The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SATURDAY REVIEW.--After a year of compulsory
inaction, Mr. Gladstone will once more resume the
welcome duty of remodelling some part of the sys-
tem of taxation. The increase of the revenue will
probably supply a surplus of two millions, and an
additional amount, at present only known to the
Government, will arise from a probable diminution
of expenditure. There is no sufficient reason for
the reduction of the army or navy ; but the enor-
mous outlay on construction, which has swelled the
estimates for three or four years, is essentially tem-
porary in its nature, and it must be supposed, in
some degree, to have effected its legitimate purpose.
If party interests are considered, the Government
has strong motives for anticipating any factious
combination which may be founded on the inchoate
alliance of last session between Mr. Disraeli and
Mr. Cobden. The House of Commons will be more
cordially disposed to maintain the national defences
if the Ministers show that they have the means of
effecting reductions without interfering with effi-
ciency. A powerfal army and navy have of late
promoted cordial relations with France, and they
afford the best security against a rupture with
the captious Government of the United States.
Soldiers and sailors are indispensable, but it
cannot be necessary to be always creating a navy
and inventing an artillery. Although the amount
of the surplus can only be vaguely conjectured,
alternative plans of reducing taxation may be
compared with advantage ; but probably the choice
will practically apply only to the tea and sugar
duties, to the rate of the income-tax, and possibly
to the duty on tobacco. After the lapse of five or
six years, Mr. Gladstone will perhaps be content to
discuss the question on its merits, without dilating
on the supposed breaches of faith which were occa-
sioned by the war of 1854. It may also be assumed
that taxes will not be defended on the ground that
their vexations pressure produces a wholesome
moral effect on a spendthrift community. Mr.
Gladstone can display equal eloquence, with more
persuasive power, in showing that any changes
which he may propose will increase human happi-
ness by the addition of material comforts, rather
than by any indirect operation on the conscience
and character. The alleged benefits which would
arise from a modification of the tobacco duty are
almost exclusively fiscal, for the artificial price of
the commodity can scarcely be said to:involve serious
hardships. No financier is more competent than
Mr. Gladstone to judge whether the present
arrangement of the duties is the most productive
which could be devised, but in cheapening neces-
saries and luxuries, it would be desirable to give the
preference to articles which are even more univer-
sally consumed than tobacco. As the peculiarities
of the brewing trade render it doubtful whether a
diminution of the malt tax would be practically
expedient, tea and sugar stand first in the order of
reduction among the indirect taxes ; and if the
Chancellor of the Exchequer has four millions to
spare, he will probably concede the reduction which
was proposed two years ago by the Opposition as
more desirable than the abolition of the paper duty.
No measure would be more beneficial to the bulk of
the community, and the loss imposed on the revenue
would soon be partially replaced. The immediate
sacrifice of a million and a half of tea duty would
probably still leave a considerable balance over ex-
penditure. All reductions of taxes are partially com-
pensated by the increased productiveness of the re-
maining imposts, and there is perhaps no portion
of the revenue which might be trusted
to find a circuitous way to the Treasury
more safely than the Income-tax, if the rate
were diminished. If tea is cheapened, more
and stronger tea is used, greatly to the benefit
of the consumer, but with only a proportional or
fractional advantage to the Castom House. A
saving in income-tax would be almost universally I
added to current expenditure, and perhaps a fur-
ther gain might accrue to the Exchequer from an
improvement in the accuracy of the returns. There
are persons who would strain their consciences less
freely when the temptation was diminished by a
third. The strongest reason for reducing the rate
to sixpence is, that the tax might then be ren-
dered permanent during the continuance of peace.
In comparison with recent experience the burden
would be considered moderate, and, as an inci-
dental advantage, the rate would in all cases admit
of easy calculation. Notwithstanding ignorant
clamour and laborious sophistry, it is indisputably
true that an equal and permanent tax on income
exactly adapts itself to all possible tenures
of property, and falls with equal weight
on fee-simple estates and on professional
incomes worth three years' purchase. The
truth would have been long since readily accepted
if the tax had not been large in amount, and conse-
quently inconvenient to the trading classes. As it
is almost certain that the impost will never be abo-
lished, it is better to simplify it, as far as possible,
by the use of round numbers, and by moderation of
amount. A fourpenny rate would be in the highest
degree desirable ; but the compromise of sixpence
would perhaps satisfy a generation which never but
once has seen it fall so low as fivepence. It is use-
less for Parliament to pass resolutions against fu-
ture changes, but there is no reason to prevent t he
grant, for five or seven years, of a sixpenny income
tax. At the end of such a period, in the absence of
extraordinary pressure, the convenience of unifor-
mity. would be generally recognised, and financiers
would probably have satisfied themselves that it is
inexpedient to rely exclusively on indirect taxation.
Mr. Gladstone's Budget will be ingenious, and his
speech in introducing it will be eloquent. It may
also be allowable to hope that originality will be
found compatible with justice.

