
the tax on tea f The amount that would be ad-
ditionally consumed, involving, as it necessarily
would do, an increased consumption of sugar,
would almost infallibly protest the Kxchequer
from lose, whilst to the classes who can but indi-
rectly be benefited by other changes the boon
would be palpable and substantial. At a time
when the people have paid no less a sum than
830,0001. in the form of a tax on bread it cer-
teinly does appear to us that they may reasonably
look for some mitigation of the charge upon an
article only lees indispensable in their domestic
economy—a charge, moreover, which they were
induced to submit to upon the plea of war's emer-
gency, but which under various pretences has been
continued now into the sixth year of peace. It is
too late now to dimes, the merits of the excise en
paper. The tax is irrevocably doomed, and its repeal
is only a question of time. But in a choice of the
evils to be eniltirel under circumstances unfavour-
able to industry, and pending that large diminution
of expenditure which Mr. (coerces hails in
prospect, we should have preferred, se a reamers
of immediate policy, the removal of burdens
which press more severely ea the great body of
consumers than the paper duties eon be said
to do.