The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-14 00:00:00

14. I e,..

THE INCOME-TAX.

Those of our contemporaries who most loudly
clamour for a graduated income-tax, judiciously
evade the trouble of investigating the theory of taxa-
tion by an incessant appeal to common sense—or, in
other words, to the uninstructed popular judgment on
a purely scientific question. On the other band, the
actuaries who were examined before the Committee
display abundant ingenuity and arithmetical skill, as
well as a general indifference to the practical difficul-
ties which might result from the adoption of their
proposals. Taeir calculations are unassailable, and
their conclusions infallible, on the assumption that
they have stated the question correctly. One of the
most judicious of their number observes, with con-
siderable acuteness, that the present impost is unjust
so far as it falls partly on income, and partly on pro-
perty. But the whole of the arguments in favour
of graduation are based on the assumption
that no distinction whatever ought to be made
between income and capital. The scheme for
converting every income into a perpetuity, by
taxing only the interest on its assumed marketable
worth, is founded on a most arbitrary fiction. As an
ordinary rule, men live on their annual receipts, and
not on 3 per cent. of their saleable value. There are,
of course, exceptions, but all the actuaries in England
will fail to persuade any reasonable person that the
rare operation of capitalizing a professional income
forms the rule of private economy. If, in point of
fact, a lawyer, aged 40, with an income of 1,0001. a-
year—which would be worth, as Mr. Williams in- i
forms us, seven years' purchase—were considered by
himself and his neighbours as the owner of 2001. a
year, the State might safely assess him at that sum,in
the expectation that it would descend to his children.
But, in reality, the income is transitory, and so is the
per centage levied by the tax-gatherer ; nor would the
assessment be strictly just, even on the assumption
which we have suggested. Professional incomes have
been adjusted wit
•
h some reference to the wants of
the recipient, as
proportioned to his education and
position ; and assuredly
Eery estate was theneypercfoenees
professional
odfoundation of an
one of
the he r e
di
century indispen-
sable
necessaries of re
The Popes of the 17th
undue greediness when they created were accused of
ages or principalities for their nephewsperpetual ;pan-
sons. In England, however, itor illegitimate
wouldem, accord•
ing to the judgment of some of the witnesses, that
each
to found
bee bncumbent.
intended
fixed
ecclesiastical incomes are principally
patrimonies for the descendants
on the
A bishop or a prebendary of 70 h to
assumption that he will leave his family thexfedll value
of his preferment, subject to a small deductionu
own life interest. Some of the richest prelates of the
for
his
present day would, according to the scheme in which
all the actuaries concur, be assessed at not more than
one-fifteenth or one-twentieth part of their actual re-
venues. It is surprising that gentlemen so competent
to calculate individual chances, should have forgotten
that a large number of casualties virtually amount to
a certainty. The entire income of the Church is a
perpetuity, though all existing incumbents may
possibly die to-morrow ; yet the witnesses deem
it demonstrably just—and some of our contemporaries
echo the assertion—that the revenues of the Church,
as compared with hereditary property, should be at
once increased by a definite and calculable per cen-
tage. The incomes of the legal profession, being held
by a more insecure tenure, will doubtless receive a
still larger advantage. The landlord will not find
that, on an average of years, be pays less to his soli•
citor than formerly; but he will have the satisfaction
of knowing that he also pays income-tax for the
purpose of ensuring the lives both of attorney and
counsel. Nor will his steward fail to derive a similar
benefit. In former days, two or three per cent. on
the rental may, perhaps, have been considered a
sufficient remuneration for agency. But new
lights have arisen. The rental, being hereditary, is
subjected to income-tax; but service, prover-
bially, is no inheritance, and the steward's place
may not be worth three years' purchase. The tax,
therefore, is levied, lin his case, on the interest of
three times the annual value, while the employer
pays on thirty-four times his yearly revenue. After
the expiration of the three years, he must still pay
the same or another steward; but he will not the
less continue liable to the same disproportionate as-
sessment. Under such circumstances, one of two
results must ensue. Either a general readjustment
of salaries and of professional remuneration must take
place—or the entire sum paid by the community, in
the form of fees and wages, must be proportionally
increased by the exact amount which the actuaries
and their friends propose to deduct from the tax on
precarious incomes. Until this obvious consequence
has been explained and justified, theoretical reasoners
will concur in that disinclination to change which
practical politicians entertain on grounds of fiscal
convenience. It is scarcely necessary to add that
any diminution of salaries to meet a graduated in-
come-tax would itself prove that the new-fangled
system introduced an anomaly.
While the scientific advocates of fiscal inequality
ere considering this difficulty, we may conveniently
turn to the so-called objections of common sense—
one of which is urged by a correspondent of our own,
under the appropriate signature of " Ignoramus,"
who prefaces his remarks with the candid admission,
"I am very ignorant." We have no doubt that
" Ignoramus" at least understands his own affairs too
well to have engaged in the ruinous transaction which
he has thought fit to convert from an hypothesis into
a narrative. It will be observed that the bargain
which he describes was made "a short time since'
at a period, therefore, when the income-tax had ex-
isted for ten years, and was likely to continue for
ten years more. We can assure " Ignoramus " that,
although eminent actuaries may have forgotten so
trifling a consideration, no purchaser of any security
can be affected by an impost, however unjust origi-
nally, which existed at the time of the contract.
Our correspondent, on his own showing, deliberately
incurred the loss of which he complains. If there
were an income.tax of 50 per cent. on short annuities,
"
a purchaser, with notice of the burden, could be in
no way injured or aggrieved. “Ignoramus states
his case thus :
" 90/. per annum, dividend on 3,0001. Three per
Cent. Consols,;has been my income hitherto, exempt
from tax. A short time since a friend, on the eve of
his departure from England, had immediate occasion
for 3,0001. I sold my stock ; lent him the money at
the same rate of interest that it yielded in Consols
(3 per cent.), he giving me a charge upon his estate.
I was to be repaid in three years, 1,0001. in each year.
In the ordinary way the money would have come
back to me thus :—End of
Ist year 1,0001., with interest on 3,0001 1,0901.
2d „ 1,0001., I 2,0001..... 1,060/.
31 „ 1,0001., 1,0001..... 1,030/.

