The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-25 00:00:00

TEE INCOME TAX•

(FROM A CORRESPONDENT.)
Mr. Gladstone's abominable Budget seems to
have been cunningly prompted for the pecuniary
benefit of some large fundholding sybarite.
For 40 years without rhyme or reason, he is to
be ensured 2/. 17s. 9d. per cent. interest upon
every 1001. of his Consols.
His foreign-built carriage is to be imported free
of all duty. At breakfast, he is to daintily satisfy
his appetite with duty-free sausages from Bologna
and Reindeer tongues from Lapland. After spell-
ing through the unstamped advertising sheet of
the Times, he takes an hour's stroll into his pre-
serves, and with the help of his keepers and beaters
and duty-free foreign gunpowder, he contrives to
knock some scores of tame pheasants, orders his un-
Aler butler to seal their crowns with free-of-duty fo-
reign perfumed sealing-wax—and then to his luneb,
Which willconsist of sandwiches made from delicious
°am imported duty-free from Westphalia, washed
down with foreign metheglin, also imported duty-
fee. He drawls through the afternoon in gos-
,,Ping tittle-tattle and at dinner he is served with
his soup made fronaltalian macaroni and vermicelli,
Which are to pay less than half a farthing per lb. duty.
He is then primed for feasting upon foreign-caught
turtle and salmon, and turbot with oyster sauce,
all free of duty. Then he attacks a free-of-duty
foreign-truffle stuffed French turkey and Portugal
ham, and after filling up crevices with duty-free
grouse and ptarmigan from Norway, and canvas-
backed duck from New York, which he washes
down with duty-free champaigned cider and perry
:11Ported from Germany, he complacently lavers
uls effeminate fingers in duty-free foreign rose-
water, and then exercises the brightness of his
intellect by yawning at the foreign duty-free pic-
ture frames, and pictures, and marble statues,
Which luxuriously adorn. his salle-d-manger. At
dessert he partakes of foreign grapes, and medlars
,4,11€1 quinces, paying only 2d. per bushel duty, and
th•
e blazing wax candles, which are to pay only a
per lb. duty, exhibit to his foreign-acquired
taste the gaudily painted foreign oil-cloth table-
"ors, imported at the duty of only one penny per
square yard. After his claret, which he will endea-
vour to import at the duty of only 2d. a bottle, he
"ill sip his cup of chicory-coffee free of duty, washing
it down with a glass or two of duty-free honied.
Nuor ; and, if the night be not spent at the gaming-
, his
or in other d'ssipation, he may then retire to
ma eider-downed bed to sorrowfully meditate upon
the hardness of his fate.
But the poor striving tradesman, or skilled arti.
San, or over-worked clerk, or much-pitied parson,
Who chances to rejoice in some hard-earned pittance
between 1001. and 1501. a year, is for the first time
during the present generation to be unmercifully
taxed for seven long years at the rate of sd. in the
Pound. He is not to eat rank Holstein butter
unless he pays upwards of a halfpenny a lb. duty,
nor the coarsest Dutch cheese without paying a duty
of upwards of a farthing a lb. Foreign raw apples
and pears he must not touch without paying the
duty
of 3d. per bushel—if dried, one khilling a
bushel—nor dates, a health-promoting and nutritive
fruit, without paying more than a ld. per lb. duty.
-14-'lB wife is not to make a foreign potato-flour pud-
ding, or his children eat their foreign-oatmeal
Porridge, or foreign bread or biscuit, except by pay-
ing the duty of lid. per cwt. His humble tallow
lip twelves must pay a farthing per lb. duty. If he
be a temperate man desirous to indulge in the
Wholesome beverage of spruce beer he must pay
about 3d. per gallon duty, and he will not even be
allowed to brew it himself without paying 2s. 6d.
a lb. duty upon the foreign essence. And %f, in the
honest pride of his heart, he should wish to make a
birthday present of the tinyest silk parasol or a
foreign hat or bonnet, however coarsely manufac-
tured of felt, or hair, or wool, or beaver, to the
wife of his bosom or the bairn of his loins, he dare
not do so without first paying, not a duty of one
penny per diametrical yard, but the enormous duty
of one shilling each.
And yet, forsooth, this new, this " Heaven-
born" Budget is impudently called an extension of
free trade Query—Would Satan himself ever at-
tempt to palm off such arrant hypocrisy even among
the unhappy inmates of Bedlath ?
This [Queen's head stamped on the writing-paper
itself, and not a Queen's head postage stamp] is the
Stamp which should be used for the new stamp-re-
ceipts, and on Bankers' cheques. The Times is
dreaming over his cleverly-concocted advertising
ob, and his penny-label correspondents are a set of
tvraddiers.

