The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-25 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 25, 1853.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE INCOME TAX.

( From the Morning Advertiser. )

When Lord John Russell made his unlucky mo-
tion on the income tax, he confessed its injustice,
declared that the ministers were incapable of reme-
dying it, and ended by proposing to add 2 per cent.
to the rate. The house barely tolerated his speech
and unanimously scouted the motion. Outside it
was said with much truth, that he had accused
the ministry, of which he formed a part, of ina-
bility and knavery in the same breath, and had
requested the house to allow them to enlarge the
injustice, and make it more conspicuous. No one
seemed to put the common sense question, why do
we pay men so many thousands- a year who prefer
to do wrong, and are unable to do right ; and why
trust such people with any public business at all ?
The affairs of a nation are larger, but they are not
more difficult, than those of an attorney's office,
or a inerchant's.counting-house, where people who
are otherewise unfit for the place are discharged on
-the spot, or choosing the unjust, are handed to the
policeman. Mr. Gladstone has given us the second
edition of Lord John Russell. The statesman who
declared that little wisdom was required to govern
the world, formed his opinion from past and per-
sonal experience. The insuperable difficulty of
distinguishing between the precarious incomes of
professional and commercial men, and the rents of
land and houses, do not exist in the thing, but in.
the men who prepare budgets. They belong to the
classes who are always favoured at the expense of
the industrious, skilful, and enterprising, among
whom no miraculous number of them have ever
been found. They stave off as long as they can,
what must inevitably come at last, that the land of
the country must, after its holiday of two centuries
return to its natural destination, and sustain, if not
as originally it did, the whole, but the chief bur-
den of supporting that Government by which its
holders are protected and kept in possession. We
must now all bear equitable shares in taxation,
and whenever that principle is admitted, funded
and real property of every description will be rated
in its just proportion.
The pretended difficulty has been solved a hun-
dred times in this and other journals, and in pam-
phlets, which cannot be enumerated. There is not
a knotty point in it. A river flows through our
neighbour's ground, and supplies him daily with
fish : our little garden cannot be watered unless
it rain. Is there no difference, and if there be,
who is so ignorant or stupid that he cannot estimate
the respective values of the two properties Why,
what Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone say
they cannot do, would be accomplished in half an
hour by an actuary's pupil of a year's standing.
Suppose, for the sake of familiar example, two
men of the age of 44 years, of whom one enjoys
50,0001. a year in the rent of real property, or his
hold on the funded taxes, and the other, by dint
of study or labour, acquires a variable income,
which never exceeds the five hundredth part of
that sum. What is more easy to comprehend, than
the difference which this every day reality presents?
The value or expectation of life at all ages has been
accurately calculated for two centuries in every
country of Europe, and is daily and hourly acted
upon by insurance offices. Now freehold estates
often sell for 30 years' purchase ; but any other
term will serve for illustration. Apply this prin-
ciple to 2001. a year in certain and unchanging
rents, and let the chargeable income of a trade or
profession be estimated at the same amount. We
shall now have one invariable rate of taxation, and
thus one difficulty is gone, but the changeable and
the unchangeable income cannot be both valued at
thirty years' purchase. In nine cases out of ten
the latter is not worth three years'. We question
much whether it would ever be saleable, while for
the other the desire is universal. The yearly worth
of the land is 5 per cent., and more. At 44 years
the most general computation of the expectation of
life is 21 years. At 30 years' purchase the owner
of 2001. a year in rent would receive 3,074/. ; but
let the annuity of 2001. be sold at 21 years' pur-
chase, and he will get only 2,5641. Here we have
a real difference, and a mode of dealing with it
which has been in use among men of business and
the world time out of mind. The former should
not be taxed at less than 5 per cent., simply because
that it is true and market value. If the latter be
taxed at 2i per cent. it will be taxed one-fourth
more than it ought to be, for it would find no mar-
ket.

Thus this mighty difficulty is dispelled with the
breath of a little common sense. The next of these
marvellously invented difficulties concerns ascer-
taining the age of the tradesman, lawyer, parson,
and author, four classes of infinitely more import-
ance and value to the world at large than the land
grubber. How is this to be done ? By precisely
the same means that have hitherto been taken to
ascertain the amount of income which is liable to
pay the income tax. It must be had from the very
same return to the tax gatherer, which has hereto-
fore only stated the income.
By this means, a tax of 5 per cent. upon all in-
come from lands, houses, funds, and other fixed
property, and 2 per cent. or less upon precarious
profits from personal exertion, would place a larger
sum at the disposal of Government than it has
hitherto raised in the shape of an income tax. It
will have the rare character of being a voucher for
the honesty of its imposers, but that may not be
deemed a recommendation. It may be objected
that false returns will be given of the age. No
doubt cases of that kind will occur. The fault is
inseperable from every plan which makes the payer
of a tax his own chooser, to a certain extent, of
what he will pay. The Government .is already,
and must ever be, at the discretion and honour of
the contributors of taxes of this nature. Two re-
turns of the income tax and the number of persons
paying for different incomes, from 1501. to 50,0001.
a year, and upwards, are before us. They are the
years 1846 and 1847, and the gross amount is nearly
the same, or 5/ millions, but there is a difference
in the asses and number of persons for which
births and immigrations will not account.
In 1846, there were 111,599 payers, and in 1847
they had increased to 147;664, exceeding the former
by 36,065. Allowing for neglect, mistakes, and
oversight, the Government must have been de-
frauded by not.less than 33 or 34,000 false re-
turns. Now, the value of the property rated to
the income tax is stated thus, and the sums it
should yield at 3i per cent. are annexed :

