The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-26 00:00:00

majority at all, but were very signally defeated, and the
majority was all the other way. The Conservative candi-
dates were not all rejected in London, but on the con-
trary they gained two seats formerly held by Whig-
Radicals, and were witbin ten vows of gaining a third,
Lord John Russell was not returned at the head of the
poll, but at the tail, and the first place was gained by a
Conservative. Encouraged by this success in prophecy,
and priding itself (for the reasons above-stated) in the
accliracy of its information,.the Whig-Radical press now
acquaints the public with the divisions which exist in
the Conservative ranks, and the total impossibility
(owing to these`divisions) that Sir Robert Peel should
be able to carry on the' Government. We have no
doubt that the prophecies of the Whig Journals as to
the impossibilities of Sir R. Peel's Government will be
confirmed by the event, in quite as marked a manner as
their election prophecies have been.
ADVERTISER.—" To, facilitate the operations of
trade, and to provide for the necessities of the public ser-
vice in the manner least burdensome to the community,"
says the Times, "are objects which recommend them-
selves so plainly to the ordinary sense of mankind, that no
Minister, however stupid, could avoid appreciating them,
or however dishonest, could have any motive for disre-
garding them." This proposition seems to be so self-
evident, that no one could attempt to dispute it; and yet
the whole and every part of our fiscal system is in utter
contradiction to it. To facilitate the operations of trade,
taxes have been levied upon every commodity re-
quired for manufacturing purposes ; to provide for
the necessities of the public service in a manner least
burdensome to the community, a system of taxation
has been adopted which falls with a crushing weight
upon the great mass of the people, and requires a
most complicated and costly machinery to carry it out !
The proposed revision of the duties upon corn, sugar,
and timber, has once more turned public attention to
this subject ; but much as the mischievous incidence of
these and other duties may
.have been talked about, and
loudly as the aristocratic spirit of the whole of our fiscal
system may have been condemned, there is scarcely one
person in a thousand who has a just conception of their
real character and tendency. There are few, indeed,
who have any notion of the real amount of thel taxes
levied upon the British public. " Of the fifty nalions
of taxes imposed upon the British public," says a
Manchester Contemporary, " at least forty millions are
paid by the poor ; ' as though the sum of fifty
millions—enormous as it is—were to be deemed a fair
representation of the amount of taxes levied in the
United Kingdom. The last published finance accounts
give the net receipt, within the year ending the sth of
January, 1841, at 51,693,510/. 7s. 91d. But it must not
be imagined that these figures represent the gross amount
of British taxation. They represent scarcely one-half
of it, as the following summary will show :
Net income, as per finance account £51,693,510
Poor rates, county rates, highway rates,

- -
church rates - 7,542,703
Revenues of the Churches of England, Ire-
land,
and Scotland 11,500,000

Total amount of taxes £70,736,213
But to these must be added the artificial price of com-
modities. occasioned by the Corn-laws, and other du-
ties levied, not to raise a public revenue, but to favour
certain classes of society. The following may be taken,
upon the authority of the beat judges, as a fair re]re •
sentation of the cost of the monopolies of the United
Kingdom, as paid for out of the pockets of the people :
Wheat and other corn
Other articles of food 5,000,000
Colonial products
Bank of England

