The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-12 00:00:00

TIIE TRUE USES OF A FALLING

REVENUE.

It is a melancholy reflection," says Dean Tucker,
in one of his many admirable tracts on commercial sub-
ject,, " but for the most part it is too true, that na-
tons, as nations, never can learn wisdom tid necessity
becomes their schoolmistress." Perhaps the best cri-
terion of the truth of the remark is to be found in the
shifts and expedients of Chanceliors of the Exchequer.
But es the present necessities of Mr. Baring are great,
v e would fain hope that he may profit by the lessons of
his perhaps unwelcome teacher. Her authority jest
now must be acknowledged. Not only the Chancellor
( f the Exchequer, bat the whole nation, is her pupil.
Wilether either the one or the other will imbibe wisdom
from Ler teaching remains to be seen. If Mr. Baring
however, do not expound the lessor.s of wisdom, he
may learn at her hands, clearly and firmly, we venture
to predict, that the nation, it not tire House of Com-
mons, will not only profit by them, but adopt them.
Tne revenue is declining. The expenditure of the
country is increasing. The per tentage patchwork of
last year, which was resorted to for the purpose of rais-
ing our income to the level of our expediture, has
faired, as we predicted when the experiment was made.
The income we were to derive from the additional
ten per cent. upon our Customs, Excise, and Taxes,
has scarcely yielded a paltry five per cent. The country
I,oked on and smiled at beholding another Chancellor
of the Exchequer attempting to resist once more the
financial axiom, that in taxation two and two do not
make four. The effort, indeed, was only worthy of a
disciple of the school of Vansittart ; and the result
was about as abortive as the financial schemes of the
Master.

