The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-17 00:00:00

was occasioned by the neglil
who administered to her tom

4W.

take for medicine prescri
sider that much blame is a!tletll

41. ti

of the convent fOr allowing a pr:icamry
therein of permitting persons to di I,,lensjliTeilteines who,
from their want of the necessary education, are ignorant
of their nature. The jury further wish to express a
hope that such practice will in future be discontinued."
• Mr. Gillow, surgeon, said he was desired by the supe-
rior to say that a change would be introduced. e
(Mr. Gillow) had formerly disperised the medicines,
until his increasing engagements prevented his so doing.
It was here suggested that the term "negligence" im-
plied a duty, so that the verdict might amount to one
of manslaughter.
The foreman said such was not the intention of the
jury. They merely wished to censure the system ; and
ultimately the verdict was modified by altering the words
" was caused by the administration by Miss Ryder
in mistake," &c.

Trey;

THE INCOME TAX.

(F, the Times. )
On Friday last, arom
deputation of officers from the
.eading assurance .companies- of- the kingdOm at-
tended in Downing-street to present memorial to
the Prime Minister on the subject of the existing
Income Tax. The remonstrants, it is understood,
were courteously received, and apprised by the
mouth of Lord Aberdeen himself that the impost
in question was under the earnest consideration of
Government, and that the abilities of the entire
Cabinet would be taxed to effect an equitable solu-
tion of the problem. The assurance thus given
will naturally be deemed satisfactory ; nor have
we any desire to derogate from the credit of the
first Administration which has thus accepted its
proper obligations to the public. We do, never-
theless, consider that the. conduct of British states.
men in this respect through eight long years at-
taches an imputation to their science or their po-
licy which even successful reforms will fail entirely
to obliterate. If any reader conceives that we are
speaking with too great severity, we request his at:
tention to the observations subjoined.
The income tax was an experiment of direct tax-
ation avowedly designed to fall upon every man in
the best ascertainable proportion to his means.
Small incomes were exempted altogether, special
deductions were permitted in the cases of farmers
and tradespeople, and schedules were framed for
the accurate classification of the different descrip-
tions of receipts on which the GOvernment duty
was to be demanded. The scheme of taxation thus
organised, after taking cognizance of the various
kinds of property and income so far as to bring
them all within the scope of the act, proceeded to
assume that nofurther distinction subsisted between
them. One person possessed a capital of 10,0001.,
producing 3001. a-year income ; another possessed
a capital of 5,0001., producing the same yearly re- .
turn, because the annuity was terminable, and be-
cause a portion of the yeerly paymen represented a
part of the capital repaid with the interest. The Go-
vernment scheme declared these two incomes to be
identical. A third person possessed a landed estate,
producing him 5001. per annum, depending on no suc-
cess or exertions of his own, and surviving him for
the benefit of his descendants ; a fourth realized by
his daily toil an annual revenue of the same arith-
metical amount, but of uncertain duration and cer-
tain terminability. Government declared these
two incomes identical also. It declared, in short,
that there was no distinction in taxable qualities
between imperishable property and precarious pro-
fits. In defiance of the common sense of the
country and the manifest assumptions of every-day
life, it was held and assumed that incomes of a
given amount, whether earned by labour or arising
spontaneously from capital—whether continuable
for five, fifteen, fifty, or five hundred years, were
all of the same value, and that each and all enabled
the possessor in exactly the same degree to contri-
bute to the exigencies of the State.
Now, we have no wish to scrutinize too minutely
the circumstances under which this tax was first
imposed in 1842. Perhaps at that moment it was
really believed that the impost would not be re-
quired or not tolerated beyond the brief period
originally fixed for its duration. Perhaps it was
thought that an elaborate reconstruction of its pro-
visions would look too like the introduction of
direct taxation as a permanent feature in tha
budget, and that the revival of an old tax in its
old form would be more consistent with the idea of
a sudden and temporary emergency.' On this
point, we repeat, we will not insist ; but what we.
assert, and in confirmation of which we appeal to
the reader's own knowledge, is, that almost the en-
tire body of reputed " statesmen" did, while they
foresaw and advocated the continuance of the tax,
oppose themselves, by all possible means, to the
correction of its notorious inequalities. If the
question had been left in their hands, the very
