The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-29 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 1853.

-

Never, perhaps, at any former period were the
distinction. I,...tn,een " sayings and doings" so
painfully perceptible as at present. It would
almost appear as if men not only unblushingly
avowed their inconsistencies, but even gloried in
their shame. They do not even deem it advisable
to cloak their tergiversation under any plausible
pretext—to rely on some miraculous conversion—.
some new light—which had convinced them of
their former errors. No, Messrs. HUME and
COBDEN never spoke out more distinctly and un-
equivocally in favour of the continuance of a
Property and Income Tax than when avowing
their intentions of voting in favour of a scheme
based on its extinction at afuture period—never de-
plored more earnestly the gross and palpable
injustice of the existing system than when pro-
mising to divide in favour of its renewal for seven
years, without change or modification of any kind.
As we have already stated, such matters must
necessarily shake our confidence in public men,
and induce feelings by no means complimentary
to the popular Representatives.

The first broad principle which Mr. COBDEN lays
down, after a passing jeremiad on the amount of
the Estimates for the National Expenditure, which
may remain unnoticed, as being merely a rechauffee
of sundry orations to the Peace Congress, is--
" That whoever held the reins of power—whoever
the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be—whe-
ther GLADSTONE or DISRAELI—the inevitable rule
must be to aim at the reduction of the Customs
and Excise Duties, even at the expense of
property and income." As an illustration of this
doctrine, lie showed that Mr. DISRAELI had
proposed "to take off a moiety of the Malt Tax—
an indirect impost—and to meet the loss as far as
he could by an additional tax on houses, whici,
might fairly be considered a direct impost, and tha
the Right Hon. Gentleman fell solely in that at-
tempt to find a substitute for that Malt Tax."
This certainly does not appear a very strong en-
couragement to the Financial Minister to persevere
in the course which led to the defeat and downfall
of his predecessor an event which Mr.
COBDEN made the most energetic efforts to
accomplish. He approves of the substitution
of direct for indirect taxation, but he votes
against the Budget of the man who attempts to
accomplish it, and in favour of that of his rival,
which is based on the ultimate cessation of the
Income Tax, and as the inevitable consequence
thereof, the cessation of any attempts to make
further reductions in the Excise or Customs
duties (!). He b
owed the injustice and the im-
policy of the preshenet sytstem of equal duties with-
out reference to t
declared his intention of sup-
porting the plan
pointed would renderth o
u t
gtiha en
eaty shockingmdo de mifio
cation impossible. lie e
adulterations resorted
ralisation occasioned into,eons,
these
exorbitant charges ; but, thcOue,:hic:th moral
of o
Mr. REEDE was obliged to
tobacco trade, in consequence of his re? al the
participate in the frauds practised by all a
to
petitors without exception, though the prisonseZ
the workhouses bore fearful and unanswerable
testimony against the laws that afforded so many
temptations to smuggling, he (Mr. COBDEN)
would sustain the system which he condemned
with such powerful and unanswerable arguments.
Again, on the point of the equal taxation of
all descriptions of income, he clearly exposed the
fallacy of the argument resorted to. He left the
Right Honourable Gentleman without a particle
of ground whereon to rely—asking triumphantly,
" Could anybody doubt, if you put trades and

professions at s±d., and real property at 7'd., that
that would not be to some extent a diminution of
the injustice 7" But still he voted against the
financial scheme that would have put trades and
professions at fiid., and real property at 7d., and
declares his intention of supporting that which re-
fuses to recognise any distinction between the
different kinds of income.

But this is not all. As if to vindicate himself
from the charge of inconsistency, he explains
that he—the Free-trader--formerly opposed Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S proposition'for the creation of an
Income Tax—and that, although feeling the gross
injustice to the receivers of precarious income,
he also opposed Mr. HUME'S motion for
the, appointment of a Select Committee to
inquire and report as to the means that should be
adopted to render the impost more equitable,
and those votes were given notwithstanding the
opinions which he then professed, and which he
still avows !

On other points he also condemned the proposi-
tion. The licensing system justly incurred his
condemnation. "He could not understand the rea-
son why the Right Hon. Gentleman was going to lay
a tax on all traders who dealt in tea and tobacco."
As to the Advertisement Duty, he hoped that the
CHANCELLOR of the RXCHEQUER would not make
" two bites of a cherry ;" and ho exposed the
injustice and impolicy of "the sop to the levia-
than." But, notwithstanding, all these grave objec-
tions, and others, to which we have not time
or space to refer, he gave his cordial support to
the measure, open to so many and such serious
objections.

As if to place the inconsistency in even a
stronger light, Sir CHARLES WOOD, with his usual
acuteness, declared himself "quite incapable of re-
conciling the amendment with the speeches which
had been delivered in its support," and this while
receiving with the greatest complacency the suf-
frages of the Honourable Members for Montrose
and the West Riding ! ! !

We are happy to find that the abstract proposi-
tion, so ably put forward by Sir EDWARD BULWER
LYTTON, and in which every speaker (except Mr.
DENISON) has fully concurred, will be followed by
Mr. WILLIAM MicHELL, who has given notice of
a specific motion, reducing the charge on pro-
fessions, trades, and vocations, from 7d., 6d., and
5d., to 5d., 4d., and 3d., respectively. There will,
then, be a further opportunity for showing whether
Hon. Gentlemen really entertain these opinions,
or are prepared to make their practice coincide
with the professions they have so long and so un-
equivocally put forward.

