The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-27 00:00:00

(From the Morning Herald.)
It is natural enough that Mr. Gladstone's
budget should bear the clear impress of Mr. Glad-
stone's mind, and. that has ever been a mind so
given to refining, balancing, and weighing probabi-
lities, as to perplex every bystander by its endless
hesitation. The incidents of 1845 settled Mr. Glad-
stone's place in the political hemisphere for ever.
On learning that Sir R. Peel meant to endow May-
nooth, he resigned his office. People were wonder-
ing why he should do so, when he gave the House
of Commons an " explanation." Of this, Lord
Brougham remarked in the House of Lords, that
" it had been difficult to understand the right hon.
gentleman's reasons before he had explained them;
but that, after the explanation, it was altogether
impossible." A little later Mr. Gladstone made
another speech, on the Maynooth question itself.
He dilated for an hour very forcibly on the reasons
against endowing Maynooth, and then ended by
declaring that he should vote for the endowment.
Such is the man, and such is his budget. We
do not wonder that Ministers are anxious to push
it to a vote quickly ; for if the country could have
a month, to become acquainted with the real nature
of its proposals, it would not have the least chance
of becoming law.
At present the people are merely mystified.
There is something in the budget for everybody,
and something against everybody • and very few
people have yet been able to make out whether
they shall lose or gain by it.
A month ago it would have been reckoned very
improbable that a Minister should propose, and
succeed, with respect to the income tax--
1. To keep it entire, making no allowance on
precarious incomes.
2. To extend it to a still poorer class—those hav-
ing less than 1501. a year.
3. To fix it upon the people of Ireland also.
4. And, by gaining a new lease for seven years,
to make it, at List, a permanent tax.
No one, we say, would have thought it possible
to do all this without exciting a storm of popular
indignation ; yet, by a skilful way of dealing with
opponents, it has been done, and little active oppo-
sition has yet shown itself. A leading newspaper
has been silenced by a peculiar sort of douceur, too
large in amount to be easily rejected. The more
noisy Radicals have had a fancy of their own grati-
fied, by the extension of the legacy duty to landed
property ; and the Irish members, or some of them,
have been gained over, even to surrender their own
country to the income tax, by a gift of four mil-
lions, which benefits largely a few at the expense
of the niany. And thus, by " dividing to con-
quer," it is rendered possible that this naturally-
unpopular part of the budget may pass.
We have said that nobody yet understands whe-
ther, on the whole, he will be a gainer or loser by
this scheme. To begin with the landed proprie-
tors. First, the legacy duty on landed succession
seems a heavy imposition on this class. But then
it may be said that it will not affect the present
generation. No landlord will pay it so long as he
can manage to live. And then Mr. Gladstone
strives to show him that the demand for a reduc-
tion of income tax on precarious incomes is an at-
tack upon the landed interests, from which he,
Mr. Gladstone, volunteers to defend them ! Be-
sides which, he offers to the gentry some consider-
able reductions of the assessed taxes ; so that this
class, like the rest, may study for a long while
before they find out whether they gain most or lose
most by the new plan of taxation.
A morning journal of Liberal politics prints the
following brief letter :
" Sir,--From Mr. Gladstone's budget a gentleman
who now keeps 10 horses solely for pleasure would pay
less annually 231. ss. 6d.: upon his three carriages less
141. 155.: upon his four servants less 41. 10s., making
together a saving of 421. 10s. 6d. Now, this is not a
tax ;put on by Government, but by themselves, being
optional whether they choose to keep them or net. But
how different is the case of the trader, for every one
who sells pepper, &c., is compelled to pay yearly lls. 64d.
for his licence ; but to make up for these reductions of
duties on pleasure horses, carriages, and servant; we
are called upon to pay yearly for our pepper licence
101. 11s. 6d., formerly 11s. 64d., and friends of ours
271. 11s. 6d., instead of 11s. 64d. It is a plain but sim-
ple question. The pleasure tax all can relieve themselves
from, but from the trade tax no one is able ; hence the
gross injustice of benefiting the fOrmer at the expense of
the latter.

