The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

EXTENSION OF THE INCOME TAX TO
IRELAND.
(From the Times.)
Great as is the interest which Mr. Gladstone's
Budget has created in England, the real decision of
the question seems remitted to a country with
whose views we are as yet imperfectly acquainted,
and which will, we fear, regard our finances under
influences not very favourable to a decision advan-
tageous to the public. Ireland, on hearing the
statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pulls
out her tablets and begins to calculate her profit
and loss by this great operation, crediting herself
with whatever is remitted, and debiting herself
with whatever is imposed. This is not an unnatu-
ral way of arriving at a conclusion, but it certainly
is a very fallacious one. Ireland, as distinguished
from England and Scotland, is neither a gainer by
all that is remitted to her, nor a loser by all that
is imposed upon her. The remission is not abso-
lute, nor is the payment wholly unfruitful. As an
integral part of the empire, having, whatever may
be said to the contrary, an interest identical with
those of the sister kingdoms, Ireland is deeply
concerned that taxation should be imposed with
justice and impartiality, and that no undue or un-
equal pressure on any class of men or any division
of the country should cripple the Government for
want of sufficient resources, or drive us to adopt
questionable financial expedients, because the
legitimate means of raising our revenue are
forbidden to us by local influences or narrow
pre:udices. Nor is the political advantage of
such equality of treatment inconsiderable. No
country in the world ever rose to equal
rights unless it was at the same time prepared to
take upon itself equal burdens. Were every other
distinction between the two countries removed
Ireland will never be fairly entitled to regard her-
self as the equal of England till she becomes too
proud to accept alms, and too conscious of her own
duties and her own rights to submit to a position
Of fiscal inferiority. To claim the most perfect
equality with one to whom you are constantly
placing yourself under pecuniary obligations is as
impossible between nations as between individuals,
and the liquidation of the debt is always considered
an indispensable preliminary to the assertion of the

right.
Even if there were no equivalent in the shape
of a remission of Consolidated Annuities, is there
anything harsh or unjust in the extension of the in-
come tax to Ireland ? It is said Ireland is a poor
country and unable to bear as much taxation as a
rich country, that every one should be taxed accord-
ing to his ability, that Ireland is only just recover-
ing from the famine, and much more of the same
kind. The answer to all this is, that it rests on an
abuse of general terms. Ireland is poor,—that is,
the population of Ireland is poor ; Ireland is just re-
covering from a famine,—that is, the people of Ire-
land are justrecovering from a famine; but Ireland's
poverty and Ireland's famine are no arguments
against the income tax, because that tax is not
levied on the,poor, but, by the very hypothesis of
its imposition, implies that the person called on
to pay is removed from poVerty. The fallacy lies
in assuming that every one who lives in a rich
country must be rich, and every one who lives in a
poor country must be poor, and thus keeping out
of sight the peculiar conditions under which the
tax is imposed. To make out the proof, it ought
to be shown that a man with 100/. a-year in Ireland
is poorer than a man with 1001. a-year in England,
a proposition which, as labour and provisions are
cheaper in Ireland, and as there are no assessed
taxes there, it seems impossible to maintain. Gen-
tlemen talk of the rights of the millions of Ireland
and of levying taxes on her starving people, as if
they thought that it was on these millions andi this
people that the income tax was to be laid. The
state of Ireland may render the number of those
who pay income tax very small, but cannot in any
way interfere with the ability of those possessing
this income to contribute 3/. out of every 1001. to
the public revenue.
Irish members should not forget that if they
.have been at last called upon to bear their share of
the burdens, they have been for many years receiv-
ing no inconsiderable portion of the benefit. Upon
them, as upon England and Scotland, has descended
the blessing of the remissions which the income
tax has purchased, and, though their effect may not
be clearly traceable through the clouds and dark-
ness of that night of horror and misery which fell
upon them so soon after, there is no reason to
doubt that the miseries of Ireland would have
been much aggravated but for a cheapness of pro-
visions provided for through the means of a
heavy burden voluntarily assumed by the sister
kingdoms. Nor ought the great •remission of
the Consolidated Annuities to remain un-
acknowledged. True, the relief is not so gene-
ral as the tax, but it must be remembered
that, while the tax is imposed on none who are
unable to bear it, the Annuities fall precisely on
those districts where the distress is most severe
and the-ability-to pay the smallest. This differ-
' ence cannot be fairly expressed by figures. The
same principle which made the widow's mite
more precious than all the costly gifts of the
rich, gives to the remission of the Consolidated
Annuities a value not counterbalanced by a tax
which in its very nature leaves necessity untouched.
Or shall it be said that England and Scotland are
willing to forgive to the distressed portion of
Ireland the debts incurred at a time of heavy
calamity, but that the inhabitants of districts
on which the scourge was lightly laid will not
undertake an income tax from which they had
never any title to be exempt to relieve their
native land from this grievous incubus ? Is it
hoped that it will be possible to resist the income
tax and at the same time to secure the remission of
the Consolidated Annuities? The idea is chimerical.
We cannot always be multiplying inequalities or
bending under burdens for the sake of those as able
to pay as ourselves. The remission of this debt de-
pends upon the choice of Irish members—in their
hands is placed the destiny of their country. They
may unite against them every party and every feel-
ing in England and Scotland, and alienate the
classes in Ireland to whom the Budget holds out
such vast advantages, or they may commence a new
era of fairness, equality, and mutual confidence,
fraught with vast advantages to England, to Scot-
land, and, more than either, to Ireland:

