The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-03 00:00:00

public funds, or the ground rents of well-circumstanced
real estates, with the fluctuating and precarious
profits of industry, in some cases, as with
literary men and artists, exhausting the very sources
from whence they were obtained. That fl igrant
grievance cannot be suffered to continue much longer.
We have it on the authority as well of the Right
Hon. Gentleman himself as of his colleague, the Pre-
sident of the Board of Control, that the tax cannot
be rendered permanent unless an adequate remedy be
provided for the admitted evil. It cannot, therefore,
under any circumstances, be tolerated for more than
the single year for which it has been asked ; and the
great question now is, whether it may not yet be
altered so as to give some little instalment of justice
to the sufferers, notwithstanding the refusal of the
Minister of Finance to introduce the change until
after the appeal to the country.
On this point we may remark that there is at this
moment neither income or property-tax in existence
—both expired on the sth of April last. The neces-
sity for the revival of the charge on accumulated and
realised property is, we believe, universally admitted.
On that point there is no dispute or difficulty.
Nothing could be more injurious to the national
credit, and, we may add, the national prosperity, than
the deficiency that must necessarily arise, should the
matter be suffered to remain in abeyance. It would,
in fact, prevent the possibility of those fiscal reforms
that are so urgently required, and anxiously looked
for by the country. But it is altogether different
with respect to " income"—of course, when capital is
in any degree required, in the acquisition of that
income, it should ; contribute its just proportion
to the public revenue. There might be some little
difficulty in making a perfectly equitable arrange-
ment on this point, but it could, we believe, be easily
surmounted, and, at all events, it cannot for a moment
be tolerated that a piece of gross injustice should be
sanctioned and perpetrated because complete justice
could not be rendered to all persons.
The fiscal reformers who refuse to become parties
to this injustice will have various opportunities of pro-
posing amendments on Schedule:D, and it is just pos-
sible that Mr. DISRAELI may not be very seriously dis-
pleased if he be compelled by the pressure from without
to give some instalment, although the amelioration of
Schedule D might diminish the anticipated surplus by
half a million of pounds sterling. He might not be
willing to provoke opposition to the provisional Go-
vernment by a temporary arrangement, and yet not
offer any great resistance to such a measure proceed-
ing from another quarter.
The same may be said of the advertisement duties.
It will be in the recollection of our readers that the
debate on the motion of the Right Honourable Gen-
tleman the Member for Manchester was only ad-
journed until after the budget was brought forward;
the speech of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER,
inducing the hope that the most objectionable, as it is
the least productive of the taxes on knowledge, would
be given up. That reasonable expectation has
not been realized, and if Mr. MILNER GIBsoN, with-
drawing the two former branches of his resolution,
should strenuously press the last part, it is by
no means impossible that the advertisement duties
would be forthwith abolished. We can conceive why
Mr. DISRAELI might be unwilling to afford any relief
in a provisional budget, which might bring about
him the complaints of all who supposed that they
had equal claims on his consideration, but that he
would not greatly regret a division that enforced the
abolition of the advertisement duties, or the more
equitable assessment of the income-tax.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of Saturday
and yesterday.
The Patrie, in order to show the advantageous
terms on which the late conversion of the Four-and-
a-Half per Cents. into Three per Cents., which
is equivalent to a loan, has been made, pub-
lishes a list of the different loans made by the
Government since 1821, from which it appears
that the difference between the rate at which the loans
were contracted and that of the quotation at the
Bourse on the previous day, has generally been about
3 per cent., whereas the present operation was effected
at 3Sf., the price on the previous day being 69f. 50c.,
a difference of only 1 per cent.
There was no public sitting on Friday of the Le-
gislative Body. The Committee on the accounts of
1849 met at two o'clock.

The Petrie says :
" The expense of the budget of 1853, as compared
with the receipts, show a deficit of 4,000,000f.;.but, ac-
cording to all appearance, onr troops will soon cease to
occupy Italy, and that withdrawal will lead to a dimi-
nution in the expense of the war department."
The new Bill on public instruction, which reduces
to 15 the number of rectors, and which suppresses
the communal colleges as public establishments, will
realise to the department of Public Instruction a
saving of nearly 4,000,000.
The High Court of Justice, according to a Bill
which has just been presented to the Council of
State, will comprise two chambers, composed of five
judges and two substitutes, who are to be taken from
amongst the members of the Court of Cassation, and
nominated by the PRESIDENT of the Republic.
The PRESIDENT of the Republic on Thursday paid
a visit to the Hotel Cluny, and inspected the whole
collection preserved there. He was accompanied by
M. DIT SOMMERARD, the conservator of the Museum,
wbo explained to him the particularities of the curious
articles contained in the hotel. The Prince expressed
himself much interested in what he saw. The crowd,
which assembled when it was known that the PRESI-
DENT was in the hotel, saluted him on his departure
with cries of " \rive Napoleon." On the same day
he also visited the preparations making in the Champs
de Mars for the fetes of the 10th and 11th of May.
A few days since he visited incognito all the line of
works at Belleville, La Villette, and the plain of
Saint Denis, for the railway round Paris.
The Government has just interdicted the entry
into France of a journal called the Patric, published
at Jersey, which although printed in French, has all
the appearance of an English paper.
M. PADRE has been chosen as counsel to support
the case of the ORLEANS family befere the Council of
State.

The Alonitenr du Loiret states that the fires in that
department during the first three months of the pre-
sent year have amounted to 51, of which 21 are
attributed to malevolence ; 16 to unknown causes ;
nine to imprudence ; three to negligence ; and two to
accident.

A general ball was given on Friday night at the
Tuileries by the PRINCE PRESIDENT.
M. DE RAYNEVAL is come to Paris to advise with
Government on the subject of diminishing the French
army at Rome.

The Constilutionnel estimates the decline in the
average prices of wheat at about 40c. below the
averages of the previous month.
During the late mission of N. QIIINTIN BAUCIIART,
in the Southern Departments, he examined the cases
of 3,030 prisoners, of whom he set at liberty 1,377,
and granted commutations to 1,047.