The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-14 00:00:00

THEATRE. ROYAL ADELPHI.

Proprietor, Mr. B. Webster. —Directress, Madame Celeste.
THIS EVENING, APRIL P,
Will be performed A DESPERATE GAME.
Af er which, MASKS AN D FAC ; or, Before and retard tFe
('attain —by Messrs. B Webster, L. Murray, Honey, P. Bedfind, and
0. Smith ; Mesdames Celeste, Woolgar, &c.
To he followed by BE rsy B ',KEE— by Mr. and Mrs. Keeley.
To conclude with PEPINO THE DUMB BOY, AND PUG, HIS
MONKEY.

ROYAL OLYMPIC; THEATRE.

Lessee and Manager, Mr. Farren.
First Appearance of Mr. Henry Farren.
THIS EVENING, Amy, 14,

Will be performed ASK NO QUESTIONS. Supported by Messrs,
K. Farren, G. Cooke, and Morgan ; Mesdames Gordon, Turner, ani
Bartlett.

To be followed by CATCHING AN HEIRESS. Tom Twig, Mr.
Robson.
To conclude with SALVATORI ; or, the Bandit's Daughter.

ASTLEY'S ROYAL ANIPIIITHEATRE.
Sole Lessee and Manager, Mr. W. Cooke.

Unprecedented success of the New Spectacle, which nightly in-
creases in popularity and attraction.—The novel and wondrous
Ftats of the Horses, the Passage of the Burring Forest, the Leap
through Fire, and the terrific spring of Amakosa's Steed trum the
fearful Heights over the Falls of the Umtata are nightly hailed
with perfect enthusiasm. Mr. Cooke hai been for months training
the Horses for the astonishing Feats.
THIS EVENING, Aram 14,
And during the Week, the Performances will commence with the
magnificent Ppectacie entitled AMA.KOSA.; or, Scenes of Kafir
Warfare ; with new and brilliant scenery, costumes, and appoint-
ments.

To be followed by an entire change in the ever-popular scenes
In the CIRCLE, introducing the most accomplished Equestrian and
Gymnastic Artistes of the day.
To conclude with a Laughable FARCE. •
Box-office open daily from Eleven to Four. Stage Manager. Mr.
W. West.l

DAILY WEATHER TABLE.

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1853.

State of the wind and weather at each of the following
places at nine o'clk yesterday morning. The stations
are arranged in ordoecr of latitude.
HASTINGS—N., fresh breeze—overcast.
TUNBRIDGE—N.W., strong breeze—overcast.
BASINGSTOKE—N.E., strong breeze—overcast.
GREENWICH—N.E., strong breeze—overcast.
STROOD—N., strollg breeze—partially cloudy.
YARMOUTH—N., hard wind—overcast.

The returns from the following places indicate the state
of the weather on Tuesday morning at nine o'clock :
LiMmtica—W., gentle breeze—overcast.
MIILLINGAR—W., gentle breeze—partially
cloudy.
strong breeze WIIITBY—N•N•W., —principally clear.
DARLINGTON—W, gentle breeze—partially cloudy.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tnis DAY —Morning 7 min. after 5 I Evening 24 min.aft. 5
To-Moanow—Morning 43 min. after 5 Evening 2 niin.aft. 6

THE WEATHER.—Scrs OFFICE, APRIL 14.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
48—highest sines noon yesterday.
39—lowest this morning and during the night.
54- this day at noon.

BAROMETER, 30'09.
WIND, N.N.E.—Light breeze, with cloudy weather,
and sunshine occasionally.

THE PUBLICATION OF

" THE

SUN"

COMMENCES EVERY AFTERNOON

AT THREE O'CLOCK,

AND TIIE

LATE OR THIRD EDITION,

- CONTAINING THE
DEBATES IN PARLIAMENT THE SAME EVENING,
With all other News arriving up to the hour of Post,
AT SEVEN O'CLOCK.

EXPRESS EDITIONS
will be forwarded after the Post is closed by the

Latest Trains.