Ownership
Occupation
Profits or Gain

Interest on Tax.
94,810,599
43,145,786
64,344,835

£202,301,210 £7,080,540

The tax in 1846 produced, instead of seven mil-
lions, no more than 5,603,4481., besides engender-
ing feelings of intense hostility in occupants and
other unfairly-taxed payers against the favoured
classes. That feeling ought always to be discou-
raged by a prudent Government, which certainly
ought to be wiser than those classes. It proves to
us that many false returns were made, and that
consequently the present is an immoral system in
promoting fraud. There can be but little deception,
and that not of much consequence, in obliging
people to return, their age. If the owners are taxed
5 per cent., which is the market rate of the value
of their property when sold, the'Government would
have 4,740,5301. ; and if the two others were taxed
2 per cent., which is more than they are worth, the
whole produce would be 6,890,3421., or 7,035,2471.
at 3 per cent., which would be as unfair as the pro-
posal to continue to excuse a few wealthy families
from paying their just proportion at the expense of
all the more useful members of the community, of
those, too, without whom there would be no Eng-
lish nation.
We have only attempted to indicate the easy
mode of dealing with factitious difficulties when
placed in the hands of competent persons. The
rates are debateable subjects, but the amounts under
a just Government would be about what we have
indicated. A minister and a general who talk of
difficulties are not fit for their offices.

( From the Morning Post.)
To-night the House will sit to pass judgment and
sentence on Mr. Gladstone's Budget. There are
several points of it which well deserve the serious
consideration or the House of Conimons, and we
notice them bocause there are important principles,
involved which we should be sorry to see adopted
without full gument and consideration. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer in the resolutions
which he has placed on the notice paper, has given
precedence to the changes hej proposes iu the tariff
of Custom duties, but he has told the House that
he shall take the first vote upon the Property and
Income Tax. It is well that he has made this ar-
rangement, for there are so many questions involved
in his proposed revision of the Customs tariff, that
we doubt if the House could come properly to a
vote upon that, part of the scheme without consi-
dering separately, at least, each class of articles ;
it would
new duty, which would
decide upon every
ibnudtivifidivat
fdy,
proposedu t
occupy at least a week in settling this one head of
the Budget. -We dare pay that many Wu, morn-
ldiidtem its
o

bers will feel disposed to look upon this proposed
new schedule of Customs dutieg as a thing of course
to be passed and settled upon some brief explana-
tion of a single principle or statement of practical
convenience expected to result ; but this is not
the way in which the taxation of this country
ought to be regulated, and least of a]ll so
on the present occasion, when a main ground
for relieving many articles from taxation is
that the amount realised by the duty upon them
individually is small—as if a Customs duty on im-
ported goods were a separate tax laid Upon each
article, and not a general duty levied upon what is
brought to market as merchandise, and passed
through the Custom-house far the purpose, with-
out reference to whether the cargo be what is called
an assorted one, consisting of 'a thousand strange
articles, which have never come before, and may
never come again, or be of one commodity shipped
in bulk.

The main question of this night's debate is, how-
ever, of wide enough bearing to enlist all our
readers in the class of those personally concerned
in the issue, so as to deserve at present our exclu-
sive notice.

