The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

A correspondent, signing himself " A Sbip-
owner," writes us a letter, to which there is no
reason for refusing insertion. As the write/
tries to advocate a system of which it is obvious
that he himself kuows not the tendencies, and
belongs to a body of Teen, many of them like
him individually respectable, but most of them,
we are afraid, in the same condition with our
correspondent, viz., that of totally mistaking the
nature of their own doctrines, and, moreover, the
measures conducive to their own best interests,
we partly suffer him to speak for himself, and
partly we venture to speak for him, where hie
own expressions are blindly, or perhaps shrewdly
vague. We have asked the shipowners, when
they reproach the Government with persisting
in Mr. Huskisaon's measures, what it is they
want, if not a monopoly," as against foreign
shipping ? We ask them "is it fresh taxes on
foreign shipping" that they require ? And what
is the answer of the shipowner? "
distinctly, unequivocally, we do not want mono-
poly." But with regard to " additional taxes,"
he is by no means so unequivocal, distinct, or
plain. "We ask no protections, except ;"--
~ We seek no exclusive privileges, except." In
a subsequent sentence the shipowner states that
" a large portion of their capital has been anni-
hilated, and that the remainder has become un-
saleable, except (again) at a ruinous loss."—
Why, there are 50 other classes of capitalists
who can allege, with equal justice, that their pro-
perty has suffered a great comparative loss of
value,—" ruinous" is as, exaggerated term, more
akin to rhetoric than to calm representation,—
since the period of high prices, large profits, and
rapid fortunes,—that is, since the war. W e
will go further, and say, that before Mr. Hus-
kisson introduced his enlightened measures of
reciprocity, indeed ever since the circumstances
of the Wir had ceased to give the British ship-
owner the carrying trade of the whole world, a
large proportion of the capital vested in that
important but fluctuating species of property
had been sensibly verging towards " annihila-
tion," and the fear that if nothing were done to
relieve the growing pressure upon the ship-
owners, our merchantmen would be gradually ex-
cluded from the ports of many extensive king-
doms of Europe, was the precise feeling which
governed Mr. Huskisson, and through him both
Houses of the Legislature, in the change then
wrought by Parliament upon our system of ma-
ritime law. The nations of the Baltic, it watt
notorious, had some of them commenced, and
were all preparing a course of retaliation against
the mercantile flag of England, because of the
exclusive spirit in which her navigation laws had
been framed, and of the rigour with which they
were executed. The character and progress of
this policy on the part of foreign Powers would
have been in time to shut out British shipping
absolutely from the ports of all nations, whose
ships were suffering an absolute exclusion from
our harbours, and to restrain aisd embarrass our
navigation with other States, in the same degree
in which theirs with Great Britain happenad to
be vexed and restricted. The final result of
such a mutual want of neighbourly indulgence
must have been the confinement of our mercan-
tile navy to the coasting trade of the United
Kingdom, and to the intercourse of the mother
country with her own colonies. Is that a pros-
spect with which the shipowners would have
been contented ? Would it have retarded the
march of " annihilation" as to one part of their
capital, or obtained for the rest of it a more ad-
vantageous price ? It would seem to most rea-
soning men quite manifest that if the mer-
chant shipping of every country were to be
limited io its employment to the horns carrying
or coasting trade, the greatest of all sufferers
would be that nation which had been used to

employ its shipping most extensively in foreign
commerce, and which had invested the largest
amount of capital and engaged the most nume-
rous body of its citizens in the general business
of navigation. Influenced by this sound and
natural reflection, Mr. Huskisson, instead of
continuing to expose the shipping interest of
England to the risks arising from a reciprocity of
restraint, resolved to tempt other Governments
into a reciprocity of freedom. Instead of esta-
blishing a local monopoly in every State of
Europe against merchantmen, he tendered a
community of navigation to all foreigners, pro-
vided they would admit the vessels of this coun-
try to a share of it. The subsequent condition
of the Baltic trade has proved the wisdom of
Mr. Huskisson's policy. Look at the shipping
lists in all the ports in the north of Europe—
at the respective numbers, more particularly, of
(he vessels which" have passed the Sound" for
the last four or five years, and then tell us whe-
ther those of England have diminished in num-
ber as compared with foreigners which come
by treaty within the scope of our modern
system of reciprocity. Certainly the last returns
to which we have had access establish a consider-
able increase in the amount of native shipping as
compared with that ofotherstates,and on an average
ofseveral years. But when was the time at which
complaints were not made by some one class of
English traders, when any thing short of abso-
lute prohibition existed against the use of
foreign articles of the same nature as those in
which the complainants were interested ? The
" Shipowner" denominates it " a righteous de-
mand" to call for additional protections: let us
hear his own explanation of this code of righte-
ousness. He lays it down first, that " the
British shipping interest is at this moment in a
state of the deepest depression and difficulty
so are many other interests,—the farming in-
terest,—and some branches of the manufactur-
ing interest,—not in this country alone, but all
the world over. Small profits and heavy pres-
sure are nearly universal. '2. He says, that " by
the recent changes in our navigation laws, the
British shipowners have been driven into a ruin-
ouship p
higo
f competition
foreign with
countries, t he
in cheaplythe
import
s
articles for British consumption."
plank for plank, and man for man, foreign ships
Now
if, of
are built and manned at less cost than British,
let it be fairly understood and argued on that
the British ship and British seaman do not re-
quire the one to be so often renewed, the other
to be so multiplied, as the foreign. A merchant-
man, British built, and of the materials em-
ployed in our yards, may cost a deal more at
first than a Swede, a Dane, or a Russian; and
a little more, though of that we are not sure,
than an American ; and what then ? On the
average the English vessel will stand the wear
and tear of two Baltic ships and of three Ameri-
cans : she will be seaworthy 20 years after the
others are rotten. Again, where 15 of the
Baltic sailors are necessary to navigate one of
their ships, eight or ten Englishmen will suffice
for a vessel of equal burden ; and if it be said
that British merchant vessels are generally short
manned because of the expense, we ask, are
they more frequently shipwrecked than the