Y
-Qin •
- v

~~`

MI

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1853.

v--

On Monday evening the CHANCELLOR of the Ex-
CHEQUER will bring forward his financial scheme.
It is by no means improbable that the Ministry
will stand or fall by the propositions then sub-
mitted for legislative consideration. The chopping
and changing about of Sir CHARLES WOOD—the
introduction of a second, a third, or, haply, a
fourth Budget during the same session, must have
thoroughly disgusted the colleagues of that unfor-
tunate financier, and induced them to consider a
strict adhesion to the original fiscal project as a
virtue of no ordinary magnitude, so that the new
Minister of Finance will be encouraged and sus-
tained in making a firm and uncompromising
stand on at least the leading principles of his
Budget.
What the nature of that Budget may be as
yet appears to be an impenetrable mystery, or, at
least, a well-kept Cabinet secret, of which
not the slightest inkling can be obtained until
the appointed time. Mr. GLADSTONE himself
has refused to give any clue as to his inten-
tions. He will not let fall the most trifling
hint calculated to appease, or, perhaps, to excite
more strongly the public curiosity. Some persons
assert that there is a sound reason for ais myste-
rious silence—that the Right Hon. Gentleman
has not as yet made up his mind between the
numerous conflicting claims--that he is still
tossed upon a sea of doubt and uncertainty, and
that all he could say (if disposed to say any-
thing) was, that, as yet, nothing has been de-
cided. It is, therefore, incumbent on all
Fiscal Reformers to bring forward the griev-
ances which have obtained their peculiar ad-
vocacy—to explain the chief objections to each
impost, and, above all, to elicit the opinions of
influential Members as to its impolicy. Lord
ROBERT GROSVENOR has obtained an additonal vic-
tory, has added another laurel to those he had
previously acquired, in behalf of the Attorney's
duties. Mr. HUME has exposed the serious evils
arising from the petty Customs Duties. Mr.
FREWEN has pointed out the injurious results of
the practical confiscation of the property of the
British hop-grower. Sir DE LACY EVANS, the
strong claims of the coachbuilders. Many other
matters have been brought forward, and invari-
ably with benefit to the subject submitted for
general discussion. Indeed, a good cause
must always be promoted by the most ample
inquiry, the most stringent investigation. We
rejoice, then, to find that the Right Hon. Gentle-
man the Member for Manchester is about to fol-
low the excellent example set by so many Fiscal
Reformers, and once more to bring the injustice
and. impolicy of the taxes on knowledge under
the consideration of the popular branch of the
Legislatur that he will, this evening, bring for-
ward three distinct resolutions, on each of which
he will take the sense of the Flouse Separately.
Duties, first of these relates to the Advertisement
Duties, which are, perhaps, the most ine(juitab!e
and inexpedient, while they are un questionabl
y
posts. least productive, of these 0)(1-noxious •Y.
HonouraZle-
poet& On these points the Right
Gentleman adopts the most summary
and
decisive course. He offers the broadest issue to
his opponents. The resolution of which he has
given notice is—" That the Advertisement Duty
ought to be repealed." There is no paltry com-
promise offered —no halting between two
opinions. No hint that a reduction to one-half
the present scale would be acceptable. We do
not dwell on the gross and palpable injustice of
charging the same rate, on the pompous announce-

went of the intended sale of a property worth

tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of
II • •
' . where the efficient and eloquent
. - j proprietor is desirous of setting
y a,ges that must accrue to
7,•-71.34:-.X.

tAltr:

s

the fortunate purchaser of the princely and
truly enviable domain, and the modest application
for employment of the man able and willing to
work—to whom the duty may involve the neces-
sity of honouring the Duke HUMPHREY with his
company for three successive • days—or, in other
words, of abstaining altogether during that period,
or contenting himself merely with a dry crust.
A Joint-Stock Company in course of forma-
tion requiring a column or two of a public
' journal may think nothing of the addition of ls.
6d. to the charge, but it will act as a practical
prohibition to the over-toiled sempstress, who is
compelled to work some eighteen or twenty hours
a-day for an exigeante mistress, simply, be-
cause, by this most impolitic tax she is prevented
from bringing her qualifications under the con-
sideration of those who are, in consequence, com-
pelled to pay exorbitant prices to exacting task-
mistresses.

It is not merely, then, on the gross inequality
of these duties that we found our chief objections.
They are bad enough, and would afford unanswer-
able grounds for the modification of the tax ; but
there is a radical objection to the impost that
can never be femoved. We are proud to say
that we are "a nation of shopkeepers." That which
was intended as a sneer we accept as a high
honour. It is to the commercial character of the
country that Great Britain is indebted for the
high position which she has long occupied and now
holds in the scale of nations. Anything, then, that
cripples or impedes trade, that interposes an ob-
stacle between vendor and purchaser, is wholly
indefensible. It strikes at the very root of " the
unrestricted competition," the advantages whereof
have been written, said, aye, and sung, in every
form and in every tone. For a paltry 160,000/. per
annum, we inflict injuries on dealers amounting
to far more than ten times that amount ; and not
merely to dealers or tradesmen, but to the revenue
itself. It is indeed the " penny wise and pound
foolish" policy which wise men deplore, but
Financial Ministers are partial to—the sys-
tem of getting money in any way, no matter
how objectionable in other respects. The Adver-
tisement Duties have
_.been long marked—the
brand has been placed upon them ; they must no
longer be permitted " to cumber the earth."

