The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-30 00:00:00

THE SUN,

of some striking demonstrations by the people, when
thoroughly awakened to a lively sense of the enor-
mous evils of cheap and abundant food—the chances
whereof are so very remote that; they may safely
be dismissed from the calculation, the qualification
being merely a "facon de parler" to soothe the
wounded feelings of the monopolists.
This course appears more than probable from the
number of electioneering addresses that have,been
put forward by " Conservative Freetraders, or
" Liberal Conservatives," by whiohever title they
please to be designated, who while they deprecate any
attempt to revive the corn-laws, profess themselves
willing to give a general support to the present Go-
vernment. It is certain that if the cry of " Protec-
tion" were raised, and that the appeal to the country
were founded on that principle, exciting angry pas-
sions that have long since been appeased, and pro-
voking " a war to the knife" between opposing
classes, the Ministerial party would be the chief suf-
ferers, and would be placed completely at the
mercy of their antagonists. We do not, however,
suspect Mr. DISRAELI will be guilty of such gross
folly and imbecility as such conduct would imply.
It is perfectly manifest that nothing can
as yet be known outside "the Cabinet" of the
nature or extent of the propositions that will be this
night submitted to the popular branch of the Legis-
lature. The vast importance of secrecy is too appa-
rent to suppose it possible that any person whose po-
sition entitles him to a previous knowledge of the
policy about to be enunciated could betray the con-
fidence of his colleagues by suffering such secrets to
ooze out, or even by giving the slightest hint as to the
Ministerial intentions. Nothing, therefore, can be
positively or authoritatively announced ; the specu-
lations and assertions can only be grounded on what
hag already taken place, and every person who has
the industry to collect, and the acuteness to use judi-
ciously the materials, has an equal prospect of being
entitled to claim the title of " a true prophet," or of
what is as much out of the question, of secret and
exclusive intelligence.
The principal question appears to be, whether
the Right Honourable Gentleman will take ad-
vantage of the position in which he stands
to make no concession, to do literally no-
thing during the present session, merely applying
for a renewal of the income-tax for another year,
and indicating generally the present views of the
Government, without descending into details. This
has been designated by a Ministerial Contemporary as
a " prudent plan," and we have no doubt that
there are many timid politicians who would gladly
avail themselves of the many excuses there would be
for Ministers taking advantage of the favourable
opportunity ; but neither Lord Danny or Mr. Dis-
item.' belong to this class. They are more
likely to fall into error on the other side,
—rather to go too far than to halt in their pro-
gress. It is scarcely possible to suppose that, with
an available surplus of 3,000,000/. sterling, Mr.
DISRAELI would emulate the do-nothing policy of his
predecessor, that he would consent to pursue a course
that heaped shame and disgrace upon the Whig Minis-
try, and led to their ultimate eviction from office. We
cannot for a moment suppose that he will not make
some attempt to render the income• tax more equi-
table, to free it from its most repulsive features.
He may do this without any very serious sacrifice
of revenue. One-third of the existing surplus,
a single million judiciously and properly applied,
would provide for a considerable modification of
Schedule D, so as to free, or at least greatly reduce,
the claim on professional incomes, on all those in fact
in the earning of which little or no capital is engaged.
It would also enable him to repeal the odious
advertisement duty, and to remove the charge of
confiscation to which the hop-tax lays us open.
Other minor concessions might also be
made, such as, perhaps, the charges on hair powder,
armorial bearings, dogs, and some of the least
productive of the assessed taxes. There would still
remain a considerable margin for future changes,
which he might indicate, although he might not feel
himself in a position to press their adoption on the
present House of Commons. An equalization of the
land-tax or poor-rate, or a transfer of many vexatious
local burdens to the Consolidated Fund, are matters to
which we may reasonably expect that some allusion
will be made. The malt-tax, too, will require notice,
but none of these latter subjects can be finally
disposed of previous to the dissolution. On
the whole, then, although we conceive that more will
be indicated than carried into execution, we yet ha-
Neve that some important changes will be brought
into immediate operation—that it will not be alto-
gether a Budget of promises, but that there will be
at least a partial performance—that it will be rather
a " bold and comprehensive scheme" than 4ta
prudent," or, what we should call, a " timid plan."

A practical philanthropist, in the noblest sense of
the term, the Earl of SHAFTESBURY is among those
men now living who may with perfect truth, in the
fine old phrase, be said " to have deserved well of his
country." Discarding all ideas of self, doing vio-
lence to every dictate of personal convenience, setting
aside all the promptings of individual comfort, and
daring every imaginable evil consequence, such as
insult, disgust, and contagion—that brave and gentle-
hearted patrician has laboured during many long
and painful years to ameliorate the sufferings of the
poor. Not by agents—but individually. Not by
sitting upon Parliamentary Committees; not by
writing pamphlets in his library, leaning back at
intervals in his easy chair to round some period of
affected benevolence; not by subscribing to public
soup-kitchens ; not by sending out missionary expe-
ditions to Patagonia, or by overlooking the visible
squalor of those around him in sympathy for the re-
ported degradation of the savage tribes of the anti-
podes. But (while aiding, it may be, enterprises
of a similar description) by going himself 1
into the midst of the wretchedness he aspires
to relieve, by threading those loathsome re-
gions he has so long yearned to cleanse, by examining
personally the depths of that abyss of misery he has
the glorious ambition to close for ever—penetrating
into scenes where a less earnest nature would have
shuddered to adventure, undeterred by the sight and
the stench of so many sickening abominations.
Nursed in the lap of laxury, his sensibilities have
nevertheless carried him into the dens of misfortune,
into the hovels of penury, into those revolting
cellars of the slums of London which are
nothing less than the moral sinks and cesspools
of the population. There was something eminently
touching in that declaration of his last night in the
House of Lords—" Our night of toil has been long,
but we trust that it is drawing to a close." Long,
indeed, it has been, and terrible in its protracted sad.
ness, that toil which has received encouragement
from no one more materially than from the Earl of
SHAFTESBURY. GOD grant, then, that it may in
reality be now " drawing to a close !" GOD grant
that the self-denial, the self-sacrifice, the total self-
abnegation of men like the Earl of SHAFTESBURY,
may, at length, be very speedily followed by
the fulfilment of those most earnestly cherished
asien:imirta these aspirations. It needs some recompense like this
to compensate for the anguish experienced
terrible researches in the haunts of
success toa assuage misery. It requires the solace of
the memory of such foul and horrid
grant that vg- ant'
what the therefore,
revelations. GOD grant,
mNayblin truth be now fast GOD say we again,
the hour of that most happy consummation !
ap-
proachingevening
as will have been perceived from our
Noble Earl designated last
Yesterday,
brought under the consideration of the House of
Parliamentary reports the Earl of ..,HAFTESBURY
Lords his promised resolution—"That the sanitary
state of the metropolis requires the immediate inter-
position of her MAJESTY'S Government." In sub-
witting this important notice to the judgment of the
upper branch of the Legislature, the Noble Lord
detailed some of those harrowing particulars with
which the public have been latterly becoming
familiarized. Referring to the insufficient drain-
age of the streets of our capital, he quoted
, thatNw, fu passage from the report, which stated—
,besides the surface abominations, which any
ofea,r l
one can speak to who has perambulated London, a
survey has been obtained of the subterranean works,
from which the appalling fact has been proved that,
owing to the bad construction of the sewers, there is.
actually accumulated beneath and about the dwelling-
houses of the metropolis s mass of cesspool matter
which may be represented by a oubo abc inches deep