But though the attempt to increase the revenue, by
directly augmenting the tax upon every raw material
and necessary of lite failed, as it ought always to fail,
the object aimed at, the placing of our income and ex-
penditure upon a level, must be accomplished.
It is a question es earnestly as universally asked
by every one who knows the perilous nature of the
pressure upon our trade and our population at home
at the present moment, and upon our widely scat-
tered interests abroad—what will the Chancellor
of the Exchequer do ? We are by no means in that
ihriviiig and contented state at home which a states-
man, either in or out of place, would desire to con-
template. There is a strong sense gaining ground of
the injustice and the injurious tendency of our system
of taxation. It has recently manifested itself in many
large and respectable public meetings, both in England
and Scotland, held in several of our most important
commercial cities and towns. Free trade, as far as the
just necessities of our revenue will permit, and a revi-
sion of the tariff, have bean loudly called for and most
abiy advocated. Not by interested partisans or mis-
chievous demagogues, the subject is one far too prac•
tically useful for them ; but by men of all parties, and
by some of the al lest and the most experienced autho-
rities in matters of this kind amongst us. Hence any
renewal of Vansittartisnis would be scouted with deri-
sion through the country. The country fully admits
the necessity of meeting all necessary expenditure, but
demands, not clamorously but resotut ly, that this oc-
jei t shall be attained, justly and honestly
Certain it is that the House of Commons and the
landed aristocracy which fills it, may neither be suffici-
ently informed to understand them, nor virtuous enough,
if they did, to act upon them : but the people, if Mr.
Baring will do his duty, have been sufficiently ground
down by unjust and selfish taxation to appreciate his
difficulties and sustain him in his conflict with interested
prejudice and short-sighted selfishness, if he will but be
bold enough to recast and distribute fairly, the burdens
of taxation. He may remove the pressure upon our
trade, and our customs will decline no longer. He may
lighten the weight of taxation and allay every unreason-
able murmur against it. He may render trade more
profitable and more productive of benefits and blessings
to every class of the community.
There is but one rule to adopt, and once adopted, re-
solutely to foamy. Abolish every protective duty strictly
such, and impose duties only for the purposes of revenue.
Pro' ective duties are taxes for private advantage. Re-
venue duties are necessary taxes for public and national
objects.
" The duties upon the importation of foreign raw
materials," says Dean Tucker again, as long ago as
1787, " to be employed in our own manufactures, are
as many fetters and chains to prevent the progress of
labour and the circulation of wealth. The,,e imposts
were first laid on under a notion of promoting the landed
interest ; but happy would it base been for these king-
doms if the landed gentlemen had understood their in-
terest before they ate empted to show their zeal in pro-
moting it !"
We incline to the hope, then, that Mr. Baring will
turn his adversaries to account ; that he will fix his
eye steadily upon the interests of the people, and dis-
dain to heed the merely temporary interests of the party.
Why do we indulge in this hope? We have long,
as our readers know, urged upon the Government the
comaderetion of both the subject-matter, and the reeont-
meodations of the reports of two Committees, which
sat daring the last S.:mon of Perlianieet —the East
India Committee and the Import Duties Committee.
We sh ill not stop now to do more than to advert to the
empty declamation against this Committee by Lord
Ashburton. Fortunately that No.ile Lori never now
advances a single argument which he has not himself
formerly answered. And we shall pass over but with
a word of comment, the somewhat suddenly acquired
lordly inanity of Lord Monteagle. He left the House of
Commons in a blaze of admonitory eloquence against the
Corn.laws. His eloquence remains there ; but his pru-
dence and his wisdom are displayed in an increasing mea-
sure in the House of Lords, by condescending to se-
cond Lord Ashbuttota's attack upon tse only Com-
mittee which ever sat on commercial subjects in
the House of Commons, which, by its evidence and re-
port, has attracted universal interest throughout the
country, and, up to this time, an interest unchecked
by even an attempt to refute the grounds upon which
it is founded ! From this certainly the Noble Lord
himself carefully abstained, and, we predict, will con-
tinue to do so.
Mr. Goulburn and Mr. Herries bad, it appears, been
very anxious to give in their public adhesion to so much
of Mr. Huskisson's policy as was consistent with the
maintenance of the principle of protection to British
interests ! A safe concession unquestionably ! Lord
John Russell most admirably replied to this anti-free-
trade doctrine ; and a doctrine, as it was stated, with-
out queLfication, by Alt. Herries, as we undertake on
some future occasion to show, entirely opposed to the
principles which Mr. Huskisson laid down on more than
one occasion, as the true basis of the commercial policy
of this country.
" The principle," said the Noble Lord, " on which
the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Goulburn) seemed to
proceed was this, that you must give advantages to the
British manufacturers against the colonies. The
c tonics must take their silk and leather, &c.
Then the people of the colonies say we feel our-
sel.es aggrieved by this restriction, and to satisfy them,
you say, they shall have advantages against the
farmer and Labourer of the United Kingdom.' Then
they complain, and you, to satisfy them, give them ad-
vantages against the manufacturer, and so you go on in
this vicious circle of constantly endeavouring to do
something for the advantage of a particular class, in-
stead of looking to the benefit of the whole counau-
nity.—(Ceeers.)"
Again—
Right Hon. Gentleman spoke of introducing
foreign articles, and giving protection to the home ma-
nufacturer at the lowest rate required.. If the Right
Hon. Gentleman would adhere to this principle so
stated—namely, to the principle of the lowest rate of
protection really required, he did not think the Right
Hon. Gentleman would find much difference of opinion
b tween himself and the Members of the Goverment.
H. thought the principle a sound one.—(Hear bear.)
He con.:idered it needless to enter, even it there was a
larger House and a more formal debate, into the general
principles upon which the question of duties in a
country entirely free, or at least not in the situation of
this country, ought to be regulated. It was enough to
say that in the present state of this country it
was necessary that protection should be granted,
but that that protection should be very carefully
considered. It should be moderate where they had
one class with superior advantages as against other
classes. They could not say to one set of manufac
toren, you hive less ingenuity, you require greater
protection, and the artici,l you produce shall there-
fore be very dear,' and to apostle r great interest, such
al the cotton manufactures, e you produce an exceilent
article, you require very at; protection, and therefore
we wilt frame a system which shall give you no advan-
tage whatever.'
bßut the concluding sentences of this very ab'.e
speech, which does not appear to have been very fully
reported, from the accounts communicated to us by
those who head it, are perhaps the most deserving of'
notice.
Oa all those subjects," continued the No
Lord, "be our opinions right or wrong, there is a
general agreement in the Ciabitiet ; on all these sub-
jects the Cabinet is prepared to act unanimously, who t,-
ever they ti,ink right to do so, with'a view to the ad-
vantage of all the interests to which they refer. It
w,ll nut shrink from any responsibility that may belong
to it.—(Cheers.) Whether the measures we bring for-
ward are useful measures for the country, it will be for
this House, the oti.er Hoesc of Parliament, and the
country in general, to consider ; but this, at least, I may
say, that we are not insensible to the immense impor-
are bringing forward that which is,
tqt,ixauneecsootinioo?fifltsnhooi,swas,nubv.e uj,enedte, and that in bringing forward this
Diable
to take
that which is supported by
and if
the greatest weight of argu-
your v.ews, we think that, by
wewe will endeavour, ernuioetamvoiustr:kinenevienr
carrying on a policy of this kind, with due deliberation
and at proper times, We shall render this country very
talent, and confirmed by the mg
longest:°adsu—re( good—(Hear,
experience ibehmneicater ;
peat b• licit:, and that, if we fail, we shill have the
calasolatioo ai least of finicking that our plans were
taken with au iluheSt intention of promoting the emu-

