The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-21 00:00:00

btrain (11 f.s •

LONDON. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1148.

While we would excite a formidable agitation
against the Ministerial scheme for the increase of the
most intolerable and iniquitous of 'all taxes, the tax
upon incomes, we must, of course, acknowledge that
a very extraordinary movement of a financial cha-
racter has become absolutely necessary. The country
cannot go on in security with a perpetually increas-
ing deficiency, and a deficiency, too, which at the
close of the ensuing twelve months will amount to
the enormous sum of 2,411,0001. Some provision
must be made, of course, for the prevention of such a
calamity; some additional tax must be imposed upon
the community, or (there is yet another alternative)
the national debt must be increased by a fresh drain
upon our capitalists through the medium of a national
loan. Now we cannot but think that the whole po-
pulation will be unanimous in scouting the idea of
the national up the national credit by an extension of
national liabilities. 800,000,0001. is surely
enough in all conscience. Anything rather than an
advance in that direction.. A war-tax, a starvation-
-tax,cleofiretoi
tax, a panic-tax,
grinding, unjustifiable,
pi deficit
—tax
only removable) rather than such an insane and
profligate course as that c f resorting
to a supple-
mental loan. A. loan i; s certainly the most
showy method of redemption, but it as cer-
tainly the most ruinol %a in the end. It
is an accession of strerrgth to the present
produced at the risk of insuring exhaustion for the
future. It is the selfish salvation of a few
generations, secured at the ipense of the ruin and
destruction of posterity. The ,se who would have the
temerity to advocate such a proceeding as that of
preparing for the next deficiezi 9cy of -,411,000/ . would
be fit for nothing better than the delivery of a lying
Panegyric over the ashes of :ILLIAM PITT. There
is no question, however, just now as to the raising of
a_ fictitious surplus in the t evenues of the United
Kingdom by means so not( Tiously unpopular and
perihelia.

Everybody is preprzed ito admit. with ths

First Lord of the Treasury, the necessity I
of preparing ourst Ives for ful deficit
anticipated at the termination of the next financial
year, by submitting to swine novel taxation beyond
that:already saddled upon the people. Something must
be done. There is no mistake whatever about that.
Money must be accumulated by some method (no
matter how disagreeable), and money, moreover, to
the amount of some 2,500,0001. Any return to the
old system of imposts formerly established at the
Custom-house is a thing not to be dreamed—a thing
as feasible as the veriest extravagance re-
, corded in the literature of ,the nurseries. As Mr.
CORDER said on Friday night—" Talk of restoring
Protection I You might as well think of enthroning
the STUARTS again ! You might as well talk of
restoring the year 1846 to the calendar as of restoring
Protection !" There is no braggadocio in all this ;it
is as simple and undeniable a statement as the old
bantering snatch from the memorabilia of the last
century—" Queen Anne's dead." Any resource,
therefore, from the revival of duties upon our im
portations and exportations is hopeless—altogether
hopeless—a dream, an illusion, a chimera. The
2,500,0001. must be obtained by some more practicable,
and ingenious device. Here, however, the principal,
financial physicians of the empire are marvellously
divided in opinion. Lord Joust RUSSELL says—
" Increase the per centage upon all incomes indiscri-
minately, from 7d. to Is. in every sovereign, from 31.
to Si. out of every 1001., from three per cent. to five
per cent., three per cent. being permanent, according
to the confession of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and two per cent. being proposed for merely two
years by way of an extraordinary impost. In a very
different mood, upon a very different principle, and
with a very different determination, the Ho-
nourable Gentleman the Member for the
West Riding of Yorkshire advocates the
prevention of a deficiency by the diminution of our
expenditure, and the diminution of our expenditure
by the gradual disbandment of our military and
maritime armaments. Both these projects we
cannot but regard as most erroneous—the first as
being only fitted for the early ages of Christianity,
when there was literally a community of goods among
the followers of the Crucified, and the second
as being solely adapted to the golden tran-
quillity of the Millennium. Even as a war-tax—im-
posed merely for three or four years, as the case may
be—the tax, as at present levied upon incomes, is the
most irksome that can well be imagined, and not
only the most irksome, but the most iniquitous and
tyrannical. Now, however, that it is for the first
time in the annals of English history declared to be
among the established forms of taxation in the king-
dom, it becomes in a peculiar manner odious and
intolerable—so odious and intolerable, in short, that
we are satisfied the community will never sub-
mit to the gigantic injustice of the deci-
sion. The public must perforce recognise
in the proposal a very transparent and heinous
ruse on the part of the aristocracy—a ruse by which
they are, doubtless, sanguine of redeeming to them-
selves the ground lost by the abolition of the corn-
laws. Unable to tax the industry of the country
though the different articles of consumption imported
or exported from Great Britain, they appear deter-
mined (if possible I—a contingency which we think
marvellously improbable) to do so through a perma-
nent income-tax, the per centage of which will
be levied with the same force upon the
clerk, the shopkeeper, or the artizan, who
earns his pittance by the severest toil and the
most assiduous application, as upon the millionaire,
whose brows are garlanded with the leaves of the
strawberry, and whose profusion is at once the
perquisite of sloth and the splendid result of ances-
tral cupidity. Whether this insidious project be de-
stroyed this day or to-morrow its ultimate dissipation
is inevitable, for the people have gained rather too
terrible an experience to be once more gulled by a
financial juggle, or bamboozled by an unprincipled
oligarchy. The only matter of doubt to
ourselves is the substitute which may be best chosen
for an income-tax, which we are satisfied must be
discarded as unjust and despotic. Any diminution of
our naval or military forces (we say this with all
possible respect for the opinions of Mr. COBDEN) is
at this moment impossible. The only alternative
appears to us to be either the organization of a per-
manent tax upon property, or a very considerable
diminution of our civil establishments. Parliament
will shave to resolve this momentous problem, and
in so doing let our legislators hearken to the Delphic
oracle of Christianity—Reason.