CLERGY RESERVES BILL.—THE DIVISION
IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
( From the Morning Herald.)
The result of the division in the House of Lords
on Monday night is an event which appears to de-
mand a notice of a different nature from that which
belongs to an ordinary incident of political warfare.
It is impossible to deny that in that result the cause
of constitutional principle has sustained a great de-
feat. It has sustained it in the assembly to which
all our traditional recollections and associations
point as the assembly that is to protect the Conser-
vative element of the constitution. The measure
of confiscation which Ministers have proposed for
alienating the heritage of the Church in Canada has
been accepted by the peers of Britain by a majority
relatively greater than any by which it was adopted
in the Commons. It has been accepted with all its
unmitigated character of iniquitous spoliation. Nay,
only 78 of the nobility of Britain were found to
stand by the most distinguished of their order in
his effort to withhold from a Colonial Legislature
the power of violating the plighted faith of the So-
vereign, the Parliament, and the people of Eng-
land.

It were folly, and worse than folly, to pretend t 3
make light of such a result. Account for it as we
will, disguise it to our own convictions as we may,
there stands the fact, with the unescapable certainty
or arithmetical reasoning. An amendment protect-
ing Church endowments in Canada—endowments
to the inviolability of which over and over again
the British nation and the British Sovereign have
pledged their faith—this amendment has been re-
jected, and rejected in the British House of Peers,
by a majority of 117 to 78 ; or, if we add to it the
" pairs upon both sides (23 in number), by a ma-
jority of 140 to 101.
Are we to accept this startling fact as an indica-
tion that the peers of England have abandoned
those principles which, we may almost say, consti-
tute the political existence of an hereditary nobi-
lity ? Is this division a tide-mark of the sure, al-
though noiseless rise of the revolutionary wave ?
Are we to believe that the sacredness of Church
property is no longer held inviolable in the highest
tribunal of social justice, whether" legislative or
judicial, in the land? Are national honour and
national faith to be in future esteemed of no mo-
ment in the deliberations of those whom the con-
stitution has invested with rank and dignity, sur-
rounded with the splendours of ancestral nobility,
for the very purpose of more emphatically impres-
sing on our legislation the qualities which such as-
sociations ought to create ? Let us calmly examine
the circumstances of this result—a result which,
we repeat again, it is impossible at first sight to
contemplate without dismay.
In the House of Lords, on Monday night, there
were present only 195 peers ; 46 more had mani-
fested that questionable interest in the subject
which is implied in the accident of being absent with
a pair. Ad ing, however, even these to the num-
ber who voted, we have 241 members of the Upper
House expressing their opinions by their votes.
Any parliamentary guide-book will inform the
reader that the entire number of persons entitled
by their rank to sit in that illustrious as,,:embly
a,nounts io 451, that of these tin are minors, and
i•tt, deducting these, there are Peers of
ro.-:lt entitled to vote and capable of voting, 441.
' 4 Very little more than half the house of Peers;

