The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-29 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 29, 1847.

The public attention has seldom been directed to a
subject of greater importance, or of deeper interest to
all classes of the people, than that which was last
night brought before the House of Commons by Mr,
EWART. The question as to the manner in which
the revenue of the country shall be collected ;
by what means the enormous sums annually
payable for interest on our national debt shall
be provided, and the heavy expenditure neces-
sary for the support of our national establish-
ments, for the efficient working of our military,
naval, and civil services, satisfactorily defrayed,
involves considerations of no ordinary magnitude. It
is not merely a question respecting the continuance
or abrogation, the increase or reduction, of any par-
ticular item of taxation, by which any particular class
may be unduly affected by which their trade may
be restricted, their industry paralysed. It is not
alone what branch of our trade or commerce
shall first be relieved from its burdens,
and freed from the restrictions by which it has
hitherto been fettered, No ; it introduces a still
wider field from which no man, or body of men, in
the empire is excluded, in which every British
subject must be interested. We believe that, hitherto,
the just principles of taxation have been grievously
misunderstood ; that the great body of the people
have been forced to contribute more than their fair
proportion to the national burdens ; that they have
been thereby prevented from attaining the position
and enjoying the comforts to which their unceasing
industry, their skill, and energy entitle them. We
believe that they are forced to bear burdens which
have unfairly been transferred to them from other
quarters, on which, in equity, they ought to fall ; and
we believe that transfer to be not only unjust in prin-
ciple, but impolitic in practice; to be not only in-
equitable, but inexpedient, and injurious alike to the
persons improperly charged, and to those for whose
especial benefit the system was invented and brought
into use. Every motive, therefore, demands that the
prompt and speedy attention, as well of the Legis
lature as of the public generally, should be di-
rected to this topic, and Mr. EWART, in bringing it
forward at the time and in the manner he has done,
has entitled himself to the public thanks and the
public gratitude.

We do not desire that there should be any crude
or hasty legislation on the point. We are better
pleased that the House expressed no opinion last
night. All that Mr. EWART could have wished for
was attained by the discussion that took place. His
views are brought fairly before the country, and before
the time when a Parliamentary discussion can be called
for an appeal will be made to that country. The people
will be called on to exercise the great constitutional
privileges entrusted to their possession ; they will
be required to elect representatives by whom their
wants and wishes shall be conveyed to the Senate. It
will be the especial duty of those representatives to
decide on the amount of taxation, and the manner in
which it shall be levied. It would scarcely be fitting
that, at the latter end of the last session of a Parlia-
ment that has already been prolonged beyond the
ordinary period, when it is universally known that its
dissolution will be announced within a few weeks, a
• change of such importance should be decided on. The
people may judge for themselves, and it is proper that
they should do so. No man should exercise the fran-
chise before he elicits the views of the aspirant for
senatorial honours on the subject. No man should be
sent to St. Stephen's as a mere delegate to give certain
votes, which no circumstances would justify him in
altering. The voter should be careful to select a man
of ability and integrity, whose views generally har-
monise with his own, and in whom he can repose
confidence ; who will be competent to express those
views, and who will not be influenced by any
undue or corrupt motives. In the very commencement
of the new Parliament it will be indispensably neces-
sary for the House to take into their consideration
the continuance of the income-tax, and incidentally
the policy of a direct or indirect system of taxation.
The first duty, therefore, of every possessor of the
elective franchise will be to form his own opinions on
this great question, and to ascertain those of the can-
didates before he gives his vote, and it will be the
duty of the public journalist fairly and impartially to
discuss such points as may enable his readers to come
to a correct conclusion, to form a sound opinion
thereon.

After the desolation of many dismal months pros-
pects are generally and visibly brightening. Every-
thing of a national character promises to be very
shortly reinvigorated. There is a prospect of a speedy
dissolution of Parliament, and consequently there
will be a new and reorganized representation of the
different constituencies. The advantages of this
alteration are obvious ; the political aspirations of the
multitude will be afforded an opportunity of being
conspicuously indicated at the different county and
borough hustings. A renewal of understandings be-
tween the candidates and electors will cement into
one concrete mass the somewhat joltered and sepa-
rated sentiments of the million. The Members will
return to St. Stephen's, not the jaded legislators of
six or seven sessions, but the refreshed re-
presentatives of a new and vigorous Par-
liament. Beyond this, the vegetable kingdom
affords every reasonable hope of a termination to our
prolonged sorrows from the deficiency of provisions.
With a continuance of the present brilliant weather
the crops must prove of unusual fruitfulness and ex-
cellence, and with a rational modification in the pre-
sent fallacious arrangement of the Currency, the
Money Market may be restored to its previous
activity and stability. In our manufacturing
affairs, moreover, employment must be afforded
in abundance immediately credit money is re-
stored to its original value, for the orders
received from foreign purchasers have continued
throughout our late involvements of unusual ex-
tent and frequency. The result of all these unex-
pected changes must manifestly be the restoration
of a happy and profitable industry to the empire.
What may we not, therefore, anticipate for the sister
island?

Now that " the light of the nation is extinguished,"
riDw that the great man in whose personal career the
history of Ireland, during the last half century, has
been embodied, lies in funereal pomp in the cathedral
of Genoa, there is every reason to look forward to the
probable futurity of his native land with a more than
ordinary solicitude. In the decease of DANIEL
O'CONNELL it is impossible to perceive anything but
a grievous and irreparable calamity to that country
which he served with all the resources of his vast and
prolific genius, and with the whole ardour of his
gigantic and irrepressible energy. With a marvellous
profundity in legal erudition ; with a loyalty that
survived all the turmoils of popular agitation ; with
a patriotism that occupied the whole of his capacious
&art without diminishing by one tittle the fervency of
his domestic a affections ; with a moral perseverance
physical determination that were the
wonder and admirationth even of his opponents;
awuidtliitoarns
lei
keg' ut
he ne
el
::e.r eatha it nswayed the passions of his
ugh all the phases of
pence that alternated gtshroof
Indiction of the
ntsoonaetiemeetisv9' some-
an AVATAR— an elo-
quence
up
theevwelhling
spiritual emotion and all theu
rhetorician, sometimes blazing
times soaring into the majestic,
in the humorous, sometimes turnin
whole
soul with the language of irresistible pathos
DANIEL O'CONNELL was in a peculiar manner fitted
to direct the mind of a nation, and to conduct there
along the paths of the law to extraordinary
social reformations. That is his peculiar glory ;
that is the glory which will perpetuate