The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-26 00:00:00

Ottning "AtAIL

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1849.

Although Lord LINIIOLN'S motion respecting Van-
couver's Island was dropped by a "count-out" imme-
diately after his admirable exposure of that shame-
ful act of Ministerial jobbery, the subject will be
brought forward again by the Noble Lord, in the
shape of a grievance upon the first Sup-
ply night that may appear to present a
favourable opportunity. It is hardly neces-
sary for us to say we are glad of this, seeing that
from the very outset we have protested against the
transaction as one damning to the patriotic disinte-
restedness of the Administration. Under whatever
form the matter may be brought before the considera-
tion of Parliament, it cannot appear to the popular
representatives as otherwise than a monstrous
subordination of public interests to private
emolument. As such, therefore, it demands the rigid
and exacting scrutiny of the House of Commons.
That scrutiny it will command either during this or
on some ensuing session. The importance of the
retention of an island like that of Quadra, command-
ing the whole of the Pacific, and affording an
outlet for the productions of our North Ame-
rican possessions, would constitute of itself a gua-
rantee that ultimately the fact and the manner
of its transference will be subjected to the inquiries
of the Legislature. But in addition to this powerful
inducement to an investigation, there is the notorious
incapacity of the Hudson's Bay Company to effect
anything else than the systematic sterilization of any
territory that may, by an evil destiny, be brought
under their jurisdiction. We call it sterilization ad-
visedly, for we cannot regard that plan as other
than a plan of deliberate sterilization which reduces
A country to a wild, exuberant, spontaneous, and
consequently profitless state of vegetation, simply
for the purpose of aiding the propagation of the fur_
coated animals, from the bear to the beaver, from
the lynx to the ermine. This system of manage-
ment has been carried out uninterruptedly by the
Hudson's Bay Company throughout the whole of their
gigantic possessions, and this system, in spite of such
farcical masquerades of colonization as the Red River
settlement, they are determined to carry out, per far
et nefas, for their own private advantage as a mercan-
tile association. Now it surely does not remain for
us to pronounce such a scheme of government as not
only pernicious to our interests as a nation, and preju-
dicial to our reputation as a civilized race, but a disgrace
to us as an empire, and a crime to us as Christians.
The fact is legible on the face of all history, both
ancient and modern, both remote and contemporary.
It was the circumstance of WILLIAM Rufus pre-
cluding the possibility of anything like agri-
cultural progress in the largest and most
fruitful portions of Hampshire (The New Forest)
that imparted to his reign an air of such
savage austerity. Yet what WILLIAM Rurus
did to the portion of a mere province of his dominion,
at a time when that dominion extended no further
than beyond the boundary line of the Grampians and
the shores of England, the Hudson's Bay Com-
paoy have done (and that too in the eighteenth
and ninetieth centuries !) to half of a vast con-
tinent like the northern continent of America. What
WILLIAM RUFUS did for the sake of the manly sport
of bunting, the Hudson's Bay Company have been
and are doing for the sake of so much profit as
traders ! Let them draw a warning in the
shape of a deduction from the annals of

their native country ! Let them remember
how the Second WILLIAM fell a victim to his