TIMES.—In the political intelr ca g from America
we find what the military details
aoednonot indicate—
a prospect of something being toterminate the
hostilities. war, or at least to suspend the The
slightest probability of such a settlement should
change
be
hailed as a dawning hope of peace. The
opinion is due to the political victory of the demo- emoin. 1
cratic party, or rather that victory has given the
courage necessary to avow a dislike of the war that
has always existed. The opposition has been gra-
dually growing, and, even with the assurance of a
majority, was at first cautiously expressed. The
democrats did not make peace their " platform."
They declared for a continuance of the war, but war
made "constitutionally," and not by such measures
as confiscation or encouraging pillage and massacre.
Then men were found who ventured to speak of the
hostilities as a " wretched strife," a "miserable
conflict,"—terms that might apply either to the war
itself
or the disastrous manner in which it had been
conducted. From this point to a consideration of
the expediency of the whole ewhole contest is but a step.
This step has been made,
and the party that admits
h
reason to its counsels
The lead
a course by which
Taco may be secured.
appears to be given to the S
t
a
t
e of New Jersey, the
in the good work
next neighbour Sovereignty to New
rzije theA Associa-
tion York. But
the impulse of the movement comes f
commercial city. The Union Democratic great
tion has, by formal resolution,
Jersey to call a Convention of "Freeequested New
and loyal
Slave States," that may consider and d
sures calculated to put an end to the adopt
ept
InTehai:
Convention is to meet at Louisville in ther
lcourse
of the ensuing month. The choice of a
p
riveting in Kentucky, the State that has remained
neutral neutral in the conflict, is not without significance ;
we trust it will not be without result. Still more
important is the fact that the " disloyal States" are
not to be excluded from the Convention. But
to enter into communication with the several 1
Sovereignties of the Confederacy legally held as in
rebellion requires a previous permission from the
Federal Government. President Lincoln is there-
fore to be applied to for leave to send commissioners
to the
revolted States to solicit them to appear in
this novel Parliament, and the President is also to
he requested to declare an armistice with those
States which accept
the
Whatever may followthese
to the Convention.
W on
~ proposals, the mere
appearance of the words
;n public discussion is hopeful. There
and "armistice"
is encourage-
n3 ent, too, in Mr. Lincoln's readiness to oblige any
pat .ty. Peace or war, or both at
once ; slavery or
abolition, or both together—he gives eve
prin-
ciple a chance. And that power he leaves to throw
ap the opinion that is to obtain the ascendant in
,

the political and social chaos around him. The
Peace Convention may as well try its experiment
as not. He will probably think it only ole harm.
less confusion the more. But the issue really is
between expediency and fanaticism, and the ques-
tion the next few weeks will decide is whether cal-
culation will be strong enough to resist the passions
that are driving all the interests of the nation to
ruin.