Mr. Gladstone has told the house that he looks
upon. it to be impossible to .sasses this income tax
fairly upon-the different classes at present subjected
to its influence. He has given reasons irrefragable
for not adopting any of the schemes for this pur-
pose that have been put forth by actuaries and em-
*pirics, and the conclusion he comes to is, that be-
cause it cannot be justly apportioned, it never
ought to be made a permanent item of the nation's
Budget. He asks Parliament, therefore, to con-.
tinue the tax with a sliding-scale of decrement for
seven years, that is to 1860, when the Long An-
nuities will fall in, and leave available, as a sub-
stitute, some two or three millions of annual
revenue now applied to their payment, thus holding
out the prospect of the tax being then entirely dis-
pensed with.
Now, this would be very well if the public
could be' brought to give implicit credit to a
Chancellor of Exchequer's promise of the prospec-
tive abandonment of any tax ; but', unfortunately,
in respect especially to this income tax, we have
had the experience of no less than four renewals,
notwithstanding that the tax was originally asked
by Sir Robert Peel as a temporary expedient for
three years. This prospect of getting rid of the
tax in 1860 is something like what they call in the
East " a bill upon Paradise." It is a cheque
upon futurity which may or may not be hon.:
oured when the time comes, according to the
circumstances or disposition of the bank to which
it may then be presented. This prospective be-
nefit, however, is all that is hell out to the public
as the inducement to submit, for seven more years,
to what is admitted to be an iniquitous tax, and
to bear, without murmur, further burthensome
imposts besides.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer makes much of
the relief granted to various classes by several of
his changes in the customs, excise, and assessed
taxes ; and some of these, doubtless, are just, and
wise, and beneficial. They must, however, and in
the committee they no doubt will, be examined in
detail. Let us confine ourselves first to his new
burthens. He subjects incomes from 100/. to 150/.
perh
theannumto be
et
no
unwiselyh i s income
xt:mx
p, fromtedand whichhe t h
tellse y hat
hv
ee
clerks and small annuitants, who have to submit to
this mulct, that they can now better than ever bear
the impost, since they will get their tea and soap
cheaper, and may so make up for what they will
have to pay in hard cash out of their income.
Again, the Chancellor of the Exchequer subjects
Ireland to this tax, and very justly so.
But the unjustifiable part of the proposed method
of dealing with the income tax is the admitted bear-
ing of the measure upon, the landed interest, and on
all who derive their income from land. The tax being
levied on the gross rent, and not self-assessed as
upon other incomes, is declared by Mr. Gladstone
to be equivalent to 9d. in the pound on those who
derive theirincomes from land, whereas other classes
pay only 6d. But the landed gentryare to havetheir
equivalent in a reduction of the assessed taxes on
horses and dogs. This is trifling with them, for these
taxes are but a small item, and will have been com-
pounded for in all cases where the rate would have
been onerous. The Chancellor of the Exchequer,
however, leaving this class subject to their tax, which
he rates at ninepence in the pound, has selected
them especially for a new and very grievous impost
in the shape of legacy and probate duty. This, be
it observed, is a tax payable on successions that
will impose the necessity of a forced sale or mort-
gage of part of every estate at each succession, with
all the costs and law charges of transfer. There is
no doubt that good arguments exist for subjecting
real property to the same taxation upon death-
successions .as personal property invested in the
Three per Cents. or other stocks. The only rea-
son that we ever heard alleged for the distinction
is, that a heavy tax like ten percent. on the gross
value, which is the legacy duty paid by a stranger
or distant relation, must necessarily involve a
forced sale of part of the property, which, in the
case of land, cannot be effected with the same
facility as the sale of stocks, so that, if enforced,
the tax would in course of time break up every
estate in the country. On this account the taxa-
tion of land, instead of being levied upon these
successions, has been raised in the shape of a heavy
stamp upon every mortgage, or sale, or lease, while
the transfer of personality is free of duty, and
entails no law expenses. Thus, both descriptions
of property have been considered to be placed
nearly on a par. Now, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer proposes to lay the legacy and
probate duty upon landed property, without
relieving it of one iota of the taxation or law
charges to which it is subject, in the shape
of stamps and deeds upon every sale, mortgage,
lease, &c. ; and this at the very time that he de-
clares the conviction that landholders are paying
ninepence in the pound compulsory income tax,
while other classes pay only sixpence. This speci-
men of Exchequer justice will, we doubt not, be
prominently put forward in the debate of this
evening. It requires only to be stated in order to
make its impression, and, unless the Chancellor of
the Exchequer makes some modification of his
Budget to remove this palpable feature of injustice,
we think it very likely that the entire Budget will
be wrecked on this ground. A Peelite and a Free-
trader should have been particularly cautious not
to give to his first Budget the appearance of un-
merited harshness and ill-treatment of the class
which has looked upon free trade as the source of
its injuries and declared ruin.

THE TIMES' BRIBE-NEWSPAPER SUPPLE-

MBNTS:

the
Mr. Miln(ePrr Gibson,orinninhgisA
veveiryliaerl
lumi-
nous speech, when introducing his motion last year
able and
in favour of the abolition of taxes on knowledge,
repeatedly declared, in the hearing of a full house,
that in the course of a few years should matters
continue as they were, there would be no morning
papers except the Morning Advertiser and the
Times. We refer to the words of the right hon.
gentleman—words from which no member of the
Legislature expressed dissent—for the purpose of
showing, were that necessary, that in holding up
to condemnation the conduct of Mr. Gladstone, in
conferring a marked favour on the Times, we are
not speaking from any considerations which imme-
diately affect this journal. We speak on behalf of
our struggling contemporaries, not our own. If
any favour were to be shown at all'by the Govern-
ment to the daily press, it ought to have been to
those journals which are the weakest, and, conse-
quently, needed it the most. Mr. Gladstone
thinks, or at least acts, differently. He is for
crushing those papers which are struggling, and
for giving greater strength to a journal which is
much too powerful already. A Minister of the
Crown who can make so objectionable a use of the
influence with which his position invests him, is
wholly unworthy of that position. A Minister has
no right to evince favouritism with regard to public
journals. Or, if he will have hia favourite paper,
and his peculiar friendship for its proprietors, he
has, at least, no right to shower the patronage of
Government on that journal, to the serious injury
of all other papers. Ministers ought, on the con-
trary, as Ministers, to encourage, by all the means
in their power, every legitimate commercial enter-
prise. •
But if the Chancellor of the Exchequer be inac-
cessible to considerations of this nature, there aro
other considerations which ought to satisfy him of
the inexpediency of the notorious favouritism which
he is showing to the Times. By abolishing the
duty on newspaper supplements, the right hon.
gentleman gives up about 5 , •
0 000/ of revenue per
annum. For the sake of conferring a favour on
the Times, or, in plain language, putting 20,0001.
or 30,0001.9 into its pocket every year, our present
Chancellor of the Exchequer will also deprive ser-
vants of the means of getting situations through
advertisements in the public journals. He Swill
also deprive trade of all the benefit which a liberal
amount of advertising never fails to produce to it.
And yet, though Mr. Gladqtone can, in the pleni-

