The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-20 00:00:00

THE BUDGET.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
(Prom the Morning Herald.)
As the present Chancellor of the Exchequer has
several active and energetic trumpeters in his service in
the daily press—journals which can expatiate for hours
together on the beauties of the budget, while they are
stone-blind to its defects and' blemishes—it is but fair,
on the whole, that those papers which are independent
of Ministerial influence should, moderately and dispas-
sionately, point some of those features in this large and
multifarious scheme which are open to improvement by
the House of Commons.
And, first of all, we . must remark the strange and
startling manner in which this budget is disfigured by
bribes and jobs. Of these, two especially stare us in
the face ; and to these two we shall for the present con-
fine ourselves.
The first is that of the total remission of the Irish
Consolidated Annuities. Of course everybody knew
and expected that there should be some remission. But
let us take Mr. Gladstone's own words, as we find them
in the most friendly journal, the Chronicle. He
said:—
Of the four and a half millions which the consolidated
Annuities represent, one and a half million, I use round
numbers, consists of debts that strictly belong to the estab-
lishment of the poor_ law in Ireland—a groat social and na-
tional benefit, a great and vast good tolreland ; and a good
to Ireland I hold to be also a ,good to England. (Cheers.)
The other three millions consists of debts entirely connected
with the famine ' • and of this debt the committee of the
other house which sat upon this subject has recommended
the remission of two millions. Sir, the plan which the
government, after maturely considering this subject, and
wei3hinc,, all those other than mere pecuniary considera-
tions which it involves, have determined to propose to
Parliament is, that from and after the 29th of September
the Consolidated Annuities shall be wholly wiped away."
So that while Mr. Gladstone himself judged that at
least a million and a half was a most just debt, and
while a committee of the House of Lords, most favour-
able to Ireland, had recommended only the remission of
two millions out of four and a half, he, Mr. G., at once
gives up the whole ! Of course, this is gratuitous ;i. e.,
a giving away of the trifling sum of at least two millions
and a half of the public property. But why does he do
this ? Simply and clearly as a bribe—as a large gift of
money to induce the Irish to 'submit to a tax. Bent on
keeping the income tax for at least seven years longer,
and knowing that among its various inconsistencies one
of the most striking was that one of the British
islands paid the tax while the other was exempt,
Mr. G. resolved to saddle Ireland with the income
tax at all events, and as the most effectual course he
could devise to induce the Irish to submit to it he boldly
offered them a bribe of four millions and a half. Whether
this is the sort of way in which the finances of a great
nation ought to be managed is a question on which Par-
liament'must determine.
The next plain and obvious bribe is one on which we
should have felt a repugnance to make any comments ;
but we find it already noticed in so many quarters, that
it would be affectation to keep silence any longer.
When Mr. Gladstone had announced his intention of
remitting, unasked, the present stamp duty on supple.
mentary sheets of newspapers,
" Mr. Cobden asked whether the supplements would
still be entitled to free passage ?
