The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-27 00:00:00

TBE BUDGET,

( Prom the Morning Herald.)
It is natural enough that Mr. Gladstone's
budget should bear the clear impress of Mr. Glad-
stone's mind, and that has ever been a mind so
given to refining, balancing, and weighing probabi-
lities, as to perpex every bystander by its endless
hesitation. The incidents of 1845 settled Mr. Glad-
stone's place in the political hemisphere for ever.
On learning that Sir R. Peel meant to endow May-
nooth, he resigned his office. People were wonder-.
ing why he should do so, when he gave the House
of Commons an " expfanation." Of this, Lord
Brougham remarked in the House of Lords, that
"it had been difficult to understand the right hon.
gentleman's reasons before he had explained them;
but that, after the explanation, it was altogether
impossible." A little later Mr. Gladstone made
another speech, on the Maynooth question itself.
He dilated for an hour very forcibly on the reasons
against endowing Maynooth, and then ended by
declaring that lie should vote for the endowment.
Such is the man, and such is his budget. We
do not wonder that Ministers are anxious to push
it to a vote quickly ; for if the country could have
a month, to become acquainted with the real nature
of its proposals, it would not have the least chance
of becoming law.

At present the people are merely mystified.
There is something in the budget for everybody,
and something against everybody • and. very few
people have yet been able to make out whether
they shall lose or gain by it.
A month ago it would have been reckoned very
improbable that a Minister should propose, and
succeed, with respect to the income tax-
1. To keep it entire, making no allowance on
precarious incomes.

2. To extend it to a still poorer class—those hav-
ing less than 1501. a year.
3. To fix it upon the people of Ireland also.
4. And, by gaining a new lease for seven years,
to make it, at last, a permanent tax.
No one, we say, would have thought it possible
to do all this without exciting a storm of popular
indignation ; yet, by a skilful way of dealing with
opponents, it has been done, and little active oppo-
sition has yet shown itself. A leading newspaper
has been silenced by a peculiar sort of douceur, too
large in amount to be easily rejected. The more
noisy Radicals have had a fancy of their own grati-
fied, by the extension of the legacy duty to landed
property ; and the Irish members, or some of them,
have been gained over, even to surrender their own
country to the income tax, by a gift of four mil-
lions, which benefits largely a few at the expense
of the many. And thus, by " dividing to con-
quer," it is rendered possible that this naturally-
unpopular part of the budget may pass.
We have said that nobody yet understands whe-
ther, on the whole, he will be a gainer or loser by
this scheme. To begin with the landed proprie-
tors. First, the legacy duty on landed succession
seems a heavy imposition on this class. But then
it may be said that it will not affect the present
generation. No landlord will pay it so long as he
can manage to live. And then Mr. Gladstone
strives to show him that the demand for a reduc-
tion of income tax on precarious incomes is an at-
tack upon the landed interests, from which he,
Mr. Gladstone, volunteers to ciefend. them ! Be-
sides which, he offers to the gentry some consider-
able reductions of the assessed taxes ; so that this
class, like the rest, may study for a long while
before they find out whether they gain most or lose
most by the new plan of taxation.
A morning journal of Liberal politics prints the
following brief letter :
"Sir,—From Mr. Gladstone's budget a gentleman
who now keeps 10 horses solely for pleasure would pay
less annually 231. ss. 6d. : upon his three carriages less
141. 155.: upon his four servants less 41. 10s., making
together a saving of 421. 10s. 6d. Now, this is not a
tax .put on by Government, but by themselves, being
optionalwhether they choose to keep them or not. But
how differeni is the case of the trader, for every one
who sells pepper, &c., is compelled to pay yearlylls. 61d.
for his licence ; but to make up for these reductions of
duties on pleasure horses, carriages, and servants, we
are called upon to pay yearly for our pepper licence
101. lls. 6d., formerly lls. 61d., and friends of ours
271. lls. 6d., instead of 11s. 61d. It is a plain but sim-
ple question. The pleasure tax all can relieve themselves
from, but from the trade tax no ,one is able ; hence the
gross injustice of benefiting the former at the expense of
the latter.

"Yours respectfully,
" M. P. DAVIES AND SON.
" 63, St. Martin's-lane, April 25."