trading craft of foreigners Or is a British
merchantman insured at a heavier premium ?
We believe that to both interrogatories it will be
answered, " No." With regard to North
America, her seamen's wages and sustenance are
no cheaper than those of Englishmen. But if
it were otherwise, suppose a great increase of
foreign shipping to have actually taken place
since the introduction of Mr. lltiskisson's system.
How is it proposed to reduce it? By re-enact-
ing the old exclusive laws ? Then, to keep the
British superiority at its former level, the ship-
owners must procure another Act of Parliament.
interdicting to foreign Governments the right of
passing retaliatory laws, by levying counter•
duties for the protection of their own shipping
against the intrusion of the British. It is noto-
rious that this mode of self-protection was on
'the point of being every where In,l recourse to,
and that for every 1001. of shp capital which is
now " annihilated" o< " depreciated," these
very shipowners would have been declaring, that
there was at least 10,0001. Then they tell us
that such totally unprotected " competition is
wholly unknown in any other department of
trade" which British capital and industry arc th-
gaged in. This is not true ; there arc ,cozens of
trades wherein the British capitalist is left to fight
his way against foreigners, and where he has won
the battle. Cottons, woollens, hardware, are
they protected more than the things called ships
There is a duty on raw cotton imported, more
than equivalent to the duty on Foreign timber.
At the same time let it be observed, that we are
no especial advocates for the timber duties,
which appear to us by no means among the best
that could be selected for financial purposes,
being a direct tax upon agriculture and health,
and therefore an aggravation of the suffering of
every poor family in England. If the ship-
owners will prepare a series of remonstrances
against the duties on foreign timber and foreign
corn—from which last, by the way, they, of all
the community, are most exempted; because they
can victual at any foreign port they like
e will join them heartily, and will throw into
the bargain, if they ask us, a petition against the
duties on foreign hemp and tar, until the ship-
ping interest can find substitutes for those ar-
ticles amongst our home productions. There is
one thing certain, and the partisans of " protec-
tion," as it is called, must take it with all its
consequences—no partial interests will hence-
forth have a chance of bullying the people of
England into any exclusive or restrictive system
which 'has been once abandoned ; and the rea-
son is obvious. The grand interest of all is
that of the consumers, or, in other words, the
nation, which has now begun to comprehend its
own wants, and has resolved to protect itself
against the old humbug of protecting duties—
the great nightmare by which industry, science,
and enjoyment, have long been oppressed—
Times.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Stn,—The indignant feeling excited in the minds of
'shipowners by the undeserved, and I must be excused for
adding, the ungenerous, severity with which they were
assailed in your columns on Thursday last, has, I assure
you, been responded to by every individual in the city
conversant with the actual condition, or interested in the
prosperity, of British navigation. If the statements and
opinions of " these gentry" were so palpably erroneous as
was assumed, the refutation surely was easy, and
courtesy to your readers would seem to have demanded it.
But the substitution of abuse for argument was so little in
accordance with good taste, and the attempted identifica-
tion of obnoxious commercial sentiments with unpopular
politics so inconsistent with fairness, that, left to the issue
to which you had submitted their case, the misrepresented
shipowners might safely have trusted for vindication to the
innate love of ju,tice and impartiality by which, however
for the moment misled, public opinion is always finally de-
termined.

But in your Journal of yesterday the attack is reiterated
in the form of a question ; and as the failure of a reply
might appear to indicate either uncourteous contempt, or
acquiescence in the inference dexterously interwoven with
the inquiry, I venture, on the part of the shipping interest,
to solicit the insertion of an answer, although the " reso-
lutions" which have elicited the question are in themselves
so explicit, that had I been addressing an inqu;rer less
astute than the Editor of the Times, I confess I should
have felt half tempted to have replied with Johnson, " I
have found you a reason, Sir; I am not bound to find you
understandirg."
You ask, if we do not wi,h monopoly, " what is it we
sio want? Is it fresh taxes on foreign shipping?" And
you conclude, " If not, the resolutions of the Shipowners'
Society have no object at al►,"