" The Chandellor of the Exchequer said certainly they
would.
" Mr. Cobden said he supposed the Government were
not unaware of the fact, that there was only one news-
paper in the kingdom that published supplements full of
advertisements.
And the Morning Chronicle, while most friendly to
Mr. Gladstone' is still forced to remark, that this will
be appreciated by the only journal which finds it con-
venient to publish a daily supplement." While the
Daily News, more plainly, says, " The removal of the
supplemont stamp is a huge gift to the Times.
Now, wherefore is this portion of the public revenue,
be it small or large, thus flung away ? Let the Times
leader of yesterday reply. There never was a more ful-
some or lavish panegyric of any financial scheme given
to the world, even in the days when Ministers wrote or
dictated "leading articles. Mr. Gladstone evidently
appreciates the Times very accurately. He wants its
praise, and he has taken the right way to get it.
But should not an English finance Minister, address-
ing an English House of Commons, at least try to pre-
serve some semblance of consistency and adherence to
principle I In a former part of his speech Mr. Glad-
stone had said,—
" If hon. members will examine the principle upon which
the present scale of licences is adjusted they will find them
bear very unequally on the minor and the greater trades-
men. In some instances they are uniform ; as, for instance,_
in the case of grocers and tea dealers. The grocer with
premises at 5/. per year pays as much for the licence as the
grocer with those at 5001. per annum. We do not propose
to touch the important question as to the licences which
are connectod with the sale of spirits, wine, and beer, bitt
we propose in regard to the licences of tea and coffee dealers,
brewers, =Asters, tobacco manufacturers, and soap
makers, to adjust the scale of licenses by raising them at
the upper end, so as to bear a fair ad valorem proportion to
the rate at which they stand at the lower."
Here is a principle which seems fair—at least Mr.
Gladstone seems to adopt it honestly, and with straight-
forward purpose ; but when he comes to deal with news-
papers, he adopts a course which is exactly the reverse.
Not to bring our own feelings into the question, let
us take two ministerial papers, the Globe and the Times.
Looking at the circulation of these two papers, and look-
ing at the number of advertisements published in a week
by each respectively, they resemble very closely the two
grocers of whom Mr. Gladstone speaks :—" The grocer
with premises at 51. a year pays as much for his license
as the grocer with premises at 5001. per annum."
But mark Mr. Gladstone's different way of dealing
with the two cases. He finds the little grocer and great
grocer paying the same sum for their licences. He says
"this is unfair ; I must redress it ; I will make the
great trader pay more than the small one."
He then turns to the newspapers, and he finds that a
small inequality already exists. The Globe, with 20 ad-
vertisements, pays a penny stamp. The Times, with 1000
advertisements, is obliged to employ an extra half-sheet,
and for that extra half-sheet it pays an extra halfpenny.
The inequality is trifling—it is not great enough to be
just. The paper with 20 pays a ld. ; the paper with 1,000
pays I.ld. Mr. Gladstone's eye turns this way. What does
he do ? He says, " Here is an inequality which I must
redress. The big paper and the little paper shall both
pay the same stamp duty. Nay, the same ld. stamp
shall carry them both to the Orkneys or to Cork, though
four copies of the Times weigh as much as 20 of the
Globe."