The other resolutions relating to the Stamp and
Paper Duties, are as follows :
"2. That the policy of restraining the cheap periodi-
cal press from narrating current events, by rendering it
liable to stamp duties, and other restrictions, if " any
public news, intelligence, or occurrences, or any remarks
or observations thereon," be contained therein, is inex-
pedient, and at variance with the desire now generally
expressed in favour of the diffusion of knowledge amongst
all classes. And it appears also to this house, that the
law relative to taxes on newspapers; and other regula-
tions affecting public prints, is in an unsatisfactory state,
and demands the attention of Parliament.

"3. That the excise duty on paper, whilst impeding
the developement of an important manufacture, also
materiaPy obstructs the production of good cheap litera-
ture ; and the maintenance of this tax as a permanent
source of revenue would be impolitic and inconsistent
with the efforts which Parliament is now making to pro- .
mote education amongst the great body of the people."
In their propriety and policy we fully and
entirely concur. The doubtful state of the
law on the subject of the Stamp Duties—
the serious differences of opinion between the
legal advisers of the Crown and the majority
of the learned Barons of the Court of Exche-
quer on the interprepation of these Statutes,
would alone show not merely the propriety, but
the necessity, of some speedy legislation on the
subject. There can be litte doubt that any
change either in the Newspaper Stamp Duties or
in the Paper Tax must end not merely in an al-
teration; but in a total remission. All these imposts
are decidedly bad—the Advertisement Duties un-
questionably the worst. If we must accept jus-
tice to " the Fourth Estate " by instalments, let
that be the first concession. Although we cannot
relinquish our claim to the others—al-
though we believe that the most ob-
noxious taxes now in operation are not
worse than the Paper Duties or Newspaper
Stamps, we would willingly accept the evidence
afforded by a total abolition of the Advertisement
Duties as a convincing proof of the Financial
Minister's intention to deal equitably with the
entire grievance as soon as circumstances may
admit. He may be well assured that he cannot
possibly apply 160,00044 of his anticipated sur-
plus to a better purpose than the total repeal of
the Advertisement Duties, which would form a
redeeming feature in an otherwise objectionable
Budget.

There is not an individual in the Cabinet who
more needs the discipline of pressure from with-
• out than the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.
He, moreover, of all men can with least grace
ask for an indulgent consideration of his forth-
coming Budget, since no speaker last December
was more bitterly, and even haughtily, severe
upon that of his predecessor. If he either blun-
der in his calculations, or sustain to the extent of
his power the two monster cases of class taxation,
he ought to be unceremoniously discarded by those
who profess, at least, to be the representatives of
The People. Chancellors of the Exchequer have
been long indulged both by Hon. Members in the
House, and by deputations to Downing-street, in
replying to applications for remission of particular
taxes with polite evasions and official reserve.
They are allowed, like a coy maiden, to give an
car without an answer to every suitor, till they
have declared their love in the Budget ; but then,
alas ! their declaration has to be accepted for
final ; they cannot change their choice with
honour, unless, perhaps, such perverse ones as Sir
C. WOOD, who having given not only his "nay,"
but something worse, to Income-tax and Stamp-
act suitors, found that those determined
wooers of the Guardian Genius of the Ex-
chequer would take no denial. He pre-
sented them indeed with offers, which they thought
reversing propriety, and therefore gave him no
peace till he accepted theirs. It ought to be im-
pressed on the House and the country, that unless
its two great financial demands be loudly made
before the Budget is brought forward, we shall
get nothing worth having from Mr. GLADSTONE.
We have watched him carefully since he took office,
and with no unkindly feelings, but we have been
unable to detect the slightest symptom of inten-
tion to concede the Financial Rights of the people.
We, of course, as decidedly as Mr. GLADSTONE him-
self, regard a fair balance in the national Exchequer
as one of those rights. We know, as well as he
can tell us, the consequences to all of us when the
Fun& decline. There is, and can be, no dispute
between him and the people on that score. No.
What we more than suspect Mr. GLADSTONE of, is
a determination to uphold the present form of two
great taxes, by which the landlords principally are
saved some six or seven millions per annum, and •
other classes pillaged, of course, to the same
amount.