tude of his, generosity towards the Times, afford to
dispense with 50,000/. or 60,0001. yearly revenue,
he affects to be so hard driven to make both ends
meet that he cannot afford to part with all the
160,0001. revenue derived from the advertisement
duty. He is, he tells us, necessitated to oppose
the entire abolition of the advertisement duty from
financial considerations. He must retain at least
one-third of the amount—that is, one sixpence out
of the eighteenpence.
Mr. Gladstone would never have dreamt of offer-
ing the Times a direct bribe for the support of his
Budget, or for its advocacy of any other measure,
in the success of which he might take a special in-
terest. Nor, the principle of giving the worst
of all characters his due, do we suppose our con-
temporary would accept a direct bribe, even if the
right hon. gentleman were so far to forget himself
as to offer it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
is not the man to manage matters in any such
clumsy manner as that. He has hit on the right,
sort of thing. He knows the Times full well. He
comprehends the genius of that journal. A more
ingenious device to accomplish his purpose could
not have been resorted to. He has purchased all
the support which the Times can give his financial
measures, and that journal is doing its best to get
him through his difficulties.
We presume the Chancellor of the Exchequer
does not take it for granted, that the support of
the Times is to be given either to him, as an indi-
vidual Minister, or to the Administration of which
he is a member, after the Budget has been carried.
We mistake the character of the right hon. gen-
tleman
for shrewdness, and ha estimated
his acquaintance with the journal w ose services
he has bought, if he labours under any such im-
pression. Ile will find himself at fault if he has
any such notion. The Times is under no such mis-
conception. That journal does not regard the
future support of the Ministry in general, or any
measure of Mr. Gladstone in particular, as part of
the bargain. That is not in the bond. Not at any
rate, according to the Times' reading of it.
Mr. Gladstone may, on the contrary, rest as-
sured that once the Times has received the amount
of the boon beyond the chance of recal, it will take
an early opportunity of turning round, and, for the
purpose of making a parade of its pretended inde-
pendence, assail the right hon. gentleman and
his colleagues in the Cabinet, with unwonted fury.
The moment the Budget has either been carried or
rejected, the Times will regard the compact as at
an end. It will consider that it has given all the
consideration which it engaged to give for the abo-
lition of the stamp on supplements, and that it is
again free to return to its old habit of assailing all
and everybody. Mr. Gladstone has made a bad
bargain for his colleagues, should they remain in
office after the Budget has been disposed of. The
Times will have no mercy on them after the terms
of the compact have been fulfilled.
The very fact of Mr. Gladstone having had re-
course to this discreditable expedient to purchase
the support of the Times, implied a consciousness
that his Budget was not such as would command
the approval of the country. Had the right hon.
gentleman felt satisfied in his own mind of the in-
trinsic merits of his measure, he would have had
confidence in its adoption by the house. In that
case it would not have been necessary to give a re-
taining fee to .the Times, or to any other journal.
The hostility of the Thunderer to a good measure
never yet has prevailed, and never will. The
honest part of the press would have given its
prompt and cordial support to an unexceptionable
Budget. And there would have been so strong an
expression of public feeling in' its favour as would
have carried it triumphantly through the house.
But Mr. Gladstone evidently had no faith from the
first in his own financial scheme. He manifestly
anticipated an unwelcome reception to it by the
public, and has sought to neutralise that hostility
by a dishonourable bargain with the Times. Mr.
Gladstone never committed a greater error since
his first appearance on the stage of public life, and
before many months have passed away—very pro-
bably before many weeks have elapsed--the right
hon. gentleman will be -convinced of the gigantic
mistake he has made. 13y putting the Times in a
position to acquire greater power and influence in
the country, he will find that he has only put into
the hands of our contemporary a lash wherewith
to scourge his own back. And most certainly
there will be a poetic justice which all must ad-
mire, should the right honourable gentleman be
the first to receive a practical proof of the in-
creased power for castigating those who have in-
incurred its displeasure, which, by this act of gross
and glaring favouritism, he has conferred on our
contemporary.

TVHOLESALE POISONING IN " CONSECRATED
GROUND."

" Thou shalt do no murder," says the clergyman
every Sunday, repeating the commandment. All under
the church in which he speaks are vaults crammed to
the ceiling with putrefying corpses : another is, perhaps,
at that moment waiting to take its place among the dead
and deadly inhabitants of mother church's great store-
house of disease.
" The prayers of this congregation are desired for
two persons dangerously ill," says the clergyman. One
is a man in the last stage of typhus fever. He lives
in a house abutting on the "Church's Holy Ground."
This "holy ground " is made up of the most tremen-
dious ingredients. That old garden of Attalus, which
grew nothing but poisons, was an Eden of innocence
when compared to it. This garden that the church
cultivates, has for its soil mouldering coffins and
putrefying flesh ; its flowers are pestilence—the sexton
tends them by carefully digging and stirring up the
filthy ground. He had been shovelling about the
dead with unusual energy, and the man now dying of
fever breathed the polluted air than which arsenic
could not be more fatal. The other sick person,
about to leave this world, has lately been a mother ;
she had been to be churched, and in her delicate state
the fumes of the charnel-house below, reeking through
the cracks in the church floor, had blown upon her
as with the breath of an evil spirit, kindling up a
disease no medicine can cure. The clergyman ascends
the pulpit, talks of the uncertainty of life, the mysteri-
ous ways of Providence in shortening its duration; but
he does not say a word about the duty of obeying God's
phyiical laws or the sin of neglecting them ; it never
strikes him that every one of his order who does not
strenuously protest against poisoning the living with his
"holy ground" is an accessary to murder, and will the
held guilty of no small share of tlfe deaths that spring
from it. His service over, he visits the parents of a sick,
puny child—here again he has nothing to talk about but
the mystery of baptismal regeneration and supervenient
grace. He counsels the mother to bow meekly to theChas-
tenitig rod, and ascribes to Providence the sickness of her
child. He does not care about " carnal learning," or
the parish doctor could tell him that it is by a mur-
derous violation of the laws of Providence in keeping
up the abomination of his " holy ground" that this poor
child is afflicted, and that thousands are growing .up
consumptive and scrofulous, a burden to themselve,, a
grief to their friends, and an expense to the public, be-
cause his order has not done their duty and made the
metropolis ring 'with the duty of obedience to divine
physical law, wilfully to continue sinning against which
is a most serious breach of divine moral law. In fact,
with few exceptions—and all honour to them—the
clergy, with the bishops at their head, have been ever
the great stumbling blocks to this branch of sanitary re-
form. The people sicken and die—what matter ?—the
fees come in ! "Thy money perish with thee," would
have been the rebuke of a Christian apostle. Our
Church is very apostolic, but such rebukes are not
given.
The Surveyor of the Commissioner of City Sewers
tells the corporation that within the city the over-
crowded burial-grounds are made still more pestilential
by about 1,810 burials a-year. The Board of Health
published a cholera' map of the metropolis ; the south
side of the river is ominously distinguished by an im-
mense smudge of blue, deepening in tint in proportion
to the mortality of the district. In the darkest spots the
Church's " holy ground " is still at full work cultivating
typhus fever with diabolical industry.
We have had months of rain saturating these " con-
secrated" spots with moisture, and soon may come
weeks of intense heat. Here will he a time for the
Church's horticulture ! The best medical authorities
tell us that if heat should come on, and we continue
digging and stirring up our graveyards for fresh inter-
ments, that we must have a season of fearful pes-
tilence—it may be cholei-a—it may be typhus—but
death will be busy reaping the Church's crop. Under
these circumstances, Mr. G. A. Walker is again pa-
triotically circulating notes of warning, and here and
there a solitary graveyard yields to his attacks ; but at
the slow rate we are progressing, another teeming har-
vest of plague and pestilence will be withered in before
the trade of cultivating disease is stopped by our Legis-
lature. Thousands of lives and hundreds of thousands
of pounds might be saved by timely action. Upon all
, who can stir in this movement, and who do not stir, a
I heavy load of blame shall rest, and chiefly upon that
part of the clergy who remain dumb dogs and will not
bark to secure the safety of their flocks. Let them
reflect upon these things the next time they utter the
words "Thou shalt do no murder."----From the Atlas.of
Saturday.