Here, then a trader makes it appear very claarly
that some of the traders are largely burdened with
new taxes, in order that some of the gentry may b.
relieved. Yet, while these facts are unanswerable,
it is no less true that the only supporters of the new.
Budget are found among the tradesmen of West-
minster and of Southwark. From these two bodies
a couple 'of small and. hurried petitions have been
got up, prayinc, that the house of Commons would
pass the Budget. And yet we feel not the slightest
doubt that very few indeed of these tradesmen had
any notion of the new taxation they were asking for.
We have said that it will puzzle most country
gentlemen to make out whether they will gain
most or lose most by the proposed changes. And
equally perplexed must the trading classes be if
they seriously addressed themselves to the same
task. On them, i. e., on the smaller traders, and
on the commercial clerks and assistants, will the
new income tax on 1001. incomes chiefly fall. On
them, too, i. e., on the traders, will the new tax
for licendes fall. And we feel no doubt that Mr.
Gladstone has, whether intentionally or not, greatly
underrated the amount which will be levied under
these two heads. In this AT,iew we are supported
by the Globe of last night, which, in treating of the
new class of income tax payers, says—
" If we assume, then, that the number of persons re-
ceiving from 1001. to 1501. per annum is as large, rela-
tively to those having larger incomes, in 1853 as it was
in 1814, w• obtain a much larger addition to the revenue
than the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken credit
for. He estimates the receipts from this portion of the
tax at 250,0001., which is equal to only 1-22 of the en-
tire amount now raised ; but if our calculation be cor-
rect, and we have every reason to believe that it is so,
the new assessment fairly levied ought to yield 750,0001.,
or. 500,0001. sterling more than Mr. Gladstone anti-
cipates."
We believe that Mr. Gladstone has similarly
erred in his estimate of the produce of the new li-
cence tax. He estimates it at 113,000/. a year.
We feel no doubt whatever that it will 'yield more
than 500,0001. a year. Thus we have a gross sum
of 1,250,0001. per annum, levied chiefly on the
trading classes, under these two heads alone, and
constituting new taxation.

But, it may be asked, if the remissions and the
burdens are really so balanced that no one can tell
who is benefited,what has Mr. Gladstone's object
been ? We might reply, that we attribute much
of this balancing and compensating work to the
character of Mr. Gladstone's mind. But we must
also say that one clearly-defined object is visible
throughout the whole ; and that is, the diminution
of indirect taxation, and the increase of direct
taxation, in every possible way.
First, the income tax, which is just now dead,
and which has never before been granted for more
than three years at a time, Mr. Gladstone now
proposes to take for seven years certain, making
its whole duration no less than eighteen years, and
rendering the itlea of its discontinuance at the end
of that time a perfect farce.

But then, in so perpetuating it, Mr. G. insists
on spreading it over a wider surface, embracing
Ireland as well as Scotland and England, and in-
cluding all classes, down to the clerk or shopman
with his 1001. a year. So levied, it will produce
at least 7,500,0001.
Next, Mr. Gladstone introduces a new sort of
house tax on certain trades. All the brewers,
grocers, maltsters, soapmakers, and tobacconists,
are to pay for their licences in future, according to
the premises they occupy, or the business they
transact. As this will involve a gross injustice, if
confined to five or six trades, out of 50 or 60, we
must look for a speedy extension of the same
licensing system to all other trades. So levied it
would produce some 3,000,0001. or 4,000,0001. per
annum, and would be a new description of direct
taxation of the most onerous kind:

We need hardly say that the third source from
whence Mr. Gladstone expects to draw new revenue
is of the same class. To make the successor to an
estate pay a certain levy in money on coming into
possession of it is direct taxation of the plainest
kind.

