The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-01 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1855.

The Revenue Returns for the new style financial
year, half-year, and quarter are once more before
us, and will be found in another part of this day's
impression. It is the second year during which
an opportunity has been afforded of comparing the
receipts from the commencement of the regulation
financial year in April and the first that the Re-
turns have been made up to the 30th September
in place of the I.och of October. We have already
explained the nature of both these changes, which
may be regarded as decided ameliorations on the
ancient practice ; and also the fact that the re-
turns for Ireland, corrected to the latest period—
a matter easily effected through the agency of the
electric telegraph—are now, and will of course
henceforth be, included in this most important
balance-sheet.

It is therefore unnecessary to allude at any
length to this valuable reform. The outlay and in-
come are also calculated to the same day—viz., the
30th September, in place of the former being taken
only to that day, while the latter was ten days
later, viz., to the 10th October. From these
highly beneficial changes which were introduced
by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, the public
may rely with: greater confidence en the general
results, and will be the better enabled to test the
accuracy of the estimates of the Financial Minister.
A fertile source of mystification has been removed,
for which we may thank Mr. GLADSTONE, al-
most the only point by the way in which his pro-
jects have been acceptable, or useful to the
country. It would be well if his successor could
lay claim to credit in any respect. We fear, how-
ever, that his financial history will all be written
on the, wrong peg—es of the National Ledger.
On looking to this interesting array of figures,
we find t4lltheitotal receipts for the year havebeen
61,134,L5r8/. 'against 55,791,7371. to the corres-
ponding period of last year, the net increase being no
lees than 8, 344,7811., while that on the half-year has
been 2,929,091,, and on the quarter 1,924,124/.
This may at first-, sight appear to superficial obser-
vers a„verY Satisfactory result. But when the
enormous additions to the fiscal burdens of the
country made by Mr. GLADSTONE and Sir G. C.
LEW* and the sums which these additions were
estimated to produce, are taken into consideration,
it will be found that there is no great cause for
self-gratulation. These are unmistakeable indica-
tions of the wonderful elasticity of our national
resources ;.but, on the other hand, we find equally
unequivocal, evidences of the grave mistakes
into which both of these quasi financiers suffered
themselves to be betrayed.
Turning to the particular items, we find in the
Customs an increase of 1,290,7871. on the year,
of 608,4441. on the half-year, and of 364,4231.
en the quarter. This is altogether attributable

to the alteration of the duties on tea, sugar, and
coffee. It will be in the recollection of our
readers that Mr. GLADSTONE last year arrested the
gradual and most acceptable reductions which
were taking place in tea and sugar, by which he
obtained a large addition to the Customs revenue.
His successor, not satisfied with that alteration
respecting articles of almost primary necessity,
added to Ike duties 31. per cwt. on sugar, which
he estimated would produce 1, 200, 0001. ; 3d. per
lb. to tea, calculated to bring 750,0001.; and ld.
per lb. to coffee, supposed to be equivalent to
150,0001. From these three returns alone he
imagined that he would obtain no less than
2,100,000/. increase to the revenue. We find,

however, that the total improvement on the
quarter has been but 364,4231., far less than the
proportion of what was anticipated, inasmuch as
there has been a falling off on spirits, wine, and
tobacco, the natural consequence of the increase
on these other highly important items of house-
hold expenditure.

The change in the Excise, the index to the
comforts of the humbler classes, is still less
satisfactory. On that most interesting depart-
ment we find that, though there had been
an increase on the year and half-year of 965,7781.
and 369,2631. respectively, there has been a
falling off on the quarter of 266,0061. ! Now
this was the very time when Sir G. C. LEWIS'S in-
crease of the spirits duties in Scotland and Ireland
were fairly in operation, so that the results could
be tested. From that change he calculated on
obtaining an additional revenue of 1,000,0001.
per annum. In place of so doing he has lost
266,0061. on the quarter. This will not surprise
any person at all acquainted with the subject.
We warned him at the time of the almost inevi-
table consequences. On the 21st of April last, the
(lay after the production of his budget, we said, in
reference to the restricted increase of one million
sterling—" This is all very fine, but we fancy that
the Right Honourable Gentleman will find that he
has omitted a very important element from his
calculation. He has made no allowance for the
smaller quantity that will contribute to the revenue
in consequence either of diminished consumption,
or a vast increase of illicit distillation. Expe-
rience has always proved that the result of a high
duty was to give an extraordinary stimulus to that
demoralising traffic. Sir G. C. LEWIS has, how-
ever, eschewed the lessons he might have learned,
and boldly braved dangers which more prudent
financiers and moralists would sedulously have
avoided."