In a case submitted on Friday to the Tribunal of
Commerce, it was again decided that a Frenchman can-
not proceed against an Englishman, resident in France,
on bills of exchange given by him to another Englishman
in England, when such bills have not, before coming due,
been passed to the Frenchman in the regular course of
business.—Galignani.

[PRICE SD.

LETTER FROM THE CHANCELLOR OF THE
EXCHEQUER ON THE BUDGET.

The following important correspondence has been
placed in our hands for publication, and we give it with-
out a word of comment, as the plain and feasible argu-
ments of the Chancellor, and the spirit of considerate
kindness which dictated his reply to the remonstrance of
the clerk, need no exposition and no eulogy :

Birmingham, April 20, 1853.
am a clerk whose salary is just ahove 1001. a
year, and will therefore come under the operation of
your measure of the income tax.

Now your proposition will come to this. I shall have
to pay 2/. ls. Bd. hard cash to the tax-gatherer ; and I
shall be glad if you will point out where I shall be re-
lieved—on house rent ? on clothes ? on meat ? on flour ?
on coals, which last during the past six months increased
75 per cent. ? on education of children ? on medical at-
tendance ? on borough or parochial rates ? Mark, sir,
these items, after all, are the great items in house-
keeping.
It has been said that our class will be more relieved
than others by the remission on 238 articles. But these,
if I rightly understand, will be only as a drop in the
bucket. The repeal of the corn laws was a bond fide re-
lief, for which all are most thankful. I hope, sir, you
will therefore pause before committing so great an injus-
tioe• —I remain, your most obedient servant,
JOSEPH LLOYD PHELPS.

Downing-street, April 21, 1853.

Sir,—The reasonable tone in which you write to com-
plain of the proposal to extend a modified rate of income
tax from incomes of 1501. downwards to those of 1001.,
leads me, though my time is very much occupied, to
address you on the subject.
You observe that you will have to pay 21. Is. Bd. to
the tax collector, but will have nothing in return on the
most important items of expenditure.
Let us look into this matter more particularly.

The tax collector, should Parliament adopt the propo-
sition of the Government, will about the month of
January next call upon you for the half-yearly payment
of V. Os. 10d., which will be repeated in July, and this
for seven years ; when, unless Parliament, in considera-
tion of other public benefits or necessities not yet fore-
seen, should prolong the tax, it will drop altogether.
Is this a hardship ?

If you and your family do not form a strange excep-
tion to the general rule, you have since 1842 been de-
riving great additional command over articles of use and
subsistence from the changes that have been brought
about in our fiscal system.
I think I do not overstate the actual savings upon
incomes of 1001. per annum, which have directly flowed
from legislation since 1842, if I put them at 51. per
annum.

In what manner has Parliament been enabled to give
you the benefit of these savings ?

By the imposition of an inCome tax at sevenpence in
the pound upon all incomes of 1501. and upwards.
Have the owners of these incomes who have borne the
exclusive burden derived from the accompanying changes
in legislation a greater proportional benefit than those
who own incomes of 100/.

On the contrary, it may be easily inferred from general
considerations, and it is most plain to me from carefully
collected facts, that the benefits of the income tax have
amounted to a much larger percentage on incomes below
1501. than on incomes above that sum. Ido not antici-
pate that you will doubt this.
The question then arises, if the income tax is again to
be imposed for a term of seven years on those who have
heretofore paid it, with a view to another great scheme
of remissions of indirect taxation for the benefit of the
entire community, but especially of the incomes below
1501., is it fair to those having 1501. and upwards, after
the class next beneath them in wealth have come into
actual possession of a great pecuniary advantage, free of
any cost whatever to themselves, that the higher in-
comes should again be required to bear not only the
main but the exclusive burden, in order again to confer
the main benefit on the lower?