Additional news has just arrived from India by ex-
traordinary express in anticipation of the usual mails
overland ; and without containing intelligence of any
very momentous import our dispatches are sufficiently
interesting. Lord DALHOUSIE was expected to reach
Calcutta towards the middle of January, and on the
16th ultimo Lord HARDINGE was preparing to take
his departure homewards in company with
the Marquis of TWEEDDALE. Tranquillity and
prosperity prevailed throughout the British
possessions in Hindostan, at the very mo-
ment when the character of the Government
was about to be changed. A new era was beginning
to dawn upon our Oriental empire, and that, more-
over, under the most auspicious circumstances.
Among the minor passages of information con-
veyed to us from India, the most remarkable are the
final distribution of the Sinde prize money, and the
capture of the celebrated Claude Duval of the
Ghauts, RAGOIEE BANGRIA. Upon the former
particular it is worthy of notice that although
the amount of cash which is about to be
meted out proportionately to the conquering army of
Sinde is estimated at no less than 437,8831., the sum
claimed by Sir CHARLES NAPIER is not more than
27,367/. ; the Colonels and Superintending Surgeons
present at both Meanee and Hyderabad receiving
each 6,0001.; Majors, 5,0001.; Captains, Surgeons,
and Regimental Paymasters, 2,0001.; Assistant-
Surgeons and Subalterns, 1,0001. In reference to the
seizure of the notorious RAGOJIE BANGRIA, it ap-
pears that he was captured by Lieutenant GaLL,
Adjutant of the Ghaut Light Infantry; that officer
having disguised himself and his soldiers in the garb
of peasants, and tracked the robber-chief to Punder-
pore, where he was caught while refreshing his
limbs in a bath. There is more likelihood, therefore,
in this quarter of domestic tranquillity, now that the
arch instigator of the local disturbances is in confine-
ment in the gaol of Taunah.

In the dominions of the Nizam there still remain
all the causes of anxiety which have been rife so long
in his metropolis. To the calamities of primary
involvement have beeen added the miseries of
fanatical outbreak. Two /vlahometan sects, the
one (the Sheeah) headed by KOTWAL, the other
(the Soonee), headed by the NIZA2d himself, have
proceeded from polemical disputes to butchery, and
instead of inundating the tables of the citizens (like
our disputants of Exeter Hall) with tracts and ser-
mons, have been striving to deluge the streets with
blood. Such is the rage of religion in nations not
moderated by civilisation.

Of all the intelligence received in our dispatches
from Hindostan the most important and striking to
our mind is that conveyed from the extremities of
Affghanistan. So furious have become the feuds
between old DoLT MOHAMMED and his sons,
and so much does the former consider himself
to be in peril from the avarice or ambition of his own
offspring, that he seems to have resolved upon de-
scending into the plains of India, and beseeching
shelter and protection from the British autherites at
Peshawur. He will be accompanied in this expedi-
tion of dread by the mother of the late Wuleer.
These are among the most singular facts recounted
in the papers recently arrived from Bombay, and
while they reveal a deplorable amount of insecurity
among adjacent states, they display the inherent
strength of the Anglo-Indian Government in the
sober and orderly condition of the populace in those
portions of Hindostan which are either obedient to our
authority or defended by our arms.

Accounts from Rome, of the 11th, state that the
greatest excitement prevailed in that city. The
Pol.; it is said, refuses to grant certain concessions
demanded by the people, but has promised to change
his Ministry.

The Neapolitan official journal of the 11th pub-
lishes the text of the new constitution. Negotiations
were going on between the Junta of Palermo and
the Neapolitan Government; and in the meantime