"Yours respectfully.
" M. P. DAVIES AND SON.
" 63, St. Martin's-lane, April 25."
Here, then a trader makes it appear very claarly
that some of the traders are largely burdened with
new taxes, in order that some of the gentry may bs
relieved. Yet, while these facts are unanswerable,
it is no less true that the only supporters of the new
Budget are found among the tradesmen of West-
minster and of Southwark. From these two bodies
a couple of small and hurried petitions have been
got up, praying that the House of Commons would
pass the Budget. And yet we feel not the slightest
doubt that very few indeed .of these tradesmen had
any notion of the now taxation they were asking for.
We have said that it will puzzle most country
gentlemen to make out whether they will gain
most or lose most by the proposed changes. And
equally perplexed must the trading classe4 be if
they seriously addressed themselves to the same
task. On them, i. e., on the smaller traders, and
on the commercial clerks and assistants, will the
new income tax on 1001. incomes chiefly fall. On
them, too, i. e., on the traders, will the new tax
for licences fall. And we feel no doubt that Mr.
Gladstone has, whether intentionally or not, greatly
underrated the amount which will be levied under
these two heads. In this view we are supported
by the Globe of last night, which, in treating of the
new class of income tax payers, says—
" If we assume, then, that the number of persons re-
ceiving from 1001. to 1501, per annum is as large, rela-
tively to those having larger incomes, in 1853 as it was
in 1814, wo obtain a much larger addition to the revenue
than the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken credit
for. He estimates the receipts from this portion of the
tax at 250,0001., which is equal to only 1-22 of the en-
tire amount now raised ; but if our calculation be cor-
rect, and we have every reason to believe that it is so,
the new assessment fairly levied ought to yield 750,0001.,
or 500,0001. sterling more than Mr. Gladstone anti-
cipates."
We believe that Mr. Gladstone has similarly
erred in. his estimate of the produce of the new li-
cence tax. He estimates it at 113,0001. a year.
We feel no doubt whatever that it will yield more
than 500;030/. a year. Thus we have a gross sum
of 1,250,0001. per annum, levied chiefly on the
trading classes, under these two heads alone, and
constituting new taxation.
But, it may be asked, if the remissions and the
burdens are really so balanced that no one can tell
who is beneflted,what has Mr. Gladstone's object
been ? We might reply, that we attribute much
of this balancing and compensating work to the
character of Mr. Gladstone's mind. But we must
also say that one clearly-defined object is visible
throughout the whole ; and, that is, the diminution
of indirect taxation, and. the increase of direct
taxation, in every possible way.
First, the income tax, which is just now dead,
and which Iris never before been granted for more
than three years at a time, Mr. Gladstone now I

proposes to take for seven years certain, mating
its whole duration no less than eighteen years, and
rendering the idea of its discontinuance at the end
of that time a perfect farce.
But then, in so perpetuating it, Mr. G. insists
on spreading it over a wider surface, embracing
Ireland as well as Scotland and England, and in-
cluding all classes, down to the clerk or shopman
with his 1001. a year. So levied, it will produce
at least 7,500,0001.
Next, Mr. Gladstone introduces a new sort of
house tax on certain trades. All the brewers,
grocers, maltsters, soapmakers, and tobacconists,
are to pay for their licences in future, according .to
the premises they occupy, or the business they
transact. As this will involve a gross injustice, if
confined to five or six trades, out of 50 or 60, we
must look for a speedy extension of the same
licensing system to all other trades. So levied it
would produce some 3,000,0001. or 4,000,0001. per
annum, and would be a new description of direct
taxation. of the most onerous kind.
We need hardly say that the third source from
whence Mr. Gladstone expects to draw new revenue
is of the same clasß
possession
oaf certain o make the successor to an
estate
ssesspioalevy in money on coming into
it is direct taxation of the plainest
kind.

Thus, that system which Sir Robert Peel began
in 1842, and the drift of which he explained in his
famous " Elbing letter," is now being enlarged by
his pupil and admirer, and the one remark to
which we shall limit ourselves just now is this—
that it would be a far more honourable and
straightforward course if, such being their real
object, her Majesty's Ministers would explicitly
state that object to Parliament and the country,
and let a vote be taken upon it, after sufficient
time had been allowed for calm consideration.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)

Though the Ministerial intention is to ext.
and prolong the original injustice of the incomencl
tax, in order to save the pockets of the rich,
and- empty those of the less favoured, either by
Government or the blind goddess, yet it presents
some appearance of fairness. If it is an intoler-
able wrong that a man with 1001. a year, derived
from personal exertions, should be taxed at the
same rate as the possessor of the same amount from
funds, lands, or houses, it is not less unjust to
excuse incomes entirely from taxatian, simply be-
cause the source from which they are derived hap-