In all 3,1801.
By re-investing in Consols 1,0001. of the first receipt,
the dividend thereon, added to 601. of the second,
retained as income, would leave 1,0001. again to re-
invest; and the dividend on the 2,0001., added to 301.
of the third, would leave another 1,0001., which, re-
invested, would replace me as I was before ; I in each
year having had the same income, 901.
" But, to meet the convenience of my friend, I
agreed to take a charge on his estate entitling me to
receive 1,0601. in each of the three years, amounting
in the aggregate to the same sum of 3,1801. And -I
now find myself in this position :—lf the income-
tax is continued at its present rate, and is made
to apply, as it now does, to temporary as to
of
perpetual annuities, as some your corres-
pondents contend that it ought,as I ,
have now an annuity for three ye then
years of 1,0601.
per annum, not exempt from tax.
shall be taxed on
3,1801., in the three years—viz., 921. 155., besides on
the dividends on the
afinrscit twolinvestments, making.nin
all more than 95/ •
come more than 901.—in cannot take as EnYlh-
three years 2701.--o_.n 01-Thi'
this tax of 951. falls with a weight exceeding 5 per
cent., I must, therefore, either limit
. my P!_ll6l:...taulr'
to 551. per annum, or I must cut into the prlviv'e
That such a transaction should have taken Place
during the existence of the income-tax is, as we have
shown, practically impossible. The utmost inconve-
nience which could arise, except . at the first imposi-
tion of the tax, would be the discor et of oar-
ir :nay, indeed, '
gains in the particular form
thesuppose
actual law, if pro-
be doubted whether, even under
would have been
perly enforced, the capital
sluancid. But if the law
liable to duty as it was rreaPaaus" assumes, the in-
were interpreted as g
Iwould only be attributable
convenience of the re"sili)fltn
general terms. When Par-
to the unavoidable
on annuities, it is not on the
!lament imposes
owes are mere instalments of
a taxu
lion t such inc f . .
supposi
the purchase-money o an estate is paid
a debt. If - s instead of in one it is evidently
anal sum ,
in three an Th ' -
liable to the impost. e case suggested by our
not liable
is of a similar kind ; and a puzzle will
always arise as to the precise boundary line between
income and property. Thirty or twenty years ago
the Government Long Annuities were universally
treated as income ; and when the income-tax was im-
posed in 1842, by far the greater part of that Stock
was held under the same character. No holder who
has purchased since that year has a right to complain
of a tax which must have been taken into account in
his bargain. But, in 1852, the Long Annuities
which will expire in 1860 have naturally come to be
treated only as a matter of speculation, or,
in other words, as capital. The purchaser
at the present time intends to re-invest his re-
ceipts, after deducting the ordinary rate of interest—
in other words, be is practically acquiring
a per-
petuity ; and so long as a belief in the permanence of
the present income-tax prevails in the market, he may
effect this object on as advantageous terms as if the
impost had never been devised. A
.... respected cor-
respondent, who signed himself " A Capitalist," will,
we are convinced, not dispute this qualification of the
conclusions at which he arrived on the assumption of
a new tax being about to be imposed. As a general

