The Sun.
London, England, 1849-07-30 00:00:00

114'r latning glut

LONDON, MONDAY, JULY 30, 1849.

A strict and searching inquiry is about to take
place into all the circumstances of the late unfortunate
collision at Dolly's Brae, on the 12th instant. An
eminent Queen's Counsel has been deputed to conduct
the investigation, so that there is every reason to
hope that the higher class delinquents, those who fos-
tered the evil passions and religious animosities of
their humbler brethren, will not escape scathless.
The true causes of the deplorable transaction will be
fully ascertained, and the conduct of the guilty
parties held up to well-merited reprobation. It is
not by inflicting exemplary punishment on the
humble offenders who have been already captured,
and who are now awaiting their trials, that the law
can be adequately vindicated ; they cannot, of
course, be allowed to escape scot free,
that
such an
i
or permitted to suppose
outrage could be committed with mpunity, but a
minor punishment, accompanied by an unequivocal
intimation that more stringent penalties would be re-
sorted to on all future occasions, might be sufficient
at present. A. sound discrimination must also be
exhibited in measuring the degrees of guilt of the dif-
ferent parties. Proper distinctions must be made be-
tween those who deliberately and advisedly endan-
gered the public peace, who, armed with deadly
weapons, assembled together for the purpose of in-
sulting and alarming their neighbours, and between
others whose excited passions, and perhaps in some
degree well-grounded apprehensions, led them into
crime.

It is deeply to be regretted that the salutary
law prohibiting party processions of every de-
scription has been suffered to expire. It is
impossible to calculate the serious consequences occa-
sioned by these ridiculous and most impolitic exhibi-
tions. It is not merely the injury to person or pro-
perty that occurs during the conflicts that almost
invariably take place. True it is, that blood is fre-
quently shed, lives lost, and shocking wounds inflicted.
Houses too are plundered and destroyed, as on the
late occasion, and heads of families consigned to a

prison, while their helpless wives and children are re-
duced to the verge of destitution, during the punish-
ment of the husband and father. But these evils, la-
mentable as they undoubtedly are, constitute the least
part of the mischief. A spirit of deadly hatred is en-
gendered ; an anxious desire for revenge ex-
cited, in place of living in love and
harmony, and labouring together for the good
of their common country. No opportunity is neg-
lected that affords a reasonable chance of exhibiting
their animosity or wreaking vengeance the one upon
the other. The feeling excited on the 12th of July
survives throughout the entire year; and many fierce
dissensions, bitter quarrels, and faction fights owe
their origin to the party processions, that cast a stain
upon the otherwise fair fame of the northern pro-
vinces.

It was not, unfortunately, on one day in the year or
by one party only that these objectionable demon-
strations were made. If the Orange flag was ex-
hibited on the Ist or 12th of July, or on the sth of
November, the green flag was also paraded on St. Pa-
trick's-day or St. Peter's-eve. Numerous opportuni-
ties were taken advantage of to exhibit hatred and
defiance of the opposite party, for that, in fact, was
the real intent and object of these party processions.
It was not to celebrate a bygone triumph, the results
of which had long previously passed away ; it was
not to observe a religious ceremony, or a national
fete ; but it was to provoke their neighbours, to
excite fear and alarm, and to produce those sangui-
nary riots that have been so justly complained of,
and the bitter remembrance of which was handed
down from father to son, through successive genera-
tions. There can be little doubt that such assem-
blages were illegal and punishable under the common
law, without any express statute in relation thereto ;
but the ignorant and misguided multitude could not
be persuaded thereof. They were accustomed to
see such exhibitions not merely tolerated but
even encouraged by parties who were entrusted
with the commission of the peace, and who ought
to have known better. If any parties were brought to
trial, it was for an assault, cr, perhaps, more formidable
outrages growing out of the transaction, cud not for
having merely joined in the procession ; •
hence
could not but believe that they ,re fu1.13
I,v ju l' fi e they
ein
yielding to their own desire a
ngmi,nh
oarinnitseorn.
the appointed day, believing
dtbaapj appearing
those
fered with their proceedings, or opposed their pro-
gress, would be the real aggressors. And this opinion
was entertained by both parties, and could not be
eradicated from their minds. The Processions Act
however, dispelled this illusion ; it rendered the
joining in such a demonstration an offence)
per se, subjecting the persons convicted
thereof to severe punishment. It therefore had the
most beneficial effect in that respect. Besides it was
a general enactment, prohibiting every species of pro-
cession, and giving no triumph to any party ; it
was, therefore, the more readily obeyed by all. When,
however, it was permitted to expire, it was supposed
that the Government no longer desired to put down
processions, and that they became legal on the
cessation of the law by which they were expressly
forbidden. Whatever may be the effect of the com-
mon law, those processions will never be effectually
suppressed until the statute be re-enacted and
perpetuated. We believe that there would be
no opposition to a Bill for that purpose
in either branch of the Legislature, but that it would
be passed with perfect unanimity through all its
stages, and that it would not prolong the session by
even a single day. We regret that the Government
should have thought differently, and decided on post-
poning legislation until next year. We trust, how-
ever, that it may be one of the first measures brought
under the notice of Parliament next session, and that
in the meantime it may be clearly and unequivocally
intimated to the local magistrates that any illegal
conduct on either side, or any breach of the common
law, will be punished with the utmost rigour and
severity.