It will now be seen that our foreboding has
been but too truly verified, and that in place of
gaining a quarter of a million, our Chancellor of the
Exchequer has sacrificed even a larger amount by
his impolitic intermeddling—to say nothing of
the serious mischief occasioned by the extraor-
dinary stimulus thus afforded to this very demo-
ralising traffic.
In Stamps there is an increase of 100,4721.
on the year, but a decrease on the half-year and
quarter of 48,4021., and 103,3441. This is the
wore remarkable when we consider that the sue-
cession duties, estimated to produce a large sum,
gyre now fairly in operation. The improvement
that might be effected is, however, counteracted,
and a large deficiency produced by the unneces-
sary abolition of the newspaper stamp. It will
also be seen that the deficiency therein has not
been compensated by any Post-office improve-
ment, the deficiency wherein is 206,8191. on the
year, 175,976/. on the half-year, and 81,2431.
on the quarter !
The only satisfactory item is the Property Tax,
which shows an increase of 6,484,1471.
ror the year, 2,195,1241. for the half-year, and
1,993,590/. for the quarter. We must, how-
ever, recollect that there has been a vast increase
under this head ; that Mr. GLADSTONE doubled
the former rate, which would, he anticipated, add
more than 6,300,0001. ; while Sir G. C. LEWIS
put on an extra 2d. in the pound, which he esti-
mated to produce a further sum of 2,000,0001.
sterling. We have, therefore, nothing to boast of
in the improvement.

The remaining items are of less consequence.
in Taxes there has been a decrease on the year,
half-year, and quarter of 238,7371., 221,1071.,
and of 22,2031. On Crown Lands of 46,6561. on
the year ; but an improvement of 2,9441. on the
half-year, and 4,9441. on the quarter—while on
Miscellaneous there has been a falling off on
the year of 4,7911. but an increase of 199,4091.
on the half-year, and 33,9631. on the quarter.
On the whole, there is no great cause either for
elevation or depression. The figures show that
we keenly feel the effects of the War ; but that
we can bear them, and meet every claim on our
Exchequer honourably and promptly, as has been
our invariable custom. We cannot greatly exult,
nor can our adversaries adduce any evidence of
national decadence from the all-important docu-
ment above referred to.

It is gratifying to see our earnest representa-
tions respecting the Crimea so well supported by
the Press. Journals opposed in economics and
politics like the Morning Herald and the Economist
are here at ono ; and even the Times admits an
able letter in support of the suggestion on which
we laid some stress, though by no means insisting
on it to the exclusion of others, that the Sardi-
nians should be the future keepers of this safe-
guard or danger of the East. One or the other
it is, unless we place it in the hands of a Power
which will use it as the great entrepot of Black
Sea commerce, instead of turning it into a. despot's
pandemonium. We believe, indeed, that all the
tble writers of the weekly Press demand that the
Crimea shall iu no case ever belong again to
Russia. In this they perfectly agree with the
entire nation. Every one who has a relative or
a neighbour interred in that now sacred ground,
every one whose blood or the blood of whose
kindred has flowed inthe contest there, or who
has fought and survived uninjured the battle and
the pestilence, can have but one feeling—that the
I purchase of so much life, and toil, and suffering,
and treasure can never be effeminately given back
to the hands from which it has been wrested.
The country, however, must speak out on the
iubject. Austria must know, and Prussia must
'mow., and they both must lot Russia know that
io German influence in England—we may add,
)r in France—can restore the Crimea to Russia.
Gerd JOHN RUSSELL will be soon at work to sus-
-,sin his infamous declarations in favour of sparing
what he calls Russian territory, but which ho
mght to designate Russian robbery. The
secret foreign backers of Lord Joan. RUSSELL
will also be at work through him and through
)thers too. It will, we are confident, require a
very firm front on the part of the people to pre-
vent mischief being attempted, and half or wholly
completed, before we are well aware of it. With
ineffable assumption the Russellites, while the
wires which move them are pulled at Vienna, will
'alk with all solemnity of diplomatic difficulties,
knd of consulting the feelings of this ,and that
)erjured and coward despot abroad. It is for the
overnors of victorious nations—victorious, too,
almost,in spite,of the administrations' .of the day
—to consult the people who have compelled them _