---
Thus for the grocer there is one principle ; while for
the newspaper proprietor there is exactly the opposite
principle. And the strange thing is that Mr. Gladstone
moves both these opposite ways at the same time. He
finds equality in the grocers licenses. He says, " This
is unjust, I must produce inequality, because one is
better able to pay than another." He then turns to the
newspapers, and he finds a slight inequality already ex-
isting. But now he moves the other way, saying, that
inequality is injustice, and that the right way is to take
ld. out of man's shilling, and an equal Id. out of another
man's pound !
All this is so manifestly absurd, that it is impossible
to imagine that an acute man like Mr. Gladstone could
ever have been guilty of it, had there not been _some
unavowed reason. That reason is plain enough to any
one who has read the Times leader of yesterday morn-
ing ; and who has observed, also, the rem ark of the
Daily News, that " the removal of the supplement
stamp is a huge gift to the 'Times."

(From the Daily News.)
At last we have got the long looked-for financial
statement, and find—as might have been anticipated—
the Coalition Ministry offer us a Budget of Compromises.
As a whole its reception by the House of Commons
was favourable, but in portions it is clear that both
House and country will demand amendments before it
can become law. Its corner-stone is the Income Tax
for seven years certain, and so extended in scope as to
include all persons in releipt of 1001. a year. In hope
of making this bitter pill acceptable, we are offered a
partial reduction in the pressure of the tax hereafter.
Mr. Gladstone—to use his own words—" invites us to
submit to a renewal of the Income Tax" for the next
two years, at sevenpence in the pound ; for the following
two years, at sixpence ; and then for three years more
at fivepence. At the end of this long seven years' cer-
tain apprenticeship to an unpopular and unreformed im-
post, he points the date of April the sth, 1860, when he
hopes that the progress of the country may have been
such as to permit the Income Tax to expire. All who
now pay the tax,-with the addition of all those now
earning 1001. ayear and less than 1501.,—are " invited "
to join in this step of fiscal self-sacrifice, in order that
Mr. Gladstone's schemes on other points may have fair
play. On the Income tax he bases all his schemes and
all his hopes ; but on an income tax unreformed as re-
gards its pressure upon those whose incomes arise from
skill and intelligence. Mr. Gladstone himself spoke of
the income of the active and industrious and the income
of the lazy, but devoted an enormous portion of his very
long speech last night to an attempted exposition of the
utter impossibility of equitably reforming the tax. We
must have it as it is—or not at all. He gave, indeed,
at once a history and an elaborate eulogium of the In-
come Tax. It was that which helped us through the
great war ; it was that which enabled us to secure our
new and successful commercial policy, to reform our
fiscal system, and by its help—if Parliament would
vote him an income tax for seven years certain—he
(Mr. Gladstone) would follow in the. steps of Pitt and
Peel, and reform our system of taxation upon prin-
ciples sure to be beneficial to the entire community.
He would compromise between evil and good. He would
have us submit to new taxation, that old taxes may be
taken off. Some of the imposts now suggested are quite
in accordance with the temper of the time and the
equity of the case. He would reform the legacy duty,
making all property derived from succession by death
pay to the Exchequer. Herein he adopts another
suggestion of the honourable member for Lambeth, and
would bring the landed class, who have hitherto escaped
the pressure of the legacy tax, within the fair and just
operation of the law. This proposition might be dis-
tasteful to the landlords, but then, to sweeten it to them,
he strives for their gratification to slay the income-tax
reformers, .and upset the case of adjustment, by proving
that such adjustment already exists, since land (accord-
ing to Mr. Gladstone), now practically pays Od. in the
pound, whilst professions and trades pay but 7d. With
one hand he strives to appease the landowner ; with the
other lie fights the battle of the fundholder ; all the
while seeking to deprecate the wrath of the financial re-
former by the proposed legacy tax on rateable property.,
He would moreover extend the income tax to Ireland,
but here again compromise re-appears. He would, in
return for such extension, bribe Ireland with the four
millions she owes in the shape of consolidated annuities.
It is fair to the English taxpayer that Ireland should
pay income tax ; but it is unfair that the four millions—
. borrowed from the pockets of the English, and from the
sollent portion of the Iripb.ri4epayers— ehould be thrown

up. On the other hand, the Irish gain by this no posi-
tive ready-money benefit. They are, it is true, to get
rid of more than four millions of debt, but the income
tax will at once take more out of their pockets than the
non-payment of the consolidated annuity money will keep
in them. It is, in fact, troubling Ireland for a little ad-
ditional ready money, giving as a bribe for compliance
with a just demand four milliohs of what is vastly like
a bad debt. What Ireland will say to this bargain has
to be seen. She is better able to bear her fair share of
taxation than she has been for generations, and besides
the wisdom of an equalisation of taxation through all
portions of the same kingdom, that very equalisation
affords in itself a fair claim for equal laws, how can
England deny her right to equal legislation in all other
directions ?

In proposing the extension of Income Tax to all per-
sons earning over 1001, a year and less than 1501. Mr.
Gladstone said he did not wish to take it down "to the
region of labour ;" but he should know that perhaps no
class in the community are more laborious than the peo-
ple who earn this very class of incomes. He gave also
cases in which estimates had been made of the way in
which incomes varying from 1001. to 1501. were usually
.expended, and went on to show how far the reductions
of taxation consequent. on fiscal reform had benefited
this very class. He rtated that the Hundred Pound
Income people had gained by recent reforms, .at least
five, and in many cases seven per cent., and gave this
as a reason for bringing them within a new range of
taxation. In other words,—what he said seems equi-
valent to saying, " Let us cut off at one swoop a good
two-thirds of the advantage which this class has gained
by free trade." .