We recently pointed out the intimate connexion
existing between the great question of monetary,
fiscal, and financial reform. Any legislation on one
of these subjects, unless accompanied by great and
comprehensive changes in the others, would be utterly
inadequate to meet the wants and wishes of the people.
We showed that great reductions might nominally be
made in the amount of taxation, without any real re •
lief being afforded to the nation by reason of a con-
temporaneous contraction of the circulating medium,
which would more than neutralise the advantages to
be derived from measures of economy and retrench-
ment. The mode of taxation is also of
no. less importance than its amount; so long
as the present unjust and impolitic system of
indirect taxation be retained, there can never be a
complete or satisfactory adjustment of the great
questions at issue between the people and their rulers.
The Liverpool Reform Association, to whom the
honour is due of having originated the movement that
has since made such extraordinary progress in the
public mind, and whose valuable tracts have so fully
and completely exposed the malversation and pecula-
tion existing in many of our national establishments,
fully participate in this opinion. In the report of the
committee, read at the annual meeting of the society,
the following remarkable passages may be found :
" Important as the reduction of expenditure un-
doubtedly is, and easy of accomplishment, if honestly
attempted, as the exposure of the wanton, wilful, and
reckless waste of public money, made in our tracts,
clearly shows it to be, yet if reduction of expenditure is
to be the only aim and limit of the labours of financial
reformers, it will infinitely fall short of the requirements
of the country's need, and, as such, will not be worth the
efforts and sacrifices necessary for its attainment.
" A reduction once effected—and more especially if
sufficiently large to satisfy public demands, and thereby
lessen its vigilance—can be easily and gradually, and
very imperceptibly, replaced by increased expenditure,
which may again become ruinous before any further
adequate public opinion can be brought again to bear on
its reductions, as witness the increase of present expen-
diture as compared with that of the years 1832, 1833,
1834, and 1835, unless some permanent and self-acting
check be introduced. Hence the necessity of what we
consider to b'e the most important object of our Asso-
ciation, viz., the substitution of direct for indirect
taxation."

1 These are truths that should be maturely and
seriously considered by the people. So long as the
national revenue is levied by means of indirect im-
posts, so long as an undue share of the national bur-
dens and the national expenditure is levied upon the
wages of industry, so long as every man is not
taxed secundum statum et facultates, according to
his means and the stake he possesses in the country,
so long will there be a renewal of the lavish and pro-
fligate expenditure so justly complained of, whenever
agitation shall subside, and the popular mind cease to
be disturbed. The only effectual check that can
be imposed will be the effecting a total alteration of
our fiscal system, which, by making every subject of
the realm contribute directly in proportion
to his powers to ~ the national expenditure,
will supply sufficient inducement to make him care-
fully watch over the public purse, and indignantly
denounce any wanton extravagance—it will, to use
the impressive language of the committee, provide
the only " permanent and self-acting check" that can
be obtained.

Unless this change of system can be effected the
principles of free trade can never be carried cut in
all their integrity. The imposts that are levied for
the purposes of revenue interfere with our trade and
commerce, and restrict consumption as much as if they
had been imposed for the sake of protection, although
the abolition, or we should rather say, the reduction
of the duties on commodities, were productive of the
most beneficial results. Still it was but a step in
the right direction, a means towards an end, and not
the end itself. It only relieved the people of one of
many burdens. Its chief
ov f on almuewopoasly. It affirmed
that i t gave a
death-blow to the principle
the great doctrine that "the mat hnytt doctrine is still
a should not be taxed
for the benefit of the few;" but
practically acted on whenever the burdens that in
equity and justice should only fall on accumulated
and realised property are suffered to press upon the
wages of industry. It is true, that corn constitutes
the chief necessary of life for the working classes,
and that the tax thereon was of all others that which
it was most desirable to abolish. But there is the
highest authority for saying, that " it is not good for
man to live on bread alone," and custom has rendered
many articles to which we have been long habituated
comforts with which we could not dispense without the
greatest inconvenience,but these are still heavily--
taxed.
The hardworking sempstress is still compelled to pay
800 or 900 per cent. on the tea that enables her to
keep her eyea open to perform her almost incessant

toil. Sugar, " the corn of the tropics," still pays
enormous duties in proportion to its original value.
The bricklayer's labourer must pay four times the
cost price of his pot of beer or porter, on account of
the malt and hop tax, and if he solaces himself
during the interval of labour with a pipe of Indian
weed, the expense is increased tenfold by the exorbi-
tant impost, that not only checks consumption, but
produces smuggling and frauds on the revenue, and
demoralizes numbers of our people, who are thus in.
duced to become habitual violators of the law.

Here, then, we find the multitude paying
the great bulk of the national taxation on
what have become actual necessaries of ex-
istence, while our trade with China, with the
sugar and tobacco growing countries, still remains
undeveloped, and that impulse is withheld that would
be afforded to our manufactures, by an increased
consumption of those commodities, and an increased
"purchasing power" in the producers. Nay, even
British industry is discouraged by the malt and hop
taxes, which impose additional and most unequal and
partial burdens on our own farmers, and practically
check employment. All these imposts should be
totally and for ever abolished. The national expen-
diture should be defrayed solely by imposing equal
burdens on every subject in proportion to his means;
and we may conclude in the impressive language
of the Council of the Association :—" A permanent
reduction of expenditure, and a completely liberated
commerce with free industry, therefore imperatively
demand, as the very basis of their existence, Direct
Taxation."