The Sun.
London, England, 1840-10-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
We are enabled to state that a communication has
been received from the French Government which may
possibly lead the way to a better understanding between
France and the Four Powers. It is obvious that the
same terms cannot now be obtained for Mehemet Ali
which might have been obtained when her Majesty's
Government, in order to prove its anxious desire to
come to an understanding with France, stated that it
would join with the French Government in recommend-
ing the Sultan to give to him, in addition to the Paella-
lie of Eeypt, the administration of the lower part of
Syria, from Cape Carmel to the Gulf of Akaba. The
whole of Sy tie, including the Pachalic of Acre, has already
been virtually recovered for the Sultan. It is one thing to
abate something of a just claim, rather than have recourse
to hostilities, and another to give back territories right-
fully held, when hostilities have been necessary to en-
force the right. The best terms, in short, which can now
possibly he obtained for Mehemet Ali would be, that
his deposal should be reversed, and that he should be
left in possession of the Pachalic of En pt. It should -
be borne in mind that, the moment the Ulemas had
excommunicated Mehemet Ali, it was impossible for
the Sultan to leave his own delegated temporal au-
thority in the bands of a man against whom the spi-
ritual thunders of the Church had been launched.
We have observed that events have decided against the
same terms being obtained now for Mehemet Ati which
would have been recommended before the Treaty of
Leaden was concluded. Bat we are called on to make
another observation. The terms which may be obtained
now may not be so easily obtained after a very brief in-
interval. The progress of operations in execution of
the coercive measures has hitherta been so rapid, that
unless Mehemet should now make a timely sub-
mission, the irresistible force of events would render hie
reinstatement in Egypt impossible. But these obser-
vations must present themselves to French statesmen
as well as to persons in this country. The precarious
nature of Mehernet's tenure of Syria has been forcibly
impressed en our neighbours by the operations on the
coast of that. country. It may turn out that his means
in Egypt have also been greatly over-rated. Should
this be no longer problematical, it would perplex even
the most ingenious of French statesmen to draw up a
state paper which should obtain the suffrages of the
notion, justificatory of a war to be entered into with
the Four Powers, in order to dispossess the Sultan
of his Pachalic of Feypt, that it might he. hestweed CM
Mehemet Aii. With such powerful motives, then, for
despitch, it is to be hoped that no time will he lost in
putting an cod to a stete of things which lids all re-
112cting persons with uneasiness, and tends to peralyze
commercial and industrial undertakings.
(From the Times.)
The return of the quarter's revenue is a melancholy
illustration of Swift's remark, that " in the arithmetic
of the Customs two and two do not always make four ;
they sometimes mike only one." The great financial
measure of the last Session, which was to cover the ad-
ditional charge for Canada, and the deficit of the Post-
ofilee, was a further duty of 5 per cent. upon all articles
before plying duty is the departments of the Customs
and Excise. The result is now before the country,
and it is material to shew, in figures, what it should
hate - been, had that measure been based in a sound
calculation of consequences, and what it is. In the
quarter ending October 1839, the total clear teceip-
was in round numbers : -•••
Customs •
Excise

£5780,000
_
_ - 4 120,0G0

Making a total of - - 9,900,000
5 per cent on this would be - 495,000

Requiring., in order to equal the
Revenue of October, 1839, a
total of - - - £10,395,000
Taking now the actual produce of the revenue for
these two departments in the quarter ending October,
1840, the account stands thus :
Customs - • - £5,660,000
Lxcise - - - 3,916,000

