The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-23 00:00:00

be an instalment of "justice to the farmer," yen(); as ail
readers of country papers know, is by nature an &elver-
tising animal. The advertisement duty belongs to a
class of taxes which has not br.en sufficiently distin-
guished by economists. All duties tend to check coe-
eumption ; hut those which haVe a prohibitory effint
are the most vexatious. IF a tntnpike deters !ley
perente from taking a drive is his gig, the
read trustees are none the richer, while the owner
of the gig loses the use of his vehicle. Tto
•advertisement duty prevents thousands from at,-
vertising—greatly to their own inconvenicce, tied
without benefit •• to • the revenue. The amount of
160,0001. yielded by this impost represents but a'
small part of the loss which it, inflicts on the public..
The maid-servants who advertise for their places are un-
duly taxed; yet: they have at least the ceasolation, such
as it is, of contributing, each her eightempence, to the
maintenance of the State and the Monarchy. But the
kitchen-maids who cannot afford to advertise suffer a
still heavier loss from the existence of the duty—a loss
:which is unaccompanied by any gain to the Exchequer.
A tax ought, if possible, never to be levied on the per-
formance of an act which can be omitted at pleasure.
There are theorists who praise fiscal systems which leave
a •direction to sax-payers; but the
.equitable finan-
cier proceeds on an exactly opposite priuciple. Sound
financial arrangements leave no room for caprice fn the
tax-psycr, but assesses him, as far as may be, in pro-
portion to his means. Taxes which favour either im-
providence or undue stinginess are always 'alike unpro-
ductive and demoralising ; and it is desirable that the
operation of every impost should begin and end with the
levy of the par-centage required. A duty such as that
on advertisements constently interferes with every pru-
dential calculation. It is on such grounds as these that
the removal of the " taxes on knowledge" will at no
distant day be effected. Sentimental arguments may
be used for skirmishing and ostentation ; but the true
econo►nic bearing of various taxers is what will ulti-
mately determine the opinion of Parliament.

THE FORTHCOMING BUDGET.
Mr. Disraeli's Budget is—he tells us—to be laid before
the House of Commons this day week. On that day we
may hope to lear❑ what plans the Protectionists propose
tor satisfying the demands of the country. There is no
subject which so much requires the attention of the re-
presentatives of the people as the revision of our whole
system of taxation; and no part of that system is more
faulty and more needs amendment, than the portion of
it which was to have been brought before the House of
Commons last night by Mr. Williams—the annual
bestowal by the Government officials of about 7,000,000/.
on themselves.

- It is,lowever, amongst the many evils of the Protec-
tionist faction having succeeded in placing Lord Derby
in office, that the real business of the nation cannot be
attended to, and that our barbarous and costly jumble
miscalled a system of taxation, must be allowed to remain
uninvestigated and unreformed for another year. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose lively brain is filled
with crude finaneial plans, may possibly throw out some
suggestions for lessening, on pretence of equalising,
the burdens on the agriculturists; and
on
some one et'
the ninny clap-traps ho has already announced,
niappeal
to the country; but what the people want is a
th oough
revision of all our taxation, which will enable themrfadirlbY
fairly
to compare its cost with the services it pays for
which the burdens of the State will be reduced and
dto e'
minimum, and that minimum will be fairly distributed.
The people mast be on their guard against Protectionist
tricks, and not permit themselves to be seduced by mere
financial schemes into a belief that any plan is worthy
of support which deviates from the just and righteous
objects they desire.
The great vice which lies at the bottom of that ap-
propriation ( f 7,000,0001. is not, as the officials have
cunningly represented, the mere stopping 7,000,000/
in its 'transit to the Treasury, instead of sending it
thither to be afterwards transmitted to them, but it
is the power assumed by the Treasury to expend such
a vast sum without first securing the sanction of Par-
liament. To expend 6,000.0001. or 7,000,000/. on the
navy, and as much on the army, the Executive
government must present estimates to the House of
Commons, and obtain its consent to employing and pay-
ing a certain number of sailors and soldiers; but the
Government may appoint any number of Custom-house
and Excise officers it pleases, and en them and other
officials employed to collect the revenue,
it may expend
7,000,0004 a year, without submitting any estimate to
the House of Commons. and without rendering it. any
account of the manner in which the money is expended.
That is the vice of the system, and it is unconstitutional
as well as absurd.

