The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-16 00:00:00

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The adversaries of the malt duty are
evidently men whom economical logic cannot silence
nor hostile majorities terrify. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer may demonstrate their fallacies, their
following in the House of Commons may prove a
scanty one when the time of trial comes ; but when-
ever the subject turns up there they are full of
courage and hopefulness, and ready to meet one set
of statistics by another, which to the ordinary eye
looks equally cogent and persuasive. Such faith in
their cause may have some effect on public opinion.
One of the chief controversial arguments of the
Roman Church is to point to the thorough convic-
tion and the unhesitating zeal which mark its mem-
bers. When men are constantly asserting them-
selves to be in the right there is a natural tendency
to believe them. The faith of the barley grower is
that he is an injured individual, that he alone is
disregarded at a time when every class and every
trade is receiving an alleviation of its burdens, and
that this exclusion from common justice arises from
the supremacy of a party which is linked with the
manufacturing and commercial classes, and has a
secret pleasure in spiting agriculturists. This feel-
ing Mr. Gladstone has not succeeded in conjuring
away by his bill for charging his duty according
to the weight of the grain. In fact, this measure,
with its elaborate provisions and precautions, may
not improbably seem to the malcontents as another
proof of the unjustifiable restrictions under which
the growers of barley labour. The debate last
night was but a repetition of former ones; the griev-
ances of those who produce the raw material of the
chief drink of Englishmen, and the injustice and im-
. .

policy of subjecting that drink to taxation in its pri-
mitive instead of its artificial form, made the staple
of the discussion, as they will probably of many more
before the question is settled. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer was cold as usual, almost defiant, but
his adversaries did not the less make their usual

pertinacious appeal, and though the question is at an
end for the present Parliament, it is pretty certain
to revive with renewed vigour in the next. Sir F.
. _

Kelly and his friends must, however, be much aided
by good fortune if they are to make any change in

