The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-23 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

(From, the Times.)
To the great authorities who have pronounced that
precarious income is undistinguishable, for the purposes
of direct taxation, from solid property, may now bo
added the respectable name. of Mr. Gladstone. Mr.
Gladstone has said, what Mr. Goulburn always said that
Mr. Pitt said, and what it was generally said that Sir
Robert Peel said—he has declared that in a direct
assessment on personal means he can make no difference
between 51. plus the 1001. producing it, and 51. pro-
duced without the 1001. At the same time he does not
deny the injustice of the decision • he merely says that
it is unavoidable. As respects the real merits of the
question, he has substantially come round to the opinions
maintained for ten years past in this journal. It is true
that he endeavoured, with the instinctive impulse of an
orator, to extenuate the case against himself; and to re-
present the views at length predominant as originating
rather with " feeling" than with reason. But in the
id he spoke out plainly, not only for himself, but. for his
colleagues. " Our object," said he, "is to meet the
p iblic feeling, which we recognise and share, that the
operation of the Income Tax is severe upon intelligence
and skill as compared with property." The feeling of
the public, therefore, is now the feeling of the Ministry ;
but the Chancellor of the Exchequer is fain to acknow-
ledge his " total inability" to meet this feelinc, by the
measure naturally anticipated—a difference of duty' pro-
portioned to the recognised difference of the cases. We
can discern without difficulty where the insurmountable
obstacle was encountered, and what was the assumption
conceived to qualify the conclusion.
Mr. Gladstone, as his speech disclosed, was at length
fully possessed with the undoubted distinction between
realised property and precarious income as regarded
their respective taxabilities upon principles of justice.
He was prepared, therefore, to establish a correspond-
ing difference in the rates leviable upon each, but when
he came to classify the subjects before him under these
two general heads, and assign each species in turn to
the denomination either of property or income, he could
discover no point at which to draw the line. Evdi
y
such experiment left some income above the mark, or
some property below it ; one exemption prepared the
way for another with an interminable compulsion, and
at last the calculator was driven in despair to abandon
all thoughts of cutting off the top of the scale from the
bottom, notwithstanding the glaring contrast between
the two extremities. That this was the process of Mr.
Gladstone's labours is evident from every line in his
speech, and, indeed, he gave the house an excellent
description "of the way in which, when you set about
a reconstruction of the tax, you find yourself involved."
Neither can we profess to be much surprised at such a
result with Mr. Gladstone. It was scarcely probable
that a decision which certainly carried a fair amount of
perplexity could be achieved by a mind so anxiously dis-
criminative as that of our Chancellor of the Exchequer,
but we are nevertheless of opinion that the knot might
have been even arbitrarily cut, in default of a perfect
disentanglement.

The great and radical error on this subject has been
the assumption, that the injustice involved in a total
absence of discrimination is less than what would be
committed by a discrimination partially or unsuccess-
fully attempted. Nothing could be falser than such a
conclusion. As we have more than once explained, a
system under which every payment, without exception,
is relatively either too large or too small, must neces-
sarily be at its very worst. Neither did we over-
state the case in thus representing it, for Mr. Gladstone
himself, though so tardy a convert, has now borrowed
almost our very words. He plainly admitted that the
present Income Tax bore " too hard upon intelligence
and skill, and not hard enough upon property ;" which
is tantamount to confessing that all contributions made
in respect of the former were too great, and all made in
respect of the latter too little. How is it possible,
then, that such conditions of taxation should be other-
wise than improved by any scheme, however de-
fective, for separating the things thus confused 1
"If you once begin discriminating," say the ob-
jectors, "you are certain to injure somebody." But
by omitting to begin you injure all; nor can we see,
even in the most unfavourable view of the case, how the
least fortunate examples could be worse than before. A
line of demarcation, In -relieving 20,200 contributors,
might have left 200, perhaps equally deserving, without
relief; but is this as bad as leaving all the 20,200 unre-
lieved together ? As to the " war between classes," at
which statesmen are so scared, we are quite unable to
comprehend the force of such an argument against a
differential duty. Establish a distinction, it is said, and
you set riches against labour. But what are you doing
by gainsaying this distinction ? What is that " public
feeling" which has so grown and strengthened that
Ministers themselves are now deferring to it ? What is
it but this very sentiment of class against class,—of the
laborious man, excited and aggravated by inequalities of
taxation, against the inactive proprietor,--which Mr.
Gladstone himself does not deny? Is it credible that
class would be more set against class by proportioning
duties to properties according to a recognised standard
of right than by persisting in a system which is confess-
edly too hard upon one and too easy upon the other ?