As a whole, the Budget has boldness and weakness—
merit and demerits—a forward action and a backward
action. In the elaborate attempts to show that Income
Tax is incapable of reform, Mr. Gladstone is wrong—in
his declaration that this tax may be used as a lever to
relieve our industry from many more mischievous im-
posts, he is right. When he talks of its capacity for
enabling us at a moment's notice to plunge into war, he
quotes as an enormous good, that which is rather a dan-
gerous temptation, and therefore an evil, but when speak-
ing of it as a productive source of revenue, enabling a
Chancellor of the Exchequer to dispense with taxes like
that on soap and on tea, he told a welcome truth.
In his calculations of support, he evidently bids the
Soap Duties and the Legacy Duties, and the reduction
of the Stamp Duties, in expectation of aid from Re-
formers ; whilst to .the Tories he says, " I won't have a
graduated Income Tax : I will do as your Chancellor
wanted to do, by extending the Income Tax to Ireland,
and to all who earn 1001. a year ;" whilst, lastly, he
seeks to mollify the Irish for the imposition of the In-
come Tax by saying, "I ask you for. 7d. in the pound,
but' then I forgive you a debt over 4.000,0001. .
Next in importance to the Income Tax proposition
comes that which proposes the reform of the Legacy
Duty. This tax Mr. Gladstone—as we have just said—
proposes most justly and wisely to put on a new footing,
in the way which Reformers have often and long
pointed out. The Legacy Duty is to be extended to all
successions to property by' death—settlements not to
escape. All persons gaining wealth by the demise of
others are to be taxed in proportion to the-value of the.
life interest taken. All this was well received, as was
also, and very justly, the suggested removal of the soap
duties, and the reduction of the tax on tea, and on
carriages, life assurances, agricultural produce, and
stamps. The advertisement duty reduction to sixpence,
is only an instalment, which, after the recent decision
of the House of Commons, is meagre and ungraceful.
This tax on publicity must all come off. The removal
of the supplement stamp is a huge gift to the Times.
But of this more hereafter. The sum total of proposed
new taxes,' with the balance of surplus, available for
1853-4 for reduction of other burthens, is stated at
2,149,000/. .
Mr. Gladstone's speech was an elaborate and powerful
exposition of the financial affairs of the nation ; and if
its compromises include on the one hand an extension of
unreformed income tax, they on the other propose that
the tax on successions shall be made general, and that
soap, tea, life policies, advertisements, horses, carriages,
servants—or in other words, temperance, cleanliness,
prudence, publicity, and labour—shall escape a portion
of the burthen they have hitherto borne. At first blush
the budget seems, as a whole, likely to be popular with
dpouebrbtrestsesrewnditehr
the House of Commons, and not the less so that any
will otherwise come about. The more important verdict
ar thosee
mfuusac wlh
hoof
earlieri sitt,
obpyp oae
dissolution to
o combination
them,r a rwl Parliament mu edf nt requisite than
of the country has now to be taken.

(From the Morning Post.)
By Monday next, the House of Commons and the
country will have had time to examine and to analyse
the financial scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
—to decide whether any or all of his proposals for the
relief or diminution of existing taxation offer sufficient
advantages to atone for the odious nature of the main
ingredient in the Budget, and to satisfy themselves
whether the contemplation of such happy posibilities as
are promised with the advent of 1860 will compensate
the public for the certain infliction of a seven years' in-
come tax.

We have already declared our own opinion of the ex-
pedient which Mr. Gladstone frankly described as the
corner-stone of his financial policy—that is to say, the
continued use of this exceptional engine of finance for the