this matter. With the learned member's statistics
we shall not attempt to grapple • that may be left
to the select committee, which Mr. Gladstone says
may be appointed whenever Sir F. Kelly asks for. it.
If the extraordinary assertion be true that beer-
drinkers pay £20,000,000 out of the £60,000,000
which is the cost of their beer, and only from five
to six millions of this go into the Exchequer, it will
certainly be a serious argument in favour of new
legislation. But as yet there has not been the
slightest proof advanced that the impost is so
absurdly levied and so ruinously unproductive. On
the contrary, the opinion of those who have watched
the operation of the duty is that, whatever com-
plaints the farmers may have to make of it, the
Exchequer has none ; for it is a large, steady source
of revenue, obtained without unnecessary trouble.
The arguments of Mr. Caird are more worthy of
notice because they place the matter in a coni.
paratively new light, and call attention to questions
which are likely to be more important every year.
Mr. Caird reasons, in effect, that the agriculture of
England is changing, and is likely to change still
further. One consequence of this change is that
the cultivation of barley will become more profit-
able to the farmer, and ought therefore to be
encouraged, or at any rate not impeded by
financial restrictions. This country will soon con-
sist only of a great number of cities, each of them
with a tract of moderate extent to feed it. Every
part of the island will be to a certain extent
suburban. The natural result of this will be to
turn the attention of the farmer to the production
of meat, while the chief cereal on which man lives—
namely, wheat—will more and more be imported
from abroad, where it can be produced of better
quality and at a cheaper rate than here. Now,
barley, according to Mr. Caird, would adapt itself
to this altered state of things better than any other
crop. "He maintained that it would be an im-
mense advantage to British agriculturists and to the
increased production of meat, dairy produce, and
wool, if barley could to a large extent be substituted
for wheat." " Barley," again observes Mr. Caird,
"is the wine crop of the country." For such rea-
sons as these he would support the opponents of the
duty in asking for an abolition or a considerable
diminution of it. The great question whether there
ought to be a malt tax at all quite overshadows the
details of such a bill as went through committee last
night. Mr. Gladstone addressed himself to the former
subject; and was very 'hard on Sir F. Kelly for not
fighting a bolder battle and pitting the lowering of
the malt tax against the lowering of the income tax.
" That," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer
triumphantly, " was the question which the hon. and
learned gentleman had never answered." This is
scarcely fair, for after the house had given its
opinion at an earlier period of the session, it would
have been a useless act, and one almost verging on
the unconstitutional, to have made a direct opposi-
tion to the budget. Mr. Gladstone was happier
when he declared that the taxes of the country were
maintained to meet the expenditure of the country,
and, furthermore, accepted the statement that the
repeal of the malt tax without the imposition of
some corresponding tax on beer would be the death-
blow of indirect taxation, and would disturb all the
relations of the financial system. This, indeed,
brings us to the chief and the only question—is beer
to be taxed ? and if it is, can there be a better way
of taxing it than is provided by the present malt
duty ? With respect to the first question there can,
we think, be little doubt. To raise a large part of
the revenue by an excise on intoxicating drinks
is one of the best approved financial institu-
tions of this country. Scotland and Ireland
drink whisky ; our lower classes in town drink,
unhappily, a good deal of gin; and both whisky
and gin are heavily taxed, and their distillation en-
cumbered with many regulations. The most fana-
tical beer-worshipper will hardly deny that while
the other parts of the United Kingdom pay so much
to the Exchequer on the national drink, there should
be some corresponding impost in England. It only
remains, then, to consider whether there can be a
better beer tax than the present malt tax. Of this
opponents of the latter have failed to convince the
House. No doubt there are inconveniences and
restrictions connected with the levying of the tax.
These are inherent in the nature of our Excise, and
all that can be done is to alleviate them rs much as
possible by such measures as that which was 'dis-
cussed last night. We fear that Sir F. Kelly and
his supporters must be content to wait for a sub-
stantial diminution of their burdens until the pro-
gress of the country allows a general relief to the
consumer. As long as money must be had Parlia-
ment is not likely to give up a valuable source of
revenue, even though the opponents of the tax are
able to make out a plausible case of hardship.
POST.—The curious imitation of the English
House of Lords which exists at Berlin has just pro-
posed the introduction of a measure which appears
so absolutely suicidal that it is difficult to believe
that it could have found favour in the eyes of any
assembly claiming to represent a nation, and pos-
sessing the privilege of declaring the national will.
When in the early part of 1850 Frederick William
IV. addressed himself to the task of framing a con-
stitution for his subjects, he designed a Parliament
composed of two Chambers, one of which he termed
the' Herren-haus" or House of Lords, and the other
the " Abgeordneten-haus," or House of Commons.
Astheroyal ordinance prescribing the constitution of
the Upper Chamber was considerably modified by a
decree issued four years later, it may suffice to say that
according to the provisions of the latter edict, that
Chamber is composed of princes of the royal family,
the heads of the mediatised princely houses, recog-
nised by the Congress of Vienna, the chiefs of the
territorial nobility created by the King, a number
of life peers, some eight noblemen elected by the
landowners to represent respectively the eight pro-
vinces into which Prussia is divided, the represen-
tatives of the universities, the burgomasters of towns
with a population exceeding fifty thousand souls,
and an unlimited number of members appointed by
the Sovereign for life or for a limited period. Be-
tween an assembly thus constituted and the English
House of Peers it is needless to say there is no
similitude except in name, and to ascribe to it that
representative character which, as one of the Houses
of Parliament it claims, is clearly to misapply most
grossly the term " representative." A Chamber
composed of an hereditary nobility absolutely inde-
pendent of the Crown, but at the same time linked
with the people by the closest ties, may with justice
claim to have at heart the interests of the nation,
and to be no less strenuous a guardian of popular
rights than if its members held their seats by _virtue
of the votes of their fellow-citizens. The eldest son
of an English duke is simply a commoner, and may
as such, and not unfrequently does, fill a place in
the Commons' House of Parliament. But the
" Herrens-haul" at Berlin is an assembly composed
for the most part of the nominees of the Crown,
and, judging by the course it has adopted during
the present reign, appears to exercise no other
function than that of endorsing Ministerial pro-
posals, whatever they may be. It is with the Cham-
ber of Deputies alone that the Crown has been at
issue during the past three years, the attitude of
the Upper House having been as subservient as
the most exacting monarch could have desired.
Within the last few days the " Herren-haus" has,
however, in its anxiety to manifest its attachment
to the Crown, and its contempt for those who
compose the other Chamber, adopted a step for
which it would, we think, be impossible to discover
a parallel in the annals of Parliamentary history.
The enjoyment of privilege of speech, and the