HERALD.—We need scarcely say that our counsel
has been to treat the convict, no matter what his
offence, still considerately, but to punish him in
reality and truth where punishment by his sentence
is due, and to make this sentence to prove exactly
throughout what it says. Let hard labour be hard
labour indeed. Let penal servitude mean coercive
slavery for a declared term. Let men dread crime
because they dread punishment.
quite a secondary question. It need lineevroerrnibaetfieoanreids
willthat
otmh
iet
anyexertion
aet iv e and benevolente
rg
en
suggestion
ems
t.
n whichdsof g
m Englandiht
If the public now demands
lead to this good end.
true chastisemwenthiitleisthneoytctsmpaprreotthecetrioond
foran them-
selvl
es the criminal.
they see that the best course to reformation in
offenders is wholesome punishment. Shams of any
kina. never answer. They ought not to answer with
rogues. Our prison discipline has heretofore been
one vast sham—a fraud and deception on society.
It may be fairly concluded from what we have all
learnt of prison discipline that these gaols do not
wholly meet our requirements against crime. Some-
thing more is wanted. The ticket of leave is a mis-
take. But the ticket of leave is unavoidable. Our
prisons would be overcrowded without an occa-
sional clearance. We must then look around us for
some practicable remedy. Is transportation, the na-
tural cure presented, the old cure, the one pursued
by us so long, all at once become so used up and
obsolete that England with all her colonies and her
sparse population abroad cannot practise it now P
We think not. Mr. Adderley and other worthy
men with him think that channel for our criminals
is dried up. It is too expensive for us, and too dis-
tasteful to the inhabitants. This we must all ad-
mit holds good for certain of our settlements. They
have had enough of convict life. They have grown
dissatisfied and grumbled. They would even have
manifested a more formidable resentment if the
mother-country persevered in palming upon them
her surplus evil population. Then the cost weighed
heavily on the exchequer at home. This can be said,
and has been said, with much good sense, against
transportation. But the argument has its excep-
tion. Our empire is immense. There are numbers
of places suitable every way as convict settlements.
The first outlay is not the worst. Let us only
think what our ticket-of-leave men and repeating
criminals cost us now in the year. Any system
of transportation, even to the distant Falkland
Islands, would be a less burden, to say nothing of
the increased safety to life, limb, and property, than
the indulgent methods we are now almost com-
pelled to pursue to preserve our prisons from over-
crowding. Here is the real gist of the matter.
No walls will hold our criminals. We must let
them loose. The plain question is—. Shall we con-
tinue to do this by the subterfuge of tickets of leave,
or send them abroad at once, where the chances are
very many they will never more return amongst us ?
If we can do the work of deportation without in-
jury to our colonies, nay, even with benefit to the
settlers, we consider the difficult problem solved.
The expense, though heavy, will not count when
weighed with the vast ccst inflicted now on society
by the recurrence of offences in the person of the

same criminal. The leading principle in all this
investigation is the security and protection of

society. This must overrule everything. The re-
formation of the criminal will properly follow next
in a Christian country. Expenditure, too, is a
serious item for consideration. The well-being and
the desires of our dependencies and colonies must
not be neglected. But amidst all these there is no
necessary contradiction. They may be harmonised.
The problem may be somewhat involved, but there
is either a direct or an indirect solution lifting it
out of the reductio ad absurdum in which it is now
submerged and complicated.
PosT.—When nations take arms against each
other they reconcile themselves to the miseries
which are inseparable from warfare. Any army
defeated in the field may bear a grudge against the
victors ; but however intense may be the misery
occasioned to the relatives of the fallen, it is seldom
that a sentiment of hatred to the slayers finds a

place in their thoughts. No single man has possi.

