The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-21 00:00:00

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[PRICE SD.

who have to pay-turnpikes too, while in towns one
horse will do the work. We doubt also the policy
of imposing a premium on ponies by halving the
tax on them. Dogs come in here, and about them
one word may b said. Henceforth every dog,
except greyhounds (about which there never
could be a mistake of character) is to be charged
owillrk b: , t
o p therefore,aan
extra
ra practicalim p impost
st
increase of taxation. The shepherd, who wants
aTto :vl2esr. for Thisreal work,
for his dog, and so also with the dowager Lady
Tom Noddy, and the spinster Miss Spinks, for their
respective King Charles's, Fidos, poodles, and
pugs, to say nothing of all the flack-and-tan won-
derful Billys, who kill their forty rats in thirty
h
minutes. On all these the tax will be raised to an
even 125., and instead of losing the 10,000/. a year
that he talks about. under this heading Mr. Glad-
stone will make money by the change, if his collec-
tors are not negligent. After dogs, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer deals with the heraldic wares,
4p
du
.t2t ianngdt 1113 e
s.
2 drespective
respectively, ta x a
s t
taxes
so of 21.
rates 9d".
which
the gentle vanity of or and argent, gules and azure,
in all their various ingenuities of shield or ensign,
at
quarterings and elaborations, may be alone legally
" called, used or worn by any person."
The long list winds up with the weightiest of its
contents—land tax redemption and the stamp
duties. Under the latter we have the concession
to Lord Robert Grosvenor and the attorneys—a
seeming rather than a real concession to life
assureis-4he new and good. plan- for using penny
postage heads as the only needful and legal receipt
stamps upon payment of money—and another valu-
able proposition that a cheque may be legally drawn
at any place distant more than fifteen miles from
the place where such cheque is made payable to
bearer on demand, provided the cheque bears
a penny label stamp. Heretofore such documents
were illegal, unless stamped as bills ;—hereafter a
man may in the country write and date cheques
payable to bearer by his town banker, if he first
affixes a penny Queen's-head stamp on the paper
used—writing across it.
Mr. Gladstone tells us he. shall lose 155,0001. a
year by this reform of receipt stamps. Instead of
this, it would be a safe wager that he gains money,
instead of losing it, by the change. The reduction
of stamp tax on policies of life assurance is more
nominal than real. On small policies—that is,
policies up to 5001.—the charge is to be 6d. for
every 501. insured. At present the lowest stamp
is half-a-crown. So that if a man now insures a
hundred pounds on his life he pays—say premium
31. 35., and duty 2s. 6d. ; making 31. ss. 6d. By
Mr. Gladstone's plan he pays exactly two shillings
less, or 31. 3s. 6d. This is all the relief he would
get, for on life policies the tax is paid only once.
On the whole, however, the part of the new scheme
which relates to assessed taxes, like that which
deals with Customs, is good. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer calculates to lose 87,0001. on ser-
vants, and 95,0001. on private carriages. We
doubt if he will lose a single penny in the course
of two years. The difficulty of the right hon.
gentleman will be the Income and Property Tax.
Upon that his opponents found all their hopes.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)
We yesterday stated, that the Budget of the
Coalition Cabinet would be strenuously opposed in
some of its more important parts. We especially
mentioned two grounds on which the income tax
will be assailed, and adverted to the probability of
such a combination of parties being formed as
would place Ministers in a minority.
The information which has reached us seems also
to have found its way to Downing-street ; for the

Ministerial organ yesterday announces, in the
plainest possible terms, that in the event of Go-
vernment being defeated on the Budget, a dissolu-
tion will immediately follow. " The rejection,"
says the Ministerial journal, in concluding its arti-
cle, "of any considerable part of the scheme will
necessarily frustrate the whole. If, however, such
an event should unfortunately occur, there is a
Court of Appeal, and the constituencies will not
fail to understand the gratitude due to those who
may stand between the country and financial pros-
perity."
This is bold enough, certainly. A more unmis-
takeable menace could not be held over the heads
of those members who may have resolved to act an
honest and independent part in the coming divi-
sions on the Budget. But, as if that were not suf-
ficient, a meeting, we are told, of the Liberal party
is to be held at Chesham-place, when the leader of
the House of Commons will tell those who think
proper to bs preF.ent, that, in the event of the
Gladstone Budget suffering in any of its more im-
portant parts, the inevitable result will be a disso-

fution of Parliament. The noble lord who is, on
Saturday next, to hold this threat in terrorcin

over the heads of the Liberal party, has written a
work on the Constitution of this country. Will
his lordship be kind enough to inform us, whether
to attempt, by menaces of this nature, to deter
members from voting in accordance with their con-
victions of right, be in consonance with constitu-
tional principles ?

