The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-11 00:00:00

cessation of employment. In fact, wherever a higher
rate of profit is obtained on the capital invested,
it is only because a greater degree of risk is en-
countered in the business which yields, or is sup-
posed to yield, the largest returns—the extra
profit being considered as an insurance fund to
replace lost capital or diminished profits ; and
it is grossly and palpably unjust to place incomes
on which there is no risk in the same category
with those from which a considerable depreciation
fund must be deducted. The one may be ex-
pended to the last shilling; a considerable portion
of the other must be set aside, or the party will
find that he is playing with a stronger pull against
him (in consequence of the Income Tax) than that
to which the frequenters of the salons of Homburg
or Baden Baden are subjected. Is it, then, de-
sirable to check speculation to make parties
" bury their talents ?" We believe not ! It is
strange that any doubt could exist on such a
point in a commercial country. " A nation of
shopkeepers " should know better.
We regret to find that the Government are
still playing fast and loose with this all-important
subject, or at least maintaining a mysterious
silence, for which it is difficult to account. The
Noble Leader of the House of Commons tells us
that " immediately after the Easter recess the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER will propose the
financial statement for the year." It might be
supposed that this would imply that a full solu-
tion of the existing doubts would be effected at
that period ; but in a subsequent portion of his
,speech the Noble Lord made use of an expression
susceptible of a double interpretation, and involv-
ing a degree of ambiguity very unsatisfactory to
Fiscal Reformers. He said—while avowedly
throwing over the question of Parliamentary Re-
form for the present year—" Now the question to be
considered by the present Government was, whether
it was their duty to propose that the subject of
amending therepresentation should be thrown aside
for the present Session, in order that other press-
ing matters might be legislated upon, or whether,
'they should endeavour to ejfect a renewal of the In-
come Tax for the present year, without any obser-
vation or discussion whatever, in order that they
might devote the whole of their time to that one
subject of Parliamentary Reform ?" Now, this
may be intended to mean that the re-adjustment
of the Income Tax would not be postponed, or, as
a feeler to see how the suggestion of its renewal
for a single year, in its present objectionable form,
would be received by the community ? We shall
at once answer the interrogatory on the latter
point, giving his Lordship full permission to ride
off on the ambiguity if he thinks proper. Not
all the Administrative talent and experience
of the leading Members of the present Cabi-
net, and we freely acknowledge its extent,
if it could be multiplied a hundredfold or a thou-
sandfold, not all the oft-refuted arguments or
specious sophistries that could be put forward, if
myriads of talking machines and writing machines
were invented and constructed for the purpose,
and each endowed with a forty-GLAnsToNE power,
would induce the people to submit for a single day
beyond the sth of April to the gross injustice of
the present iniquitous system. There has been
ample time allowed for consideration. Twice has
the Act been renewed for a single year, to give
sufficient opportunities for inquiry and de-
liberation. The respite would not have been
granted last year, but for the peculiar cir-
cumstances in which the then Government
was placed. The patience of the sufferers is,
however, now exhausted ; and it requires no ex-
traordinary power of vaticination to foresee the
result of any further attempt at shelving this all-
important subject. Let Lord JOHN RUSSELL and
his colleagues, then, be warned before it is too
late. These are matters on which the country
will no longer tolerate any degree of temporising'
or-mystification.

iAnextra iindividual extraordinary example of euter-
prse was yesterday recounted. in our columns, to
which it is but right that the attentionof the
pspiuroboil
project
c should
st hohfo
here
ld b
connecting
re m made,
morn
e
,obf cemprrsees,slytodiet
the remarkable
yrallrnd railway the
Although
A l theu
ports of Seaham and Sunde-
proposed line will extend over a distance of merley
seven miles altogether, we speak of it s advi edly as
remarkable, because in the present instance the
railroad is undertaken by one adventurous man,
and not, according to the usual custom, by a com-
pany of shareholders. The whole cost, the entire
responsibility, the exclusive credit of the scheme,
devolves by right upon the sole projector of the
achievement—the Marquis of LONDONDERRY.
Already—as the community was reminded by the
interesting proceedings described in our impres-
sion of last evening—to that nobleman the' county
of Durham had been indebted for an uncommon
display of energy and munificence.• Seaham itself
is, of this fact, a sufficient and brilliant attestation.
For it cannot soon be forgotten thereabouts that
tis in
iLordn
a LgrOeNDatOND measure, En R LONDONDERRY itsnodweeesd, i
npdreohs
tpeedr i tfy,
orand
its
very existence. The harbour is the creation of
his personal enterprise. , The town traces .to that
enterprise its rapid rise and progressive develop-
ment. The local Infirmary is the offspring of
his benevolence. The poor of the neighbourhood
haveh
goodte
education
childrenin
hi his affii
e w ng
ueonc e, t
o
seeing
that its
princely and judicious employment.
And now to
the schools, the Infirmary, the town, and the
harbour of Seaham, another boon is about to be
conferred by the same hand, upon the inhabitants
of that district, by the formation of the branch
railway connecting it with the flourishing port of
Sunderland. The incident is one, we believe, in
every way unparalleled. According to the state-
ment already made public, the estimated cost of
the undertaking will be about 50,000/. sterling,
every fraction of which is to be supplied by its
originator, the Marquis of LONDONDERRY. His
Lordship will be at once the Board of Directors
and the Company of Shareholders. The funds
required will come from his own purse—the land
traversed from his own property. And in this
manner we shall witness the somewhat unaccus-
tomed spectacle of a railroad commenced and com-
pleted without the necessity of overcoming the ob-
structions of conflicting interests--without the
'opposition
of landholders--without the aid of an
Act of Parliament without • even the ex-
pense of any application whatever to the
Legislature. How all these apparently mi-
raculous advantages come to be combined in
furtherance of the enterprise, may be very readily
comprehended, when we find that, with one or two
;" unimportant exceptions," the whole of the coun-
try traversed by the projected railway,
on belongs
already to the noble Marquis, as a porti of his
(splendid possessions. Aware of these rather novel
particulars in reference to the proposed line of
communication between Seaham and Sunderland,
we cannot be surprised that the inaugurative cere-
mony of the Bth instant, the ceremony of digging
the first sod of the new railroad, should, as it
evidently did, have appealed to the finer feelings
Of those present, to their hearts and imaginations.
present,
Otherwise, we might have been somewhat startled,
and, perhaps, amused, to find an ironmaster there
a poetic quotation from Professor LONGFELLOW.
closing his speech upon the occasion with
Everything considered, however, it was but rea-
sonable that all those interested in the proceedings
should view with some degree of emotion the course
pursued in this instance, in the autumn of
his honoured career, and the evening of his useful
life by the gallant Marquis of Londonderry. As
he himself not ungracefully reminded his hearers
on Tuesday—whatever risk or trouble may result
from the project will be his, whereas, the benefits
and advantages accruing from it, must be diffused
g
more or less throughout the whole mass of the
local population. It is surely an enterprise such
as this which sheds true lustre upon a
patrician=
,rendering him not one of those misguiding ligh
tres
ts
'spoken of by the eloquent MASSILLON' " legs
as
qui devaient ,marquer nos routes changes already
des
feux erraus qui nous egarent." During his
lengthened existence, Lord LONDONDERRY has, by
his energy and ability, contrived to secure to him-
'self more than one honourable title i
to dstinction,
more than one title to the respectful estimation of
his contemporaries. During the last war when, as a
younger brother, he was siraply Sir CHARLES