r.? Plainly, distinctly, unequivocally then, Sir, we do not
want monopoly. We ask no protections, no exemptions,
no advantages, except such as are extended to other
branches of the British community. We seek no exclu-
sive privileges, except such as are equitably involved in the
imposition on us of exclusive restrictions. We reject
with indignation the aspersion that we " feel a hankering
after inordinate profits, to be wrung from the general dis-
tress and inconvenience of the nation." Heaven knows.
such a hankering is little to he inferred from the state-
ment we are about to lay at the foot of the throne, that
" a large portion of our capital being annihilated, the re-
mainder has become unsaleable, except at a ruinous loss,
and nearly unproductive of income if retained." But we
do want, we claim, and never will we cease to invoke
justice till our righteous demand is conceded, '' equality of
protection with that enjoyed by all other classes, in common
with whom (in addition to our peculiar restrictions) we
have to sustain equality of burdens." This, Sir, is the
language of our " resolutions." Is this monopoly? Or
have the resolutions really " no object at all ?"
Once for all, Sir, to prevent future misunderatsndiug,
and that the public mind may not continue to be misled
by partial statements on' a subject involving interests so
varied, extensive, and important, I trust you will permit
me to challenge the most rigorous investigation of the fol-
lowing assertions which I unhesitatingly advance.
I. That the British shipping interest is at this moment
in a state of the deepest depression and difficulty.
2. That by recent alterations in our navigation system,
the British shipowner is, in certain trades, driven to com-
pete, without any protection whatever, with the cheaply
navigated shipping of foreign countries, in the importation
of articles for British consumption.
3. That this ruinous competition in the trade referred
to has partly produced and greatly aggravated the dis-
tresses of British shipowners, and must, while it continues,
effectually prevent a revival of prosperity in these trades,
and considerably retard it in every other.
4. That such totally unprotected competition is wholly
unknown in any other departnaent of trade in which Bri-
tish Capital and industry are engaged, and that the partial
selection of the shipowner for this infliction is therefore
irritating, invidious, and unjust.
j. That this injustice is grievously aggravated by the
facts, that by the operation of laws enacted partly for the
benefit of particular interests, and partly for the protection
of the whole community, but m which the shipowner has
no separate or peculiar interest, he is compelled to build
and equip his ship with expensive articles of home produc-
tion, and restricted to the employment of native seamen at
high wages, by which restrictions he is absolutely incapa-
citated from sustaining the competition to which he is
doomed.

If these positions be true, I think, Sir, that even you
illadmit they constitute a case of considerable hardship.
II false, they are now open to refutation and exposure.
They at least possess both interest and importance ; but
while your strongly expressed hostility would, under ordi-
naiy circumstances, be sufficient to deter from encounter-
incr the fearful odds of your powerful opposition, I trust it
will not be attributed to personal presumption, but to
strong confidence in the justice of the cause I espouse, that
I fearlessly enter the lists ; and, having thrown down
the gauntlet, ask only a fair held for the maintenance of
the positions I have advanced, and which I am fully
prepared to defend.
" Thrice is he armed that !lath his quarrel just."
I remain, Sir, your very obedient servant,
Lloyd's, Dec. 21. A SHIPOWNER.

We see it stated in the Dutch Papers that the
States• General, in order to meet the exigencies
of the State, are about to impose an income tax,
commencing at 14 per cent. on incomes of 300

florins and under 500 florins, and increasing to
24 per cent. on incomes of 200,000 florins and
upwards. There is, at all events, fairness in
this proposal, which is more than can be said for
the principle according to which taxes are im-
posed in this country. In Holland, it is sup.
posed that a rich man ought to contribute more
proportionably to the State than a poor man,
because it is much easier to give from super.
fluity than from what is strictly necessary. But
in England v.-e reverse the Dutch principle.
Here the rich are exempted even from their pro.
portional share of taxation, while they continue
to add to their incomcs from the taxes paid by
others. It hat, been often said that our system
workz well, and why, therefore, should we ha-
zard Reform ? As a sample of the manner in
which it works, we extract the following passages
from the Manchester Guardian, of Saturday
last :

