The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-26 00:00:00

COMMERCIAL POLICY.

Sir ROBERT PEEL Will positively bring forward his
new COMMERCIAL POLICY to-morrow (TUESDAY
EVENING), and we shall give a full Report of his
Speech, in the Third Edition of The Sun, on that
most important subject.

On Fritlay the House of Commons solemnly per-
formed the farce of unanimously passing the fallowing
resolution : •

Resolved,—That it is a high infringement of the liberties
and privileges of the Commons of the United Kingdom, for
any Lord of Parliament, or other Peer or Prelate, not being
a Peer of Ireland at the time elected, and not having declined
to serve for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain,
to eon/Nara himself in the election of Membei's to servo fur
the Commons in Parliament, except only any Peer of Ire-
land, at such elections in Great Britain respectively, where
such Peer shall appear as a candidate, or by himself, or any
others, be propored to be elected; or for any Lord-Lieutenant
or Governor of any county to avail himself of any authority
derived from his commission, to influence the election of any
Member to serve for the Commons in Parliament.

The day before sixteen geatlemen had apreared at
the table of the same House, and been inaugurated as
Members, nine of whom (we believe we are even under-
stating the number) would never have been
there to be inaugurated, but for the inter-
ference of Peers. The Duke of RICHMOND
had sent Lord ARTHUR LENNOX there from Chi-
chester, and Lord WARWICK, Sir CHARLES DOUGLAS
from Warwick; Lord BATHURST had had something
to say to Mr. CRIPPS'S re election for Warwick; Lord
HOPETOUN had sent Mr. BAILLIE from Linlithgowshire,
and Lord HERTFORD Sir HORACE SEYMOUR from An-
trim; Lord ALFRED CHURCHILL for Woodstock, Lord
BRooKE for South Warwickshire, and Colonel HALL for
Buckingham,—is it not notorious as noon-day that
in each case the Duke of MARLBOROUGH, Lord
WARWICK, and the Duke of BUCKINGHAM, has done
it all ? And Mr. HALSEY, the new Member for
Hertfordshire can himself best tell to how many Noble
Lords he is indebted for the honour of his seat in Parlia-
ment. We undertake to say that Lord SALISBURY,
Lord ESSEX, and Lord VERULAM are of the number.
As Mr. WILLIAMS, the only Member who ventured to
say a word against the passing of the above absurd reso-
lution, truly said, "In any county where there were
three or four Peers possessing large estates, every one
knew that they always carried the elections." And yet
it is, forsooth, "a high infringement of the liberties and
privileges of the Commons," fur a Peer to concern him-
self in elections !

The day before, also, new writs had been moved fur
Selkirkshire, Newark, Bute, East Sussex, and Midhurst,
where every one can name the Peers who i❑ each case
will return the next Member. The Duke of BuccLEucH
will send some one else, as he before sent Mr. PRINGLE,
for Selkirkshire ; Lord BUTE has allowed Mr. WORTLEY
to become Judge-Advocate-General, and will return him
again for Buteshire ; Lord EGMONT named his man a
month ago for Medhurst ; all the Peers of East Sussex
will have their say about the new Member, and the Duke
of BICHMOND, from the west, and Lord-Lieutenant of
the county to boot, will have his finger in the pie ; and
as for Newark, Mr. GLADSTONE, determined to let the
world know that the Duke of NEWCASTLE, and nothing
else, had turned him out, wrote a second letter for the
express purpose of having this understood ; and, turned
out from Newark by one Peer, he hopes to be allowed
to come in for Ripon by another Peer, but cannot yet
procure his consent.
The House of Commons clearly does not effect the
object of prohibiting interference of Peers in elections
by passing a resolution against it. Does it, can it, in-
crease the respect of the public towards itself by passing
resolutions which are daily and openly violated ?