The only account the Government renders is this—
that it is pleased to expend about 1,600,0001. in collect-
ing 22,000,0001. of Customs duties, about 1,000,0001. in
collecting 15,500,0001. of Excite duties; 165,0001. in cal-
lectiug nearly 7,000,0001. on stamps; 360,0001.
in collecting 10,000,0001. of assessed taxes ;
1,200,000/. in collecting by the Post-office about
2,500,0001.; and 325,0004 in collecting less than
500,0001. on Crown lands, besides making draw-
backs, allowances, &c. According to the Parliamen-
tary Parer No. 98, Session 1847, the total annual
amount of money expended in this way which never
reached the Exchequer was 7,004,438/. 11s. 7 2-12 d., so
fractionally minute is the Executive Government in in-
forming the Parliament of the sum it pleases to expend
without Parliamentary authority.
It is hastily assumed by the confiding Parliament
and the too confiding people that it is necessary
to expend 51. 15s. 8-14. on every 100/. collected of
Customs duties, 51. 73. 1111 on every 1001. of Ex-
cise duties, 2/. 3s. 71d. on every 100/. of stamps, Si.
3s. Vjel. on every lea of taxes, and 21. 189. 2d. on
every 1001 of revenue from the Crown lands—or, in-
cluding " other payments," which we think ought to
be included—to expend 120/ on every 100/. obtained
from Crown lands. But there is no other reason for
assuming such an expenditure to be necessary except
the statement of 'the officials. If the stamps can be
collected (and nobody supposes there are not plenty
of clerks and other officials in the Stamp-office), at
21. 3s. 7d. per cent., why should the Customs cost
51. 15e. Bii., and the Excise 51. 7s. llid. ? The Go-
vernment has complete power over its debtors, and it
is only a carelessness of what it expends—or a love
of expenditure—that can make it expend more than
double the sum in collecting 100/ of Customs and Ex-
cise dilates than in collecting 1001. of stamp duties.
Both the chief Customs and all the Excise duties are
collected on a few articles in great masses and at a few
spots, while the collection of the stamp duties is spread
all over the kingdom. Prima facie it might be inferred,
therefore, that the two former would be collected at a
cheaper rate than the latter. But it has pleased the
gentlemen who collect the Customs and Excise to be,
dreadfully suspicious of every tax-payer and every tax-
collector, and of every person who might have a tax
to pay, and so they have multiplied guards and checks
to prevent an evasion of payment or a collusion to evade
payment between their own officers and others, and
have introduced a complicated system, which is at once
annoying, vexatious, costly, and, as we know fr.)m ex-
perience, wofully ineffective. Of all the details ofaros the
system the Treasury knows nothing but what it lead
rns
from
oev
ecroym( ies soi nf
t ehrest andtheir
e othersuggestions
tio
ossu bt
oe road ionlat
it;
increase the staff of the establishments it haslyo,ffic hcei a
always
_
lent a ready ear, because every such increase a
legreer sum o
enabled it
to increase its patronage, and expenvastsum as
7it
o
_
That
taxes, rendering no other account t
Parliament
and the public of what it expended_ than " it was
th,ooooc,oosotototte collection." I
expended
is really necessary to expend such a sum is what the i
tahtere suchis no a
doubt—that
House of Commons should ark the .Government to prove.
This, too, is what the public requires to have distinctly
as there are symptoms of taxa..
elicited
eP2iarts.ttelent'clea,rwlYatch, without putting the slightest
impediment in the vvey of commerce, or in any manner
interferingflourishing
wiandrenowned
with
industrY'slipplyall the wants of
sonic states at an rxpeese of
little more than one pound for every one hundred pounds
levied from the people and paid into the public Treasury.
—Daily News.

SPORTIN G NOTES.
No. COXL
ANALYSIS OF 111 E C[IESTER CUP.
(Contiauvi from No. 210.)

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
sin,—la resuming my remarks on the Chester Cup,
it may be as well to state, that during the last day or
two Nancy has received au extraordinary amount of
support, and bids fair to become a rival in the odds for
the premiership to Stilton, whcso price this morning
ranges from 6to 7 to 1. Turning to my Analysis,
TOM TAYLOR'S
lot is the next that catches my eye. It consists. of Lady
Evelyn, Gladiole, Ellar, and the Jemima filly. The first
named, it is said, will represent the stable; and as Nat
will probably have the mount, all that can be done for
her will be accomplished; but lam afraid it will not
enable her to obtain a victory.
FOBERT
ha Hippolytus and Lucio, neither of which posscoscs
any chance of winning.