The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-09 00:00:00

111 aint
11Jrni

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1849.

The Honourable Member for Buckinghamshire has
come forward as a financial reformer. We have now
the DISRAELI budget, which should be placed in
juxtaposition and considered simultaneously with
those which had previously been promulgated by
ConnEN, MACGREGOR, and RIGBY WASON.
It will be for the public to say which of these pro-
jects, it carried into execution, would be best calcu..
lated to effect " the greatest good for the greatest
number;" for that, after all, is the question to be de-
cided. We have already expressed our opinions on
the several propositions previously submitted. We shall
now consider the plan so eloquently opened to the
House last night, with its comparative advantages and
disadvantages.
TYtere are two points of view in which every fiscal

question must be regarded. The justice and expe- I
diency of the proposed or the ex'lstin,.. .`
he consiiered. How fur cao it Le fairly levied .4.
the parties made responsible ? Should it be borne
by them exclusively ? or should any other, and what,
classes participate in the burden ? In order to come
to a correct conclusion on these points—to enable
ourselves to return trustworthy answers, the purposes
to which the proceeds of the tax are to be applied
must be inquired pinto, and it must be ascertained
what class or classes of the community will.;be prin-
cipally benefited thereby.
Under ordinary circamstances the abstract princi-
ple of the justice of the charge should prove decisive.
However desirable in other respects, no mere consi-
deration of policy or expediency could justify a deli-
berate wrong, but, unfortunately, some degree of
injustice must be committed. Every impost pos.
sesses more or less inequality. Taxation in any shape
is not a blessing, but still it is a necessary evil. We
must satisfy the claims of the public creditor, however
onerous and burdensome they may prove. We
must provide for the efficiency of our national estab-
lishments, for the administration of justice, and the
repression of crime—in fact, for all purposes tending
to the protection of our lives, our liberties, and our
properties, and which enable us to enjoy the greatest
degree of freedom consistent with the interests of
society in general. We must consent, then, to con-
tribute to the national burdens in proportion to our
means, to bear our portions of the general charges.
It is the tribute we pay to society for the various
advantages we derive from being admitted as
members of the body politic. We surrender
a certain portion of our natural liberties in order that
we may obtain the fullest guarantees for the preser-
vation of the remainder, and, among other points, we
concede to the governing body, chosen by the general
assent of society, the privilege of taxation, which
they are entitled to levy for the general good.
It will then become a question of relative equities
between the different classes. One description of
taxation may perhaps press too heavily on one section
of the community ; but it may be compensated by
another, from which they may be com-
paratively exempted, and which will fall
almost exclusively upon their neighbours.
The great end and object of financial reformers should
be, so to regulate the various charges that every in-
dividual should contribute as nearly as possible in
proportion to his means, that the burden should be
distributed according to the ability of those required
to sustain it. That is not, and cannot be the case
under the present mode of replenishing the national
Exchequer. Indirect taxation is essentially and ne-
cessarily unjust in principle and unequal in operation,
and matters can never be placed upon an equitable and
satisfactory footing until there be a complete and
radical alteration in the entire system.
Now, the propositions just brought forward by the
eloquent and witty Member for Buckinghamshire
apply but to a very small portion of the social griev-
ance. He offers no great or comprehensive remedy
for the acknowledged evil—he would not even remove
the malt-tax or the tax on hops, although he recog-
nises the injury thereby inflicted upon the agricultu-
ral interest, whose especial champion he professes
himself to be. His motion is exclusively directed
against the local burdens which press with peculiar
weight, not merely on the agriculturists, properly so
called, but on the owners of real property
generally, including shopkeepers, manufacturers, in
fact, householders of every description ; on railways,
factories, iron works, and other species of property
that have no connexion whatever with farms or far-
mers. He demonstrated clearly and incontrovertibly
the injustice of levying those rates on one description
of property only, of assessing the amount on one-
fourth of the property of the entire kingdom, while
the remaining three-fourths were exempted from the
charge. We agree to the fullest extent with the
Honourable Gentleman that there is no
earthly reason why the entire property, not
merely of a district, but of the entire
country should not be liable for at least the majority
of these charges. There would undoubtedly be con
siderable difficulty in taxing the personal property in
a locality for local purposes. Innumerable controver-
sies would arise, and much vexatious and expensive
litigation would be the result. It would be invidious
and inquisitorial, perhaps impossible. But these
difficulties would be completely obviated by taxing it
wheresoever situate for the general purposes of
the nation, including therein those local charges
which the Hon. Gentleman clearly proved were for
national objects, such as the support of the poor,
the punishment of criminals, &c. Indeed the in-
justice of making the sums levied for those objects
merely local rates, was never more forcibly exposed
than in the course of his brilliant oration.
The remedy proposed was, however, by no means
equivalent to the extent of the grievance. Mr.
DISRAELI suggests " that the present system of local
administration remaining, the present levy of rates
continuing, the local districts shall be responsible for
one moiety of this taxation, and that the other moiety
shall be contributed from the Consolidated Fund."
This conclusion is not worthy of the arguments
advanced by the Honourable Gentleman. He said,
" I know of no reason el priori why the mainte-
nance of the poor should be the duty of a locality."
Why, then, suffer half the burden to remain—why
not equalize the tax throughout the entire king-
dom, abolish the law of settlement, and permit the
poor man to bring his only capital, his labour, to
the best market. All the objectionable points of
the sytem would be continued, and no advantage
would be derived by any. These charges, perhaps,
to some extent form portions of the compensating
principle to which we have already alluded. The
entire system, then, should be taken into considera-
tion, that all may be legislated on fairly and