Thus, that system which Sir Robert Peel began
in 1842, and the drift of which lie explained in his
famous "Elbing letter," is now being enlarged by
his pupil and admirer, and the one remark to
which we shall limit ourselves just now is this—
that it would be a far more honourable and
straightforward course if, such being their real
object, her Majesty's Ministers would explicitly
state that object to Parliament and the country,
and let a vote be taken upon it, after sufficient
time had been allowed for calm consideration.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)

Though the Ministerial intention is to extend
and prolong the original injustice of the income
tax, in order to save the pockets of the rich,
and empty those of the less favoured, either by
Government or the blind goddess, yet it presents
some appearance of fairness. If it is an intoler-
able wrong that a man with 1001. a year, derived
from personal exertions, should be taxed at the
same rate as the possessor of the same amount from
funds, lands, or houses, it is not less unjust to
excuse incomes entirely from taxatian, simply be-
cause the source from which they are derived hap-

pens to be located in a particular part of the Queen's
dominions. It is treating a legitimate subject of
fiscal demands precisely as if its existence were
purely imaginary. We can understand a Chancellor
of the Exchequer, who should chance to say that
the income tax shall not affect Ireland, because
there are no incomes in that country ; though we
might not discover the necessity for so profound an
observation. But it defies the human mind to com-
prehend that an income tax should not operate
wherever incomes are found above the minimum to
be rated. Between 20,000 sovereigns raised from
rents and produce in Ireland, as the revenue of
land, and 20,000 raised in like manner in England,
a banker would be unable to discover any differ-
ence ; Chancellors of the Exchequer have hitherto
created an unreal difference, and excused the in-
come in the country, which, of the three kingdoms,
has always been allowed to bear the smallest pro-
portion in taxation.

This strange injustice is not to be repeated. Mr.
Gladstone proposes to extend the income tax to
Ireland ; and, as it has always been the favourite
practice of Irishmen of large incomes to spend
them in Paris, and other Continental cities, some
means should be devised for securing the tax while
the money is yet in Ireland ; for, it- is a tax not on
the man, like a poll tax, but on the income alone.
Mr. Gladstone, as far as he goes in a westward di-
rection, is honestly measuring out "justice to Ire-
land," a commodity for which she has so long been
impatiently clamouring, but with which, now that it
responds to her prayers, she does not appear to be
heartily delighted. Two Irish members oppose
this portion of the Budget. Mr. Fagan objects
that Ireland has not escaped from her past
embarrassments, and that she has others, which
are present. Such considerations do not weigh
with Financial Ministers. In panics, reverses of
trade and commerce, with a large excess of
bankruptcies, the machinery of Government has
always gone on as usual. Misfortunes have never
excused England from taxation. Mr. Fagan says,
that "he has always been of opinion, that the
mother of Irish embarrassments, the famine, was
a visitation of Providence in the United
Sing-
dom ;" and he holds the very convenient opinion,
that " the advances to relieve it ought to be made
out of the Imperial resources." It was a visitation.
of Providence in this manner, that it was an ope-
ration of the invariable laws of Providence. In
any other sense it is blasphemy to use the words,
for they attribute the calamities brought on solely
by the agency of the creature to the Creator. Will
Mr. Fagan deny that, in raising the incomes on
land, rents were not exacted so high that the
tenants and labourers were compelled to sell the
whole of their more generous produce, and rely
entirely upon the wretched and perishable potato
for their subsistence Y That perished through some
natural law, and all their other food going for rents
to make up large incomes, the people also perished.
The proper mode of dealing with such a cruel and
unjust case was, to cause the land to revert to the
first use of all land—the sustenance of its cultiva-
tors and inhabitants, regardless of the few rent-
devourers who occasioned that very famine, which
is attributed to a being who has blessed Ireland
with an unusual fertility and abundant fisheries.
Instead of doing so, we advanced eight millions,
and almost immediately afterwards remitted one-
half of the debt, which is now paid by English ar-
tisans and tradesmen, who had never any benefit
from Ireland or its rents and incomes.