to fight and conquer. Chesham-place and Vienna
are nothing or worse than nothing to the people
of England; and as to Saxe-Coburg—why it were
cheaper for us to buy its prince an estate here of
the same size, and settle him in this country for
good than to have our policy Germanised through
him. It will, we can apprize our readers, be
wise to keep our Government out of mischief by
timely warning, rather than to attempt undoing
the mischief when it has been perpetrated. Let
the hardly-escaped disgrace at Vienna, and the
acceptance of the pitiful Four Points as a basis, be
a warning. England compelled her Ministers to
follow Lord LYNDHURST'S counsel, not the re-
creant advice of the GLADSTONES and RUSSELLS,
and to "persevere ;" and now we all blush that
an Englishman could be found to advise peace
with Sebastopol untaken. How should we all
feel afterwards should Vienna have the impudence
to thrust herself forward again with her offers of
mediation, and Lord PALMERSTON acknowledge
the offer.

It is gratifying to see that Austria herself seems
half afraid to renew the attempt. Poor degraded
tool ! how foolish she must now feel in the face of
Europe. Big enough at the conferences--Sebas-
topol was not then taken ; now, the mockery of
every petty and oppressed state. It must be an
inward delight to all Lombardy and Hungary,
and to all whom she aids their tyrants to grind,
to see her bigness and assumption slinking out of
notice in silent self-contempt. She is dubbed for
ever coward, bully, and hypocrite ; she has for
centuries been execrated for her perjuries and
cru;.aies. She will now be the contempt of every
nation of men. Even the misused inhabitants of
the provinces are beginning to find out the long
ears under the lion's skin. Sebastopol has pulled
it off. Her sullen soldiers (if they deserve the
name of soldiers) were compelled to bite their lips
' and mutter to themselves the other day, while all
the best inhabitants of gay Bucharest were con-
gratulating to martial music and the national airs
of the Allies, the French and English Consuls
on the fall of Sebastopol—they might have
added, and the fall of Austria ! Had they showed
as much anti-Russian feeling before that event,
Prince STIRBEY and his Austrians would in all
probability have fined and imprisoned them, if
not hacked them with sabres in the streets. But
the Principalities will surely breathe now. Aus-
tria must be aware that her power over them is
gone. It was a most villanous piece of treachery
to admit her and STIRBEY there at all, and we
may hope that England and France will now in-
sist on her quitting them for ever, and leaving
them to govern and defend themselves.

