The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-10 00:00:00

`S~ I ,~"

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1854.

In the midst of the extmoiainary
making for war, but 2.lLae attention can. be given
to other matters, however interesting they might
be deemed under ordinary circumstances. Scarcely
any one bestows more than a passing thought
upon such an occurrence as the disastrous colliery
explosion which, on the 18th ultimo, hurried into

eternity, in one instant, no less than eighty-nine
unfortunate individuals. Neither can any one
glance more than cursorily at the conviction of
an atrocious murderer like HArro, at the parti-
culars of the inquiry now making in regard to the
imputed venality of the Irish Representatives, or
at the incidents which may chance to take place,
as it were, at our next door neighbour's, on the
occasion of some sudden and startling conflagra-
tion. Everybody is looking to one main subject
of examination. Everybody is awaiting eagerly
the accounts to be received from St. Petersburgh
as to the manner in which the CZAR may reply

to the demand of the Western Powers for the im-
mediate evacuation of the Principalities. Every-
body is alive to the value of the different events
of the hour, indicating the ardour of the popular
desire, both in England and France, for the ener-
getic prosecution of the war which may be said now
to have been formally undertaken by their Govern-
ments for the vindication of Turkish independence,

and for the championship of European civilisation.
i; It is recognised that there is a significance in the
promptitude with which funds have been voted
for this purpose simultaneously in the Legislative
Chambers in Paris and in Westminster. It is
seen that there is something more than a mob's or-
dinary enthusiasm in the sympathy displayed in
the streets of both capitals for the brave fellows

passing through them on their way towards the

coasts Ibt embarkation. Amongst ourselves, more-
over, it is at once recognised that there is a pecu-
liar grace and an especial significance in the cir-
cumstance of the QUEEN in person taking a fare-
well glance at her Guards as they trooped by the
walls of her palace in the early morning, and in
the kindred circumstance which will have been
welcomed this very day at Spithead when her
MAJESTY will have passed in review the noble fleet
about to sail to-morrow under the command
of Sir OSA RLES NAPIER for active service in the
Baltic. Incidents like-these speak eloquently to
the hearts of the English multitude. They give
fair promise that the wish expressed the other
evening by the First Lord of the Admiralty will
be realised__
that the war now on the verge of
beginning 'll Nri indeed be sharp, rapid, and decisive.
There is left us,
consequently, at this moment
but one aspiration, that ; the Right will, in truth, be
defended at this awful crisis by the Might of
DIVINE PROVIDca.

One of the arguments'
_which we have from time
to time put forward iii favour of direct taxation
received very powerful corroboration from the
Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of his
ff
Financial Statement on Monday evening The
Right Honourable Gentleman said____,‘B °:
y increas-
ing the amount of indirect taxation you generally
increase the expense of collection ; but with
re-
spect to direct taxation the case is different _for,
as you increase the amount of the tax, you
diminish the percentage cost of collection. The
reason is obvious. The assessment continues the
same, the tax-payers remain the same, and you
collect the larger amount at the same cost as the
smaller !" This is an important admission from
such a quarter. An admission that should be con-
clusive on the point, which, in common with every
sincere free trader, and every consistent fiscal re-
former, we have at all times, and under all cir-
cumstances, strenuouslyand incessantly advocated.
By increasing direct taxation we can " collect the
larger amount at the same expense as the smaller.,,
And this is the case whether the addition be 3,

( 10, or 20 per cent. Every shilling—aye, every
farthing—levied upon the community will, after
the first expenses of the establishment and of the
staff of collectors employed, find its way into the
public Exchequer. .. Nothing will be wasted or
misapplied, for the deduction will be the same
whether the sums to be realised amount to five
or to fifty millions sterling. And, as we have re-
peatedly pointed out, there would be a saving of a
similarcharacter by consolidating the local with the
general burdens, and making the Government col-
lectors receive, in addition to that with which they
are already charged, the various rates and taxes 1 evied
on every householder. There would be very little
additional trouble imposed on the imcome-tax
collector if he also required the liquidation of the
assessed taxes, the poor rate, police rate, highway
rate, paving, lighting, and cleansing rate, grand
jury rate, burial rate, sewerage rate, land the other
multifarious charges that perplex and madden the
unfortunate tax-paye. .while it would be a posi-
tive relief to the letters) 'link that he had only
one applicant (albeit for a largei amount) to meet,
and to solicit for the much-required indulgence.
The single claimant, too, would be muoh better
able to test the accuracy of the excuses put for-
ward, and to decide on the degree of indulgence
he could afford, and rival collectors would have
no object in unduly pressing the victim in the at-
tempt to obtain priority.
These are unquestionably considerations which
should not be lost sight of in deciding on the great
question of fiscal reform. The first point to be
determined, if a new impost were required, is to
see how much of the amount levied from the con-
sumer, or party who must ultimately defray the
charge, will come to the Exchequer. " What
will be the expense of collection?" How much
will be available for the maintenance of our na-
tional establishments' and the liquidation of the
national liabilities ? are questions to which the
Financial Minister must return satisfactory an-
swers before he can hope to obtain the sanction of
the popular representatives, the guardians of the
public purse, to his propositions. Mr. GLADSTONE
has clearly responded so far as any increase of di-
rect taxation is concerned. He tells us that the
expense of collection would be nil!—that we could
" collect the larger amount at the same cost as
the smaller ! " He has not, however, been quite
so explicit with respect to indirect imposts. He
only declares that by increasing the amount of in-
direct taxation, we generally increase the expense
of collection. It will be sufficient for our present
purpose to assume that the percentage would re-
main the same. The converse of the proposition
then would be equally true, that we would save
at least an equal percentage by striking off indi-
rect taxes. We thus obtain data which enable us
to approximate' to a decision as to the amount to
be saved to the nation by the substitution of
direct for indirect taxation.