Thanks to the Noble Viscount the Member for
Hertford, the Government was last evening afforded
an opportunity of explaining their intentions in re-
gard to convict discipline and the system of trans-
portation. Often as Sir GEORGE GREY, in the
House of Commons, has elucidated the views enter-
tained by her MAJESTY'S advisers upon the embar-
rassing and almost problematic difficulties of this
vexata questio—often as Earl GREY, in the House
of Lords, has endeavoured to extricate his ideas upon
the subject from the obscurity of his indecision, the
matter has preserved to the country, and even
to the Parliament, the darkness of an in-
scrutable enigma. That the Cabinet should
have hesitated, and deliberated, and wavered upon a
point of so much delicacy and importance cannot be
surprising to any one who is at all acquainted with
the dangers and obstructions that have to be either
avoided or overcome in the great science of criminal
jurisprudence When the over-population of our
penal settlements was borne in mind, it was ma-
nifest that an end, at least for a while, must be
put to transportation. When the hideous crimes
and atrocities prevalent in such terrestrial hells
as Norfolk Island was learnt with dismay in
the mother country, it became self-evident
that some modification of the system adopted in the
treatment of those wretched criminals had grown into
an imperative necessity—a necessity forced upon our
rulers by considerations of economy, of policy, of
morality, of decency, and of religion. When the
enormous sums expended in the punishment of those
who had broken the laws of the land or of Gon were
correctly estimated, it was clear that some scheme
must be contrived to effect a retrenchment in that
extravagant expenditure, and especially at a time
when economy, economy, economy was becoming
the watch-word of agitation. Every reflection im-
pelled the Ministry to reconsider the whole system of
the country in reference to the repression,of crime,
or to the chastisement of crimina!s, in order that
some improvements might be introduced whereby
the outlay would be diminished, the penal settlements
proportionately populated, the bulks rendered
less
liable to propagate disease, and the prisons to pro-
pagate infamy ; by which, moreover, the convicts
might be gradually tempted into habits of industry and
ultimately become reclaimed to a reputable, if not
to a virtuous, existence. Incited by these wishes,
and driven on by this necessity, the Government
made certain alterations in the treatment of the per-
sons under sentence of transportation or imprison-
ment. The former punishment was mitigated in
some quarters, and in others altogether (or at least
for the time) abolished. The latter was subjected
to a variety of humane experiments. Among these

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