Total - £9,676,000
and the deficiency therefore, keeping up the comparison
between the two October quarters, and giving the
benefit of the additional five per cent. to the last, is
aheet 820,000/. on the quarter ; and there occurs an
actual deficiency, leaving that additional five per cent.
entirely out of the question, of 324,0001. in the two
liepartments of the Customs and Excise. The other
items in the present account are comparatively of little
importance. What the Chancellor of the Exchequer
is to obtain from the new survey, and addition to the
:assessed taxes, aid not appear until the returns for the
January quarter are made. la the Stamps there has
been a trifling improvement, quite unimportant either
way. The Post-office does not look well, but some pro-
gress at least seems to be making, and we are not dis-
posed to deal rigidly with a measure which was only faulty
in being commenced too early, and which is eonferrin.,
and will confer au immense benefit on all classes of the
community. At the present rate of production, the
Post-office will still yield :-.. revenue to the country of
about half a million annually. With this deficiency,
however, added to the others already described, and
taking the Ministerial estimates of the year as the basis
of the account, the quarterly return, compared with the
corresponding period of 1839, may fairly be said to pre-
sent a fahing oft of not less than one rriiiion one hun-
dred thousand pounds! Lis is a serious state of ihings
`'or it couetry threatened with war ; and the more so, .03
the Treasury journals, in fearful anticipation of what the
nation may say of them and of their masters, have
evinced a disposition to misrepresent and to conceal
which is peculiarly reprehensible in the present situa-
tion of public affairs. We arc treated, for example,
with some unintelligible nonsense about " bills" received
in payment for revenue and not yet carried to ac-
count ; and disadvantages arisitrg from the last
quarter having ended on a Sunday, which prevented
the excise collectors from commencing their " rounds"
till a week later, and causing a loss, therefore, of
" seven days to the quarter's collections ;'' as if these
things had never happened before, and as if they did not
always find their level, taking one quarter with another
The fact, too, is carefully kept out of sight, that Par-
liament did in July last make an addition of five per
cent. to the old Customs and Excise Duties. We rea-
dily agree, and have often expressed the opinion as well
as observed the practice, that party feeling should never
enter into a discussion on the state of the national re-
sources ; but what respect can be entertained for men
who cannot present a fair and honest account, and who do
all in their power to garble and distort it when presented
to the public view ? They shut out the sympathy and
regard of all true patriots, who must feel the inutility of
any attempt to help those deilars in false pretences and
deceit out of their difficulties. We purposely abstain
from any analysis of the yearly account now presented.
A new state of things with respect to taxation has
arisen since this period of last year, and until it has
spread itself over- the whole four quarters, the com-
parison can serve no purpose but that of misleading.
It may be left as an additional aid in that line to the
misleading Treasury Journals. A further considera-
tion, of the very highest general importance, arises out
of the result thus communicated, of the experiment of
an increase in the duties of Customs and Excise. It is a
truth admitted in all sound reasonings on the subject,
that, there is a point in taxation on articles of consump-
tion which cannot be passed without lessening instead of
adding to the total product, and if this shall prove to be the
case with the meesnre of last Session, then will the
Treasury be placed in the predicament of having thrown
impediments in the way of commerce, without adding
a abating, and even with actual loss, to the revenue of
the country. Undoubtediy this is a conclusion not to
be adopted on the trial of one quarter only ; but if it
should be found, on the assembling of Parliament, that
there is no change for the better, then must some other
form of taxation without delay he resorted to. Does
any one doubt, notwithstanding all these circumstances,
if the misfortune of a war should befal this country, that
her resources to meet it aee ample, abundant ? Let him
reflect on what England has done since this century be-
gan, and that she is now far richer and more powerful
then then. We only want better and wiser heads to de-
velope aed to guide those resources.
( From the Morning Herald.)
While one class of persons consider the ordinance
for the early convocation of the French Chambers as
affording an assurance that peace will be preserved, an-
other behold in it the ominous prelude to war. We
think it is easier to understand with what intention the
Government have convened the Chambers than to
predict what the result of their deliberations will be.
The " crisis" which the sudden and violent acts of
the " pacificators of the east" hove brought about in
France is too momentous and difficult for the states-
manship of the Tuileries. Though the King is no
longer, as he was for some years,- the " Cabinet in
himself," he still exercises a control over the deci-
sions of his Ministers. He has no taste for a war with
England, and he dreads still more a war with Itu.ssia,
PREUX CHEVALIER. Ito whose Emperor he has long paid assiduous court.
A CIRCASSIAN His Prime Minister fears a war too, but he fears the
Teho-ook Oelti TODgotl3e, or' the Wolf," was a good
model of the Circassian P re". chevalier' altogether. suns
dwoisdsh
oef t %P,lici,oePrsuistleaaetremi Ye
dadistant
a ands much i
m improbable,
al
biel e dreadsAi. iwiearrs
.
erheedmo
pear, if not sans reproche. Whatever enterprise was inssh_a(nd
to invoke it. While the iiiffieulties of
ecte
dAtloi epxriasetzleonalyndininprtoretoactioelss, thattilat might
never
were it foray, onslaught, or ambuscade, he for one mieht,
be depended epon ; if wrongs were to be redressed—
the nation resound with threats individual, Previnci'l' or national—Tongouse in-
be executed •
eeatFsroefacahrmMinistry made
Theirie press, as a trumpet, to call
variably the champion. When certain of the Cauca- - , the chief
of
Biari provinces had made separate terms with n.us-
the people to battle.
and inspired
ails, he was the first, by his successful inroads, to make
Four Powese
them repent of their apostacy. His name answered these martial
even as far had spread
as the Ingouches, whose children
Wolf" la, and directing their vas-
Suchsal, the Sultan, to issue
cellt more than once carried off from them.
Au. a decree of deposition against
plodu e litY in a man yet scarcely in his prime bad Mehemet i. These acts, which have
uu c. act t natural effects on the ladies •of the French people wild, have made the French driven the
the e Mateo
had more claims on his heart than even rithor tame. They are deficient inrho
Ministers
disPensar • courlge or
him to do justice te ion, indulgent as it is, could allow I e -Tacky, or both, to grapple manfully with the a:-
disposition to please led him
was, that his decided ; fis.ajf ice which they confronted bony (L
he had drawn on hi Ina into many serapeseand the f
mo.e. .9 when t They see that the blow has here-
fines
had all been duly
paid, self and la's tribe would, if they
theyif en struck, which
were to act up to the spirit of their
Natukvitch with horn eettele.stocked half the estates In .
they must treat as a cases ie,r former de-
edbeta, but
the Circassians. cattle.-Lonyteorties Year among ciarations, they
- I are alarmed at the danger, and recoil
_from the resport.

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