recorded, therefore, their votes upon Monday
night. This, too, is a fact, whatever be its value,
which rests upon the certainty of arithmetical de-
monstration. We do not, indeed, know with cer-
tainty what would hAVe been the votes of the 200
absent peers had they been present upon Monday
night. Still a comparison with former divisions
justifies us in believing that the larger proportion
of the absentees were noble lords holding Conser-,
vative opinions. It is enough, however, to observe,
that in truth the division of Monday night tested
the opinions of little more than one-half of the
House of Peers. That division, in fact, proved
little, except that a very dangerous apathy upon
political questions prevails at this moment among
the members of the Upper House.

Let us contrast die division of Monday with
some of those which have taken place upon great
contested questions within the last seven years,
since the unfortunate change of conduct of Sir
Robert Peel broke up the Conservative party.
On the third reading of the bill repealing the corn
duties on the 28th of May, 1846, the numbers
were :

For the bill. Against.
Present
Proxies

211 164
Making a total of 375 peers who on that occasion
recorded their votes. It is quite true that on Mon-
day proxies were not available, as the amendment
was moved in committee. Still, however, many
of those who avail themselves of the privilege of
voting by proxy when proxies are available, make
it a point to attend in committees when a personal
vote is indispensable. Taking, however, the num-
bers present on each occasion, we find that on the
Corn Law Bill there were actually present, 254 ;
on the Clergy Reserves but 195.
Pursuing the analysis of the division of late
years, we find the votes on the second reading of
the bill for repealing the navigation laws, May 8,
1849
For the bill
... 173
••• •••
Against ...
••• ••• ... 163

Total •••
... 336
•••
Taking these divisions, we think we are justified
in saying, that, so far as the division of Monday
night goes, it establishes little more than this, that
there is now, on the part of the aristocracy of the
country, an indisposition to take their proper politi-
cal position in the nation.
We are very far from underrating the evil effects
of such a state of feeling. On the contrary, we
regard it as one of the most dangerous character-
istics of the crisis. All we ask is, that the true na-
ture of that characteristic should be understood.
When men boast of the majority of Monday, Jet it
be clearly understood that what they boast of is not
that they have won over a majority of the House
of Peers, but that too large a proportion of that
assembly have either been disgusted with, or ren-
dered indifferent to, the political contests that are
decided in the upper chamber.
We do not palliate the conduct of those noble
lords who, in this hour of their country's perils,
desert the post to which their duty imperatively
calls them. We believe that they commit an error
as fatal, and if we must say it, as cowardly, as that
of the old French nobility, who fled from their
country when they ought at all risks to have stayed,
and resisted the course of revolution. We repeat,
that we only desire that the true nature of the evil
should be understood.

Two opportunities still present themselves upon
which the peers of England may repair the almost
fatal error which they have committed. •We may
not be sanguine enough to expect, that, upon the
third reading of the Clergy Reserves Bill, the deci-
sion of the committee may be reversed ; but there
is another measure to -be considered on Friday,
which will, we verily believe, test the House of
Lords in the opinion of the Conservative and reli-
gious people of England. Upon that evening the
bill for unchristianising the Legislature stands for
a second reading in their lordship's house. The
issue here is fairly raised. Mr. Bright has told the
House of Peers that they dare not reject the mea-
sure. Lord John Russell as distinctly admitted
that there is no expression of public opinion which
ought to influence the upper house in departing
from their former decisions. It is our solemn duty
to warn that illustrious assembly, that if upon this
question they be content, as on the Canada re-
serves, to abdicate their-functions and delegate to
a moiety of their' body the decision of questions in
which the most sacred feelings of Englishmen are
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privileges and the upholding of their order.