The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-13 00:00:00

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE
BRADFORD REFORM ASSOCIATION.
Sir,—On Wednesday, the Sth, the principal de-
bate was in Committee on the Catholic Relief Bill.
There seems to be a determination to remove all
external signs of humiliation, which in hours of
victory may have been imposed upon the Catholics.
And the Catholics, on their side, appear to be content
with this, and not to desire anything but admission
to the common privilege of doing as they like so long
as nobody else is injured by it.
On one point there will perhaps be room for them
to exercise a sound discretion, and not incur the risk
of alarming those who are in the main their friends.
Where Catholic powers have seen a necessity for
legislating against certain religious fraternities by
name, ur interfering in a minor degree with their
regulations and mode of recruiting, it would seem
but common prudence that, in a country where the
majority are Protestants, any dispute on such points
should be avoided, by taking care it is not raised. If
Catholics cannot comprehend this evident rule of
policy, they of course are prepared not to complain if
the consequences should be unpleasant to them.
Three divisions were come to in the course of the
debate, with constant majorities in favour of the Bill
as it stood; and the further consideration was finally
adjourned.
At a later period of the evening the Bill for " Killing
Hares" was read a second time. There seems to have
gone forth a calm on the violent spirits of this side the
water. A Bill which would once have roused the
energies of the landed interest, and have been con-
tested as the certain inlet to the destruction of both
Church and State, was allowed to pass with something
very much like the assistance of those who might have
been expected to oppose it.
On Thursday the evening was consumed in debate
on a Bill proposed to be brought in by Mr. Sharman
Crawford, to amend the Irish Poor Relief Extension
Act. The object was to repeal the 10th section,
which prevents giving workhouse relief to any person
in the occupation of more than a quarter of an acre
of land. The telling argument against the repeal was,
that the law acted as a check upon the Irish land-
lords paying their rents out of the poor-rates. The
Bill was refused by 114 against 21.
On Friday the question was renewed •on Mr.
Hume's motion that the income-tax be limited to one
year. Mr. Wilson (Westbury) opened the night's
debate, and displayed much of the knowledge which
became the editor of the Economist. But on one
point he amusingly disappointed the expectations of
the economists within the House. After saying
that wherever a few Englishmen chose to esta-
blish themselves on a commercial speculation,
there a frigate was to be sent to protect
them,—and leading everybody to suppose he
was going to quote the celebrated description of our
"perching a Governor and Deputy-Governor upon
every rock large enough to hold them,"—he turned
round with the conclusion, that because the frigates
were sent they must be paid for, and therefore the
Government must have the income-tax for three
years. So that the argument seems to be, that
wherever there are three cats to chewy, a frigate must
be sent to do it ; whereas some might have concluded,
that the cats should be let alone. As was intimated
on the other side, ambitious yachters may play the
" illustrious stranger" in Borneo or where they please;
but it does not follow that frigates should be paid for,
as the consequences of their movements.
The Economist said a great deal in favour of a
properly regulated income-tax, which was entirely
true. But the struggle at this moment is, not to pay.
On one point his defence struck me as incomplete.
He said an income-tax did not take employment from
the working classes more than any other tax. Is not
the real answer, that no tax either takes from or adds
to the employment of the working classes in the
aggregate, inasmuch as what is not expended by the
payers of the taxes is expended by the Government,
and vice versa? It may be true that the Government
expends on musquets, and the taxees would have
expended on fowling-pieces. But in this it is the
taxees that lose, and not the working classes. They
lose to the extent of going without the fowling-
pieces which they say they wanted, and getting
nothing for their money but the musquets, which they
say they did not want at all.
A remarkable instance came out in the course of
the debate, of the spirit of inaccuracy and unreason
which posses:es the Protectionist benches. It was
stated a few nights ago by a leader on that side,
that when the duty on French brandy was taken off,
the price of brandy in bond rose from 4s. 3d. a
gallon to ss. 1 d. The clear inference and understand-
ing from which was meant to be, that when the
duty was taken off no important diminution of price
to the consumer was the consequence; being another
form of the assertion we have heard in the case of the
corn-laws and elsewhere, that the import duties on
foreign produce are paid by the foreigner. But
upon examination, how do the facts stand ? It ap-
pears that when seven shillings of duty were taken
off French brandy, the brandy which used to cost the
English consumer eleven and threepence, plus any
remaining duty, came to him for five and eleven-
pence, plus the same sum. So that the fact pro-
claimed under the title of the benefit going to the
foreigner, proves to be that a fourth of the benefit
went to the foreigner in the shape of the natural rise
of the price abroad consequent on the increased demand
for the commodity. And how should it be otherwise ?