The evil animus of Mr. GLADSTONE in regard
tothe taxes in question was mostdistinctly brought
out in his (to himself) most damaging speech on
Mr. WILLIAMS'S motion of the Ist of March for
the equalization of Legacy and Probate Duties on
all kinds of property. In his speech he said as
plainly as he well could that he would continue
the iniquitous incidence of these taxes, and of
the Income Tax too. Although the country is
ringing with the injustice of assessing income from
permanent sources and precarious sources alike,
he coolly came forward and alleged the specially
hard bearing of the Income Tax on real property
as one reason why it should be exempt from
Legacy and Probate Duties ! What can this
mean but that if he had his way he would reduce
the rate of the tax on schedule A rather than on
schedule D ; and certainly that lie will never make
a proposition like that of Mr. DISRAELI'S, to con-
cede even one-fourth to common sense and justice.
Then again, Mr. DISRAELI—both in his opening
speech on the Budget, and in that reply which
Mr. GLADSTONE attacked with all the bitterness
of one who saw that it had made financial injus-
tice harder for lihnself--Mr. DISRAELI distinctly
asmrted, that the subject of the Legacy
and Probate Duties could no longer be
de-
fended and that it must be taken up by Go-
vernment. Mr. GLADSTONE, on the
contrary,
when he might have excused himself with
the current evasion that his Budget was yet
in embryo, extemporised (as we candidly hope) the

most wretched and illogical, as well as one-sided
and class-interest, speech we ever had the misfor-
tune to read. We transferred at the time the
able and triumphant critique upon it of a weekly
contemporary to our columns, and need not re-
enter into details just now ; but the upshot is
that Mr. GLADSTONE refused, by a set of argu-
ments little better than transparent falsifications
or fallacies, to impose the same Legacy and Pro-
bate Duties on the property of the aristocracy as
are imposed on the property of the middle classes,
and that, notwithstanding, thissimple equity would
enable him to do away with the Income Tax
altogether ! He openly refused to accept five or
six millions a-year which the landlords escape en-
tirely, and indirectly more than justified charging
precarious incomes, we should say, full two mil-
lions too much to the Income Tax ; that is, as we
remarked at the outset, he upheld financial pro-
tection for the aristocracy to the amount of at
least six or seven millions yearly.
Now, we do think the country would do wisely
to let such a CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER know
that it will not be trifled with. The most honest
thinkers freely speak out, that precarious incomes,
earned by the sweat of the head or the hands, are
no fit subject for taxation at all ; but all men, of
any pretensions to humanity, equity, and common
sense, demand at least that they shall be assessed
at a much lower rate. Mr. GLA.DSTONE, we take
it, if some of his colleagues have not a little more
sympathy with flesh and blood than he has, and
require him to deal with his fellow-mortals as men
and not as mathematical abstractions, will face out
the whole country, that 1501. from land, and 1501.
dependent on life and health, and a hundred
things beSide, ought to be taxed alike. It is the
fault of the country if he be allowed to do this.
Let him not, however, presume, because the nation
may wait quietly till it hears what he has to say.
Traitorship to justice on the Income Tax will con-
jure up a storm which will certainly scatter far
and wide the feebly coherent materials of the pre-
sent Cabinet.