"Doting the list Session of Parliament, a return was
made of ' the number of houses assessed to the inhabited
house tax in each eonnty of Great Britain, in the year
ending sth April., IS3O, with the total amount of rental
at which class was assessed ;' from which return, so
far as it relates to England and Wales, sve have obtained
the particulars to which we are now about to advert.
" Looking, at the relative extent of the counties of
York and Lancaster ; considetitig that the former contains
an area nearly tht-u std a half times as great as that of
the latter (ei. as 3SI to 113), and considering further
how touch greater a number of its inhabitants are persons
in easy circumstances, than are to be found in this county,
where so extremely large a proportion of the population
consists of labouring manufacturers am artisans, our
readers will naturally suppose that 'th tribution of
Yorkshire to the house-tax must eater than
that of Lancashire. What, howeve Why,
that Yorkshire pays upon a renta 639/. ;
and Lancashire upon one of 795,8321. its is a mon-
! stress example of a vicious fiscal system. It will be a
disgrace to the Legislature (we may almost say it will be a
disgrace to the inhabitants of this country) if such an in-
equality is permitted long to continue. As another striking
instance of the like unfairness, we may mention, that to-
wards the whole assessed rental of the houses in England
and Wades, amounting to 11,154,109/, the contribution
of the single county of Middlesex amounts to no less than
5,143,340!. This must be a great over-proportion. But
the whole return furnishes examples, on one hand or the
other, of gross inequality.
"Perhaps in nothing is the unfairness of the present
mode of rating property more palpable, than the great
under-assessment of the splendid seats of our nobility and
gentry. In Chester, which contairs, as every body
knows, many residences of a very high class, there is but
one mansion (we take for granted Eaton) assessed so high
as 300/. a year. That magnificent Palace would be under
assessed probably at ten thousand pounds. In Westmore-
land, which contains Lowther Castle, as fine a place, or
nearly so, as Eaton, there is not one house assessed so
high as 2001. In Durham, which contains Ruby Castle,
and Lan:loon Castle, and Wyndward, and Ravensworth,
and Brancepeth Castle—to say nothing of other mansions
—the two first, we believe, are nearly equal to either of
those we have before mentioned—there is not a single
home assessed so high as 1001. and but eleven above 701.
per annum ! In the rich and fine county of Hereford, con-
taining Eastnor Castle, there is not a single house assessed
so high as 901. per annum, and but three at or above 701.
In Leicestershire, which contains Belvoir Castle, there is
not one assessment so high as 2001. per annum. In Nor-
thamptonshire, containing Althorp, and various other fine
seats, there is hut one house rated so high as 1101 per
annum. In Northumberland, which contains Alnwiek
Castle, there are but two assessments of 2001. or upwards.
In Oxfordshire, which contains the stately and far-famed
Blenheim, there is but one assessment so high as 300/.
In Shropshire, there are but two houses rated so high as
110/. In Suffolk there are but seven houses assessed at
as much as SO/. In Yorkshire, which contains Went-
worth Castle and Harewood House, and Castle Howard,
to say nothing of other numerous splendid seats, there
is not a single house assessed so high as 400/. per annum,
and but four so high as 300/. And lastly, in the whole
principality of Wales, there is not one assessment that
reaches 110/. per annum, and but 18 so high as 70/."

Now how is it that these shameful partialities
have been suffered ? They have been pointed
out again and again. Our contemporary (the
Scotsman) has more than once called attention
to the gross partiality of the assessments in
Scotland, which is still more glaring than in
England. In that country, Ducal mansions,
the materials of which would sell for as much as
would build a moderately sized town, are assessed
at the rate of one of the rickety brick structures
in which, in the metropolitan districts, men of
the middle class arc roasted iH summer and
starved in winter. The reason of this injustice
is well known. The great proprietors have re-
turned a majority to the House of Commons,
and they have had interest enough to throw the
burthen of taxation on their neighbours. And
yet, with all this glaring partiality, if we were
to believe the landholders, the whole taxation of
the country is thrown upon them. At the Ber-
wickshire Anti-Reform meeting, on Friday last,
Sir David Milne is reported to have asked,
should the Reform Bill be carried, " can it be
supposed that large landed proprietors will re-
main as hitherto on their estates, spending their
incomes in the country, and enabling all around
to partake of that wealth which they have inhe-
rited or acquired ?
not the landed proprietor pay the great part of the
burthens of the country—land-tax, ministers' sti-
l
pend, poor rates, and perhaps, not a pau-
per on his property—the poor being gene-
rally in the villages ?" This is amusing. We
wonder Sir David did not include among the
burthens on the landholders, the expellee of drain-
ing, keeping up farm-buildings, &c. What right
has he to call ministers' stipend a burthen on
the land ? The ministers' stipends are paid out
of the teind or tithe, the property in which was
distinct from the land, and which, when pur-
chased by the landholder, was subject to the pay-
ment of that stipend. The land-tax, before its
redemption, payable for all Scotland, was a mere
trifle. The poor rates are also trifling in Scot-
land. But be the burthens great or small, they
are not taxes on landholders, because land is
held subject to them, and whoever purchases an
estate takes these burthens into consideration.
But it is otherwise with assessed taxes. Sir
David may escape the assessed taxes as well as
the indirect taxes. But really we do not see the
great obligation the nation has to Sir David and
other landholders fin. remaining on their estates
in the country, when the object of it evidently is
to escape the taxation to which the people in
town are liable. Sir David talks of " this
great agricultural county," and Berwickshire
is, no doubt, one of the richest agricultural
counties in Scotland; but in that great county in
which the landholders swagger so much, and
where one of them (Mr. Buchan, of Kelloe) had
the insolence to declare " in reference to the
proposed creation of Peers, that if any Minister
were capable of pressing that measure on his Sove-
reign, he would consider him as the greatest
traitor that country had ever seen"—(Cheers)----
is there one of them who has his mansion rated
at 801. a year ? When Sir Henry Parnell
praises Lord Goderich for his firmness iii re-
fusing to allow the repeal of the assessed taxes,
he does not take into consideration that the
great objection of the people to the assessed
taxes Is derived from the gross inequality with
whielk.some of them are iniposed. " The effort
whicVlicas made in 1825, to obtain a repeal of
the assessed taxes was founded (he says) in a
total misconception of the comparative effects of
different kinds of taxes on the interests of the
people—no advantage would have arisen from
the repeal of those taxes beyond the mere relief
front so much taxation ; while, on the other

