The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-13 00:00:00

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THE SUN.
LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 13, 1862.

So we are to have not only a renewed Income-
tax, but a renewal of it almost without discussion.
Not one person in twenty, even of those who
take an interest in public matters, had suspected
cr observed that for the first time the tremendous
Income-tax, under the infliction of which we
writhe quarterly, was to be mixed up with the
taxes which we may be said almost to eat and
drink without knowing of them. Yet so it is,
The reader in glancing at the Parliamentary de-
bates sees a heading, " Customs and Inland Re-
venue Bill ;" he looks perhaps at afew items hastily,
selecting, it may be, some article of consumption in
which he is interested, and then turns over to see
what is doing in America. It does not occur to
him that almost the only tax he feels painfully is
mixed up with " tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff."
Now we protest against this. Technically it may
be quite right and constitutional. Practically it
is wrong and unconstitutional. It has not been
done before ; it ought nat, as we think we can
show, to be done now. We are aware of the
plea in justification. The Lords lately rejected a
money bill which was sent up in a separate form.
Mr. GLADSTONE triumphed over them last year in
retard to that very bill ; this year he desires to
He therefore

e their Ilumiliation.
ito one bill almost enough money
the interest of the national debt,

to ply

a IA

ays to the Peers, touch it if you dare,
we never defended the rejection of the paper
; repeal bill by the Peers, as, practically, a
conatit utional act; but they have had their lesson on
that subket. We do not think they nEe3 to have
it rep9.ated in another form, and to us the arrange-
ment seems ssmething like that rather un-English
proceeding, kicking a man down.

duti

Hitherto the Income-tax has always been brought
forward in a separate act. Sir ROBERT PEEL, Mr.
GLADSTONE'S great master, always adopted that
Those who have followed him have done
the' same; and the quarrel with the Lords was cer-
no sufficient reason to depart from the prac-
The foundation of that practice we take to be,
very tax, and everything else, indeed, of spe-
cial iniTortance and peculiar character, should have
full and distinct consideration in the House of
Commons. The Income-U.lr is of this class. As a
Peace tax it has an exceptional character, Mr.
GLADSTONE himself being our witness ; as a class
tax it is of a peculiar character, since it singles out
one part of the community and lays upon it a tax
which a far larger part does not pay. As a
tax involving incurable essential injustice,
in-
justice, such injustice as makes it endurable
only in emergencies, like war, or great financial
crises and changes, Mr. GLADSTONE himself has
spoken with all the fervour of earnest conviction.
Such a tax, we repeat, ought not to be huddled up
with a list of duties on what may be regarded as
very common ones ; and of which
luxuries, though
not even the
washerwoman complains while she
.
sips her tea, or the tailor when he buys his ounce
of tobacco.

co arse.

tail

tire.

The income tax is a tuof course, felt by all
x,
payers, but we believe Mr. GLADsToNE's class has
little idea of its galling pressure on the lower divi-
sion of middle-class incomes—those who have the
utmost difficulty in maintaining the social appear-
nit bring themselves to forego, and

nr.ce, tht:y c

to viir,ln the income tz,:c is deprivation, of the sum

may be
mu' -trip for their family's health, or it
ates a change of dwelling, or a mortifying
7 in the family clothing bills, even the
education of children must often suffer. The large
direct deduction of ninepence from every pound of
the income of sucia person ; of £3 15s. from every
hundred pounds, is little less than the in.
we believe in the majority of cases, of
-which is obliged to
1.1. To this class,
economise in every way to retain its social position,
the Income-tax does not permit an adjustment of ex-
penditure to means. kg almost every other tax the
dit'v the operation. If
thrifty housekeeper can ciao,

nci`g~

('COD

flicti

dire c