( From the Morning Advertiser. )
In adverting, yesterday, to the ingenious device
resorted to by Mr. Gladstone to purchase indirectly the
Times' support of himself and the Ministry of which he is
a member, we promised to return to the subject. A
more discreditable piece of work was never done by any
Minister, than that which the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer has undertaken to perform in this affair. No
one for a moment doubts that the sole reason which has
induced him to propose the abolition of the stamp on
supplements to newspapers is to curry favour with the
Times. And, as if determined to make assurance doubly
sure that the Times, and the Times alone, should enjoy
the benefit of that abolition, he provides that the stamp
be only dispensed with where the supplements consist
exclusively of advertisements. Now, all the country
papers, without an exception, which were in the habit
of publishing supplements, invariably devoted a large
portion of those supplements to literature and to general
intelligence. They know that the bulk of their adver
tieing patrons would not be satisfied if their advertise-
ments were inserted in the supplement, and consequently
they were obliged to publish a large proportion of these
announcements in the body of the paper. The conse-
quence has been, that they never had a sufficient nu n-
ber of advertisements to fill a supplement, without intel-
ligence or literary matter.
But by this indecent pandering on the part of Mr.
Gladstone t) the pecuniary interests of the Times, the
proprietors of provincial journals in the habit of pub-
lishing supplements, will henceforth be compelled either
not to publish any supplements at all, or to pay the
stamp duty as at present. The Times will escape en-
tirely any such payment. With its large influx of adver-
tisements, it will be able at all times to escape the half-
penny stamp on the single sheet supplements, by
devoting the whole of it to advertisements. Nor will it
have any difficulty in escaping the penny stamp when it
is thought desirable to publish a double supplement. It
has only to keep back a portion of its advertisements for
two or three days, to ensure a sufficiently great accumu-
lation of them to fill every part of a double sheet.
To see a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and one of the
most distinguished Ministers of the Crown, thus deliber-
ately playing into the hands of one public journal, with
the manifest view of thereby indirectly purchasing its
support—and that journal, too, notoriously the most
unprincipled ever known in the annals of the newspaper
press—is at once one of the most undignified and un-
seemly acts which a Minister of the Crown ever
descended to perform.
The Times has already shown how distinct has been
the understanding between Mr. Gladstone and itself in
this discreditable affair. With the same disgraceful dis-
regard of public principle and consistency which it is
ever so prompt to display when it has a private purpose
to serve, the Times, which hitherto, for months in suc-
cession, exhausted all its affluent vocabulary of invective
and denunciation in holding up to public condemnation
the iniquity and oppression of subjecting persons sub-
sisting on precarious incomes, to the same amount of
income tax as those whose means are derived from fixed
sources,—now turns round, and lauds to the echo a
budget which is based on the principle of not making any
difference between precarious and fixed incomes, and
which is to, be perpetuated for seven years, We will
not ask whether inconsistency equally gross, and tergi-
versation equally glaring, were ever before exhibited,
because they have been exhibited a hundred times over
in the columns of the same journal ; but we do again
say, for the credit of our statesmen, that no man: occupy-
lu
g a seat at the Cabinet Council ever performed a more
unworthy act than Mr. Gladstone has done, in the
plenitude of his anxiety to obtain the support of the
Times.
If this ignoble practice of pandering to that profli-
gate journal by persons high in public office, is to be
carried on much longer, the consequences to the country
will become of a very serious kind. The Times will
virtually become the great governing power in England.
Downing-street will no longer be the seat of the actual
Government. Printing-house-square will become the
seat of political power. Public affairs will be adminis-
tered in Puddledock. The editor of the Times will
virtually be the Prime Minister of this country. Lord
Aberdeen will only be so in name. And when the Times
has thus indirectly become the dictator of the course
which Ministere must adopt, we cau be at no loss to
infer the sort of administration of affairs to which the
country will have to submit.
The slavish feelings with which the Times is regarded
by the members of the Government, are everywhere
visible. It was only on Thursday last that Mr. James
Wilson, one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, made
repeated reference in his three hours' speech on Customs
reform, to the Morning Advertiser ; but for fear of
offending the Times, the hon. gentleman spoke of this
journal simply as "a portion of the daily press." Within
the last few weeks we have published several articles im-
pugning the conduct of the Board of Customs. These