hand, the repeal of the taxes on raw materials
and manufactures, and the reduction of the enor-
mously high duties on tobacco and foreign spi-
rits, would be productive of considerable benefit
to the consumer, would put an end to smuggling,
and would increase the employment of capital,
and-labour, and foreign commerce." This would
be all very well if the greater part of the duty
on inhabited houses were not thrown on the
people in towns, who arc grievously oppressed
by them. There are no taxes so unpopular as the
assessed taxes, for the severity of them presses
on persons often little able to bear them ; and the
spectacle of Peers, possessed of princely incomes,
evading them in so glaring a • manlier, is not
calculated to render them more popular. Among
the Parliamentary Returns of this year are copies,
of the Assessment for tile Inhabited House Duty
at which a hundred of the highest-rated houses
in London are assessed, and the same in the
country, distinguishing the counties. In the
country list the rent runs from .1,0501. to 2501.
One would imagine that the list would be almost
filled with Peers or great landholders. No such
thing ! Only nineteen Peeresses, and Bishops
are included in it. But it contains several cha-
rities, as the Governors of York Asylum, 300/.,
the Governors of the Quakers' Retreat, 2501. Of
course, the almost royal mansion of Lord Lons.
dale, the great borough proprietor of the north,
is not included. The. Duke of Bedford does
not seem to be in favour with the tax people,
for he is assessed at 6001. for 'Woburn Abbey,
one-third more than paid by any other Peer,
twice as much as Lord Grosvenor, nod about
three times as much as the Duke of Northum-
berland, time Lord of Alnwick Castle. These
doings are beyond measure disgraceful. We
trust they will soon be inquired into, that time
people may not be longer insulted by such re-
volting partiality.—Morning Chronicle.

Mr. O'Connell, as will be seen from the ac-
count of the proceedings at the Dublin Political
Union, on Thursday last, availed himself, with
some dexterity, of the declaration of Earl Grey
with regard to him. " Let it be told to the
people of Ireland, that I have only to alter the
course I am to follow, and the Prime Minister
says that there is no situation I am not fit for.
—(Loud cheers.) This is not any poor vanity
to say this; I do not vaunt it in the spirit of ex-
ultation ; but I proclaim the fact to the people
of Ireland, but to beget their confidence in me
for the times that are coming, when I say that 1
have only to abandon them ibr a single hour to
become entitled to the possession of rank and
dignities for life.—(Great cheering.) * * *
But is it not a pitiable reflection and a humi-
liating conviction to think that the only way to
become possessed of dignities is by trampling on
and forgetting Ireland ?" By the bye, Mr.
Stanley has been strangely imposed on with re-
gard to the Irish clergymen whom he singled out
as reduced to great distress. One of them in
particular, Dr. Butler, was stated by Mr. Laffan,
a gentleman residing in his neighbourhood, to be
a man of immense wealth—

" It is quite impossible that he could have any cause to
complain of poverty, or the slightest necessity to put his
carriage to sale, as he was well known to be a man of very
great and extensive wealth."
. _

The Freeman's Journal of Friday says,
energetically—

" No management, no tampering, nn huxtering or cob-
bling shall do. Until tithes are cut up root and branch—
until the Church lands are properly apportioned, and
whilst Catholics and Presbyterians are ob:iged to pay an
odious and an oppressive tribute to Protestant Parsons,
there will not b±—there cannot he 'repose' in Ireland."