------ -- •- --
~ e ;.x.'..,?)
•'
rule, it may be said that the tea 011 irplliti.i.,'.. 'l. li-
Iselt to be levied on property. ' Short Brihui
~,. •,,.;..., i, ;7'2
ehmed without notice of thz, tax, ml.,y le;rkglo', L ~ - . s.--, ,t,‘...1
rather to the head of capital tofu) to there(' ;,•:t,:. ''" iiii *.i.,,
tattl
but life annuities, on the other baud, and 111_,4- , ,
,;',.•:::
may be expected to last during the life otd,n, -.a .; ' ' 4'"\:,.,),- 05
tent, belong to the bead of income. If us •'' ~' 7
ture has failed to distinguiA between these ottl.U. 'e
forms of investment, it is at least satisfactory to ' .
that the lapse of ten or eleven years, during which
purchases and sales have b,!en made with reference to
the income-tax, has gone far to correct the anomaly-
-Chronicle. •

TENANT RIGHT" QUESTION-
The Irish malcontents having wound up the ques-
tion of " tenant-right" with a dinner, and Mr. G.
H. Moore having gulped down his scruples with his
wine, they have now addressed themselves to, the
twin subject, " religious equality." The dozen P. P.'s
who rendered such energetic assistance at the meet-
ings of the " League " have their (-tem purpose to
answer, and, as one pal turn deserts another,
they appear to be very wall supported by their Par-
liamentary aides. The two agitatiobs are to proceed
together, and doubtless the same office, the same staff,
the same newspapers, We same materiel, and the
same figurehead, in the person of Mr. G. 11. Moore,
will do equally well for both of them. For the
Roman Catholic tenantry it will he very delightful to
reflect that by a moderate subscription, equivalent to
an insurance, they are delivering their land from
rent, tithes, and Protestantism at the same time; so
the double object will he likely enough to extract
some of those sovereigns which have lately stuck
with such an invincible attraction of gravity to the
bottom of the Irish farmer's pocket. Real, v, too, if
the peasantry can be persuaded that both oc,j,acts are
feasible, and that landlords and parsons can bath bs
banished from the Emerald Isle, the fearful drain of
emigration, which is playing such sad work wi.'h
chapel fees, may Possibly be stopped. Something, it
is evident, must be done. The Roman Catholic
clergy, and, indeed, their lay colleagues in agitation,
have no taste for accompanying
their flocks across the
Atlantic to a land of real religious as well as civil
equality. Excepting by a few
young men tram
Maynooth, the Church is hardly represented in an
Exodus amounting now to near a thousand a day,
and the clergy that remain, it is evident, must find
themselves reduced to shorter commons day by day.
So what is to he done? Necessity suggests dire ex-
pedients, and disagreeable alliances. it will
even
overcome the sense of decency, and what is more,
common sense.
Religious equality ? That is the fair pretence sis.-
sutned by seventeen devoted Parliamentary adherents
of the Church of Rome, and a crowd of its clergy.
The word is positive treason and heresy in every
Roman Catholic mouth. What religious equality can
there ever be between the minister, the parson, and
the. priest, between the Methodist preacher, the Arch-
bishop of bishop of Canterbury, and the Pope. The whole sys-
tem
advanced with so
.RoTtnneaitsnfloauinindiesd on thed claimdofeneadenlouwsihveerdeoi;
missives from St. never roppe ,
every now and thenj littleadrsct
bhm,arogd
eesdtyfroorm
the reserve
e i
lass
oin f the
e
and other fiery epistles
thdt these men desire.Relie9u4litY
Irish hierarchy. Religious
of other things besides prigvioleus is the very last thing