inordinate passion for spurt 1 And let them beware I
lest they may find themselves destroyed by some
Parliamentary Sir WALTER TYRRELL ! Unless they
be absolutely blinded by their avarice as specu-
lators, by their greed of emolument, by
their lust for an exorbitant per• centage in
profit, they will yield before their barbarous
and extortionate proceedings have driven the country
to desperation ; they will, in particular, shrink from
the ridicule attached to those who emulate the fabu-
lous dog dropping the substance to snatch the shadow.
To them we are satisfied that Vancouver's Island
will prove nothing more than a shadow, a
shadow reflected to their avaricious eyes in
the waters of Nootka Sound. Even now, in
this early stage of the proceeding, when the ink
is scarcely yet dry upon the document which
consigns Quadra to their dominion, the effect is be-
ginning to manifest itself in a detestation of their
barbarous system, which must inevitably tend at
last to undermine the whole superstructure of their
sway in North America.
A more unfortunate time for the negotiation
of such a transference could not by any possibility
have been selected. Now, when emigration has be-
come a necessity,:the ides of barbarising yet more of
our colonial territories becomes more than ever re-
pulsive. Now, when the golden discoveries _in
California have opened a fresh field for
commerce on the western coasts of the
New World ; and now, when intelligent men,
are beginning to argue for the formation of a
trunk railway connecting the Atlantic and the
Pacific—the notion of handing over Vancouver's
Island (the only available port belonging to England
on that side of the Eastern Ocean) to the Hudson's
Bay Company, becomes a project altogether insuf-
ferable. Nor are these the only prominent reasons
why any honest Government directing the affairs of
England should pause before juggling away for so
' many years such a possession. The fact upon which
we have more than once enlarged before this, the fact
upon which we shall not cease to enlarge so long
as the geological and geographical advantages
of Vancouver's Island remain in jeopardy, the fact
that the soil of that island abounds in
coal, with the additional fact that that coal is literally
lying on the surface, and not so far buried in the
earth as to require labour for its acquisition, are suffi-
cient reasons fur a disinclination, on the part of Eng-
land, to resign her hold upon Vancouver's
Island, simply for the personal satisfaction
of a solitary member of the Cabinet.
As a coaling station Vancouver's Island
is universally admitted to be invaluable; and yet it
is this Vancouver's Island that has been shuffled over
into the clutches of a company of fur-traders ! It is
this island which has been thus rashly lost to us at
the very period when the dawning commerce on the
Pacific and the advance of steam navigation, both in
regard to merchandise and war, rendered the retention
of such a coaling station in such a quarter of
the globe more than ever inestimable ! " The
Position of Vancouver's Island is such that there is
little reason to doubt its wealth and consequence will
place it high in the scale of England's offspring."
That is the opinion, simply but emphatically pro•
I nounced, upon the importance of Quadra by the
I projector of the North American Railway, in a new
and more practical argument in favour of his gigantic
project, an argument contained in a pamphlet,* still
more worthy of consideration than the one previously
addressed by him to the author of the " Clockmaker."
No sane man, glancing at a chart of the world, will
gainsay the truth of that declaration. Since the
periods of its being visited by Coost, by MEAns,
and by VANCOUVER, the estimate formed of the value
of the island, and of its contiguity to the North-
American Continent, has progressively advanced.
Surely, it is the height of impudence, not to say the
most flagrant of all the evidences of jobbery, for a
Cabinet to make away with this large and
important spot of ground at the very epoch
when the appreciation of its value has attained
its extreme altitude ! Lord LINCOLN should feel a
profound confidence in the sympathy, not of one or
two, but of a whole nation, in those bold and laudable
exertions which were, the other evening, all but
frustrated.

If an army of soldiers, or a number of individuals of
any kind, were placed in circumstances that it became
necessary continually to remove a quantity of pon-
derous material up as inclined plane or a steep accli-
vity, it must be obvious that the mode in which the
individual burden was placed must have a material
influence upon the muscular powers and physical en-
durance of those by whom it had to be sustained.
For instance, if each man's share of the burden was
of the weight of seven pounds, and the weight was
attached to his ankles or part of the lower extremities,
the weakest would become actually crippled by the
pressure and exhaustion of strength, whilst even the
strongest would find it a great impediment to loco-
motion, and if able to go forward at all thus leg-logged,
to quicken their pace from a walk to a run would be
utterly impracticable. But let the same weight, or
even one considerably greater, be placed in a knap-
sack or other convenient and condensed form, acid
borne between their shoulders, and it forms no
serious impediment to progress.
Every man in this country is placed under cir-
cumstances that he has continually to carry a burden,
if not is pounds weight, in pounds money, being
the share apportioned to him to contribute by taxa-
tion to the national revenue, and the weight is placed
in that most inconvenient and oppressive mode by
which it cripples and exhausts the feeble, checking
the rapid progress of the strongest. Hence the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his annual exposition
on Friday night, is quite content, and his auditors
seem tolerably well satisfied to find, that the burde❑
is not so great as entirely to arrest the progress of
those who carry it; that another year has rolled
round, and still the charge-bearers move on, however
difficultly or however slowly, but as to increasing the
speed into a quick march, far less to run, he never
dreams of such a thing, whilst the idea of flying
would, of course, be quite chimerical.

