The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-09 00:00:00

Mr. DISRAELI must not reckon on losing more
than half or a fourth of the amount of duty which
he remits ; a circumstance which, in his Ways and
Means, he appears wholly to overlook. It is an
old and obvious maxim, that it is always best to
remit an Excise Duty entirely. We think it is so
especially in the case of the Malt-tax ;if any ad-
vantage is to accrue therefrom to agriculture.
We think that the more it is discussed, the
more it will be apparent that it must be
removed entirely or not at all. As it now stands,
it will, in our opinion, give a minimum of relief to
farmers, and inflict a maximum of loss on the
revenue. It would have been cheaper to the
country to have remitted the whole Income-tax
paid by farmers at once. Suppose, however, that
two millions and a half are wanted to meet the
sacrifice of that sum, as now proposed ; or sup-
pose that the duty is to be entirely repealed, and
another two-and-a-half millions needed to do
that ;—to whom should we look to furnish that
amount so naturally as to the landlords them-
selves ? Hitherto, they have transmitted their
vast estates to their descendants, without paying
one farthing into the public Exchequer. Other
property has paid upwards of two millions
annually in legacy and probate duties. Is this
inequality any longer to be endured, and
endured on behalf of the most substantial class
in the Kingdom ? Legacy duties are a tax the
least painful to be borne of any. They are paid
by those who have not earned by hard toil the
property on which they pay them ; paid, indeed,
on a kind of bonus, or present, for which they
have done nothing. There is always at the time,
from the very nature of the case, property from
which they can be paid ; while it is frequently to
thousands a serious difficulty to meet the other
calls of the tax-gatherer. Hence, we think them
amongst the best duties which can be levied by a
Government ; and that they ought to be as
high as is compatible without defeating
their own object, by inducing persons to evade
them in the disposal of their property.
We cannot conceive a single reason for exempt-
ing any longer the wealthiest class in the kingdom
from such reasonable duties paid by all other
classes.
Moreover, as we have suggested, the landlords,
not the townspeople, by a double House-tax, are
the proper parties in every point of view to com-
pensate the farmers. Landlords imposed the laws
to keep up their rent-rolls. They have enjoyed
their advanced rents for thirty years in conse-
quence. The loss, consequent on the transition,
ought therefore to be borne by them. Their
rents, besides, have hardly fallen at all, the value
of their property not at all. From whom, then,
ought the country to expect compensation for
the casual hardship suffered by farmers in the
transition from taxed to untaxed bread—
from the town householders, whose bread
has been unrighteously taxed all these
years, or from those who pocketed the pro-
ceeds of the tax ? From those who already pay
a tax, the legacy duties, from which the receivers
of the Bread-tax have been exempt, or from those
who, for twenty years, have pocketed the proceeds
of that tax, and exempted themselves from legacy
duties also ? Clearly, if any class of men ought
to contribute largely to make good any deficiency
caused by an attempt to benefit the farmer, it is
the landlords themselves.
There is yet another reason why we should look
to them, rather than to the already overtaxed
townspeople. Whatever is now done for the
farmer's benefit, will in a very few years all go
into the landlord's pocket. This is no fault
of theirs. It is the inevitable course of
things when farmers are, as they will now
always be, too numerous. Manufacturers may
be multiplied, raw material may increase, but the
land cannot extend itself. Hence there must,
from the mere increase of population, be always a
redundancy of farmers, and landlords are sure

have the utmost penny which the farmer can pay,
so as to leave him a living at all. The class,
therefore, which will ultimately enjoy the sole
benefit of every relief now granted to the farmer,
is surely the class which ought to take upon itself
at least the burdens which it has hitherto laid
heavily upon others, while it has refused to touch
them itself with one of its little fingers.
As to the amount likely to be raised from the
justice to holders of real property which we now

press upon public attention, every consideration
shows that it would probably more than equal the
amount now paid by personal property. In 1842,
Mr. PORTER computed the value of personal pro-
perty, at twenty-five years' purchase, to be about
2, 000, 000, 000/. It may have increased in value
two or three hundred millions since that time.
The late returns under schedule A show, for Great
Britain, that real property, at twenty-five years'
purchase, is worth about 2, 630, 000, 000/. ; to which
must be added the real property in Iteland, of the
rapidly-increasing value of which it is impossible
to form an estimate. From these statements it

is clear that real property could not yield ~
less
probate and legacy duty than personal pro-
perty. At first sight,
indeed, it would appear
as if it were worth ten hundred millions more

than personal property. But there is a very large
and unknown deduction to be made for mort-

gages ; to the extent to which they exist they of
course diminish the amount of Legacy Duty which
could fairly be charged on real property, since as
personal property, they pay the duty already, and
could never be received by a legatee.
Not long ago we suggested to our agricultural
friends, that if repealing the Malt-tax would
be a relief for them at all proportionate to
the sacrifice of revenue, which we much
questioned, and still more than doubt,
their wisest course would be to ask their
landlords to pay Legacy and Probate Duties
like other persons, as the chief contribu-
tion towards attaining their object. We
still urge the same advice. If it be fol-

lowed, if it be only fairly discussed in the
House of Commons, we are confident that even a

__—
Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer could not re-
sist long ; a Tory one, who has already given
schedule D a modicum of justice, would certainly
be easily compelled to do justice in the other di-
rection to schedule
A. To be sure it is easier to
take off than to put on, but lie seems to make
easy work of putting on double House-tax,
when the tax already existed. It ought
to be much easier work to put on a single
Legacy and Probate Tax on those who have paid
proposition
none of it hitherto. We believe that an equit-
able

DISRARLI's reputation as a powerful and upright
statesman, than
all his little other matters put
together. It is one of the best things left him by
the Whigs
to do. If he will only propose it, he
will hear a shout of approbation throughout the
whole kingdom which will " put him in power on
that question."

A somewhat daring enterprise has been adven-
tured upon
by her MAJESTY'S Government. We
speak not in allusion to their project for the in-
crease of the
not refer to their scheme for dissipating the abuses
in the Court they Navy of England. We do
of Chancery. We do not mean their
undertaking to
develope the long-dormant ener-
gies slumbering behind the jalousies and verandas
of Gwydyr House, in the movement set on foot
by the originators and promoters of the cry for
sanitary improvements. Neither do we imply
their advance-views in reference to Colonial Ad-
ministration. All these are sufficiently bold, no
doubt, and in some respects eminently entitled
to commendation ; but the enterprise to which
we would here more especially direct the popular
attention, the inauguration of a really national
system of Industrial Education. It was explained
in the House of Commons on Monday evening, in
a speech of admirable perspicuity, by the Right
Hon. gentleman the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHE-
QUER. It was not only submitted to the House,
but accepted by the House—a vote of 150,000/.

being granted for its immediate encouragement.
Judiciously expended, that sum may lay the foun-
dation of a structure which, when completed, would
constitute a nobler memento of the Greatlndustrial
Exhibition of 1851, . than even the magnificent
Crystal Palace in process of fabrication at Syden-
ham. For to that memorable display in Hyde
Park, the intended building must be recognised