The iniquitous and impolitic system which so
long prevailed—but which will speedily be
abolished—of deducting the expense of collection
before paying the proceeds of a tax into the Ex-
chequer, prevents us from speaking with certainty
as to the actual drawback. We believe that,
t acing the Custoins and Excise, by far the largest
items in the national balance sheet, the amount
will be about 6 2-3ds to 7, or even 8 per cent.
We believe that there is no less than FOUR' MIL-
LIONS STERLING s topped in transitu, which, although
paid for the Government use, never becomes
available for that purpose. It follows, as a matter
of course, that at least THREE MILLIONS STERLING,
and in saying this we far underrate the amount,
would be saved to the country by the substitu-
tion. Three millions sterling ! A very appre-
ciable item in the balance sheet even of a nation
like great Britain ! THREE MILLIONS STERLING !
Why, for one half per cent. of that
amount, for barely 15,000/., we suffer
the families of our gallant soldiers, who have em-
barked, or are about to embark, for the seat of war
to be cast upon the precarious resources of charity,
or on the tender mercies of the Poor-law officials.
Three millions sterling a-year. Why, it is more
than is obtained from the taxes on knowledge and
on prudence, from the duties on paper and on in-
surances ; aye, and leaving a very handsothe sum

THREE MILLIONS STERLING is a sum that re-
quires no elaborate arguments to prove the expe-
diency of saving, if possible ; and yet it is but a
very small portion of the sum that would be gained
by consumers. For the restrictions necessarily
contrived to prevent the revenue from being de-
frauded, the forms that must be complied with,
and the delays and inconveniences that must be
endured, add very materially to the expenses
either of manufacture or importation ; then there
must be very considerable allowances also made
for the profits of the intermediate parties who
stand between the producers and consumers. We
have, on many former occasions, proved that those
various sums amounted to no less than from 30
to 40 per cent, on the total amount. The THREE
MILLIONS would thus be increased to FOUR MIL-
LIONS sterling by the change, all of which would
remain in the pockets of the people, saved by a
simple alteration in the mode of collection, by
being treated as rational beings, who were not to
be deceived as to the amount wrung from their
hands for the national expenditure. Let fiscal
reformers' consider these points, and press upon
their representatives the propriety of adopting a
system by which such extraordinary benefits may
be obtained.