The Sabbatarians have been taken on their own
ground in regard to the question of so-called
Sunday desecration. That question has been
" religiously" examined in the course of a lecture
delivered on the 3d instant before the members of
the Tower Hamlets Literary Institution. Although
a simple layman, the author of this dissertation
has proved himself therein to be a biblical scholar
of no ordinary character. He has displayed un-
common research, and has throughout treated the
subject in that serious and respectful mood which
is due to a matter of this august and austere de-
scription. We are consequently gratified to ob-
serve the recent appearance of his argument in
the form of a readable pamphlet,* and are rejoiced
to afford our circulation the medium of an-
nouncing the circumstance of its publication.
Every additional effort to explain the difficulty at
issue—that of reconciling the maintenance of
public decency with the rational enjoyment by
the people, on their only day of lei Sure in every
week, of innocent recreation—commands at once
our cordial approbation. It cannot be too fre-
quently insisted upon that in the whole of these
endeavours made by the Sabbatarians to restrict the
working-classes on Sunday to the sedentary cere-
monials of the conventicle, there are apparent
both Selfishness and Pharisaism. Selfishness,
because the closing on day of all places of harm-
less amusement cannot in any material way effect
their own convenience. They, for their part,
can select the time and place of enjoyment ac-
cording to the promptings of the moment, going
where they list, when they list, at their pleasure.
They can go, for example, on Monday to the
British Museum, on Tuesday to the National
Gallery, on Wednesday to the Colliseum, on
Thursday to the Vernon Collection, on Friday to
the Tower of London, on Saturday to all or any
one of the scattered Dioramas. They will be en-
abled to make a journey to the Crystal Palace on
Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday.
or Friday, or Saturday, precisely as it may suit
themselves, when once that fairy structure shall
have been opened among the green meadows of
Sydenham. It is not thus, however, with the
poor labouring man, who is occupied on the week-
days unremittingly from cockcrow to sundown.
Sunday with him is the only day out of seven during
which he can hope to drink in a mouthful of fresh
air away from these horrible pits of corruption,
reeking at every cubic inch with the vapours of
pestilence the intramural graveyards. Sun-
day is the only gap of twelve hours coming con-
secutively during which he can dream of leisure
as a joy in any way attainable, the only narrow
interval dividing the moil and toil of each fort-
night, and affording him the blessed opportunity
of adoring in peace the GOD who made him, and
of afterwards sinlessly enjoying the world, of
which that GOD has made him a denizen, by saun-
teringunder the green-leaves, apartfor a brief while
from the sordid influence of his customary avocations.
It is precisely because we regard this harmless
kind of pastime for the Sunday afternoon as
accordant -N., ith the holy and beneficent injunctions
of the Christian Religion, that we are always
eager to protest, with the earnestness of deep-
rooted conviction, against the dogged and pur-
blind sophisms uttered upon the subject by our
old friends the Sabbatarians.

Satisfied that the pamphlet to which we have
already made reference is calculated to waken the
minds of the really intelligent to a recognition of
the folly of this preposterous outcry against what
is absurdly designated Sunday Desecration, we do
here fervently urge upon the multitude at large
its early and careful consideration. Who ROBERT
LE BLOND may be who delivered this lecture
before the members of the Tower Hamlets
Literary Institution we have not the slightest
knowledge. We find that name inscribed upon the
title-page and that is all we know about his exist-
ence, or about the entire transaction. As one
wholly unknown to ourselves we commend him for
the lucidity and the honesty with which in consider-
ing the inquiry, " The Crystal Palace—ought it
to be opened on Sunday ?"—he proves that the
answer should be given in the affirmative, by.
reference to the opinions uttered by the Apostles
and Fathers of the Church—in fact, by some of
the greatest believers in the truths of religion,
dating back to the dawn of Christianity.

* " The Crystal Palace--Ought it to be open on
Sunday ? A Lecture. Delivered at, &c." By Robert
Le Blond. Bvo. Pp. 24. Watson. London : 1853.

The Honourable Gentleman the Member for
Pontefract has given notice of a motion in the
House of Commons in reference to the condition
of the Metropolitan Bridges, having particular
regard in that respect to the necessity for
increased accommodation. Meanwhile the sub-
ject has again been brought under the
consideration of the Court of Common Coun-
cil. There was a discussion, indeed, of no
less than two hours' duration in that Court,
upon the matter in question, only yester-
day. It arose on the proposal that the Report of
the Committee, dated the 14th instant, should be
formally considered. Although, as we have said,
this discussion extended over nearly two hours
eonsecutively, at the end of it, we rejoice to think
the
Our
minta.tter was left for future consideration.
srfcaleitrnioBntaan:tetelethpaotstpthoneemstaetnet
(i)sfattitieribbtriitdagbeles
to the' cli
of the metropolis, mid the necessity in their regard
for increased accommodation,are
must now be brought
OLlvEllu under the rapidly, thanks to Mr.
Until that notice has beenlce
of the Legislature.
by Parliament, we think accorded
it would be premature,
the subject
and, therefore, injudicious to decide upon the two
points specified in any way definitively. More parti-

cularly do we consider that it woul d be injudicious, be -
cause premature, seeing that one of the notions kept
in view by some of the authorities within the boun-
daries of the City, is that of constructing a tem-
porary bridge to afford accommodation to public
traffic while the bridge at Blackfriars is under-
going the process of renovation. A frivolous and
extravagant expenditure, which we have already
inveighed against rather frequently when pro-
posed by some wiseacres in reference to the other
ricketty bridge at Westminster. Select, both at
Blackfriars and at Westminster, a surer site than
the old ones, which have long proved to be vilely
chosen, and while the new bridges are being
built, let the old bridges serve all the purpose
that is required in the way of public accommoda-
tion. Under such an arrangement, London would
be spared a considerable amount of expenditure.
Having followed this (the only rational) plan,
and having carried out the sensible proposals for
the erection of new Bridges at such points of the
river as St. Paul's and Charing-cross, we might
then see the Thames at last adorned in this par-
ticular with structures worthy of one of the fore-
most capitals of Christendom.