Put yourself in my position. Suppose the Govern-
ment hadAot asked Parliament to go down, at fivepence,
to incomes of 1001. ; suppose I had now been replying
to some person with 1501., per annum who had been
complaining to me that I called upon him to pay a tax
in which you did not share, in order to bring about
benefits in which you were to have a greater share than
he—do you think I should have as good an answer to
make to him as I can now make to you l
But let us look more closely at.your case. I observe;
first, that you are in enjoyment of certain money advan-
tages, which have been obtained for you at the cost of
others. But is.not on that account that I would call
upon you to pay. Ido not scruple to say, that if you
have a family—and if you have not, your case must be
regarded as an exception to the common state of men in
society—you will realise savings from the charges we
have proposed to Parliament greater than the cost at
which we invite you to buy them.
You are asked to pay 21, ls. Bd. per annum for seven
years from Jan. next. You will thus pay within about
eight years from this time the sum of 141. lls. Bd. in
all. The present value of this payment, distributed as
above, may be from 111. to 121. What is it proposed
you should gain on articles of common consumption in
return for this 11/. to 121.

I have before me the household expenditure of a clerk
in a country town with a wife and five children, and
with an income of 1001. per annum.

I find that in 1852 his tea cost him 3/. 18s. But the
changes proposed to take effect within the next three
years will reduce the price of tea by 30 per cent. Thus
then he will gain three•tenths of 78,,5., or 1/. 3s. 6d. per
annum on his tea.

I find that his soap cost him in the same year 265.
From the sth of next July; if the changes proposed by
the Government are adopted, the duty of 10. per lb. on
soap will be repealed. I may take this duty at 40 per
cent. on the price. But the repeal of the duty will
lead to such improvements in the trade that I un-
derstand there will be a furLher saving on the
short price of 30 per cent. I will, however, take
the whole reduction of price no higher than 50 per
cent., and this perhaps not until after a couple of
years, when the trade shall have had time to expand in
its state of freedom. The clerk, whose income is before
me, will for the same quantity of soap then pay 13s. only
instead of 265. He will have saved 11. 3s. 6d. on his
tea, and 13s. on his soap, together. 11. 16s. 6d. This
annuity is perpetual ; it is for himself, and for his chil-
dren after him ; he will have bought it for a sum equal
to between 11/. and 121. Do you think he could buy
a perpetual annuity—and I call it so, because it is strictly
true that money saved is money gained— of 11. 16s. 6d.
for 11/. or 121. down i No, nor for double nor treble
that money.
I have certainly here the case of a man with a family
larger than the average. But pray observe also that lie
is, therefore, poorer than the average of those who have
1001. per annum, and thus his case shows how our pro-
posals will operate on the most needy among those whom
they affect.
I have, however, another case before me, of a country
tradesman with 1201. per annum, having a Wife, but no
children ; and in this instance the figures would not be
very materially different.
I might, however, have pushed my case much further.
I might have taken credit for savings that a large por-
tion of the population will realise from the reductions of
duty on butter, cheese, and a multitude of other commo-
dities, as also from reductions on stamps and other arti-
cles. But I will not enter into them.
I wish, however, to point out that these reductions
operate in many ways not at first sight perceptible. A
printed calico saich cost 225. 6d. in 1830, including a
duty of ss. Bad., may now, when the duty is off, be had
for less than lls. Again, I think you are mistaken in sup-
posing that the tax on soap does not enter into the cost of
clothing. It is an important ingredient in the manufac-
ture of printed calicoes, woollens, and worsteds. In
some of these cases only half drawback is allowed ; in
all of them a worse and dearer article is used than would
be employed if soap were free, and the cost of the cloth-
ing on our backs is enhanced in proportion.
Again, you say education is not cheapened. I beg
your pardon. We.shall propose this year an addition to
the vote of 100,0001. Every farthing of that money will
go to cheapen and to improve the education of the chil-
dren of persons with incomes less than 1501. per annum.
You say medical attendance is not cheapened. Surely,
medical attendance has, since 1842, been virtually and
really cheapened to you, if medicalmen (as has been the
case) have been called upon, without any increase of
their fees, to pay income tax, in order to reduce the
price of articles of which persons of 1001. a year are,
relatively to income, larger consumers than they them-
selves are who have paid the tax.
You may, perhaps, say all this tells in favour of carry-
ing the tax below 1001. I need not now enuterclireodn,
that question ; the labouring class, prop
presents a case to be considered apart •
erlbyust
I think
there is no essential distinction, speaking
incomesg of 100., which
should exclude the latter from a m
tween incomes of 1501. and / h
d
ener_ally,_ be-
te share of this
warrant, but even
may seem to require, the us only
tax ; and I further think I have shownoerathat the strictest
considerations of justice not
al which the Gover
p
constituent, and had a dissolution of
ment has made. At any ra-tle.o,Pl am certain of this, thnat.
had you been my
Parliament been impending, I never should have pre-
sented myself to you with greater confidence, to render
an account of my trust, and to ask for its renewal, than
on the day after I had stated to Parliament the pro-
posals which her Majesty's advisers have laid before it.
I remain, sir, your obedient servant,
make any use of this letter you
eL
atl o yd Phelps,eliberty
to NV. E. GLADSTONE.
YiNforu. J.
may think fit ; although the figures I have used in it
may have been somewhat roughly stated B. • '
1 Journal.mninglianz,

THE PITMEN AND THE WAGES QUESTION.—The
miuers of the North Eastern district of Northumber-
land met at Horton, near Blyth, on Saturday, to con-
sider the necessity of asking for an advance of wages,
and to adopt certain resolutions to secure a better pro-
tection of their health and lives. Resolutions were
adopted, and no doubt in the present brisk state of the
coal trade any reasonable demands made by the men
will be acceeded to.

