The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The financial system which the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer had to defend yesterday is in
one respect like, in another very unlike, our repre-
sentative system. Both are settlements arrived at
after long controversy ; both are treaties of peace
between different classes • both are chiefly defended
on the ground of working well. Our taxation is
practically light and equal, and practically every
interest is represented. Such are the points of re-
semblance, but the difference, if not greater, is at
least more striking. Our representative system pro-
fesses to work well in spite of enormous and scan-
dalous anomalies, just as you may have no reason
to quarrel with a compromise which wrongs you in
one point, but gives you more than your due in
another. Our financial system, on the contrary, pro-
fesses to be perfectly balanced and symmetrical. It
taxes luxurious and indispensable articles, and at-
tempts to do this equally ; it also taxes the opera-
tions of business, as being a fair way of reaching
the whole community. The only anomaly, if any,
is the income tax, which, however, is a tax on the
luxury of mere income, and on the possession of that
wealth which, if hoarded, escapes taxation. But the
very difficulty of this system consists in its philoso-
phical or Pharisaical justice. It is righteous over-
much. "He is all fault in whom no fault is found."
The farmers would be much better pleased if Mr.
Gladstone admitted a hardship in their case, only
adding that he saw no way to remove it, and could
not do without the tax. On the contrary, they find
themselves confronted with a " system, always the
most odious thing in an Englishman's eye. The
system in this case is an equal taxation of luxuries.
That system we cannot gainsay. We believe at
this moment that the habitual drinkers of tea
coffee, brandy, gin, whisky, wine, and beer are all
taxed, if not equally, at least so that the beer
drinker has no reason to complain. Besides the
old quarrel between the liquors themselves, there
is a balance to be kept between England, land,
Scotland, France, and the whole world. Our
agriculturists ought to see for themselves that it
is really no trifling affair to trim afresh so large
a burden. But they don't even help by working
out the figure, or the chemistry, or the practical
bearings of the question. At the Freemasons'-hall
we were told by one speaker that the duty is equi-
valent to 2d. in the quart, by another that it is Id.
in the quart, and, after all, no proof is given to show
that it is more than a half-penny in . the quart.
Which is it ? There are honest brewers who declare
that even if the duty be wholly taken off no cot-
tager will be able to brew his beer cheaper than he
does now ; and though if he gets his malt good, and
if he understands brewing, or if his wife does, and
if they can give their time to it, then they may pos-
sibly get their beer free from publichouse adultura-
tion. The figures of one simple cottage brewing
would have told more than all the poetic lamenta-
tions over the decline of malt liquor and the cruelty
of stepping in between the farmer and his labourers
Nor did the gentlemen at Freemasons'-hall tell us
who would have the benefit of this reduction, to be
purchased, as we have said, at the cost of a vast un-
settlement. As to the price of barley, we fear that
is a very world-wide question, and Parliament will
never do much in raising it. Neither the landowner
nor the tenant, therefore, will get much by a change.
Bul the farmer, it is said will save the beer he gives
to the labourers. Indeed, one of the speakers at
Freemasons'-hall said that the tax was a tax upon
wages, contrary to all sound principles, inasmuch as
wages are paid partly in beer. But, supposing the
beer to be a trifle cheaper, either the farmer will
pocket the difference or the labourer will get better
beer and more of it. The farmer hopes the la-
bourer will be content with his present allowance
and present quality of beer • but if the beer should
be made cheaper he will demand his share in the
advantage. Supposing, however, that beer be an
indispensable item in the cost of a farm, a farmer
will pay rent accordingly. No !we hear from
one quarter. If a farmer has a long lease, he
may save a large sum every year by brewing his
own beer duty free, and pocket the difference. It
is the man with a long lease, then, that is most in - .
terested in the question ; but even he, we suspect,
does not know what he is about. He is much more
interested in the sale of his barley than in the cost of
his beer. The duty on foreign malt of course would
share the fate of the Excise. There is, then, nothing
to prevent any quantity of malt coming from the
Elbe, as a correspondent has shown ; and it is stated
that there is a good deal of foreign barley better
qualified for malting than our own. Are our far-
mers prepared to see whole fleets of malt arrive in
the Thames or other great ports ? There was not a
whisper about this contingency at Freemasons'-hall.
For aught one heard there the English barley-
grower might not have a rival in the whole world.