When the labours of the Liverpool Financial Re-
form Association, and the attention of thoughtful
and inquiring minds upon the subject have been
carried to a sufficient extent; when a Minister of
Finance shall be found capable of comprehending the
question in all its bearings, one who could see that
powers of production almost infinite, when unre
stricted and under some modifications, are necessarily
limited and finite, under others, it will perhaps be
found, that the inconvenience of our present burthen
arises not from its ponderous and insupportable
weight, but from the mode in which it is imposed—
that the nation is in the situation of the army carry-
ing their knapsacks strapped about their heels, instead
of being borne upon their shoulders.
There are two sources, and only two sources
ready -,
from. which revenue can be obtained. From wealth
a'
produced—Capital, and from wealth in the
course of production—Labour. Those who have
advocated direct taxation instead of indirect have, we
think, usually erred in consideringderive revenue ; but
the former as the
to
only proper fund from which
we take a different view of the subject, and though
considering a system of direct taxation as superior to
indirect taxation as the knapsack on the back is to
the knapsack about the heels, yet deem it proper
that the whole weight of taxation should not be thrown
upon the real or accumulated property of the country,
and that labour should take a fair proportion of the
burden, because the functions of a Government are not
exclusively for the protection of the property of
the rich, but the protection of person—
the liberties and lives of all ; indeed, friendly
as we are known to be to free trale, we
believe there are many functions which have hitherto
been performed by individuals or companies which
could be more effectually and more economically
performed by the State for the well- being of
the entire population. Perhaps if it were proposed for
the first time, that a Government should commence
the business of common carriers, and convey our
newspapers and letters from one town to another, or
take up one province of banking, the transfer of money

" The Employment of the People and Capital of
Great Britain in our own Colonies, at the same time
assisting Emigration, Colonization, and P.nal Arrange-
ments, by undertaking the Construction of a great Na-
'tonal Railway between the Atlantic and Pacific, from
Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, to Frazer's River, New
Caledonia." By Major Robert Carmichael Smyth.
With two maps, Bvo., pp. 76. Metchim; London, 1849. ,

from one place to another, this might be considered
as stepping out of the latitude of a Government, an
interference with individual or private operations; and
that on the principles of free trade, or laissez faire, as
it is called by an eminent writer,* a Government
should hold entirely aloof; but it is difficult to con-
ceive that any private individuals, or public compa-
nies, who of course would subject different parts of
the island to different regulations as to carrying
letters, could accomplish the business of carrying
letters and newspapers, or paying money-
orders so systematically, and, as it regards
one of these two functions, at so little cost
to the public. Perhaps, if a Government
were to undertake the supply of gas, of water, and
other functions hitherto performed by individuals or
companies, there might be great advantages and eco-
nomy. In all these arrangements the welfare of the
entire community would be promoted—that of the la-
bourer as well as the capitalist; and the same is the
case with many functions at present performed by the
Government. Therefore, there is no reason that the
former should not contribute also; and even if the
present taxation takes too large a proportion from
labour and too small from capital, far better to con-
tinue the proportions as they at present exist, shifting
the burthen from the heels to the shoulders, rather
than consume time and energy in disputing whether a
larger portion shall be attached to the heels of one
man and a smaller portion to those of another.
Financial reformers lay great stress on economy,
and no doubt it is a very important element in a
national administration of funds, as well as in the
funds of a private individual, but we view an altera-
tion in the system of taxation as calculated to accom-
plish more for the relief of the tax-payer than the
most rigid economy could possibly do, even though
it realised the whole of Mr. COBDEN'S beau ideal of a
budget—ten millions per annum less than the existing
estimates.