Mr. Maguire, the other opponent of the tax in
Ireland, is sure that it is "alien to the habits and
very much opposed to the feelings of the Irish
people." No doubt of it ; but dislike to be just is
no reason to continue excusing them from what all
the rest of the United Kingdom have been obliged
to bear. An income of so many hundreds in one
part is the same in Downing-street as another in a
different part. We have not forgotten the violent
opposition that was made by lords and gentlemen
of large landed pioperty in Ireland to the poor
law, though if legal relief had existed the famine
could not have been so destructive of life as it was.
The poor law was alien to the habits and feelings
of all the people, but those who were perishing, or
in danger, and who composed, if we are to believe
Irish accounts, the bulk of the population. The
incomes which- are raised from that landed pro-
perty, solely by the labour and toil of the people,
are now liable to find subsistence for the labourer,
and it is no more than common fairness to make
them pay the income tax also, just a if they were
raised in England.
What we condemn is to exist in both countries
alike. Precisely the very people who can best pay
the income tax, those who either do not, or are
not obliged to make auy useful or ornamental
exertions, are to be favoured, while those who con-
tribute to the maintenance of the State are to bear
the heavier of the unequal shares of the burden.
Still one hundred pounds a year in Ireland, how-
ever acquired, leave a much larger residue, after
the visits of the parochial and Government tax-
gatherers, than the same 'amount in England ; con-
sequently the Irishman is a fitter subject for the
income tax.

The objections of Mr. Newdegate and the English
landowners to the legacy duty would be worth
taking into consideration, if, by innumerable expe-
dients and evasions, they had not contrived to
emancipate the land from its proper quota to the
exigencies of the State. At present, the phrase of
" unequal burdens upon the land," is as without
foundation as it is stale and unprofitable. Like
justice to Ireland, equalised burdens will be un-
palatable whenever they come. There seems to be
little difference between Irish and English land-
owners in regard to their views of taxation. They
who toil not, neither do they spin, in either coun-
try, strive to lay all the weight upon the shoulders
of the spinners and labourers.

DISCOVERY OF A NEW AND IMPORTANT
MEOBANICAL MOTION.

The science of mechanics has just received a
valuable addition by an entirely new mode of ob-
taining a multiplying rotative motion.
Messrs. Callen and Ripley, of Parliament-street,
Westminster, have obtained English and Foreign
patents for a beautifully simple mechanism of their
inventing, consisting of a disc and simple crank, by
which the speed of any revolving body can be multi-
plied at pleasure, without the use of cog-wheels,
driving-bands, or other dangerous and objection-
able contrivances hitherto in use. The accidents
(too often attended with fatal results) which have
arisen from the use of straps, cog-wheels, ac., have
long called for the substitution of better and safer
macinery, and although many and various have
been the means suggested, or partially adopted, it
appears that none of these were found to answer in
practice. When we look at the vast improve-
ments that have been made in machinery gene-
rally, it is somewhat strange that spur-wheels,
bands, and straps, attended as they are with so
much danger to those engaged in our manufac-
tories, objectionable in other respects from the
space they occupy, the deafening noise they pro-
duce, and the decrease of power and expense they
cause, should not have been long since superseded
where the same is practicable.
This invention has been thoroughly tested by a
practical engineer, from a perusal of whose report
thereon we find that in a multiplying motion
there are many important conditions to be fulfilled,
which, although they do not appear at first sight,
are absolutely necessary in practice. Ist,—Thq)
motion transmitted must be perfectly regular, that
is to say, the speed must be the same- in every unit
of time under a uniform power and load. 2nd,—
The power required to maintain a uniform speed
must be also regular, for it is manifest that if these
two primary conditions are not fulfilled, the power
will either be in excess of the load at one point, or
inferior thereto at another, and a jerking,
uneven motion and loss of power will be the
result. In order to obviate loss of power
by friction, the parts should be few in number, of
a simple form, and the material inexpensive and
durable ; they should require small space, be easily
geared and ungeared when necessary—should not
be liable to derangement, and, when in motion,
should be under perfect control, and produce no
noise. The perfect success with which (according
to the report of the engineer) the simple construc-
tion adopted by Messrs. Callen and Ripley an-
swers all these conditions in the most satisfactory
manner, greatly increases the importance and
value of their invention. It is proved to be
not more than one-sixth of the cost of cog-wheels,
it is much stronger, and requires only one-half the
space, while the motion produces no noise, and
transmits the power with only one-sixth of the loss
by friction,—in fact, its advantages over all the
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DUTCH STOCKS.—The accounts from Holland describe
considerable depression in the funds, consequent upon
the political agitation in connection with the recent act
of Papal aggression. Within the past few days the
Dutch stocks have experienced a decline of between 2
and 3 per cent.