equality is an Equality
and pay. It would
holesome, but in
ne itvyeh'a‘dvromnl harmless and even
that reduce the
syet hear,
involve the same checks, genegraell
tabfli.shed
as
kledst f be
sCoruercrheospfeEctns gplaaniedfutollyits eppprersees
tenour ; unless, indeed, which we
these agitators would ask to release theeEt
Church from its present political restraints.
the religious equality of America which is
or
by all means let it be stated. Then we shall kn°
what we have to deal with ; but we shall wonder
all
the more that the Roman Catholic clergy manifest so
decided a repugnance to America, gad prefer
starvation and empty chapels at home, to large and
well-fed flocks, with religious equality, across the
Atlantic.

There is many an object, however, which it
answers to follow, though it is worthless when
caught. Among the many thousands who daily bunt
foxes in this island, there are few who would either
swallow a mouthful of their prey, or wish there to be
oce less fox in the land. Religious equality is the
rank, worthless vermin, which these political sports-
men hunt for the pleasure of hunting, with the inten-
tion of throwing it to the dogs, should they ever be so
fortunate as tocatch it. If Roman Catholics really like
religious equality, why do they not show their principle
at work, where they have all their own way ? There
can be no doubt that at Rome they might exhibit a
spectacle that would edify the whole Christian world,
by allowing to every other communion, including the
Latter-Day Saints, a perfect equality of privilege.
As it is, we sit know that if the Archbishop of Can-
terbury went to Rome, when Sanday morning came
he would have to go out of the city gates, and ascend
a loft over a large pigsty, in order to worship God
after the light of his conscience end the manner of
his fathers. Now, what religious equality is there
between St. Peter's protected by ten thouland French
soldiers, and the upper floor of a building of which
the principal floor is occupied, as we believe, by pigs ?
Give the English permission, and they will raise
20,0001. to-morrow to build a suitable church for
themselves in a city to the resources of which they
contribute so greatly. But no. Religious equality is
absolutely inconsistent with Pepsi pretensions. In
Ireland, however, that hunting•ground of party, it
may be convenient to pursue this game for a time,
particularly if a few English Dissenters can be found
simpletons enough to join in the cry. If they do, they
will certainly deserve what they will never:get,—
to experience the tender mercies of a Church which
has never tolerated a rival a moment longer than it
was obliged to do so. That the demand of " religious
equality" is quite unnecessary is evident from a glance
at any of our large populations. The rival commu.
nions of the country stand on level ground in such
places as Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast, or Cork.
Nay, with regard to the mass of the population, they
have no real resource except in the voluntary prin-
ciple. In this great metropolis there are hundreds of
thousands who never enter a church, and who are at-
tached to it by no tie of affection or circumstances.
So far as they are concerned there is perfect religious
equality between all the communions. Dr. Sumner,
CneawrdifnaanlatWic Wiseman, Mr. Megru.aßl achanceptist
standthepnjde i
leastuicedun hisca favors:
mis-
sionaryeducated Nwiotehl, thein and ; the last
except,
i de ed, thatm,,il the
probablypoo r Efi,
find some in the hearts of the ignorant
and poor.—Times.