bly occasioned greater carnage in the Northern
ranks than General Stonewall Jackson; yet the
paramount feeling he has excited amongst his op-
ponents is that of admiration. Nor is it difficult to
discover the reason. Jackson is not only a soldier
—he is a Christian and a gentleman. On the field
of battle he directs his artillery where it proves
most effective; but, when the Lour of carnage has
passed by, he (as at Fredericksburg) forbears to
recommence firing until the sick and wounded of
his adversaries have been removed; and when
thousands have surrendered (as at Harper's Ferry),
he permits them to depart uninjured on the faith of
a promise not again to bear arms against the
Southern Confederacy. The admiration for Gen.
Jackson expressed by the citizens of New York in
some degree atones for their acquiescence in the
barbarities of Butler, inasmuch as it shows they
have not altogether lost the sense of appreciation
of the real attributes of a Christian soldier. The
long-kept secret of the ultimate destination of Gen.
Banks' expedition is at length known. The expe-
dition has entered the delta of the Mississippi, and
the general in command has superseded Butler in
the government of New Orleans. Already the new
commandant has shown that he intends pursuing
a policy different from that of his predecessor. The
sales of the private property of the citizens of New
Orleans on account of the Federal Government,

which had been ordered
ls
obfyraßpuitnleera,nhdavine
jubseteincesuns-
o
apcetnsdoedu.ttelriny tihnedeafnennsaible can be found as the con-
fiscationoriea Thatofthe
it waspropertya ire
of the
of
breach inhabitants
the
condi-
tions oNnewi.
tions on the faith of which the city was surrendered
is, perhaps, its least disgraceful feature. Had Gen.
Butler razed the city to the ground it would have
been a great crime, but it would have been less
heinous than those which, under the pretext of ad-
ministering justice, he has daily committed since he
assumed its government. Many have been more
bloody than he ; but for cunning in devising expe-
dients for tormenting the weak and helpless, he
stands alone. Surrounded by his soldiers he knew
he was supreme, and lost no opportunity of making
his power felt. The men he robbed—the women he

attempted, but in vain, to dishonour. On the free
Ihe imposed the most galling servitude ; and to those
1
who, by the laws of the State, were slaves, he gave
freedom, in the hopes that it might degenerate into
unbridled license. He paralysed trade by ignoring
all title to property in those who constituted the
bulk of the population, and attempted to re-
lieve the misery which in consequence arose
among the workingclasses, by sequestrating the
property of the rich.
Blind
to every sentiment of
honour and justice, ignorant of
lowest
government, versed only in the dirtiest tricksevery principle of
chicane.
aimed at no higher ends than the results of success-
ful Paths of his profession, the Yankee attorney
making
pro-
mising protectio he inhabitants of New
h tricked the
Orleans into Nor has he altogether failed. By
and then he confiscated d • e
that was
ever seated it. By the foulest device
without success, to coerce
ladies of that conceivedcityintod
declaration l abrya tt ihoen
humanof f their
he
endeavoured, though
oppressors, although subsequently, the
equally disreputable trick, IhueentlY' by
compelled them to
respetoct a forgo
govern-
ment declare in public their attachmenteom an almost
ment which had made many of them widows
and
rity
childless, and which supported in authority over
them a man who had loaded them with the grossest
insults. The Committee of Public Safety at the
time of the first Frensh Revolution contented them-
selves with depriving their victims of life, but they
left them free to entertain and to express in their
dying moments the sentiments for which they
perished. Bertrand Barere even in his fiercest de•
nunciations of " the Austrian woman" neyer sug-
gested that by threatened indignities she might be
[ compelled to extol the mercy and the justice of the
L tribunal which sent her husband to the scaffold and

sentenced her to death. But the basest and most cruel
of the Jacobins must yield the palm to Butler in re-
spect to the rare ingenuity with which, whilst spar-
ing the bodies, he tortured the feelings of his unhappy
victims. Men are thick-skinned, and consequently
women were specially selected by Butler as the sub-
jects of his attacks. It is reserved for some future
Delaroche to depict that scene in the Town-hall of
New Orleans when a Southern lady of high
rank, clad in the deepest mourning, whose
husband and whose sons had perished in
the defence of their native soil, declared
before high heaven her allegiance to the Govern-
ment of the United States, and received from the
dictator the certificate which exempted her house
from the intrusion of his soldiers, and her effects
from their impertinent scrutiny whenever they
thought proper to exercise it. It may be long
before the picture appears on canvas, but it is now
and for ever indelibly imprinted upon the hearts of
the Southern race. Gen. Butler has quitted New
Orleans, but he has left behind him a name which
will be immortal. Between Northern and Southern
Republics in after times treaties may be made and
alliances entered into, but between their respective
populations General Butler bas made a breach
which, after the lapse of centuries, will still remain
open, and which must ever prevent them merging
again in a common nationality.

