The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-14 00:00:00

and Tory alike, Canningite and Radical, Liberal
and Conservative. It has continued le Ise thus

uninterruptedly, session after session, from the
remission of the impost upon cereals down to the

remission only last year of the duty upon paper.
Yet—after all with indirect tax after indirect
tax thrown overboard from the good ship Britannia
as so much lumber, until at last the merest frag-
mentary specimens of the old world system of in-
direct taxation left has been reduced to an abso-
lutely notable insignificance—there remains more
firmly fixed to all appearance than ever as part
and parcel of a regular system of finance, what was
to have been a merely expedient or (commer-
cial stay-off for the time being—the abhorred but
lucrative Income Tax. Promises of its gradual
diminution and eventful abolition have been made
and broken and eaten like so many pie-crusts—
with a relish !—from Sir ROBERT himself down to
our present arch-financier (Sir ROBERT'S most gifted
disciple) Mr. GLADSTONE. The giant prop that
was merely employed for the purpose of shoring
up the financial edifice during the progress of many
extraordinary and fundamental alterations, has
seemingly long since been so far incorporated with
the new design of this vast and complicated structure,
that it has come to be one of the principal, and, to
all present appearance, one of the permanent supports
of it from the foundations upwards. Remove it—and
all the rest would come ruining down about our
heads upon the instant. For every penny of this
tax there is involved a million sterling annually,
more or less, for the Exchequer. The revenue could
not recover it during the present arrangements,
or by any means whatever do without it. The
deficiency left by the abandonment any year of the
Income Tax, as a source of revenue, would
be ruinous. The question, in effect, has long
been not at all one as to the remis-
sion or the retention of the Income Tax,
but simply and solely as to its re-ad.-

justment—as to its wiser and more generous
adjustment—as to its adjustment, that is to say, so
that it might weigh, as it has done hitherto, with
a frightful inequality of pressure upon precarious
and upon certain or realised incomes.
There it is, beyond all manner of doubt,

that the shoe pinches ! It is for the relief
of JOHN BULL from that agonising source
of anguish that Mr. HUBBARD, with a very
modest and a very wise rememembrance, upon his
part, of the old proverb—ne sutor ultra crepidam—
is about to drive in again Ms " last" so as to ease,
if possible, the " best foot" (ever " put foremost")
of the gouty old gentleman.
Instead of contenting himself with bootless
lamentations over the continuance wholesale
of this obnoxious tax upon incomes, simul-
taneously with the enhancement of our annual
expenditure to a profligate total of twenty millions
in excess of what our national disbursements were
twenty years ago, when he first entered Parliament
—Mr. BRIGHT would do better for the interests of
the community at large, and would be acquitting
himself more nobly of his self-imposed re-
sponsibility as a Liberal and Financial Re-
former, if he were to do two things, instead
of contenting himself with writing an idle
letter of complaints and lamentations to the Chair-
man of the Anti-Income-tax meeting at Birming-
ham. First, if he would vigorously apply his
splendid powers to the working out of that re-
adjustment of the Income-tax for which the toiling
multitude has so long, and hitherto so vainly,
sighed. Secondly, if he would manfully take his
part each session in discussing piecemeal the whole
of the warlike estimates, about the extravagance
of which he has so often and so eloquently
complained.

Who shall be President of the United States in
1864 ? Would our readers believe that this ques-
tion is already seriously discussed in America ; that
a meeting even has been held in Philadelphia,
already, and that Mr. SEWARD has been declared
as their candidate. MANHATTAN, to be sure, is our
authority, and whether he means to hoar ng or not,
our readers must determine. The meeting, he says,
was held on the Eth instant, and the reply of Mr.
SEWARD is dated Washington, D.C., December
16th, 1862. Commenting on the reply, MANHAT•
TAN says :—" That is a spirit that will make either
Mr. SEWARD or THURLOW WEED the next Presi-
dent of the United States. I think it will be Mr.
SEWARD if he adheres to the above splendid pro-
gramme. He has captured me. I now am deci-
dedly in favour of making Mr. SEWARD the next
President."

Mr. SEWARD'S letter, as edited by this well-
known writer, declares that he had renounced all
ambition when the present civil war loomed up
before them, took neither of the courses requisite
in a man who wished to be President,
did not withdraw himself from home poli-
tics and factions, by either retiring into
private life at home, or accepting a mission
abroad—but gave himself at once and unreservedly
to the public service. " I came," he says, " into the
executive government to aid in saving the consti-
tution and the integrity of my country, or perish
with them. It seemed tome, then, that I must ne-
cessarily renounce all expectation of future personal
advantage, in order that the counsels I might give
to the President in such a crisis should not only be,
but be recognised as being disinterested, loyal, and
patriotic. Acting on this principle, I shun nip dan-
ger and shrink from no responsibility. So I neither
look for, nor, if it should be offered to me, would I
ever accept any reward. The country is to be
saved or lost by the highest efforts of public
and private virtue before another presidential elec-
tion shall occur. If it shall be saved, as I be-
lieve it will, I do not fear my zeal in that great
achievement will be overlooked by the grateful
generations to come after us. If, on the other hand,
it shall be lost, he who shall study the causes of
the great ruin shall not find among them any want
of self-sacrifice on my part. I could never con-
sent, if unanimously called upon, to be a President
of a division of the Republic. I cheerfully give up
my aspirations for rule in the whole Republic as a
contribution to the efforts necessary to maintain it
in its integrity." With such views he insists ou
his friends dropping his name henceforth.
MANHATTAN seems to think that a better can-
vassing letter could hardly be writter, and almost
begins to canvass for him. Re says that "Mr
SEWARD commenced public life very young. He
was governor of this State (New York) when he was
but 30 years old. He is not over 55 yet, and he is as
certain to be President as he lives, if he will only
adhere to that determination. We want men for
the Presidency who feel that they are above it.
That letter will call out tens of thousands of men
who wield pens and have influence, who will do

for Mr. SEWARD, now that he is out of the political
arena, what he could never do for himself while
he was in it, namely, make him the next President
of theMnited States, when the present joker quits
that position." Whatever there may be in all this
it is v. striking illustration of the eftlet of electing
Quadrennially, Chief Ruler, or at least a Prime
Minister,—or more exactly, a kind of compromise
between the two. There is no rest from canvassing
for the highest office. The new President is hardly
installed, when he and his friends begin pre-
four years after.
parations for a re-installation