COPYOF A LETTER" ADDRESSED TO JOHN
BRIGHT, ESQ., M.P., ON THE PROPOSAL TO
XXTEND THE INCOME TAX TO £lOO A-
"YEAR.
Patricroft, near Manchester, April 23, 1853.
beg respectfully to entreat your earnest oppo-
sition to the parts of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's
J/lidget proposing to untax the wealthy man's "men ser-
oltte, private carriages, horses, and dogs," to the extent
0190.000/, per annum, and to tax the precarious incomes
ill°o/. to 1501. a-year to supply the deficiency ; for such
hive really be the operation of the Chancellor of the Ex-
*Ters Plan. Barefaced proposals to rob the compara-
le Poor to give more to the already rich.
stal; erie who has thoroughly investigated and under-
the `lB the matter will say, as the Chancellor of the Ex-
pliprler intimated, and as is stated in the Times news-
WM Qf the 19th inst., that " the man with 1201. a year
hr.
n, "e as well off under the proposed changes, on a bare
ca 4),—Ltitation of losses and gains," as I will show from
`ll ease, taking the assumed income of 1201. a year.
Baroposed .
tax sd. in the £. £2 10 0
,virigs by the proposed reduction of duties in
—hi,faalily—self, wife, and nine children (sup-
posing the price of all articles to be reduced
"" the consumer the full amount of the reduc-
tion of duty, which I believe very few expect,
and which certainly will not be the case with
respect to all the articles enumerated • as to
tea, it is well known that the merchants and
dealers intend to pocket the 41d. per lb. re-
duction in duty, for it is too small an amount
te share with purchasers of ounces and Vbs.
of tea)
Consumption of tea, average +lb per
week, duty reduced 5 5
Ditto soap, 31b. ditto ditto l3 0
Ditto butter, 41b. ditto ditto
Ditto cheese Vb. ditto ditto
Ditto eggs, doz. ditto ditto 1 3
• Ditto apples, say a bushel a year 1 9

I 11 6

LOBB by the proposed "readjustment" of taxa- --
ti0n.................................................. £0 18 6
Our consumption of all the other articles the duty on
Which is reduced, is so trifling as not to be worth taking
lot° account.
Thus the loss to such as me would be not less than
Th
408. 6d. per annum, and probably much more.
And this is not the time for laying more taxation on
those whose precarious incomes, of which there is no
chance of increase, range from 1001. to 1501. per year—
now that bread is fully 1-10th dearer than during the
Previous two years—animal food far above the average
tice—butter and cheese high—potatoes, essential in
g e families, enormously dear. The present increased
Price of potatoes alone over the average of years before
the potato disease 'made its appearance, is, on the quan-
tity we require, equal to the proposed income tax
On 1001. a-year ; and leather, which forms an important
item in the shape of shoes, has advanced in price at least
20 per cent., and no prospect of the price being lower,
as very few hides are now received from South America,
Whence, until recently, a large proportion of the best
hides have come for some years past.
On the whole, it appears by the Chancellor of the
Exohequer's statement, that I and thousands of others
who have expended the saved portion of our hard earn-
ings in buying bits of freehold property as a qualification
_to vote in the election of M.P.'s, professedly anxious to
promote the welfare and comfort of the great mass of
the people, and to adjust fairly the burthen of taxation
(which freehold property, in my own and numerous
other instances, has not made 3 per cent., the property
itself being now sot worth what it cost by 15 to 20 per
tent), and who looked anxiously forward. to the repeal
of the corn laws, and the removal of restrictions on the
importation of articles of food-generally, as measures
of great benefit, which would enable us to ex-
expend more on the education of our children, make
home more comfortable, and save a little against a
"rainy day," are to be deprived of the anticipated bene-
-I.to, except the miserably small total calculated saving of
4 per cent.—not equal to the present increased cost of
butchers' meat and potatoes.
Further, it is most unjust that an income of 1001.
should be taxed 21..15. Bd., whilst 991. pays nothing.
If it is considered " expedient" that all precarious in-
comes under 1001. a-year should be exempt, then the
only equitable and common-sense course will be to corn-
blenee charging from 1001. and not from 11., and
progress thus—let 1101. pay 10 fivepences or 4s. 2d.;
115/, pay 15 fivepences or 6s. 3d ; 1201. pay Bs. 4d. ;
and so on charging all parts of 51. as 51. This plan
Would be simple and so just that I am sure no one would
object to it, and what is still more important the prin-
cipal inducement to fraud in making returns of income
Would be removed, and this plan should be extended to
all precarious incomes under 2501. or 3001. a-year. Be-
yond these amounts tax on the whole income could be
better afforded.
Again, if the income tax is to be levied on incomes
under 1501., what constitutes the " inexpediency " of
trenching " on what the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Pleased to call " the territory of labour "—that is
the
inexpediency of taxing artisans and foremen of arti-
,ll),!B, thousands of whom in England earn From 1001. to
ot• per annum, with less risk of injury to health and
.„
°n
gevity than the clerks and others who will be
*object to the proposed extension of the income tax?
\ Aut. is it but the fear that a storm of strenuous, indig-
ricon t opposition would be raised by this class, which
ultk drive from office the' present Ministry,
or any
Other
_Ministry, that proposed such a re-adjustment of
",Xation as is now before the public, viz., the untaxing
the rich man's luxuries in the shape of " men-ser-
'l4, ci ‘rriazes horses, and dogs," and to raise an
teisacluivalent re-ver'me out of the income of ithe clerk ar-
day!) and forerhih of --arlisa" cepse 'any

-4113' 141,..P. who helps to pass these parts of the

Budget cannot, surely, expect the support of the thus
needlessly-intended-to-be taxed class, when he again
requires it at the hustings ; and though the class is not
numerous, it is not without influence, as may appear in
the next elections, which are perhaps not far distant.—
I remain respectfully, your very humble servant.
To John Bright, Esq., M.P., London. H. T.