What a delightful district the Belleisle district
is ! There your ingenuity has ample play in dis-
tinguishing the predominant odour of a dozen
most powerful. There, if you open your window,
and run the iisk of influenza, you are immediately
persuaded to shut it by atmospheric pressure.
There you have aerial sauces for nothing, to
stimulate your appetite, or supersede it altogether
to the salvation of your larder. There your curly-
headed darlings cost you nothing for emetics and
quicken your paternal ardour by hastening to
greet you, and discharge, with pleasing resigna-
tion, the burden of their over-fraught stomachs in
your presence. There the soil is so luxuriant, or
the air so balmy that the tender flowers " wither
ere their prime," and vegetables grow so rank
that pigs and donkeys blink a.virtuous disapproval
of what might disarrange their digestive organs.
There you may illustrate to your friends the
danger of intemperance of diet by pointing out
your neighbour relieving his stomach at the gutter.
There you may convince yourself of the indestruct-
able benevolence of feminine human natur., and
the marvellous ingenuity of the cat's-meat man as
he matutinally scampers off with his smoking
horse-flesh, in an equipage emphatically his own,
to supply the wants of the grimalkins of the me-
tropolis. There you may witness the halt, lame,
diseased, and blind of the equine species gently
led or carried to an hospital feelingly provided for
them, and all the finer feelings of your nature be
stirred by the reflection that before sunlight their
ailments will all be cured, and themselves placed
beyond the reach of inhumanity by a " Slaughterer
to her MAJESTY." There you may acquaint your-
self with the mysteries of animal fermentation,
as well as the odours, and trace the glue that
binds together yOur furniture to its reeking source.
There phosphoric emanations inform you that
light is being provided for the million, if the
titillations of brimstone have not forestalled
them ; and there you have medical authority for
the fact that there is nothing in these odours and
processes to injure your health, and yet, strange
to say, the inhabitants are dissatisfied. They
actually think they have too much of a good
thing. That, however wholesome may be the
emanations from putrid blood and offal, from
boiling bones and liquefied brimstone, phosphorus
and arsenic, they are, on the whole, over-
powering. Tbat knackers' yards, bone-boiling
establishments, and glue and lucifer match
manufactories might be transferred with ad-
vantage to some little distance from the
retreats of industry, and that it is somewhat hard
when a poor man has contrived by toil and pinch-
ing to build a house, he should find himself made
miserable in it by the manufactories of a rich one,
and yet unable to quit it. That, however delight-
ful a thing it may be to have their health watched
over from eleven to three by a medical gentle-
man, a guardian less gifted, not to say crotchetty,
would serve their turn, and more to their satis-
faction. Really there is no reasoning with people
who talk thus. They would oomplain if they had
ditch water to drink. It is a wonder they agitate
so little. People possessed with such a mania
might be expected to move heaven and earth for
a change.

The Duke of Cambridge passed through Thirsk a few
days ago, when his Royal Highness received the con-
gratulations of the inhabitants through Sir W. P. Gall-
wey, Bart., M.P. His Royal Highness was accompa-
nied by Sir G. 0. Wombwell, Bart., of Newburgh-park.
The Duke of Northumberland has appointed a swim-
ming master to teach the art of swimming to the fisher-
men of Northumberland and others.

The Duchess of St. Albans, and her son, the young
Duke, are at the Lakes.
The Duke of Devonshire gave the inhabitants of Lis-
more a grand ball at the Castle on Wednesday evening.'
His Excellency the Sardinian Minister, since return-
ing to town, has removed the residence of the Sardinian
Legation to No. 23 Park-lane.

The Duke and Duchess of Beaufort have arrived at
Gopsall Hall, on a visit to the Earl and Countess of
Howe, from Troy House, Monmouthshire. Lieut.-Col:
the Hon. Leicester Curzon has also arrived at Gopsall,
from a visit to her Majesty at Balmoral.
The Earl of Hardwicke and the Ladies Yorke, who
have been visiting the Duke and Duchess of Richmond
at Gorden Castle, and the Earl and Countess of Malines-
bury at Anachmary Lodge, left the latter seat early in
the past week, to pay a series of visits on their way
south.

The Earl and Countess of Derby, accompanied by
Lady Emma Stanley and the Hon. Frederick Stanley,
left the Earl and Countess of Malmesbury's residence in
the Highlands on Tuesday last, and on Thursday arrived
at Eglinton Castle, on a visit to the Earl of Eglinton.
The Earl and Countess Grey have arrived in town from
Paris, and will shortly repair to Howick Hall for the
autumn.

Lord and Lady Willoughby D'Eresby are seeing com-
pany at Drummond Castle, Perthshire.
Lord Stanley, M.P., has arrived in town from visiting
the Derby estates in Ireland.
The late Henry Dover, Eaq., has left 2,000/. to the
Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, 1,000/. to the Institu-
tion of Indent large legacies to other
cha.ritieS and religious institutions, amounting in all to
6,000/.