Commanders.-W. G. N. King (1834), C. J. F. Newton
(1838), Lewis Maitland (1841), George Stewart Reynolds
(1841), John Steane (1841), Edmund Peel (1841), George
Snell (1843), R. Moorman (1845), and James A. Paynter
(1846).

Lieutenants.—John Edward Lane (1811), Martin Ben-
nett (1815), William Mansell (1821), Robert A. Newman
(1827), John 0. Bathurst (1838), H. Temple (1845), Geo.
E. K. Gore (1843), William H. Payne (1845), Jobn F. C.
Mackenzie (1846), and Edward F. Dent (1846).
Paymaster.—James Ozzard (1E513).

PORTSMOUTH, APRIL 24.

Her Majesty's ship Hastings, Captain F. IV. Austin,
arrived at Spithead this morning from the East Indies,
and saluted the flag of the Commander-in-Chief at this
port. The Hastings has brought no news, having made
an unusually long passage from the Cape, which place
she left on the 6th of February, St. Helena on the 21st
of February, and Ascension on the 28th of that month,
since which time she has touched nowhere.

The Victory flag-ship yesterday received 100 newly-
raised men from the Excellent, for training.
A Norwegian man-of-war steamer anchored at Spit
head last evening, and saluted the garrison and flag-ship.
The American packet-ship Devonshire brought up off
the Nab at 8 o'clock this morning, 16 days from New
York, landed passengers, and proceeded to London.
The ship's carpenter fell off the yard overboard and was
drowned last night off the Isle of Wight.
The Plumper screw sloop is under repair, and will
come out of dock on the 28th, and be placed in the steam
basin to be fitted for service.
Wind S.W., blowing hard, with heavy showers of rain.

PLYMOUTH, Arum 23.
Her Majesty's screw steam-frigate Amphion, 34, Cap-
tain Charles G.
.g. Patey, arrived this morning from
Sheerness.
The London, 90, Captain Charles Eden, arrived on
Thursday from Portsmouth, and, having saluted the
Port-Admiral, anchored in the Sound. On Friday she
sailed for a cruise in the Channel. One report returns
her to Portsmouth, another states that she will proceed
to join the fleet under Rear-Admiral Dundas in the
Mediterranean.

The steam transport Rhadamanthus, Master-Com-
mander John Belam, sailed yesterday afternoon for the
eastward.
The officers and crew of the surveying vessel Scorpion,
6, Lieutenant-Commander Grant, were paid off in the
pay-office in the dockyard on Thursday.
The brig Wizard, 6, Lieutenant-Commander Bacon,
was placed in dock on Thursday, and, having been ex-
amined and repaired, was towed on Friday by the Con-
fiance steamer into the Sound. She sailed to-day for
Queenstown.
The steam-ship Cyclops sailed to-day for Deptford,
having in tow the store-ship Melampus, which will bring
to this port the remainder of the enginework for the St.
Jean d'Acre.
The St. Jean d'Acre has received her boilers and will
be placed in dock on Monday to be coppered.
SUNDAY.

The African steam-ship Company's mail packet Hope
arrived yesterday from the Thames, and is appointed to
sail this afternoon with mails for Madiera, Teneriffe, and
the west coast of Africa.

WOOLWICH, APRIL 23.
The Phoenix screw steam-sloop, Commander Edward
A. Inglefield, has been taken into the basin for the con-
venience of completing her coaling.
Several of the workmen in the factory have been
employed over hours during the week in forging a new
hammered iron shaft for the Sidon steam-frigate. The
shaft will be 11 feet long, by 211 inches diameter, and
weigh about five tons. It will be completed by the
hammerers on Tuesday next, and be turned and finished
so as to be ready to send round to Portsmouth on
Saturday.
The Sinbad lighter has been taken into the basin to
receive on board the screw, cast and finished at the
factory here, for the Agamemnon, 91, screw gteamship,
at Portsmouth, and the Sinbad will take it round to
that port. The screw, when finished, will be 18 feet in
diameter, by 3 feet in depth.

IMPORTANT ALTERATION IN THE TOB A CCO
DUTIES. THREATENED EXTINCTION OP
THE SCOTCH AND IRISH MANUFACTURE.