Net less stir ought to be made on the Legacy
and Probate Duties. Equalisation of these we
indeed conceive to be the key of fiscal ameliora-
tion. With five or six millions at the very least
secured, either the hateful and inquisitorial Income
Tax might be clean swept away, or all of those
baneful Excise duties, and taxes on knowledge
which so cramp manufacture, and hinder popular
education might be abolished—leaving, besides, a
handsome margin towards banishing the last rem-
nants of protection from our Tariff. We confess to
have but little patience with the Minister who can
shamelessly defend such a monster abuse as the
exemption of real property from the duties in
question. The execrated Corn Laws were only
worse in their amount ; in point of favouritism
they could not be worse. Take a sample of these
landlord arrangements. These "farmers' friends"
have arranged that the value of a farmer's lease,
including outlay on improvements, his stock, crops,
implements of husbandry, furniture, and even
wearing apparel, must pay both duties, while the
owner of the land pays nothing. Houses built
on building leases pay both duties on their full
value, but the ground landlords pay nothing.
Houses, while they remain in the leaseholder's
hands, pay both duties ; as soon as the lease is out,
the immensely enriched landlord pays neither duty.
Land sold on lease at a pepper-corn rent, although
as good as freehold, pays both duties —it not
being an aristocratic tenure. Houses built by a
landlord on his own estate pay neither. Even
real property which is bequeathed to be sold,
though it pays Legacy Duty on the proceeds, pays
no Probate Duty, which averages nearly
as much as the Legacy Duty. This is
but a sample of the inexcusable one-
sidedness of these taxes—of the broad palpable
injustice, the rectification of which would immor-
talise the Coalition Budget, or any other, and re-
lieve the country so prodigiously, with hardly
the shadow of inconvenience to any one. For,
be it carefully borne in mind that, as we have
always maintained, a better tax than a tax on
successions to property cannot be. There is al-
ways money to pay it. It is money, too, for
which the recipients have neither toiled nor spun,
and they can well spare it. It is merely sacrificing
a part, as it were, of a lucky windfall. How differ-
ent to the demand of the Income-tax gatherer on the
exhausted, mortal, and precarious energies of the
professional man and tradesman ! An equitable,
not to be evaded, and adequate tax on what is
annually left by those who " rest from their la-
bours," might relieve, from some of their most
harassing imposts, those who yet " bear the heat
and toil of the day." Let the country remember,
and let the House of Commons be aware the coun-
try will remember, that Mr. BENJAMIN DISRAELI
has proposed a measure of Income-tax justice, and
as good as promised the greater boon of Legacy
and Probate Duty justice, and Mr. WILLIAM
EWART GLADSTONE may have to pay dear for it
if he superciliously ignore the really good part
of his predecessor's proposals.

Accounts from Melbourne vary so much that it
behoves all future immigrants to supply them-
selves, before starting from England for Australia,
with really reliable and authentic information.
Long ago the movement across the ocean to the
new world ought to have been immediately directed
by her MAJESTY'S Administration. The conse-
quence of the non-interference of our rulers
hitherto in this matter, we believe to have been,
in several instances, most disastrous. Exertions
should at length be adventured upon to prevent,
if possible, the repetition of these very avoidable
misfortunes. It would appear that perhaps the
most notable evil experienced by our fellow-coun-
trymen on their arrival on the shores of the new
colony, is that of finding an extraordinary diffi-
culty in obtaining anything like a decent place of
habitation. Melbourne, especially, has been so
overrun with intended diggers and their families,
that the dwellings there have proved insufficient
to afford them accommodation. Crowds have been
consequently compelled to seek shelter under the
brambles, and undercart-tilts, and under temporary
sheds, and in tents, which have sprung up in all di-
rections, transforming the suburbs of the town into
an enormous encampment. Hence, and from the
unexpected inclemency of the weather, and the
now-undeniable insalubrity of the climate, the
mortality has turned out to be alarming contrary
to all anticipation. WILLIAM HOWITT has written
home, indeed-; from d-spot well known in those
quarters as the Ovens Diggings, informing his
friends, and through them the people of the
United Kingdom, that unfortunates there are
everywhere attacked by diseases too often fatal,
such as dysentery, cramp, influenza, and rheu-
matism. An assurance by no means surprising,
when we remember the-discomfort to which these
poor wanderers are repeatedly subjected in a land
where the days are alternately remarkable for
broiling heat and for perfectly deluging thunder-
storms. Together with these sources of bodily
ailment must be borne in mind the severity of the
toil incurred by men wholly unaccustomed to
such continual and laborious exertions. As a
contributor to the Household Words of CHARLES
DICKENS forcefully observed some time since, in a
rather discouraging paper descriptive of one of the
gold-fields, the work incumbent upon the diggers is
of a kind only to be gone through, without ill conse-
quences, by a navvy or a coalheaver. Yet, as-
suredly, we all of us know well enough that the
majority of those who have flocked across the
ocean to the southern El Dorado, has consisted by
no means of navvies and coalheavers. Rather
have they been respectable members of the middle-
class of society, habituated more to quill driving
than to the use of the spade and the mattock.
Gentlemen of education, who have striven vainly
to obtain at home any description of rational
employment, discouraged by frequent failure in
England they have hastened eagerly to break up
new ground (literally) in Australia. After scraping
together enough money to purchase a moderate out-

fit, and to pay their passage in some sailing vessel
or steam-packet, they have disembarked at Mel-

bourne with scarcely sixpence left in their pockets,
with the humblest lodgings already occupied, with
provisions selling at an enormous price, and with
a terrible stretch of country between them and the
place of their destination. It must be recollected
that the Ovens Diggings already menticned are