We should despise the Catholics if they
thought otherwise.—Morning Chronicle.
The defective manner in which the law re-
specting " First Fruits" has been executed
on the part of the hierarchy and clergy of the
Established Church in Ireland, has been
frequently brought under public notice, and very
often, we believe, adverted to by Sir John New-
port and other Members of the House of Com-
mons, as a fit matter for direct and vigorous in.
terference by the Legislature, failing the execu-
tive authority of the kingdom to enforce the
provisions of the several statutes made already
in that behalf. Considering that, so far as reli-
gion only, and the spiritual comfort and well-
being of the Irish nation, are concerned, the
existence of the Protestant Church itself, even
were its duties discharged in the most exemplary
manner, would still, according to all just reason.
ing, be a gross abuse of legislative power, and a
heavy burden on the country, the least that ought
to be looked for from a body so placed would be
the immediate and spontaneous redress of any
wrongs to which a tacit neglect of the pecuniary
obligations imposed by law upon its several
classes, from the Archbishop down to the paro-
chial incumbent, may have contributed. The fund
called " First Fruits" was originally, as is well
known, a Papal exaction from the native clergy, so
extensive, that in the reign of Henry VIII. it had
amounted to 800,000 ducats, which had been car-
ried off to Rome within fifty years. The " First
Fruits"were,as the name imports, the first year's
revenue of the Bishopric, or other church prefer-
ment. Henry, as the Pope's successor in his
supremacy of the Church of England, transferred
this revenue to the Crown, and Queen Anne
restored it to the Church, to be applied to the
improvement of the smaller livings, " in a
spirit," says Blackstone, " of the truest equity,
by applying the superfluities of the larger bene-
fices to make up the deficiencies of the smaller."
Livings under the value of 501. are, by an Act
of the same reign, relieved (and very properly)
from the payment of first fruits. But the effect
of this surrender of Royal revenue to the Church,
however well intended, or rather plausible, has
fallen far short of the good which it professed to
contemplate. In the days of Henry it was a
real tax, whereas the heads of the Church have
so contrived it, that the valuation of livings
made on the 26th of that reign, viz., about 300
years ago (called the King's Books), is the scale
according to which the first fruit payments have
ever since been made,— a manifest and crying
fraud upon the poorer clergy, on the public
purse, and on the interests of the Protestant re-
ligion. A correspondent, whose letter we can-
not publish, and whose accompanying reports
and calculations on the subject of it are far too
voluminous for insertion here, takes up the
question of Irish First Fruits, and in a series of
no fewer than 11 tables, describes the utter fal-
lacy of the so-called contribution, regarded as an
instrument of relief to the poorer clergy, or a
security to the people against extraordinary de-
mands for other ecclesiastical purposes. The
writer heads his communication to us as follows:
"
Epitome of the revenue of the Church of Ireland,
anti of the irregular payments of the first fruits of the
Archbishops, Bishops, Dignitaries, and BeneficediClergy in
that part of the united kingdom, who are enjoined by the
Irish statute 2d Geo. I. chap. 15, to pay their first year's
revenue or profits of their benefices respectively into the
revenue of first fruits, within four years of their taking
such benefices, viz. one-tOurth part of the whole sum of
their first year's profits, at the end of every year, for the
first four years, together with an explanation of the 20th
parts remitted to the clergy in Ireland by that Act."
He then goes on to state the number of acres

of land now held, or let, by the Archbishops and
Bishops of Ireland, together with the glebes.
After deducting one-third for unprofitable land,
at above half a million of Irish 'acres, which, at
265. per acre, produces
A rent, yearly, of about £632,000
Income of 1,194 parishes, under Tithe Com-

position Act
Eitimated value of the remaining 1,271 parishes 241,200

Total Church revenue £1,161,600
Total sum actually paid as first fruits by all
classes of Irish clergy, Archbishops, . Bishops,
dignitaries, and parochial incumbents, from Au-
gust, 1812, to February, 1831, 9,9471., being
about the one hundred and sixteenth part of
what they ought to have contributed, according,
to the amount of their income, and to the mean-
ing of the law, and leaving due to the poorer clergy
of the establishment for the above 20 years no
less a sum than 1,150,000/. sterling. The
writer goes on to show, that even the annual
receipts for glebe, throughout Ireland, have ex-
ceeded, seven times over, the total amount of
first-fruits paid by the bench of Bishops and the
clergy during the entire period. Some further
calculations have been entered into by our cor-
respondent for the sake of varying and rendering
more conspicuous the point of view in which he
wishes the whole question to be considered by
the public ; but as he does not thereby suggest
any aggravation of the original vice on which he
comments, or bring any new principle under our
observation, we must decline to follow him.
The opinion of learned gentlemen, law advisers
of the Crown, within the last ten years, has
been severely, we know not how justly, im-
pugned by the author of the tables to which we
are now adverting. It is at the same time clear,
that if they were too far below the mark in esti-
mating the annual value of the first-fruits in the
29th year of Geo. 11. at no more than 300/.
per annum, our correspondent has been full as
far wrong on the other side, where he states
them at a thousand times as much, unless he
wishes to establish it as a recorded fact, that no
incumbent at that period lived much more than
a twelvemonth, and therefore that the tvitole re-
venue of the Church ought to be considered as
first-fruits. His reference to the opinions of
Counsel is as follows :
" Messrs. Blackburn and Crampton, the present At-
torney and Solicitor-Generals of Ireland, in their opinions
given by them to the House of Commons, on the Bth of
August, 1831, intimated that one •ear's first-fruits and
profits of the Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy of Ireland,
in the 29th year of King George 11., was computed at
300/. per annum. Those gentlemen, when they made
that statement, appear to me to have known, or at least
they ought to have known, that the net produce of all the
benefices in Ireland, in any one year within that reign,
exceeded 500,0001. ; and that in any year from 1812 to
1831, the net proceeds of the revenue of the Church of
Ireland exceeded 1,161,845/., as shown above. I am very
unwilling to suppose the opinion of those learned gentle-
men was given for the purpose of diverting the attention
of the suffering population of Ireland from the spoliation
committed on them by the spiritual part of the trustees of
first-fruits there, to shelter themselves and their co-trustees
from the responsibility that attaches to them for their neg-
lect of duty, but I have strong reason to believe the majo-
rity of people will be of that opinion, particularly as the
average value of the annual fruits of every parish church
in Ireland (and they are 2,165 in number) exceed 300/.
(dignities inclusive), Archbishoprics and Bishoprics ex-
clusive.