Did 7iot every grocer's apprentice always know that
this must be the case? And did not he equally
know, that one reason why nobody likes to see a duty
laid on his own produce by foreigners, is that there
will not only be less sold of it to foreigners, but also
at a lower price ?
The Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli)
was convicted of the same kind of mistake by Mr.
Gladstone in his reply. The Member for Bucking-
hamshire announced, as matter apparently for statis-
tically determining the consequences of removing
duties, that after a duty of so much per pound on
American cotton was removed, the price of cotton in
America rose to more than the former price and the
duty too. Which Mr. Gladstone effectually disposed
of, by pointing out the simple fact, that in the in-
terval there had been a " cotton-famine." So useful
it is to have a place like the House of Commons,
where the supporters of fallacies can be trotted out,
And strange enough it is, that men so incompetent to
explain the simplest phenomena of trade, should main-
tain pretensions to make the Government of a com-
mercial country.
In the course of the evening Mr. Disraeli acted as
Master of the Ceremonies to the League for the Re-
vision and Adjustment of Taxation, and introduced
it to the House. The debate was finally adjourned
till Monday ; so that Mr. Hume's motion still lies over
for decision.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. PERRONET THOMPSON
Blackheath, London, March 18,1846.

THE NEW POEM " KING ARTHUR."
By the Author of " The New Timon."
Skillfully arranged and unfolded; marked by passion,
imagination, and unostentatious but redundant know-
ledge; everywhere evincing the influence of the best
taste, the poem of " King Arthur" is likely to win the
admiration of all who have poetical feeling and know-
ledge. It takes up a great subject and promises to treat
it worthily; evolving its national interest. The author
has incarnated the dim ideas of a legendary period in
flesh and blood beings drawn from his own experience.
Two of the prominent characters in the poem will at once
bo recognised, with a strange interest at the present
moment, as Louis Philippe and his Minister; and keen,
as well as merciless, though in the light and laughing
guise of wit, is the writer's exposure of the qualities that
have dethroned and degraded them. This is clearly
such a writer's privilege. So Ariosto wrote ;so our
own Spenser.—Examiner.
RESPITE or ANNETTE METERS.—The sentence of
death passed upon this wretched woman has, as was gene-
rally expected would be the case, been respited. Yester-
day (Saturday) evening, at five o'clock, Mr. Cope, the
Governor of Newgate, received from the Right Hon.
Sir George Grey, through the hands of a special mes-
senger, an instruction that execution of the wretched
woman was to be respited during her Majesty's plea-
sure. This is, of course, equal to a reprieve of the
capital sentence altogether. The Rev. Mr. Davis, the
ordinary of the prison, having left the gaol when the
mitsive arrived, Mr. Cope, the .Gov!rnor, lost no time
in communicating the gratifying intelligence to the
unhappy woman. We understand. she was but little
moved by the intelligence, retaining the sullen and
indifferent manner which has peculiarly characterised
her since her confinement. Annette Meyers is sup-
posed to be the daughter of a well-known barozet
Sunday Times.
THE MOST EFFECTUAL CURE FOR GOUT AND
RHEUMATISM IS HOLLOWAY'S OINTMENT AND PILLS.
A frequent cause of these complaints is the inflammatory
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want of a proper circulation of the fluids, and that im-
purity of the blood greatly aggravates these painful
disorders. Holloway's Pills are of so purifying a nature
.that a few doses taken in time is au effectual preventa-
tive against the gout and rheumatism; but any one that
has an attack of either should use Holloway's Ointment
also, the powerful properties of which, combined with
the effect of the Pills, ensures a certain cure.—Sold by
all druggists, and at Professor Itolloway's establishment,
244, Strand, London.
POST-OFFICE NOTICE.—On and after Monday,
the 6th of March, letters and newspapers will be received
at the
_railway station, Euston-square, to be dispatched
by the night and day mail trains to all towns, the corre-
spondence of which is conveyed by the London and
North-Western Railway, or by the lines branching from
it. A list of these towns may be seen at the station. A
fee of sixpence, in addition to the postage, will be charged
upon every letter, and a fee of sixpence upon every
newspaper; this fee, as well as the postage, .must in all
cases be paid in stamps. A bag for the receipt. of these
letters will be suspended at the station, from 7 30 A.M.
to 9 50 A.M. for the day mail; and from 7 30 r.st. to 8 35
P.M. for the night mail. No letters will be received on
Sundays.
SACRED HARMONIC SOClETY.—Menielsschn's fine
oratorio, St, pad, will be perforated at Exeter Hail on
Wedueeday Rex