The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-20 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
(From, the Morning Herald.)
As the present Chancellor of the Exchequer has
several active and energetic trumpeters in his service in
the daily press—journals which can expatiate for hours
together on the beauties of the budget, while they are
stone-blind to its defects and blemishes—it is but fair,
on the whole, that those papers which are independent
of Ministerial influence should, moderately and dispas-
sionately, point some of those features in this large and
multifarious scheme which are open to improvement by
the House of Commons.
And, first of all, we must remark the strange and
startling manner in which this budget is disfigured by
bribes and jobs. Of these, two especially stare us in
the face ; and to these two we shall for the present con-
fine ourselves.
The first is that of the total remission of the Irish
Consolidated Annuities. Of course everybody knew
and expected that there should be some remission. But
let us take Mr. Gladstone's own words, as we find them
in the most friendly journal, the Chronicle. He
said : _ .

" Of the four and a half millions which the consolidated
Annuities represent, one and a half million, I use round
numbers, consists of debts that strictly belong to the estab-
lishment of the poor law in Ireland—a great social and na-
tional benefit, a great and vast good to Ireland ; and a good
to Ireland I hold to be also a good to England. (Cheers.)
The other three millions consists of debts entirely connected
with the famine ' • and of 'this debt the committee of the
other house which sat upon this subject has recommended
the remission of two millions. Sir, the plan which the
government, after maturely considering this subject, and
wei4hing all those other than mere pecuniary considera-
tions which it involves, have determined to propose to
Parliament is, that from and after the 29th of September
the Consolidated Annuities shall be wholly wiped away."
So that while Mr. Gladstone himself judged that at
least a million and a half was a most just debt, and
while a committee of the House of Lords, most favour-
able to Ireland, had recommended only the remission of
two millions out of four and a half, he, Mr. G., at once
gives up the whole ! Of course, this is gratuitous ;i. e.,
a giving away of the trifling sum of at least two millions
and a half of the public property. But why does he do
this ? Simply and clearly as a bribe—as a large gift of
money to induce the Irish to submit to a tax. Bent on
keeping the income tax for at least seven years longer,
and knowing that among its various inconsistencies one
of the most. striking was that one of the British
islands paid the tax while the other was exempt,
Mr. G. resolved to saddle Ireland with the income
tax at all events, and as the most effectual course he
could devise to induce the Irish to submit to it he boldly
offered them a bribe of four millions and a half. Whether
this is the sort of way in which the finances of a great
nation ought to be managed is a question on which Par-
liament must determine.

The next plain and obvious bribe is one on which we
should have felt a repugnance to make any comments ;
but we find it already noticed in so many quarters, that
it would be affectation to keep silence any longer.
When Mr. Gladstone had announced his intention of
remitting, unasked, the present stamp duty on supple.
mentary sheets of newspapers,
" Mr. Cobden asked whether the supplements would
still be entitled to free passage ?
" The Chancellor of tho Exchequer said certainly they
would.

" Mr. Cobden said he supposed the Government were
not unaware of the fact, that there was only one news-
paper in the kingdom that published supplements full of
advertisements."

And the Morning Chronicle, while most friendly to
Mr. Gladstone, is still forced to remark, that this will
be appreciated by the only journal which finds it con-
venient to publish a daily supplement." While the
Daily News, more plainly, says, " The removal of the
supplemont stamp is a huge gift to the Times.
Now, wherefore is this portion of the public revenue,
be it small or large, thus flung away ? Let the Times
leader of yesterday reply. There never was a more ful-
some or lavish panegyric of any financial scheme given
to the world, even in the days when Ministers wrote or
dictated " leading articles." Mr. Gladstone evidently
appreciates the Times very accurately. He wants its
praise, and he has taken the right way to get it.
But should not an English finance Minister, address-
ing an English House of Commons, at least try to pre-
serve some semblance of consistency and adherence to
principle ? In a former part of his speech Mr. Glad-
stone had said,—
" If hon. members will examine the principle upon which
the present scale of licences is adjusted they will find them
bear very unequally on the minor and the greater trades-
men. In some instances they are uniform ; as, for instance,
in the case of grocers and tea dealers. The grocer with
premises at 51. per year pays as much for the licence as the
grocer with those at 5001. per annum. We do not propose
to touch the important question as to the licences which
are connected with the sale of spirits, wine, and beer, but
we propose in regard to the licences of tea and coffee dealers,
brewers, maltstors, tobacco manufacturers, and soap
makers, to adjust the scale of licenses by raising them at
the upper end, so as to bear a fair ad valorem, proportion to
the rata at which they stand at the lower."
Here is a principle which seems fair—at least Mr.
Gladstone seems to adopt it honestly, and with straight-
forward purpose ; but when he comes to deal with news-
papers, he adopts a course which is exactly the reverse.
Not to bring our own feelings into the question, let
us take two ministerial papers, the Globe and the Times.
Looking at the circulation of these two papers, and look-
ing at the number of advertisements published in a week
by each respectively, they resemble very closely the two
grocers of whom Mr. Gladstone speaks :—" The grocer
with premises at Si. a year pays as much for his license
as the grocer with premises at 5001. per annum."
But mark Mr. Gladstone's different way of dealing
with the two cases. He finds the little grocer and great
grocer paying the same sum for their licences. He says
"this is unfair ; I must redress it ; I will make the
great trader pay more than the small one."
He then turns to the newspapers, and he finds that a
small inequality already exists. The Globe, with 20 ad-
vertisements, pays a penny stamp. The Times, with 1000
advertisements, is obliged to employ an extra half-sheet,
and for that extra half-sheet it pays an extra halfpenny.
The inequality is trifling—it is not great enough to be
just. The paper with 20 pays a id. ; the paper with 1,000
pays lid. Mr. Gladstone's eye turns this way. What does
he do ? He says, " Here is an inequality which I must
redress. The big paper and the little paper shall both
pay the same stamp duty. Nay, the same id. stamp
shall carry them both to the Orkneys or to Cork, though
four copies of the Times weigh as much as 20 of the
Globe."

Thus for the grocer there is one principle ; while for
the newspaper proprietor there is exactly the opposite
principle. And the strange thing is that Mr. Gladstone
moves both these opposite ways at the same time. He
finds equality in the grocers licenses. He says, " This
is unjust, I must produce inequality, because one is
better able to pay than another." He then turns to the
newspapers, and he finds a slight inequality already ex-
isting. But now he moves the other way, saying, that
inequality is injustice, and that the right way is to take
id. out of man's shilling, and an equal id. out of another
man's pound !
All this is so manifestly absurd, that it is impossible
to imagine that an acute man like Mr. Gladstone could
ever have been guilty of it, had there not been some
unavowed reason. That reason is plain enough to any
one who has read the Times leader of yesterday morn-
ing ; and who has observed, also, the remark of the
Daily News, that " the removal of the supplement
stamp is a huge gift to the Times."