Naval and Military Intelligence.

THE NAVY.

The Himalaya, troopship, Capt. E. Lacy, having
completed her repairs, was hauled off the jetty at
Portsmouth dockyard on Saturday, and moored
alongside the Duke of Wellington, where she is ex-
pected to remain for a fortnight or three weeks, be-
fore being requirea for the embarkation of troops.
Her destination is now reported to be the Cape and
Ceylon, instead of China.

The Pylades, steam screw corvette, Capt. A. W.
H. Hood, having her defects made good at Spithead
without coming into harbour, is expected to leave
Spithead early this morning for the North Ameri-
can station.

The Falcon, screw corvette, was towed out of
Portsmouth harbour round to Cowes on Saturday
morning, in charge of Mr. Jones, Admiralty pilot,
to complete expensive repairs, by Mr. White. This
course is rendered necessary in consequence of the
great and urgent pressure of work on other ships
already in hand, and which are required by Admi-
ralty order to be completed and to be ready for com-
mission by the Ist of April.
The Termagant, screw steam frigate, was removed
from alongside the jetty at Portsmouth dockyard on
Saturday, and placed further up the harbour. On
paying off this ship on Friday the sum of £5,000
was paid away. The whole operation of paying off
the crew only occupied 50 minutes. Some of the
men, we understand, received sums of £lOO and up-
wards.

Since the paddlewheel steamer Terrible, 21, 800
horse power, which is fitting for the Chatham Steam
Reserve, has been in dock her defects have been
found to be much more serious than were at first
supposed. It will consequently be some time before
she is completed and ready to take her place in the
second-class Steam Reserve. Her engines and ma-
chinery are being prepared in the steam factory, but
in consequence of their large size and the limited
extent of the erecting shop, they cannot be fitted
except on board, after the ship is afloat. Accord-
ing to orders received at Chatham, the Terrible is
to be completed and ready to take her place in the
Steam Reserve by the 30th of April next. From
the extent of the alterations and repairs now
ir, progress, the Terrible, which is one of the largest
of our paddlewheel steamers, will, when completed,
be almost as good as new.
The screw steamer Vigilant, 4, 200 horse power,
has been found on examination since she has been
in dock to have sustained far more serious injuries
from having been on shore on the Gunfleet Sands
than at first appeared from the survey made after
the accident. It has been accordingly found ne-
cessary to remove her forward sternpost, which
has been replaced with a new one, the boring of
which for the screw shaft has been completed. The
other repairs to her hull are in a very advanced
state, and there appears nothing to prevent her be-
ing ready for commission by the 28th of February,
on which date, according to orders received at
Chatham, she is to be in readiness for the pennant.
The Amphion, 36, 300 horse power, recently
dismantled and paid off at the Nore into the Steam
Reserve, is ordered to be dismasted.

The Lords of the Admiralty have directed plans
to be prepared by which boats' falls may be led
inboard and secured to small bollards, so as to en-
sure a rapid and uniform method of lowering when
required.
The following appointments have been made at
the Admiralty :—Commander A. S. Innes, to the
Osprey, vice Commander Hobson, superseded at
his own request; Dr. A. Graham, slug., to the
Edinburgh ; T. S. Burnett, surg., to the Royal
Adelaide, for Plymouth Hospital ; R. B. O'Toole,
assist.-surg., additional, to the Forte; B. Brown-
ing, assist.;surg., to the Cumberland ; Hay H.
M'D. Grant, assist.-paymaster, to the Investigator;
and J. D. Willshire, second-master, to the Mallet.