The mode by which we conceive that the existing
burden would be borne with as much relative relief as
the knapsack on the back instead of the ankles,
is by the total abolition of all indirect taxes,
and the substitution of direct taxation exclusively.
Our Excise duties, our Customs duties, such important
branches of the revenue, are taxes upon consumption,
and here it is that the evil is so great. An indivi-
dual, a family, a large establishment are,perhaps, able,
and only just able, to bear up under the load, which
these imposts are, in addition to their assessed
taxes, parochial taxes, and income tax, if in the posi-
tion to contribute to these latter; but the effect of
the taxes upon articles of consumption, through Ex
cise and Customs, has the necessary tendency of
keeping in check and within restricted
bounds benefical consumption, and conse-
quently beneficial production, the source from
which additional supplies could be levied either in
relief of existing chargebearers, or to meet increased
public expenditure for beneficial public objects. Let
this be illustrated. Here is an individual, or a family,
or a class, which may be called the producing class,
and the case will be better illustrated by interpreting
the term producing class beyond those who exert
manual labour. Let it include those who bear a
share of the national burden, not paid out of accumu
lated capital, but from their industrial or professional
pursuits, the daily labourer, the mechanic, the artist,
the preceptor, the medical professor; all these may,
for the sake of illustration, be supposed capable of
bearing the quota of taxation which falls to their
share under the present allotment, although, doubt-
less, large numbers are from time to time driven
from their position. unable to maintain it, and
sink down into a lower grade, or seek a refuge in
emigration ; but if those able to maintain their posi-
tion add in any way to their consumption of articles
of daily and necessary consumption, they are imme-
diately the subjects of large additional taxation, and
thus it is that the great check is kept upon the vital
energies of the nation. If they marry, or, being mar-
ried, have additional children, or, whether married or
unmarried, add in any way to their establishment,
here is an immediate heavy penalty for the trans-
gression. More tea, more sugar, more coffee, greater
consumption of the necessaries of life, becomes the
source of additional taxation, and thus a continual
drag-chain is placed upon the energies of the nation.
A certain amount of revenue must be had; let it be
levied and collected. If on the present consumption

articles of daily use in the various grades of society,
the ratio bears as at present, let it be borne; but to
impose it in such a way as to prevent consumption
from doubling, quadrupling, or increasing in any
determinate degree, is manifestly impolitic and
injurious.

Consumption, necessary consumption, sustains life
and adds to the enjoyment of it, whilst the population
must necessarily be restricted to the means for sus-
taining it. Each individual must, in the aggregate
be considered a producer beyond his consumption:
No doubt there are numerous exceptions to this rule,
but as no wealth can be produced without a pro-
ducer, and as the clearest statistical facts show that
wealth is in a constant course of augmentation, not-
withstanding the daily consumption and the waste
and destruction from frequent wars, fires, ship-
wrecks, and other causes, if the producers did not
create more than they consume, this would not be the
case. To prevent the producing classes from in-
creasing their numbers by imposing a penalty on the
consumption of those things which go to sustain lite,
is manifestly injurious and impolitic ; whilst
to restrict the healthful enjoyment of life
from the moderate use of articles of daily
use cannot be advantageous. It may be
said there would be great practical difficul-
ties attending an alteration from a system of
indirect to direct taxation. Probably there might
be some difficulties. What is there which is unat-
tended with difficulties? But let the Minister or
the nation become thoroughly convinced of the
desirability, not to say absolute necessity, for the
charge, and the difficulties may be easily sur-
mounted. On a future occasion we may, perhaps,
adduce some of the difficulties which are advanced,
and the mode by which they may be obviated.