Total cost of monopolies £42,000,000
Making the grand total of direct and indirect taxes,
112,736.213/. This is as near an approximation to the
truth as the data within reach will enable us to come at.
That it is not an exaggerated view of the subject, in any
' single item, we are prepared to demonstrate ; and not
less so, that enormous as is the sum thus annually taken
out of the pockets of the public, for the service of the
State, and the aggrandisement of particular interests,
there is a sum, almost equal to it in amount, lost to the
public by the process through which our present taxes
are levied. The evils of the whole system are, in fact,
almost incredible. Had it been devised for the express
purpose of working injury to the public, it could not
have been more skilfully framed to answer that pur-
pose. It is complicated, costly, and detrimental to
the best interests of commerce ; it presses with a crushing
weight upon the poor, without exempting the rich ; and
it exposes the Government to obloquy and reproach,
without adequately providing for the exigencies of the
country. We purpose, as occasion offers, to exhibit and
illustrate these propositions. Whoever may be intrusted
with the administration of public affairs will find this to
be a topic with which he must very speedily grapple, and
it will be as well to familiarise the public with some of its
details, that they may be the better prepared to pass
judgment upon any reform proposed for its amendment.
GLOBE.—The ceremonial of opening the New Parlia-
ment this day, to which public expectation has been
directed with an intensity unequalled since the assembling
of the first Parliament under the Reform Bill, was unac-
companied by the presence of the Sovereign. The Speech
delivered by the Lords Commissioners is, however,
emphatically the Queen's Speech. It contains (so far
as the forms of the Constitution will allow them to be
conveyed to Parliament in such a document) the senti-
ments of the Sovereign on the important questions which
constitute the points of disagreement between the mono-
polists and the masses—between the Tories and the Go-
vernment. The former, as the price of their pledged
adhesion to the monopolists, have been borne to the
threshhold of office on their shoulders. The Govern-
ment, which is about to relinquish office, because unable,
against the combined influences of the class interests, to
carry out its measures for the relief of the masses from
the accumulated evils of monopoly, retires possessed
of the unabated confidence of the Sovereign. The
Queen has invariable identified herself with her people—
and never more so than now, when accumulated suf
fering presses upon thousands of her poorer subjects—
when the branches of industry on which they depend
for subsistence are withered by the blighting influence
of an " insane and selfish policy," which, under pretence
of " protecting" one class, plunders the great body of
the nation. If there were cot found sufficient reasons in
the present delicate and interesting condition of the
Queen for her Majesty's absence from the opening
of Parliament, it would be 'by no means difficult to
suggest others, the probability of which would give
them the semblance of truth. Her Majesty might well,
even in the best possible health, and if not in a
condition which would render strong emotions peri-
lous—under any circumstances, her Majesty would be
desirous of avoiding the pain of knowing that measures
which are essential to the prosperity of the empire, and
which are, therefore, pressed on the consideration of Par-
liament as matters of the highest concern to the people,
and, therefore, of paramount interest to the Sovereign.
and as such recommended by her to the earnest con-
sideration of Parliament—that those measures have been
condemned by a majority of the representatives of the na-
tion at the hustings—that pledges to prevent such mea-
sures becoming law, so far as their votes against them
in the Commons' House could prevent their enactment,
were the conditions on which they obtained the support
of the class-interests, by whose combined influences
they were sent -thither—that, consequently, the intro-
duction of those important topics in the Royal Speech
would prove abortive for any practical relief to the
country. Such an allusion to the distresses of the
people, their causes, and the means of removing
them, could only be of value, as it would enable her Ma-
jesty's Ministers to obtain a discussion of such measures;
and also set before the country the interesting and
instructive fact, that the Queen's heart is not with her
people ; and that, if their sufferings are not relieved, it
is because the combined influence of the monopolists,
which have made common cause with the Tories for the
preservation of their Mammon interests, have proved too
strong for the Queen and the people,—that the former
must, therefore, submit to have a Ministry forced upon
her, in which she can have no confidence , and the in-
terests of the latter must, for a time, at least, be
postponed.

_ .
STANDARD.—The Queen's Message will be de-
livered to-day. At the time of writing we are neces-
sarily ignorant of its details ; and as the document itself
will probably be in our readers' hands in company with
our remarks, it must be rash and idle to attempt to anti-
cipate these details. One essential and very striking
difference must, however, distinguish this Address
from all openinc, sessional addresses that have
been delivered since the Revolution. This difference
pa rt at least,
th the Crown
reproachful.to the Such
Parliament results from the anomalous po:ition of the Ministry. The
Address must be apologetical, argumentative, and, in
a
declaration
theo peoplef hosti-
lities
is without precedent in any age of British liberty, and it
i 3 directly opposed to the fundamental principles
of the British Constitution ; but it is the un-
avoidable consequence of the crime of Ministers, in
retaining office in defiance of a vote of Parliament,
and presuming to meet a notoriously adverse Parlia-
ment still in the capacity of Ministers. According to
constitutional usage, the Royal Address is confined
to a succinct report of the state of the nation in its fo-
reign and domestic relations, and to an exposition of the
measures
to be supported by the authority of the
which Ministers design afterwards to propose,
as measures
Go-
vernment ; but a Ministry that appears upon the stage
only to withdraw from it cannot deliver such a message.A Ministry so circumstanced
can only compromise
the honour a nddignityofthe Crown by alluding at all to
a future over which it has no control, or prospect of con-
trol. This is a more serious matter than may at first
sight appear. It is very true that the Royal Address is
only the Address of the Ministers ; but it must
be understood as conveying in some degree tae im-
mediate or the mediate wishes of the Sovereign_
the immediate wishes where the Ministry possesses the
full confidence of the Sovereign—the mediate wishes
where the Sovereign submits to retain a Ministry not pos-
sessing that confidence, in compliance with the desire of
the Parliament. In the one case the Sovereign expresses
wishes actually entertained ; in the other wishes adopted
in a spirit of conciliation. A wise and loyal Ministry
will be slow to make the Sovereign solemnly' express
wishes, however sincerely entertained, if they are
not likely to be complied with ; because a refusal to
comply always carries more or less an indignity,
and the honour of the Crown is always impaired by
a want of cordial support from the Parliament
and people. But none except the most stupid or
disloyal of advisers will ever place in the mouth of the
Sovereign demands in which that Sovereign takes no
interest ; which it is known must be refused ; and
which can therefore have no other effect than to
create an appearance of disunion between the Sove-
reign and the Parliament. This is in effect wantonly
to drag the Crown through the mire of a defeat wan-
tonly courted. Still no other course is open to the
Queen's advisers in their present position: they must
make, in the Queeu's name, demands which they
know will be refused, and which they know will be
firmly opposed by the Queen's future Government. This
is not, surely, to support the Queen's crown and dignity.