Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-02-17 00:00:00

tain the neutrality of Switzerland. France had
informed Sardinia that, if her forces were in-
creased to a considerable extent, France would
not consider her position secure without the pos-
session of Savoy. The rumoured mission of Lord
Elgin to China, it was stated by Lord John
Russell, had not been definitely fixed upon.
On the important subject of the differential
duties levied by France and alluded to in the
treaty, it was explained by Mr. Gibson, that these
duties were levied only upon ships engaged in
the indirect trade, and would not affect British
ships entering French ports with British produce.
Those duties, he said, would act as a protection
to British shipping, as they -would confine the
trade between this kingdom and France, to the
vessels of the two countries. Sir Charles Napier's
motion, that the recommendations of the Com-
missioners on manning the navy, ought to be car-
ried out, was agreed to, after some discussion,in the
course of which Mr. Lindsay expressed his dis-
approval of those recommendations. Mr. W.
Williams' motion for certain returns on the sub-
ject of flogging in the army, after some discussion,
was lost on a division, by a majority against it of
124 to 46. Mr. Hennessy's motion for a select
committee to enquire whether greater facility
may not be afforded for admission into the civil
service of properly qualified persons, after some
opposition, was eventually carried without a
division.

It is confidently reported, it will be seen, that
the Earl of Elgin is to undertake a second mis-
sion to China, with the view of securing, if pos-
sible, the ratification of the Treaty of Tien-tsin,
and of obtaining an entire cessation of hostilities.
This is certainly a most satisfactory announce-
ment. Let us hope that an object so desirable to-
all concerned will not fail to be accomplished.
It will be seen by one of our latest telegrams,
that intense uneasiness and apprehension are
represented to prevail in France. There are
apparently two causes for this excitement—first,
the Commercial Treaty with England, which is
exciting great dissatisfaction in many influential
quarters; and, next, the feeling that prevails on
the Roman question. A large portion of the
people, it seems, sympathising warmly with the
Pope under what they consider the unfair treat-
ment he is receiving at the hands of the Emperor.
The papers which have just been presented to
Parliament on the Italian question give " a clear
insight, it is stated, into the events which fol-
lowed the pacification of Villafranca, including
'the rejection of the French programme by the
Italians, and the vain attempt of the French Em-
peror to bring the Powers of Europe to his Congress-
tablein Paris." We are quoting from the leading
journal, whose opinion is, that notwithstanding
such " vain attempt," following upon the appa-
rently indefinite and. unsatisfactory nature of the
pacification, " Villafranca and Zurich have. been
of the utmost service to the Italian cause ;" and
if, adds our contemporary, " they have put the
people -on their mettle, they have shown Europe
what -a nation may do if it chooses ; and the
result has been to create a respect for the Italian
character which it never before received."

There ought to be nothing to disappoint, we
are told, in the amount of the Army Estimates
for this year—fifteen millions sterling. One
hundred and fifty folio pages of figures, must, it
is thought, have formed a prophecy which the
estimates have only fulfilled. The Times, in dis-
cussing them, observes, "'We have seen much
less satisfactory estimates than these ; but we
believe it to .be very possible, with the requisite
authority from the high military powers who
govern all things in relation to the Army, to
prepare others more satisfactory still."
It would not appear that, after all, any con-
certed opposition to the Budget was the result of
the meeting at Lord Salisbury's on Tuesday. At
any rate, there is no authentic information of any
such issue ; but it may well be imagined how the
Conservatives, as a body, will act. There is no
doubt the country feels that important British
interests are proposed to be sacrificed to the
exigencies of Lord Palmerston's position, and iu
furtherance of his Napoleonic policy. " How
far the Opposition," says the Morning Herald of
yesterday, " will make themselves the expo-
nents of public feeling we know not. But if
it be the duty of an Opposition to stand
between the country and the danger with
which ministerial incapacity threatens it, then
the whole strength and energy of the Con-
servative party must be devoted to the defeat of
the ruinous policy of the Government—a policy
of which the chief characteristics are a blind
subservience to the Emperor Napoleon and a
reckless sacrifice of British interests."

Mr. Lindsay is to move a resolution, in com-
mittee, on the Customs Acts, to provide for the
abolition of all differential duties on the trade
carried on in British or French vessels between
the ports of England and France, and their
respective colonies. This, if carried, will be ano-
ther formidable inroad, not only upon the details,
but on the principles of the Budget.

