The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-17 00:00:00

ers and Free Traders will receive the PALMER

STON Budget—how they will vote on the enor-
mous items included in the army and navy
estimates--and what course they will take to
enforce on the Ministry the adoption of an
equitable adjustment
.of the Income and Pro-
perty Tax as the only means of securing
the maintainance of direct taxation as
a popular element in the financial
policy of the country. We are still
to have an income tax of 7d. in the pound, and
this is a burden which ought to be spread evenly
over the income receiving classes, so as to render
it as little burthensome and objectionable as
possible. It would be perfectly childish to follow
up the analysis of the estimates after the very
careful sifting and elaborate discussion they have
undergone. The financial policy disclosed in the
Budget is' the only subject which calls for a
moment's consideration. We are passing from
one system of taxation to another, and hope to
derive an ample revenue for the Crown from
those who have it to pay, and by an honest and
straightforward arrangement of the burdens
imposed. Arid it matters but very little whether
the expenditure be really one or two millions
more or less, so long as we can preserve true
economic and just principles. For these we have
searched in vain in the PALMERSTON Budget, and
it behoves the public to look closely to the naked
figures in the national balance-sheet, and the
paltry animus which marks the whole financial
programme of the existing Cabinet !

A CAUTION To Tits Poracs.—The sentence lately
pronounced by Baron Pennefather upon the policeman
Duffield, f ,r his brutal assault on Mr. Blake, will, we trust,
be such a warning to policemen in town and country, as
to prevent the recurrence of saeh outrages under the
pretence of preserving the peace. We quite agree in
the praise given by the venerable judge to the police
as a body ; but it must be confessed that there
was danger of the exceptions becoming very common
if an effectual check had not been given to
the more ignorant and reckless members of the force
The assault i❑ question was justly described by the Judge
as disgraceful to the administration of justice, and as more
like what might occur in a savage country than in such a city
as this. Ignorance of the law can henceforth be no excuse
for such outrages upon the rights and liberties of the s bject.
Every policeman is bound to understand the law relating
to his duties. If he dues not, or cannot, understand
it, he is unfit for the service. We fear the Mstropclitan
Police are too ready to arrest people for trivial causes.
But they have no right to arrest for an assault which
they did not witness, unless it is one of an aggravated
character, nor even then, unless the warrant of a magia_
trate cannot be had. The fact that two of the best Judges
iu the land have sentenced a policeman to two years' im-
prisonment, with hard labour, will, we doubt not, have
a salutary effect on the force in general, and will teach
all the men to be. less rough and violent in the discharge
of their duties, not only where gentlemen may be con-
cerned, but with the poorest, meanest, and most miserable
of those whom intemperance an 1 crims ►nay bring into
their hands, and place at their mercy during the lonely
midnight hours, when brutality may be supposed to pass
with impunity.—Dublin Daily &press.

THE GREAT SMOKING Co NrItOVERSY.-This important
question, on a practice which so vastly affects both the
moral and physical constitution of the human frame, is
again discussed in. a second communication from Mr.
Sally, F. in The Lancet of the present week. Mr.
Sally's views relative to the injurious (4fects of the use of
tobacco are most decided. He considers the habit of
smoking to excess as not only injurious, but poisonous,
to the system. The opinisms of several members of the
medical profession are, however, opposed to those of Mr.
Solly. This question, which is now being investigate
by the profession in The Lancet, will not only affect the
revenue, but must also act on the sanitary condition of
the public.

THE SECRET TREATY.—A Paris correspondent, writing
on Saturday evening, says :—" Lord Palmerston will gain
nothing in France by the contradictions with which he
has met the charge of Mr. Disraeli, respecting the secret
treaty between France and Austria. As I mentioned in
my last letter, it was thought that Mr. Disraeli was not
likely to have been the victim of a mere mare's nest, and
Lord Palmerston's tardy admissions confirm this view.
It is quite likely that, for opposition purposes, Mr.
Disraeli may have made more of this treaty than was
necessary. But the existence of the document is an
important fact. It explains the inactivity of England in
the cause of Italy, and the apathy of France in the same
cause. Thcre has evidently been something very much
like a breach of faith here on the part of Lard Palmer-
sion's Government. The pulliie had a right to expect
that more would be done in Italy than has been done, and,
sooner or later, it will not fail to c efaulter to
account.