" How those learned trustees could bring themselves to
suppose that any rational being who was acquainted with
the history of the Church of Ireland could be led to believe,
that 3001. per annum, in the 29th year of King George
11., was computed to be the whole of one year's first-fruits
of the Church of Ireland, is to me inexplicable. They
knew that the Irish statute of the 2d Geo. 1., chap. 15,
sec. 3, which passed in the year 1715, and•which is now
in force, requires every Archbishop, Bishop, dignitary, and
beneficed clergyman in Ireland, all and every of them, to
pay the whole sum of the first year's revenues and profits
of their benefices respectively to the revenue of first fruits,
and they must have known that 3001. per annum in the
29th year of George 11. was not a thousandth part of the
first-fruits or revenue of the Church of Ireland in that
year. They knew that the yearly revenue of the Church
of Ireland at the time they gave their opinions (and from
the 12th day of August, 1812, to the 26th of February,
1831, for incumbents that had been promoted within that
time) amounted in each of those years to 1,161,8451. and
that that sum, as one payment or set of first-fruits, was,
pursuant to the statute of the 2d of Geo. 1., chap. 15, due
from the Archbishops, Bishops, and beneficed clergy, to
that revenue, and that they bad only paid to that revenue
about 116th part of that sum."
Upon the whole, however, it is plain that if
it were desirable to do any thing effectual to-
wards the improvement of small pittances, falsely
calling livings (more properly starvings), and
for the relief of the poorer clergy, such an object
could never be achieved by the miserable offer-
ing of 9,000/. or 10,000/. in a period of twenty
years. The entire system, indeed, is one of vi-
cious theory, aggravated by oppressive and into-
lerable practice. But the subject of the Irish
Church, and of the false principles on which it
stands, as well as of the pernicious encroach-
ments by the bad working of such principles, has
been so unhappily developed, both in relation to
the people and the clergy themselves,—has now,
at length, been so gravely propounded by Mini-
sters and received with so much eagerness by
the Commons House of Parliament,—that the
question of first-fruits will probably sink out of
view amongst others of pressing, though secon-
dary, consideration.—Times.
Among those who strongly advocated a
change in our old system of bankruptcy juris-
diction were ourselves. We did so because we
were convinced that the old system was bad in
principle, and vexatious, dilatory, and expensive,
in practice. It is astonishing, indeed, that a
system for administering the bankrupt laws so
vicious and inoperative, could have been so long
tolerated in the first commercial country of the
world. That the interests of the mercantile
classes of London were sacrificed to keep up a
system which swelled the patronage and emolu-
ments of the office of Lord Chancellor was ob-
vious enough to all who gave any serious atten-
tion to this subject. The want of a separate
and regular Court for the administration of the
bankrupt laws was a great grievance. The mode
of administering those laws by fourteen lists of
Commissioners, consisting of five to each list,
whose jurisdiction altogether was part and par-
cel of the enormous and overgrown jurisdiction
of the Court of Chancery, was a contrivance, it
must be admitted, sufficiently complicated and
clumsy—but when we came to see how the
system worked, the thing was still worse. The
Comm issionerships were understood to be a means
of providing, at the public expense, for the depend-
ents of the Lord Chancellor for the time being,
or for those who had interest with the Lord
Chancellor. Talent or learning in the law had
very rarely indeed any thing to-do with the pro-
emoluments of one of the lists of Commissioners
young aspirant to the honours and
motion of the
of Bankrupts. The importunities of the political
supporters or the sycophants of power—a lucky
connection with a Minister, a Judge, a titled
patron, or some other person of either direct or
sinister influence, were more frequently the mo-
ving causes to those appointments than any con-
sideration of professional merit. Indeed, some
of the Commissioners were not of the profession
of the law at all. They were capable of receiving
the fees, however ; and among our " glorious