But we trust that no representative of the people
will be diverted from his purpose by any such
threats. The man who is so, will find in the end,
not only that he has acted dishonestly, and sacri-
ficed his independence, "but that he has pursued an
impolitic course. We must have a dissolution, un-
der any circumstances, soon. It is impossible that
a second session can pass away without an appeal
to the country. And those members who, under
the pressure of Ministerial menaces, may act in op-
position to their convictions, will, they may rely
on it, find that they will have a very unpleasant
reckoning to make with their constituents when
they have to re-appear on the hustings.
But it is, besides, a most reprehensible thing on
the part of Ministers to put the question thus,—
Either the whole Budget, or a dissolution ? For
what purpose does the House of Commons assemble
and deliberate ? Is it not one of its chief functions
to correct what may be erroneous in the Ministerial
measures? If the Legislature is not to be at liberty
to amend what it believes to be faulty in the policy
of Government, without being subjected to the
threat of a dissolution by its organs, it had better
abdicate its functions at once. The Ministerial
menace is based on the assumption that the House
of Commons has nothing to do but to endorse,
sanction, and give effect to the measures of the
Cabinet. We do not so read the constitution of
England. The people do not so comprehend it.
This blind and servile submission to the wishes of
Ministers would be quite in keeping with the state
of affairs in a neighbouring country ; but it is as
foreign to the views of Englishmen, as it is at vari-
ance with all constitutional principles. It may be
right to remind the Coalition Cabinet that matters
have not yet come to the same pass in this country
as they have done in France. No Louis Napoleon
sits on the throne of these realms. As yet we
have not seen once in the House of Commons—
arid trust we never shall—what we see daily in the
Corps Legislatif, namely, decisions on great public
questions after this fashion :—For the Government
bill, 234 ; against it, 0. So long as we are blessed
with representative institutions, we shall never
witness such wonderful unanimity as this.
The leader of the House of Commons is the last
man in that assembly who ought to lend himself to
any attempts to tamper with the conscientious
convictions and independence of members. He has
already placed himself in a position, in connection
with this income tax, which, to every honourablebl
mind, must be deemed the reverse of
Aenvia e.
rdeen
Immediately after the formation of the
assignedestnraotißoielf,ohrethi
Administration,
which would be required to revise the. in
lltlfi this s
session,t reasontha.
that the
etthitmear:e:
miwonuilsdtebrse
t 0
00
dgoreabtotahs
ttiodnrgesn.der itdimnoplovsswibelefifnodr
the income tax would consume so much of
.e. time
that, though under the pretext that Ali the revisionth of.
of the Cabinet as to preclude the possibility of
bringing in and carrying through a measure of
Parliamentary Reform, we are in reality to have
no revision of the tax at all. So far, indeed, from
its being revised, we are to have it renewed for the
long period of seven years, not only with all its
present obnoxious features, but with the addition
of some new elements of injust:ece.saidHoii7 the
noble lord will reconcile what
an-
nouncing the Ministerial policy of t
relative to the revision of the incomeliteaxg,esswith
what Mr. Gladstone proposes to do, is more than
we can tell. What the country will think of the
o
whole affair, there can be ndoubt.i Then
i properpe op l e
will not hesitate to characterise it
terms. They will plainly and emphatically call it
a piece of downright
dishonesty—a regular political
'uggle.

No one, we presume, objects to the Budget as a
whole. And, assuredly, it never entered the mind
of any member of Parliament to propose its entire
rejection. We can discern many excellent things
in it, and none would more regret than ourselves
to see its rejection by the house. But surely the
approval of much that is in a measure does not
necessarily require that we should approve of all.
What we want' is to preserve the good, and purge
away the bad. We peek not to destroy the Budget,

-z---z._

but to improve it. Our object is to make it such
a measure as will command the approval of the
country.
Mr. Gladstone has done a great injustice to a
large class of the community the least able to bear
it, in perpetuating the existing equality between
precarious and fixed incomes. But that will only
be one of the objections which will be urged against
the income-tax as it is now to be proposed to the
house. The very long term to which he proposes .
extending it, is one to which the country has an
insuperable objection. When in 1842 the obnoxious
impost was first proposed, we were told that it was
only intended to last for three years. Under one
pretext or other it has been renewed time after
tithe—sometimes only a year at once—until the
present hour. And now Mr. Gladstone comes for-
ward and proposes to renew it for another term of
seven years,—so that we are not only to have the
tax for certain during that long period, but to have
it in its present unjust and unequal form. Besides,
even were the country, in the excess of its patience
and generosity, to acquiesce in the renewal of the
tax, as it now stands, for a term of seven years,
what guarantee, what security have we that the
tax will then cease ? None whatever. It is just
as likely that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of
1860, will be as' fertile in finding reasons for the
renewal of the income tax then as the Right Hon.
Gentleman who uow fills that office

We do, therefore, trust that the independent
members of the House of Commons will resolutely
resist the proposal of Mr. Gladstone to renew the
tax for so long a period as seven years. The right
hon. gentleman carries his boldness a trifle too far
when he makes such a proposition to the house.
If the house assent to it, they will act in defiance
of the wishes and betray the interests of their con-
stituents. But we hope better things. We are
confident the event will show that there is enough
of honesty, of consistency, and of independence in
the present house to defeat any motion for a seven
years' renewal of the tax, and that an amendment
in favour of a two, or, at most, a three years' re-
newal, will be carried.