articles excited so much attention among the members of
that Board, owing to the gravity of the charges we pre-
ferred, and the minuteness of the information of which

we showed ourselves to be possessed, that the Customs
department felt bound to take notice of them. The
Secretary of the Board wrote two letters to us on the

subject, both of which we published, following them up
by the production of new inculpatory matter. To these
articles Mr. James Wilson felt it necessary to refer in
his speech in the House of Commons, but for fear of in-
curring the displeasure of the Times, the hon. gentleman
carefully abstained from mentioning the Morning A d-
vertiser by name. Could anything be more unworthy of
the members of a Ministry than to see them thus openly
bowing down, with the most abject servility, at the
shrine of a public journal, and that the most mendacious
and most unprincipled paper which ever emanated
from the press of this or of any other country ?
The course which Mr. Gladstone means to pursue,
if permitted by Parliament, in reference to the Stamp
duty on newspaper supplements, is calculated to give

the Times something like a monopoly of tho newsPaPi:
market. Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer 0%
be allowed to carry out his plans respecting the 841,t4110
on newspaper supplements, and in a very few years "IN
will be no morning journal in existence, except by
Times and the Morning Advertiser. We occupy
pregnable ground. Our progress during the last 'w
years, both in circulation and advertisements, hsai.gi
surpassed anything on record in the history of the
press ; and that progress has been going on much r 07,1:
rapidly during the last two months, than at any pit
vious part of these two years of brilliant success.
is not on our own account, therefore, that we cf.rh
plain of the glaring and indecent favouritism ":1;
the Chancellor of the Exchequer is showing.
Times. We speak more on behalf of our morning
'
temporaries than our own. We have no wish, ?led,
can have no interest, in seeing them extingasuer.
Why should we grude the Conservatives those °•r
vices which the Morning Herald renders to t,qj:
cause ? They have as good a right to an organ in
e
press, as they have to have a club of their own—st d,
it be the Carlton or any other institution of the "'So
Nor have we any right, and assuredly we have ne thi
position, to seek to get rid of the Morning Post,ds
medium through which the fashionable world exe44ie
sentiments and compliments with each other. to
should, indeed, regret, rather than rejoice, to see es
" glass of fashion," and that "'mould of form," br°-
k
in pieces.
But such, most surely, will be the result, not 0 ay
Bards it only, but as respects other morning joll,flithe
also, should Government thus persist in playing ind
hands of the Times. We call then on those metn"'ibt
the fashionable world, who are members also a
House of Commons, to oppose in the most streoll°o
manner the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exelie4v/e
to abolish the stamp on newspaper supplements* tso
appeal with no less earnestness to the Consero.lo,
members, to interpose on behalf of another inorDiiic;
contemporary which has so long, and with so
fidelity and zeal, laboured in their cause. And, 135tbe
we address ourselves to the independent Liberals 15th
House of Commons. We entreat them to oppoS° 00
monstrous piece of favouritism to the Times, °ijit
broad ground that the thing is as flagrantly unjust
is glaringly indecent.