The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-17 00:00:00

for carrying and distributing a paper weigh-
ing four ounces than one not exceeding two
ounces. If, as has been proposed, a postage-stamp
should be substituted for the original news; aper-
stamp on all journals transmitted by post, a limi-
tation of size would be expedient, if nut essential,
and could not reasonably be complained of. It
would be regarded simply as an expedient neces-
sary to prevent the over-crowding of the bags.
But everything should be yielded to suit the pur-
poses of a single journal, which might have
exercised a powerful influence on the fate of the
Budget, more especially on that part of it relating
to the proposed renewal of the Income Tax,
without change or modification, and for a very
prolonged term. Now that the exigency has
passed away—that the once powerful advocacy
for a just discrimination between the different
kinds of income has been withdrawn during the
emergency—the proposition is altered, and ren-
dered at the same time more equitable to Jour-
nalism and less favourable to the Leviathan.
Are such courses to be sanctioned or tolerated
—will independent members permit themselves
to be regarded as the obedient serfs of a financial
autocrat, with no power beyond that of registering
his ukases ? We call upon Mr. MILNER GIBSON
to vindicate his own character and consistency—
to insist on the full and fair carrying out of the
proposition which he has so efficiently maintained
at all times, and under the most disadvantageous
circumstances. We call on the majority by whom
lie was sustained, and through whose assistance he
achieved a triumph so signal, not to be wanting in
the hour of trial, but to follow up the vigorous
blow formerly inflicted. We are convinced that
these applications will be honourably responded to,
and that another salutary lesson will be given to
the right honourable gentleman, to teach him that
he must not trifle with the feelings or disregard
the decisions of a decisive majority of the House
of Commons, and (with a solitary exception) the
free and unshackled press of the United Kingdom.

The India Debate has hitherto done little
towards a positive issue. Indeed, the chief ques-
tion which needs to be settled—what is the best
government for India ?—has been but little dis-
cussed. The East India Company, the Board of
Control, and the Government measure have all
been latterly attacked and bitterly defended ; but
no homogeneous plan, none based upon a sound
and acknowledged principle has yet been proposed,
and placed in contrast with the Government
scheme. The great danger is lest that scheme,
with all its gross defects, should pass, because,
(like Mr. GLADSTONE'S Income Tax) though re-
pugnant to the convictions of all but the interested,
some scheme, it is presumed, must be adopted.
In default of another, and time pressing, Sir
CHARLES WOOD'S name is to be inscribed amongst
those of legislators for India ! The plea of urgency
is, however, but poorly sustained. Every party who
employs it, Lord DALHOUSIE, Mr. MARSHMAN,
Sir JAMES HOGG, and the Directors, is interested
in hurrying through a settlement of some sort,
and thus shelving inquiry. We think certainly
with Mr. BRIGHT, that it is unpardonable
to use Lord DALuousiz's name without producing
his whole letter. It might contain facts refuting
his own opinion ; at least, the Noble Lord, though
in India, knows nothing of it but through the
agents of the Company who surround him. Sir
HERBERT MIDDOCK and Mr. HUME, whose opi-
nions are as valuable as any on this point, are for
delay and further investigation. The danger of
an Indian agitation, in any undesirable sense, is
evidently a bugbear. As Mr. BLAcx.Err stated in
1793, there were ten years of discussion before
renewing the chaiter. In 1830 three years were
taken to settle it, although at that time the Pun-
'jaub and Russia were both subjects of anxiety.
Yet now, though all is peace in our own Indian terri-
tories, we are told of the dangers of delay. Doubt-
less there is grave danger, but it is to the Court
of Directors, and to the practical irresponsibility
of the Board of Control and its President, cer-
tainly not to India. At present it appears to us
that the real friends of India must stand to the
demand for further inquiry. We really need it.
Some points are pretty well settled in the minds
of most of us, but it were folly for any man
to pretend that he is yet master of so vast
a subject. Sir CHARLES WOOD, with his six
months' cramming, cannot be; Mr. BRIGHT, though
a student of several years standing, would gladly
learn more. The evidence of a set of one-sided-
witnesses before a one-sided-committee is of little
worth indeed. Dr. PHILLIMORE, Mr. BRIGHT,
Mr. DA NBY SEYMOUR, and BLACKETT, at least
should be added to it, and witnesses of every
class, Native and British, be called before it.
The chief set in of the current is plainly against
the Board of Directors. Sir JAMES HOGG has
done his best to dash it aside, and Mr. HuME
quietly to erect a dam against it. The Board of
Control, however, feels itself also in danger, for
the friends of the Directors seem unable to defend
the latter without throwing all the blame on the
former. If, say the Directors, the Board of Con-
trol has made all the wars, and absorbed all our
surplus revenue, and compelled us to borrow as
much as was requisite to pay our dividends and
the cost of our public works, why, then,
get rid of the Board, and not of us.
The Directors, however, get little mercy ;
they are incontinently told of their origin

from a set of annuitants having no possible inte-
rest in the prosperity of India ; of their election
by a canvass so degrading as to exclude but the
other day an intelligent and competent gentleman,
long conversant with India, for a young banker's
son utterly ignorant of it, with no qualification
whatever but his paternity. They hear of their
vast patronage and its unquestionable nepotism ;
and even the very doings they boast of are turned
against them. They abolished, they say, the
odious transit duties, and permit English goods to
traverse India freely. It turns out that they re-
sisted the abolition to the uttermost--that after it
had been imperatively enjoined by the Board of
Control, they still resisted by mere vis inertice for
four or five years, and that at last they were
abolished only by the refractoriness of one of their
own intelligent servants. They take credit to
themselves for the increase of Indian exports and
imports ; but unhappily they are reminded that
all this increase is due to the abolition of their
commercial powers ; that they resisted an open
trade to the uttermost, that they predicted
all manner of dreadful results from it, and
that, therefore, the increased trade of India

has all arisen in spite of the Company, and not
beneath its fostering care. In like manner, Sir
JAMES Hoag (who, it appears, enjoyed in India
an income of only 22,0001. a-year) asserted that
during the seventeen years preceding 1851, the
Indian revenue had increased upwards of
7,000,0001. per annum, and that without the im-
position of new taxes ; a proof, he contended, of
increased prospeiity there, similar to one fre-
quently made use of here. It appears, however,
that more than 4,000,0001. of this is due to the
increase of the opium revenue—a revenue derived
entirely from Chinese and some others, certainly
not from Indian consumption ; the prospect, too,
being close at hand of this revenue vanishing en-
tirely through the Chinese growing their own
opium. Moreover, with the deductions for tri-
bute, confiscations, or " rescriptions," Mr.
BLACKETT showed that SirJAs. HOGG'S 7,000,000/.
shrunk down to the miserable increase of not more
than 200,000/. on so large an increase of popula-
tion. The same authority endeavoured to prove, in
opposition to Mr. BRIGHT, that the salt duties
had increased. Mr. BLACKETT, however, success-
fully showed that they had decreased. Indeed,
taking into account the increase of population, that
they had very largely decreased ; and as salt to
persons living on vegetable diet is a necessary of
the first importance, nothing could more conclu-
sively show the poverty of the great mass of the
Population.

If, indeed, one fact were better evidenced than
another in the course of the debate, we fear it was
the deep and wide-spread poverty of the cultivators
of the soil. They are, indeed, "distressed distressed agricul-
turists." The Government is their landlord,, and
so exorbitant is the rent exacted, that in fourteen
years, according to the Company's own retur, and the figures, though frequently adverted., to,
were never corrected—not less than 60,000,0 001.