Among what will be considered the minor alterations
proposed by Mr. Gladstone on the Customs'-duties, is
one which, if the state of our information on the point is
not imperfect, will inflict a great injustice and a still
greater injury on the tobacco dealers or manufacturers,
especially of Scotland—a class whom, as collectors of
nearly five millions of annual revenue, should obviously
be cautiously dealt with by financiers.
The question raised by the new Tariff can be stated in
..very few words. The present duties on Tobacco are 3s.
per lb. on " unmanufictured," and 9s. per lb. on "manu-
factured," with 5 per cent. added—say, respectively,
3s. 2d. and 9s. 6d. Mr. Gladstone proposes to make
the duties 3s. 6d. and 9s. ; but it is not in this, but int=
alteration of the classification of the two kinds, manu-
factured and unmanufactared, that the grievance or
danger lies. At present, the " unmanufactured," pay-
ing the 3s. duty, is interpreted literally, and includes
only the leaf ; while the " manufactured " includes all
kinds wholly or in part made up--negrohead, twist,
Cavendish, shag, and cigars. Mr. Gladstone proposes
to transfer to the class " unmanufactured." the three
articles designated Cavendish, negroh6ad, and twist, i.e.,
to allow these articles to' be imported at 3s. 6d. instead
of 9s. 2d. of duty.
Such a change would of course make a mighty differ-
ence to the home manufacturers, who buy the leaf under
the 3s. 2d. duty, and then manufacture it into the shapes
which, when imported, bear a duty three times higher.
The conclusion must not be jumped to that the- differ-
ence between the duty on foreign and on home Caven-
dish, negroheai, and twist, is a protection, and that Mr.
Gladstone's proposal is simply an operation in free
trade. Our home manufacturers seem to us to have at
least two sound objections to the change. The chief of
these is, that they are laid under severe and costly re-
strictions from which the foreign manufacturer is exempt.
For instance, they are compelled under vexatious regu-
lations and ruinous penalties to manufacture with " pure
water," while the foreign manufacturer uses saccharine
matter in various forms and degrees, which not only
greatly augments the weight of the article as sold to the
consumer, but gives to it that very flavour which the
smokers desiderate and are willing to pay extra for.
The foreigner thus enjoys, but for the differential duty,
a great advantage over the home manufacturer ; and even
as things stand, the supply of all outgoing ships, a very
important branch of the trade, is made up of foreign
manufactured tobacco, solely owing to the disadvantages
under which the home manufacturer is placed by the
burdensome regulations to which his process is subjected.
If the duties are nominally equalised on the three articles
named, without the conditions of manufacture being also
equalised—i. e. being both left unrestrained—the foreign
manfacturer will supply the whole consumers as he at
present supplies all those (viz., out-going vessels) from
whom the 9s. duty is not exigible.
Now, the justice of the case seems to require one of
two courses. Either set free the process of manufacture,
or at the same time maintain a differential duty equiva-
lent to the.cost of those restrictions on the home manu-
facturer from which the foreign manufacturer is free. If
the home-manufacturers are not prepared to adopt the
former of these alternatives, they have no case ; if the
Chancellor of the Exchequer will not accede either to
one or the other, he is doing injustice.
The other ground of complaint seemingly possessed
by the manufacturers is secondary but not unimportant.
Besides the three kinds of manufactured tobacco just
dealt with, there is a fourth, called " shag," which for
no ascertainable reason, is, unlike its fellows, to be al-
lowed to remain under the 9s. import duty. Now, it so
happens that the English manufacturers produce almost
exclusively shag, while the Scotch and Irish manufac-
turers employ themselves almost exclusively in the pro-
duction of the other three kinds. So that, besides the
injustice as between the home and the foreign maker,
there seems another as between the manufacturers of the
three kingdoms. This should give an extra stimulus to
the. Scotch and Irish members in seeking redress. The
Irish members have well-known and greatly dreaded
powers of troubling ; and the Scotch ones can present
themselves with the persuasive claim that they are not
in the habit of joining together to ask or do anything
whatever.

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS OF FOREIGNERS IN DISTRESS.—
The anniversary festival of this society, which was esta-
blished in 1806 for the purpose of relieving indigent
Tavern on Saturday. The Earl of Carlisle occupied the
foreigners in this country, was celebraateldaraztet the n London
o no
chair, and amongst the guests, of whom there were
vented
the
nearly 200 present, were the Chevalier Bunsen, th
gcloanditafineerdini
Hon. J. R. Ingersoll (the American Minister), Colonela
vaebrtsterad
abstract
to
as
athteo
Mr. J. D. Powles, and
Lawrence, p
much
h aria
opinions d inners
imight
-recent.leadingf
foreign gentlemen. The chairman, inn a
toast " Success to the Society," briefly
article of a conmporay journal. He believed that,
the propriety of
hatoLwleekveronmuc
mixing Ythe
objects, the streams of convivialities with charitable
pool of Bethseda, required charity,like the waters of the
forth their latent virtues. occasional agitation to draw
appeal in favour of the recipients After making an eloquent
institution, he stated that of the bounties of the
established 50 though it had not been
nations bad been
years, 50,950 foreigners of different
relieved, and 82 annual pensions at
the usual rate, and 95 at
reduced rate, were now
paid out of its funds. It mighta be said charity
began
began at home, but distress, like kindness, made
" the whole world kin." It was true alike at Car-
thage as at Troy—" Sunt lacryma) meum et mentem
mortalia tangunt, ' and the fact that charity did begin
at home supplied the strongest argument in favour of
a society like this. In the course of the evening,
besides the ordinary toasts, " The Foreign Sovereigns
and Governments, and their representatives present,"
was given and acknowledged by the Chevalier Bunsen
and the Hon. J. R. Ingersoll. A liberal collection
was made, including the following subscriptions :
her Majesty 1001., Prince Albert 251., the King of
Denmark 501., King of Spain 101., the Emperor of
Austria 101., King of Belgium 101.,
Emperor of
Russia 30/., Earl of Carlisle 101., and Hon. J. R. In-
gersoll 101.
RECTORY OF ST. JAMES'S, PICCADILLY.—The Rev.
Thomas James Rowsell, M.A., incumbent of St. Peter's
Church, Stepney, has been appointed to the rectory of
St. James's, Westminster, rendered vacant by the resig-
nation of the Rev. Dr. John Jackson, Bishop elect of
Lincoln.