Then as to the use of malt for feeling enttlp They
were very humorous at the cost of Mr. Gladstone's
measure, the restrictions of which are found to cur-
tail its application. The conclusion they have come
to is that the measure has been found useful by the
feeders of prize cattle, but impracticable for small
people. We should think the matter is very plain.
It is simply a question between barley meal and
sugar. The process of malting converts a great part
of the barley into sugar, which is no doubt very fat-
tening for beasts as well as human beings. Meal
makes more flesh, and sugar more fat. If the beast
is to be eaten, we should think barley must be the
better food; if it is to be converted into candles,
then give it plenty of malt. If the butcher and the
cook are to decide the question, they will be for malt,
but the interest of the beef and mutton eating pub-
lic lies the other way. Mr. Bentinck denounces the
tax as a violation of Free Trade. The farmer has a
right to do what he likes with his own, and Govern-
ment has no right to prohibit him by a heavy tax
from coverting his crop into good drink. Unfortu-
nately, this argument applies with equal force to dis-
tillation. Who has a right to step in between the far-
mer and his own crop, the produce of his own hands,
and say that he shall not make it gin, or whisky, or
whatever other spirit he pleases ? A large part of
the Irish peasantry have a very strong opinion on
this point, and it has been found necessary to em-
ploy other arguments than those of moral suasion or
financial reasoning. But this is the first time that
we have heard a man's right to do what he likes with
his own maintained so publicly, so unreservedly, and
by so respectable an authority. A man has not a
right to convert the food of man and beast into an
intoxicating liquor, except under such rules and con-
ditions as the State shall see fit to impose. Free
trade is an affair between us and our neighbours
across the sea. In the matter of malt we take care
that they shall have no quarrel with us. Mr. Ben-
tinck would create a quarrel with them at once,
inasmuch as we should be removing all duty off
malt liquor, and leaving untouched higher duties
upon the foreign wines and spirits coming into com-
petition with it. Such a competition there certainly
exists, but, whether it exists or not, we should never
be able to satisfy our neighbours that we are dealing
fairly with them if we relieved our beer and left
their wine and spirits taxed as now. But these
gentlemen evidently will not give themselves the
trouble to work out these questions. They leave
figures and financial difficulties to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer and the press. They do not, how-
ever advance their cause by refusing to understand
its difficulties. We wish they could get over those
difficulties, but they will not do so by the mere act
of shutting their eyes to them.
POST.—The Conservative party, or at least a sec-
tion, and that not an inconsiderable one, of the
party seem to be for ever bent upon illustrating the
proverbial assertion that " extremes meet." Con-
tinually they exhibit themselves in alliance with
those politicians whose dearest object and avowed
aim is the- elimination from our political and social
system of those elements which avowedly and
theoretically it is the especial function of the Con-
servative party to preserve intact. They have held
out to the extreme Radicals a hand with experi-
mental voting by ballot in the open palm; they have
shaken a sieve full of corn at the suspicious and
shy Roman Catholic ; and they now movingly en-
treat the Financial Radical Reformers to co-operate
with them in a movement which, if successful,
would result in an extensive substitution of direct
for indirect taxation. They ask Parliament—nay,
they do more than ask, they endeavour, by platform
agitation, and by all the other devices the successful
exploitation of which made the Anti-Corn-law
League so famous—to coerce the Government and
the Parliament to sanction the reduction of indirect
taxation by six millions now realised by the malt
tax, and to fill up the gap by the absolute retention
or possible augmentation of the income tax. They
are will-of-the-wisps these Conservatives, so erratic
that we shrink from following them through thebogs
of doubt and shaking ideas which apparently en-
gender them, and so unsubstantial that we cannot
grasp or realise them. Their political system may
have a sound basis, but it is as difficult to find as the
bottom of a "pot-hole," or what in Ireland is called
a mountain and in England is termed a morass. The
line that was taken at the Freemasons' Tavern can
scarcely be described as Conservative, and is cer-
tainly not new. It was taken by Jack Cade long
ago. Long ago he promised the urban population,
as Sir Fitzroy lielly,'s following promise them now,
that the three-hooped pot should have five hoops if
they would only make him king and father of the
people, and ever from time to time popular songs
hay e damned -in loud choruses the wretch who would
" rob a poor man of his beer." There are neverthe-
less, we venture to think, things more important of
attainment than even cheap beer, nay, even than
cheap food for cattle, or milk for growing calves.
We think it more importaiit to keep faith financially
with the nation than to realise any or all the advan-
tages which might accrue from the abolition of the
excise duty upon malt. We beg to remind those