. -
It will be observed, from a paragraph in another
column, that a deputation from the licensed vic-
tuallers of Liverpool has proceeded to London to
remonstrate with the Chancellor of the Exchequer
ou these portions of his Budget which are likely
to affect, so injuriously, their trade interest.
By a letter from the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer to Mr. Glyn, which will be found elsewhere,
he intimates a readiness to meet many of the ob-
jections made to the details of the Budget. The
right honourable gentleman, upon this principle,
will, not improbably, have to fritter away some of
the principal provisions of his financial scheme.

At the Dock Board yesterday it was agreed to
erect a chain-testing 'machine on the south side of
the Great Float, Birkenhead, at a cost of £lO,OOO.

IT is amusing to observe with what pertinacity
some of our Liberal contemporaries persist in
maintaining, that the Budget is universally po-
pular. They admit, it is true, that some of its
details are objectionable, but that as a whole it is
certainly. excellent,—some of them, indeed, go
so- far as to declare it perfection itself. The Star,
for instance, which is the organ of the extreme
Liberal party, does not hesitate to demand, as
we showed in these columns yesterday, " the Bud-
get, the whole Budget, and nothing .but the Bud-
get." Others, again, are candid enough to con-
fess, that commercial reform is such a very
ticklish thing, " it is impossible to take a single
step without treading upon somebody's corns."
But the worst of it is, in thi§instance, that in the
steps which the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
is now proposing to take, he is not treading merely
upon "sonte/?ody's corns," but .on almost every-
body's. They are not, of course, the same corns,—
nor are the corns on the same foot, any more
than in the same place; but nearly every step the
right honourable gentleman would take, in his
financial course, plainly appears to tread on some
one's corn or another's ; and there is, in conse-
quence, a very general clamour against some
detail of his scheme from all parts of the country.
Nor is this opposition to so many details, of the
Budget one that arises merely from self-interested
parties. Those who raise their cries against it
are certainly interested—we do not deny this ;
but they are interested as members of great in-
terests, not simply as individuals who are to be per-
sonally-injured by it in their respective concerns.
Take, for instance, the shipowners. Can it, for
one moment, be denied that they form one of the
greatest of our national interests ? And it is
from such interests, be it remembered, that the
opposition really proceeds ; although it may be
given expression to by prominent individual
members of those interests. Take, again, that
most important commercial body which was re
presented at the public meeting in Liverpool the
day before yesterday. There we saw represented,
either by partners or agents, some of the most
extensive and influential wholesale houses of this
great commercial emporium, to the number of
upwards of one hundred, from whom there pro-
ceeded various objections to the details of the
Anglo-French treaty, and to the Budget that has
been based upon it, which, whatever may be
their value singly, amount collectively to a
degree and extent of opposition which no friend
to the mercantile interests of the country would
wish to see disregarded. It is no insigni-
ficant part of the Budget, that is connected
with our inland bonding system.; and that
part, it would be seen by our report of the
meeting referred to, was almost universally
condemned in some one or other of its operations.
And when we find a communication made to such
a meeting, from an influential and reliable quarter,
that " the Budget has greatly disappointed every
one ; " and that some of its most prominent
clauses are openly denounced as " crude, ill-di-
gested, confiscating clauses "—and, as such, are
very naturally and universally condemned by the
trades to which they refer,—trades so important
as the tea trade, the sugar trade, the coffee trade,
and the like,—surely we have, in such proceed-
ings as these, a manifestation of opposition to
this precious Budget, which ought not only to
convince the country of its injurious tendency,
but to call forth a demand, if not for its with-
drawal, yet for so extensive a modification of its
clauses as would probably have the effect of
making it the very opposite of what it is. The
Liverpool meeting we refer to, composed, as we
repeat it was, of the representatives of the great
body of the wholesale dealers in the town
in various departments of trade, would
never have passed a resolution declaring that so
many of its clauses would not only be " antago-
nistic to the principles of free trade," but would
"fetter and harass them," while it would be pro-
ductive of no adequate advantage to the revenue,
—practical men of business, we say, like these,
who so well understand the several departments
of trade to which those clauses are to apply,
would never, in public meeting, pass such a.
resolution as this, but upon the strongesttitrn-Vic-
don of its pressing necessity.

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severally objecting to various details of the Bud-
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other manufacturers in different districts of the
parts
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tpthaex:derive in their several businesses, they may be
more than requited for their Income-tax. These,
however, are individual instances, and furnish no
valid excuse whatever for increasing and per-
petuating so obnoxious an impost. A partial
good can never justify an universal evil, however
sound the reverse of this proposition may some-
times appear. The great bulk of the middle
classes, and no small portion of the working
classes also, will suffer from the pressure of this
increased Income-tax, without any equivalent
return whatever ; and, as we have taken occasion
to show before, it is a pressure from which there