mercy, the industry, and the fortunes of this mighty
mpire.—(Much cheering.)"
This spirited declaration was generously met as
it deserved to be by the Liberals.
" They had avowed themselves," said Mr. Villiers,
with great distinctness, advocates of the policy avowed
by Mr. Huskisson, and had expressed that confidence
in the justice of his and their own opinions, that made
them independent of further inquiry.—(Hear, hear.).
They seemed from their speeches aware of the wants of
the country and the colonies, and only to desire the
power to carry out their liberal views.—(Hear, hear.)
After the speeches, indeed, he had heard from them
to-night, he should watch their course with interest
and with hope.—i Hear, hear.)"
We repeat, then, that this speech of Lord John Rus-
sell, and the measures to which we have alluded, in-
spire us with the hope that no means will be resorted
to, to raise an income to the level of our expenditure,
unaccompanied with a .‘ clear and satisfactory develop-
meat of some financial system based upon existing
facts," and we will add, toueded upon justice to all
classes. The time is favourable. The public mind is
better informed upon financial and commercial subjects
than at any former period. Trade languishes; there
is a general expectation, engendered mainly by the la-
bours of the two Committees we have referred to, that
some measures will be proposed to improve our trade,
and through an improved trade, and through it aline,
to improve our revenue. The Colonial Resolutions
and the East India Rum Bill are but an earnest of
what we trust will be done, on a more extended scale,
to ameliorate the condition of our commercial and ma-
nufacturing interests at home. Ne.:essity will then
have successfully discharged the office of our school-
mistress, and her lessons will be remembered through
all time. . • • •

But then those truths involve a reduction of duties,
and at a time when our existing duties yield a reluctant
and declining income. They do. " The surrender of
revenue for great commercial purposes," said Mr.
Pitt, in his spe,:ch on the commercial treaty with
France, " was a policy by no means unknown in the
history of Great Britain."—" Taking this evil at the
worst, a surrender of revenue for great commercial
purposes was not contradictory to sound policy, nor to
established practice." But a surrender of revenue for
great commercial purposes is not synonymous with a
surrender of income. Fact after fact, measure after
measure, attest the difference. The whole course of
Mr. Huskisson's policy proved it.
In Mr. Pitt's time, moreover, what was the revenue
derived from corn, sugar, timber, &c? a revenue as
unjust as it is impolitic ; the offspring of war and of
self-interest only ; and striking at the root of the health,
the peace, and prosperity or the country. A surrender
of revenue in these cases would be an augmentation of
income. Justice and policy would both command it.
It was the boast of Augustus that he found Rome of
brick and left it marble. It would be a nobler boast,
and of infinitely greater importance to mankind, if our
Sovereign should be able to say that She found the
tariff of her kingdom oppressive and unjust, and She left
it just ; that. She found it framed to benefit the rich,
She left it framed to benefit all ; that She found it framed
to restrict the supply of food, and cramp the industry
of Her People ; that She removed every restriction
from the one, and every impediment calculated to ob-
struct the other.

This would be a noble object of ambition, and one
worthy the Sovereign of a mighty State, whose power
and position amongst the nations of the earth depend
upon enlightened commerce ; and whose commerce
carries Christianity and civilization and freedom hand
in hand throughout the globe.—Examiner.