Mr. HUME'S motion for a return of the amount of
legacy duty paid on personal property during the last
year, we trust, was not made without some useful pur-
pose. The vast sums brought into the Treasury by this
obnoxious and most unjust tax are matters of notoriety,
and there is little occasion, therefore, for laying them be-
fore the public. The remedy is the thing wanted—a reduc-
tion of the legacy duty, and an equable extension of it to
all kinds of property. If any proofs were required of
the gross partiality of those aristocratic legislators who
have so long ruled the destinies of the country, and of
the extreme care which they have taken of them-
selves, while they hare loaded others with burdens too
grievous to be borne, this tax alone would suffice.
All entailed property is exempted from the legacy duty
—the finest estates in the kingdom, possessed by
men who ought to be the first in wealth as well as in
rank, and who become occupants of princely domains
without any labour or any merit of their own, pay not
one farthing, while the property accumulated by hard-
working tradesmen and by professional men, whose
relatives had to pay large sums for their education, and
who bad to struggle many a day before they could make
even a competency, is taxed at the death of the owner at
rates varying from one to ten per cent. Children pay
one per cent., independent of probate duty, on succeeding
to what in reality is their own property. Brothers
are robbed of 3/. of every 100/. ; more distant relations
cannot touch these legacies till the tax-gatherer has cut
off 51. or 6!. ; and if a person wishes to leave to a friend
who happened to belong to neither of these classes
1,0001., the Government, before that sum reaches the
legatee, reduces it to 9001. In a few years or days, per•
haps, this remnant may be again operated upon, and re-
duced another ten per cent., while the heirs of entailed
estates walk into their baronial halls scot-free. No
impost, even made by a selfish Legislature, is more
cruel than this, and in these times let us hope its
iniquity requires only to be shown to be removed. It is
most unequal in its operations, it is most oppressive, it
takes advantage of death to seize upon a man's property,
and the Government, like an unfeeling and grasping
undertaker, considers every act of robbery fair as soon
as life is departed from the body. When Sir R. PEEL
makes his grand financial statement, and points out the
peculiar burdens to which land is subject, the represen-
tatives of boroughs, the professed friends of the middle
and working classes can reply to thou), and adduce far
more grievous burd(ns inflicted upon that class which
forms the strength of the nation, which carries on her
trade, improves her manufactures, and daily increases
her wealth. The working classes, in fact, are compelled
to contribute nearly the whole of the taxes ; the drones
are comparatively exempt ; they are active only in de-
vising schemes of robbery, and when these
are found out, and their unjust gains are to be cut off, or
simply reduced, they assume the airs of honest men, and
cry out for compensation. This class legislation has
lasted too long. The reformed House of Commons, how-
ever, is resolved that it shall " cease to exist," and if
they are only properly supported by the people, they
will yet effect the greatest of all reforms—remodel the
whole system of taxation, and allow no parties, to what.
ever order they belong, to claim exemptions.

Whenever there is anything radically unsound in a
Legislature, circumstances are incessantly arising to
enforce upon the popular mind the actual existence and
the
mpe ernicious consequences of the blemish, and, at the
sa
moment,ga agitation
dine mi
tosnrsetgraa demonstrate
mthe y nbeecuctstseitrylyfonregiltesctreed-
movel. itiit
—whatever is inimical to its continuance may remain
voiceless for a considerable period—direct allusions
to its malign influences may be absolutely unheard
of ; still, its days of exposure are fixed its ultimate
annihilation is inevitable. The longer the
gangrene is
social or poli
tical
system, to fester and rankle in the
system, the more indubitable is its eradication in the
end. Unhappily these fallacies in tho Constitution are
both numerous end urgent, connected alike with the more
petty tidjudivations of the realm, and the more enlart;Pd
gorernMent, It h 3 in extracting these va-
riproiunies of its
scflpalws that parliament is rasinlyoccupied during each
successive session, and notwithstanding all their previ-
ous labours, the milady is far from being thoroughly
extirpated. Various measures hare been adopted with
this intention—the lituftt OlusCig 9f 4eW h" 9a9
, . •