institutions" nothing finds mote zealous de-
fenders than any nice, snug, expensive contrivance
which especially provides, by a convenient place
of dignified repose, whether in the Law, Church,
or State, for that fortunate incapacity which de-
lights to revel in the luxurious uselessness of a
well-paid sinecure. Conservative patriotism cannot
do too much for the preservation of such a thing,
and therefore the fourteen lists of Commissioners
of Bankrupts were thought worthy of all pre-
servation. Even where an able and experienced
lawyer—as was the case in a few instances, hap-
pened to hold one of those appointments, he might
be seen one day presiding at bankruptcy cases
as a Judge, and the next practising as a Counsel.
This was indecorous and improper. If it did
not work injustice, it was certainly not calculated
to inspire the public with confidence that justice
would be done—and the administration of jus-
tice, like Cassar's wife, must not only be free
from wrong, but above suspicion. We have
stated but a few of the objections whichZmight
be taken to the old system ; but these are, we
thing, enough to justify the public and our de-
mand for a charge—a thorough change ; but we
wished not any alteration for the mere sake of
change, but with a view to real and substantial
improvement, both in principle and practice. The
principle is now recognised of the propriety of
having a separate Court for the administration of
the bankrupt laws. The mercantile classes of
London are not more favoured in this respect
than those of the capitals of some of the com-
mercial states on the Continent. It is true there
is an appeal to the Lord Chancellor, who is still
the Judge, in the dernier resort ; but still the
establishment of a regular Court for the adjudi-
cation of bankrupt cases, with Judges of its own,
who are not allowed to practice as barristers in any
of the Courts, is in itself an improvement ; and '
it will be a greater or less one, according as
judgment, impartiality, and discernment, are ex-
ercised in the selection of those Judges. if the
arrangement had succeeded to procure the benefit
of the judicial learning and abilities of Mr. Jus-.
tice Bayley for this new Court, it would have
started under the most respectable auspices. The
appointment of Mr. Erskine to the situation of
Chief Judge has not given satisfaction ; nor is
it to be wondered at that such an appointment,
to so responsible and difficult a station, should
fail to inspire confidence. iNIr. Erskine, as a
junior Counsel, showed ability, and had respec-
table business on the Western Circuit, but, we
ask, what.was'known -of him in the Court of
King's Bench since he put himself in the capa-
city of a leader by receiving a silk gown P We
are decidedly of opinion that a barrister of more
weight and experience should have been selected
to start the Court with ; but still we should be
glad to find that any apprehensions entertained
by the public on this head should be disproved
by experience. There are some other appoint-
ments in this Court which indicate a spirit of
patronage not altogether consistent with that
purified system of appointment of which the
new Bankruptcy Court was to be a specimen.
There are some other appointments which are
good, because all who know the professional
characters of the men will know that they have
the qualifications which will ensure a faithful and
intelligent discharge of their duties ; but we must
protest against men who have been bankrupts
being made official assignees, for we under-
stand that some such appointments have been
made ; such appointments would infallibly lead
the public to believe that a spirit of jobbing had
found its way into the new Court. We hope
that it is not true that any such appointments
have actually taken place : men who cannot
manage their own affairs are not the most proper
to be selected, especially in commercial matters,
to manage the affairs of others. If they be ever
so honest, the public will not, cannot have con-
fidence in their judgment, steadiness, or capa-
city. We are sure there is no want of persons
of the most unimpeached respectability, skill,
and experience, in the commercial world to fill
those situations, and therefore the selection of
any man who has been unfortunate ill business is
not justified by necessity. Having spoken of
the formation of the Court—which is, in the
principle on which it is founded, and in the pro-
portion of good appointments to bad, decidedly
superior to the old bankrupt jurisdiction of the
fourteen lists of Commissioners—we must defer,
for want of space, to a future opportunity the
consideration of its modus operandi as to dimi-
nishing or increasing the expense, delay, and
litigation incidental to the administration of the
bankrupt laws under the expiring system ; ehich
he who regrets must be in possession of a stock
of " conservative" credulity on which reason
and experience can make no useful impression.
—Morning Herald.
The tithe question continues to bei:oeianodielsttb,ohoabpemteuriceedt
with great vehemence in the Irish Press and in
the Irish Unions. . It is just that kind of po-
litico-religious question which suits the meridian
of Ireland, where every thing is either Catholic
or Protestant, and where even the principles of
right and wrong seem to have no determined
meaning but as they harmonize with the views of
either of the two factions which divide and ha-
rass the country. There is one thing, however,
to be concluded from their present disputes. It
is quite clear that, if the Ministerial tithe pro-
ject is to stop short at the suggestion hinted
at by Mr. Stanley in his late speech, neither
party will be satisfied, and no good will be done.
But, what is of still more importance than the
failure of the plan to satisfy either of the extreme
parties in their present temper, nothing will he
done to satisfy the moderate impartial men, in
both countries, who wish to see the Established
Church in Ireland essentially improved. Besides
the great question of the Church revenues in
e
Parliament t"et
inodsieiegssti
t:heepavrtneo:qt:iuuooeeupsLtai
oiulsrppelotlniaiiiierolicivil,dhbiisuectfrlroiobrpieui
tion
too vitally connected with the well-being of the
Establishment to be overlooked in any arrange-
ment which pretends to lay the foundation of fu-
ture concord and prosperity. No man can look at
the enormous disproportion between the incomes
of the dignified and working clergy, and contem-
plate the possibility of allowing things to remain
as they are in that respect. The evil is one
which people of all religious persuasions concur
in denouncing ;—the correction of it, therefore,
should form one of the first steps in any change
that may be attempted ; for, while a defect so
glaring is permitted to remain there will always
be a mixture of reason, even in the appeals of
the most violent men, which it ought to be the
first object of an enlightened Legislature to de-
prive them of It is not as a compromise with
fear, but as a concession to justice, that we would
call upon his Majesty's Ministers to give up
what is untenable in the present system, in order
to preserve what is tenable and useful. It is not
to gratify Mr. O'Connell and his adherents, but
to deprive them of the truth which they are now
enabled to mix up with error in their attacks upon