* Thomas Carlyle.

COURTS-MARTIAL.—The melancholy case of Mr.
Douglas, late captain of the 16th Regiment—a case
upon the glaring injustice, of which we have twice
pronounced our opinion, namely, on the 11th of May
and on the 221 of June—is beginning to force itself
on the attention of those whose duty it is in such
cases of error to demand a revision of the sentence.
In our legal contemporary, the Jurist, of Saturday,
we observe an elaborate criticism upon this singular
trial and its defence. The conclusion drawn from an
impartial examination of the facts by the Jurist—one
of the first organs of the legal profession—is, that the
finding of the court was grossly opposed to the prin-
ciples of justice, and was pronounced in direct defi-
ance of the evidence. The whole criticism consti-
tutes a striking professional corroboration of the views
expressed by ourselves in our article of the previous
evening. On Saturday moreover, there appeared in
the United Service Gazette, the following announce-
ment:—" We have heard hat Mr. Warren has de-
clared his intention of never again attending a court-
martial as an advocate, unless the constitution of
these courts be essentially altered." Should this re-
port prove correct, the military profession will have
lost in him a fearless and faithful friend. It will be
observed with some interest, from an announcement
contained in our advertising columns, that an address
Warmreenitais
t upont the subject of Mr. Douglas and his severe
himself—the
preparing for publication, by Mr.
ourtheisrldress being in the form of a
letter offerer]the
et Gracious Sovereign. From
peculiar curiosity.
of the pamphlet
a variety of reasons,
tho soefcl to
will be looked for with
M. LEDMT ROLLIN.—WhiIe wcuerlaorsietT:
contradict the statement that the Leuadern
Mountain is at present residing at the sablouiere
Hotel, the opinion is very generally believed that
this celebrated Republican is now living in our me-
tropolis. The circumstance of his escaping in the
disguise of a servant is corroborated by a detailed
statement to that effect in the Salut Publifue of Lyons.l

UTILITY OF THE TELEGRAPH.—Yesterday morn-
ing a plea,ure trip left Birmingham for Lincoln, with
about 3 000 persons; a few hours afterwards great ex-
citement was cause d in the former town by a report that
an accident had c.lcurred, and that 500 persons were
killed. The railway station was instantly besieged by
anxious inquirers; the electric telegraph was mime,-
diately called in aid, and in a few minutes intelligence
was received that the whole party had arrived sately in
Lincoln. The report of such an accident seems to have
been a most cruel hoax.
Lord and Lady Jan Russell had a dinner party on
Saturday, at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park. The
company included the Marquis and Marchioness of
Douglas, Lord Melgund, Lady Charlotte Elliot, and Mr.
Landseer.

EVIPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

(THIS i AY.)

HOUSE OF COMMONS.
The SPEAKER took the Chair shortly after Twelve
o'clock.

THIRD READING.

The Eastern Counties and Norfolk Railways Amalga-
mation Bill was read a third time and passed.
CONSIDERATION OF REPOR fS.
The reports upon the following Bills were considered
and agreed to:—
Airdrie Police and Municipal Bill.
Great Northern Railway (Amendment of Acts, De-
viations and Enlargements at and near Boston, Bentley,
Lincoln, and King's-cross) Bill.
Holme Reservoirs (Increase of Rates and Amendment
of Act—No. 2) Bill.
Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway Acts Amend-
ment, Branches, and Deviations Bill.
Stirling and Dunfermline Railway (Deviation of
Branch to Allua Harbour; Diversion of certain Works;
Extension of Time for completing Line and taking
Land; and Amendment of Acts) Bill.
PETITIONS.

Mr. HENLEY presented several petitions from places
in Bedfordshire, praying that an enactment might be
passed to prevent trading in prostitution, and for the
protection of virtuous women.
Similar petitions were presented from other places.

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