The tables of the boroughs of England, accord-
ing to the New Reform Bill which we have laid
before our readers in The Sum of Monday last, will
give, to all interested in the subject, an accurate
conception, so far as the number of electors and
nopulation go, of the approach made by the New
Reform Bill to equality of Representation. The
facts which may be seen at a glance in these
tables are, indeed, sufficiently startling. We did
not ourselves expect in commencing them, to find
so little internal consistency. If our Tory friends
will take the trouble to inspect our lists for a
moment, we think they will understand that the
less they say about the matter the better. The
long list of little boroughs still honoured with
one member each ; the large number re-
turning two members, with a population
nct exceeding that of more than a score of large
towns, still unrepresented, leave an ample mar-
gin for rendering another reform bill i❑ 1855 yet
more unpalatable to them. Twenty-two towns,
with a population not exceeding 10,000; five
more with more than 9,000 inhabitants ; and six
with more than 8,000: thirty-three in all, with
above 8,000 inhabitants—might be found in
1855 inconveniently clamorous for the electoral
honours, awarded to some forty boroughs„ all
with less than 500 hundred electors each, mostly
under 400. The Radical Metropolitan boroughs
have already evinced some displeasure at not
being honoured with three members a-piece.
Considering what will certainly be asked, on the
score of better distribution only, we should cer-
tainly think ourselves prudent Tories if we al-
lowed the measure to pass without a division. It
is, no doubt, a considerable measure of Reform,
but the House to be put to rights is very old, and
notwithstanding the extensive repairs of 1832,
there seams quite as much left to do in 1854.
The longer the workmen are kept about it, the
more they will find to be done. The present bill
is a great advance on that of 1852, and a bill
next year must be an advance upon this.
It is very striking to compare the list of the
towns returning one member with that of those
returning two. In the former there are twenty-
six boroughs, beginning with Guildford, return-
ing but one member each, yet having larger con-
stituencies than Truro, which with its 607 elec-
tors, and a population just over 10,000, returns
two. Cheltenham, with 2,400 electors and
35,051 inhabitants, returns—like Chippenham,
with its 300 electors and 6,283 inhabitants —but
one member. There are not less than fifty-four
boroughs less than Cheltenham, which are to
return two members each ! Indeed, there are
nineteen boroughs, having each under 1,000
electors, which return two members each ;
while thirty-three boroughs, with populations
aboVe eight thousand, twenty-two of them
having more than 10,000 each return no mem-
ber at all ! It must be presumed that the

I electors in these twenty-two, at least, would quite
equal in number those of like population in the
two-member list. It will strike the most cur-
sory reader that, looking at the very large num-
ber of petty boroughs still left, fifty of them below
600 electors, also at the score of small boroughs
returning two members each, it would have
been but reasonable to amalgamate several of
the smallest, if they must be retained, and
to enfranchise such towns as Doncaster and
Gravesend, giving perhaps an additional member
to Cheltenham, Huddersfield, &c. London might
reasonably also spare one member ; whether Fins-
bury or Marylebone ought to get it may well be
doubted.

Some of the contrasts are rather curious. Bury
in Lancashire has 959 electors, and 31,262 in-
habits.nts, and returns one member ; Bury in
Suffolk, rejoicing in the tutelage of St. Edmund,
with 200 less electors, and about six hundred
more inhabitants, returns two members ; Lan-
caster, with about 16,000 inhabitants, returns
two members ; Huddersfield, with about the same
number of electors, and almost double the popu-
lation, returns but one member; while Gravesend
with the same population as Lancaster returns
none ! Similar specimens of incongruity May be
gathered at pleasure by those who wish to seek
them. It is evident enough that one point of the
Charter, equal electoral districts, is as yet utterly
set at nought. We know Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S
preference for a rustic irregularity in the distri-
bution of the representation ; still we can hardly
think he would have preferred such glaring in-
consistencies. Probably his real reasons may be
found partly in the intention which he avowed
after the. Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, to give
the predominance in the representation to the
landed aristocracy, and partly in the necessity of
not having to ask too many members to vote for
their own political extinction. We have all along
wished to remember that he has to consider not
only what he ought in sound theory to propose,
bat also what he can carry. With the present
House of Commons he probably will find it work
enough to push this bill through ; for ourselves,
but for the undesirableness of Cabinet changes
and a general election on the eve of a war, we
should have infinitely preferred a thoroughly
honest bill, including the ballot and a five-pound
suffrage, for the country to carry, if the House
would not.

DEPARTURE OF HER MAJESTY TO V
THE BALTIC FLEET.

lEW

Shortly after 10 o'clock this morning, her Majesty,
KR H. Prince Albert, H.R.H. the Prince of Wales,
H.R.H. the Princess Royal, the Princess Mary, and
Prince Alfred Albert, accompanied by Earl Mulgrave,
Lord Ernest Bruce, Lord Waterpark, Colonel Grey,
Captain the Hon. De Ros, Viscountess Jocelyn, Lady
Frances Bruce, Lady Fanny Howard, and the Hon.
Matilda Paget, left Buckingham Palace for the South-
Western Railway, en route for Spithead, for the purpose
of viewing the Baltic Fleet previous to its departure.
The Royal party and suite occupied four carriages, and
was attended by a company of Lancers. Upon arriving
at the new station in the Wandsworth road, her
Majesty was received under a splendid marquee, erected
by Mr. Benjamin Edgington, of Duke-street, South-
wark, by Sir W. Heathcote, M.P., the chairman of the
line, and the other officials. Mr. Lock, M.P., the
engineer, having examined the engine which was at-
tached to the Royal carriages, and a telegraphic mes-
sage been passed to keep the line clear, the Royal train
proceeded on its way at a quarter to eleven o'clock.