CAN ADA.
QUEBEC AUG. 26.—mince I last wrote, the
Par-
liament of 'Canada has been occupied with thet reply
which
to the Governor's address. There is little in : n
leaders
affords food for either cavil or oratory;t to the Mi-
nistry parties must throw down the gau
nistry apropos of something, Thus we have
least immemorial usage in its favour.
Boulton, Sir
floodst hre
of eloquence,
nt,,ereply" has at
had Mr. M'Kenzie, Mr. Broaw.nscii,
to their future de-
Allan M‘Nab, and others pouring
and enlightening the country by his
own
no-
-100,
Crown as Earl
signs. Mr. Ilineksiiiin
count,
is
" as mach a roper to allude to the failure
Derby," has thought p
iroad negotiation in terms
of the Halifax :plinientary to the British
later of the
by no Tories, though at heart
f. General have indulged in i
be Indpec-or- 1
approving t
loyal indignation. The reply will, however,
Cabinet;
burst of ithout a division. Tbere is nothing in
be carried
without
worth noticing, except, perhaps, Mr.
,echtestement that, whatever difference might
the Pe maetaesthisee the
'"'LorinBß a'st in the respective populations of the
hereafterprovincesexi
(and the last census tells how rapid)y
two
ads is
gaining on its eastern sister), the
Upper Gan
d' s would never consent to a change
French Canalan
in the each province law which allots to . •
nce an equal
number of representatives in Parliament.
The supporters of the Ministry believe they have
more then a working majority. It is estimated that
the Hcuse contains about 35 Ministerialists, 24 Eng-
lish Conservatives, 7 French Conservatives, 5 Rouges,
or Annexationists, and 14 Clear Grits. But the dis-
tinctions of parties have been so altered of late, that
I should not place much reliance on this classification.
Besides the subjects of legislation to which I have
alluded in my recent letter as being likely to occupy
the attention of the House, the Committee on Rail'
roads, will have its hands Lull. No ..co less than twenty
applications for charters have been received ; the
strife of rival interests and lines will doubtless give
birth to much angry debate. The Atlantic and St.
Lawrence Railway is to be opened to Sherbrooke on
the 11th instant. Lord Elgin has consented to be
present at the inauguration.
Your American correspondents will have furnished
...antic
you with full accounts of the loss of the AV
steamer on Lake Erie, on the 19th instant. Upwards
of two hundred poor fellows, Norwegian emigrants,
e when they
whose cleanliness and robust ap
- Pears:acbly with the
left our wharfs, had contrasted
favourably
and Highland
destitute haggard aspect
of
the
Irish
settlers, perished in the
waveswave
of railways in
.
The recklessness of
the captains of steamers and
conductors
bial.
the States is becoming prover
Notwithstanding the gloomy prophecies of the
the crops in Lower Canada are
agricultural sages,
he fly has spared a portion of the wheat,
promising. T.
ot is far from being ge-
neral.and the potato-rot
be plentiful and asap'
Hay will
look 11 we • the orchards never
The oats and barley,
wore a more encouraging aspect.—Chronicle.

PROPOSED EXTENSION OF THE PEEBLES
LIMB --
We understand that measures are in progress to carry out the
Peebles branch so far as Innerleithen. This portion of rail-
way was surveyed by the North British Company in 1845. am
a continuation to the westward of their Hawick branch. We
believe that the InFerleithen branch will be a single line, like
the Peebles, and will be formed upon the principle of econo-
mical construction now so generally approved. We uoderrn
stand that the cost is not likely to exceed 4,5G01. a 3211100 '
Scottish Railway Gazette.