Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-02-18 00:00:00

financial respect. But if the treaty be really
objectionable, and the House of Commons should
resolve to give expression to that opinion, what-'
ever the consequences may be, that House must
do its duty to the country.

We can only, at present, direct attention to the
full report given in another part of our paper of
the important meeting of the Liverpool Chamber
of Commerce yesterday, on the subject of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer's financial measures.
The meeting, it will be seen, was far from
unanimous, as to the policy of those measures,
although a majority was in favour of the budget
as a whole. But many of its details were
variously objected to ; and resolutions embodying
some of these objections were adopted. The
Shipping Interest did not appear to be, repre-
sented at the meeting at all, and consequently
there was no demonstration on that part of the
question. It is deeply to be regretted that Mr,
Bushell's resolutions respecting the spirit duties
were not carried, as they would, we cannot but
think, have been highly beneficial, as well in a
moral and social, as in a fiscal and financial point'
of view.

IT was a remark of EDMUND BURKE, that " tilC-

ing is an ear business, since any projector can
plan new impositions ; and any bungler can add to

the whole." And have there not been too many

illustrations of this, since the days of BTIRKE P

The ' same great statesman puts a question upon
this, which has a very striking significance at the

present moment. "Is it altogether wise," he
asks, "to have no other ' bounds to your im-
positions than the patience of those who are
to bear them ?" Now, a tenpenny Income-
tax for evidently an indefinite period,—for •
such will undoubtedly prove to be the case, if the
financial scheme of the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER is adopted, especially when it is
required to enable this country to make sacrifices
of its commercial interests in favour of France,—
such a tax does most clearly call in ques-
tion the wisdom of having "no other bounds to
" your impositions than the patience of those who
" are to bear them." This patience
.has been
described as an ignorant patience; and undoubt-
edly it will prove to be such, if it induces the peo-
ple of this country to bear those impositions which •
are now proposed, as quietly and as submissi:ely
as it is evidently calculated upon, in Ministerial
quarters. Yet such patience there must be, if the
Budget, as a whole, is to be adopted; for its pro-
visions can never be carried into effect without
the increased and continuous Income-tax, which
is certainly an imposition requiring an amount of
patience to bear, far beyond anything which
even a Liberal Ministry has a right to presume
upon from the people of this country.
Liverpool is more deeply interested than many
other towns in the kingdom, in this Income-tat
question. It will press with intolerable severity
upon large classes of our townspeople ; and there
are probably more of such classes here who will
be brought under its operation, in proportion to
the population of the place, than will be found to
be the case throughout the kingdom generally.
But Liverpool ought to have another very strong
objection to the scheme. It must feel its injus-
tice as respects the Shipping Interest,—the
great staple interest of the town. And no one,
could read the petition of the London, Shipowners
against the treaty upon which the Budget is
based, that we gave in our impression of yester-
day, without being convinced that the Shipping
Interest will be most shamefully used under the
operation of that treaty. Already, as we all but
too well know, the British Shipowners have been
compelled to submit to a system of jealous ex-
clusion, and unfair and ungenerous inequality
at the hands of foreign nations generally, and of the
French nation in particular. On this account, as
the petition we refer to, very forcibly showed,
the treaty with France is peculiarly objectionable.
" No nation has more conspicuously repelled the
friendly approaches of this country than France,
whose maritime code is based on the encourage-
ment of a national marine by the discouragement
of the employment of foreign ships in her carry-
ing trade; and every page of whose commercial
tariff bears traces of this policy, in the form
of discriminating duties in favour of importa-
tions in French shipping." And notwithstanding
the unbounded liberality of British Legisla-
tion towards her—although relief is stipulated,
it is true, in certain of the most important
interests of British producers, merchants,
and manufacturers—yet "no provision is made
for the removal of the far more obnoxious and
injurious fiscal arrangements which directly
harass and impede the British shipowner, almost
to the extent of prohibition, in his maritime in-
tercourse with France; and which indirectly in-
terfere seriously with his trade, even with the
possessions of his own country ; with the excep-
tion alone of that contained in the 10th Article,
which refers only to local dues and charges Of
very secondary importance, while Article 3 ex'
pressly stipulates for the retention of the present
differential duties in favour of French shipping."
Wellmay our shipowowners be at a loss to conceive
the motive that could have induced the British
Government thus entirely to neglect so great an
interest,—an interest, too, admitted to be already
struggling against severe and long continued
depression,—and acknOwledged, moreover, by the
GOvernment, to be "of peculiar importance in a
national point of view." Well may they protest
.
against it, as "unjust, irritating, and impolitic,
and resolve to appeal from the Ministry that thus
would injure and annoy them, to the discrimina-
tion and justice of the representatives of the people-
in Parliament. If other interests,
injuriously
affected by the treaty and the budget, will but
follow the example of the shipowners, sure vie,