purpose of getting rid of taxes on social expenditure in
detail. _ _

To our judgment, the first part of the powerfu
and elaborate speech in which the Budget was introduced
proved most clearly that a direct tax on income is neither
justifiable nor safe, except as a strong expedient spring-
ing from, and confined- to, the impecative demand of
some special and great emergency ; but the con-
clusion failed in equal strength of demonstration,
that, in the demand for such remissions as are
promised, such an emergency now exists. The
house, however, have now before them the design of
what Mr. Gladstone considers a completion of the
system which Sir Robert Peel began, and it will be for
them to decide, next week, whether such a completion
be worth the price they are called on to pay for it. This
is the key of the whole subject ; an assent will make the
rest of the business comparatively easy, a negative an-
swer involves, at the least, entire reconstruction of the
Budget. There are two principles on which opposition
to the Government project may be urged--that of ob-
jectors who, without quarrelling with the tax in itself,
demand that a distinction be made as to its bearing on
permanent and on precarious income ; and that of finan-
ciers, who hold, as we do, that the Income Tax being
only an extraordinary expedient, not a genuine source
of revenue, the excess of expenditure which depends on
its maintenance is no true surplus. To the first Mr. Glad-
stone says that he has well examined their demands, with
the thousand and one plausibilities projected for carrying
them out, and he finds that, to attempt to satisfy them
would involve us in endless complexity and absurdity,
and must end in the destruction of the tax. He has no
faith in the inventors of patent balances and infallible
tests to determine the rateable value of every man's
havings and earnings. The second class of objectors,
who think with ourselves, are told that all they say, and
more, is perfectly true ; that the Income Tax, like war,
brings inevitably with it such injustice, oppression, and
iniquity thtt shdlild be used only its a-desperate re.
source and last re4ort but that; bad as it is, and not
possibly to be made much better, we still cannot do
without it for
.seven years to come, because it will take
us that time to complete, by its rough agency, the
circle (.f free trade.
There is a third class of objectors who must not be
forgotten, and whom we look to see stirred into their
fullest clamour by what we consider the best and fairest
measure in the whole scheme as relating to the Income
Tax, namely, the extension of that impost to Ireland.
If the tax be continued at all, it is impossible, in our
opinion, consistently with justice or common sense, to
maintain an exemption for which there is now cer-
tainly no tolerable plea, and which Mr. Gladstone
proposes to buy off at an ample and generous price.
Nevertheless, we have had too long experience of the
shameless mendicity, inveterate selfishness, and utter
ingratitude of that particular section of the House,
not to be fully prepared to find the bitterest animosity
of the Irish Brigade excited by a proposal that Irish
property should contribute its share, or anything like
its share, to the expenses of the United Kingdom.
But we hope, for the credit of the house, that this is an
opposition which will stand alone—an animosity which
will find no English allies. We trust it will be remem-
bered that the 4,500,0001. which it is now proposed to
give to Ireland, will, if the gift be sanctioned by Parlia-
ment, be the completion of an immense expenditure of
the same nature, issued mainly front: the fruits of exclu-
sive English taxation, to exempted Ireland. By one in-
stalment after another, the aid so promptly given and so
ill received, in the terrible years of famine, has been con-
verted frOm., the shape of debt, in which be properly
stood, to that of a free and generous gift out of funds,
from the heaviest contributions to which Irishmen have
been wholly exempt. With this last charge, created by
the distress of 1846 to 1848, the .faintest pretence for
Irish exemption must vanish. The country for whose
improvidence, for whose turbulence, for whose dishonesty,
for whose sloth, this kingdom has been so heavily taxed,
ought, if its members have the slightest decent pride, or
the merest appreciation of generous feeling, to welcome
with gladness an opportunity of paying instead of begging
its way. It will probably not be so ; but we trust that,
supposing the first principle of a continued Income-tax
to be admitted at all, no voice beyond the narrow pale of
Irish ingratitude will be found to express the slightest'
doubt or hesitation as to the necessity of this tardy act
of justice to England.
Ireland has benefited, and will continue to benefit, by
the large remissions in taxation. It is full time that she
should bear her share in the price that we pay for those
remissions. This is true of itself and in the abstract,
and we do not know that the question of Wiping away
the poor law and famine debt should have been intro-
duced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a set-off.
If there be good reasons for relieving Irish property from
all expense of maintaining its poor in the years of dis-
tirals,
be theyen hind
givenb eett better haanvde beenat
tl buted stated, t thes
properbooi
i
grounds. But, after all, as the proposition stands, it
ill-requited
,cour cf.
aetin.of these Consolidated
will, if the country accept it, be a. noble and generous
completionn
a s
regards o f a
Annuities ; and, with respect to filthe I.n o e ax, next
to dealing k' • l • d
best and wisest course is the ma ing p_nera an
far as possible from exemptions,
tional, the clearing it as f.
boldly and promptly w its reductin, the
verytlie I:tbieleell;itnngd •'1 l
and especially from this .the most unjust, impolitic, and
untenable of 9,ll—the Irish exemption.

_
SURREY DOCKS.—A meeting of shareholders in the
Grand Surrey Pock and Canal Company was held yes-
terday, when a dividend for the half-year of
com2/pany. con. 10s. per
share was declared. The affairs of the -
tinue to prosper.