problem on which an able Administration is now
strenuously engaged would never have received
any attention at all. It was with great diffi-
culty that Mr. Hume could obtain even his
Committee of Inquiry upon the subject, and
when the committee had been at work strong ob-
jections were made to the publication of the evi-
dence. When the universal indignation at this
financial injustice produced a thousand propo-
sitions of reform, the " statesmen" of the House
availed themselves of this very fact to argue, with
edifying gravity, that where no two persons agreed
upon the same remedy there could be no remedy at
all. All positively affirmed, on their own personal
convictions, instinct, and experience, that it was
absolutely impossible- to distinguish between per-
manent and precarious incomes—that the income
tax could never be adjusted—and that as long as it
was *maintained at all it must be maintained as it
stood. And what position have they now assumed
before the eyes of the nation ? These very men
have practically confessed that their assertions had
no foundation at all. One after another, under th influence of a wholesale competition for
pul.lic con:
fidence, they have given in their adhesion to the
truth. Ono party at length advocated the simple
but effectual proposition that schedules of incomes,
already distinguished in every other respect, should
be distinguished by different rates of impost also.
Another acknowledged, through its leader, that
"it might he possible to distinguish between per-
manent and precarious possessions ;" and at length
all became so completely of one accord on the main
point at issue, that the only dispute was which
could perform most dexterously that very operation
which, a few months earlier, they had combined to
assert could never be performed at all.
By these proceedings the whole industry of this
most industrious country has been subjected,
through a series of trying years, to a most unfair
taxation. The knowledge and intellect of the
professional and commercial classes were set in
open and declared opposition both to the tax itself
and to the excuses by which its continuance was
defended. Any actuary in London
swould have
undertaken to produce a scheme which should, by
common confession, have approximated 90 per cent.
more closely to absolute justice than the scheme
maintained by Government, in alleged dread of
getting a more unjust one. Be it remembered,
that the particular point on which Friday's protest
was recorded, though it called forth the remon-
strance of 61 assurance offices, representing a capital
of a hundred millions sterling, and, what is even
more, a matchless aggregate of knowledge and ex-
after ll
perience on this very subject, was,
obinut. one
point in the general complaint of the king
is perfectly true that the identification of termin-
ble with perpetual annuities
car
imposition on one class of
annuitausntess, abulnt tehnest:laousss
of annuitants is infinitely smaller than that clas4
which has no annuity
theless tax,ql on a sinelact
yaellar,,sanedarnwihnigcsh
if those earnin •t)
convincingly ever.
trl
gs, without any further labour, to endure for
minable •
annuity comprised, besides the profits of
the sum • invested, a certain portion of the capital
heThaenntaplutaintsitaionmsehnotwoxacisolu.efdn'talemiteoeearrrsetsi
by tha present law was actually taxed as income.
This was indisputable ; but this was only one of
the faults of a system which was resolutely de-
fended by British statesmen as more faultless than
any which the knowledge of the nineteenth century
dould devise.
be neu-
tralised remains on record that the conductors of Our
public business have held injustice to
operation-
They
.4s oiler
by the universality
nt of a ter-
They did not deny that the recipient as a life
minable annuity was unfairly treated,t a trades-
annuitant ; they did not _deny a poorer man
man earning 500/. a-year.
a...year in land ;
than the possessor of 5°01• sup 40n incomes it
they did not deny that_einto
consider their taxable
was abstractedly desirp,.blwas,
that as every income
value. What they said deny that
in the kingdom,of
arithmetical amount, and as
naeci
must therefore needs suffer some
injustice, i w
assessed at its whatsoever value, was taken and
every person taxedin.astice became nothing at all,—that
either
lost. where thb other gained, or if all
lost alike, none os
had any right to
I.llllllllllr. ma uy,
now that public
one thle
opinion has compelled a reform,
it is quietly acknowledged that the experiment thus
positively and repeatedly declared
impossible had
never yet been tried. Of its success we have no •
kind of doubt ; but the very facility will only place
in a stronger light the unsoundness of the
states-
manship by which injustice so easily remediable
was so obstinately maintained.

CHAPTER OF THE GARTER.—Summonses were issued
on Saturday for a Chapter of the Order of St. George to
be held to-morrow at Windsor Castle, for the election of
two knights. The Duke of Norfolk (Lord Steward)
comes front Arundel Castle to attend the investiture.