The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-23 00:00:00

in Herald.

No reflecting person, we believe, ever ques-
tioned the advantage derivable from the ittflu. net
exercised by one class of society over another
In fact, it was stated expressly by some of th.
ebb st advocates of the Reform nil a►t the time
that one of the benefits which might be expected
from it would be the making the rich depend 0!
the good opinion of their humbler neighbour,
and consequently giving them a powerful motile
to deserve that opinion. The rich have mot.,
leisure than the poor, and alone possess th,
means of dedicating themselves exeusivel% ti
public objects. A man who is strugling t.
meet the wants of the day that is passing ove,
his head; or to provide something f..r his widow
and children, that they may not be destitute
when he is no longer able to work for them, cat
at most afford to spare little time for serving th.
public. The man in e►tsy circumstances, on the
other hand, being without the motive for activiti
which necessity gives to the poor, naturally look,
for another, in the dedication of his activity tr
the public benefit, and looks for a reward in th
sympathy anil approbation of that public. We
may be sure that a rich man will always be be-
nefited by being made dependent on public
approbation for power. We may he equally
sore that a rich man, who deserves it, will alwat;
gain the approbation of his inferiors in rank and
wealth, and possess great influence among them.
We make these remarks by way of meeting
an article in the Globe of yesterday, in whicl
the writer points out the omission of the writer on
ballot, in the Edinburgh, in not treating whe-
ther it is desirable that the influence of the rich
over the poor should be destroyed, but himsel
commits the mistake of confounding influent e
with the power of compulsion. The ballot, as we
shall show on a future day (for we have not
space to-day), would not destroy the influence
of the rich over the poor ; but it would take
from the rich the power of supplying the plan 01
compelling the poor to support them, wheelier
they deserved it or not.—Morning Chronicle.
It is to be regretted that at the meeting of the
constituency of London at Guildhall, on Mon-
day, fhe great practical question of the assessed 1,
taxes was mixed up with the speculative topics
of the ballot and triennial Parliaments. As to
the ballot, we shall not fail to discuss it when a
fitter occasion presenta itself; oily just observing.
at the present moment, that publicity of action,
whether in legislative proceedings,Courts of Jus-
tice, or the exercise of any political rights or du-
ties, is the life and soul of the institutions of a
free State, whereas corruption, shrinking from
the eye of public opinion, finds its best pro
section under the shield of secrecy. A man who
dare not be honest while he knows that his
conduct is open to the criticism of mankind,
and responsible to their opinion, will feel the last
restraint on knavery removed when the conve-
nient cloak of darkness shrouds his actions from
observation. As to triennial Parliaments, we
have more than once expressed our unequivocal
condemnation of the Act by which a base and
ambitious Administration, in direct violation of
common justice and the Bill of Rights, le °-
longed a Parliament elected for three years into
one of seven, and defrauded all the electors of

the kingdom of their elective franchise to the

extent in which =they nullified its exer-
cise. -If 'ever there was a legalised Act that
was an unconstitutional one, it was the
Septennial Act, which a Whig Ministry
nassed, and which tended more to the cor-
ruption of Parliaments than any thing else,
with the exception of the master evil of no-
mination boroughs. Still it becomes a question
whether the excision of the nomination boroughs,
and the letting into the elective francise of the
intelligent and active middle classes, has not so
altered the constitution of Parliament, and pro-
vided such a vigilant check and control over the
representatives of the people, as to neutralize
the tendency of long Parliaments to render the
Members independent of their constituents. We
say this becomes a question ; and it is a question
which can only be solved in one way—we mean
by experience. If experience proves that the
Reform Bill has not established a sufficient con-
trol over the national representation, and that
the majority of those whom the people send into
Parliament become fonder of wearing the collar
of the Minister, and obeying the whipper-in of
the Treasury than of earning the honest appro-
bation of their country, we shall give our best
assistance to the repeal of the Septennial Act,
and demand that the duration of Parliament
shall be limited to what it was before that Act
was passed. At present our wish is to see how
the reformed Parliament works, before we de-
mand any change in its constitution. If it does
well, why should we risk a certain good for an
imaginary advantage ? If ill, we shill have the
irresistible argument of experience in favour of
a further alteration, and, if the people be true to
t hemgelves, what can then prevent its concession ?
We did object originally, and do still object, to
the payment of taxes being made a qualification
for the exercise of the elective franchise. A '
law to secure political rights should never
savour of a Revenue Bill ; but this, besides
being bad in principle, is a practical grievance,
the mischief and inconvenience of which
have been proved. It puts in the hands of tax-
collectors the means of committing frauds upon
the exercise of the elective franchise. It was
also the cause of great numbers of persons,
otherwise qualified, being pro hae tire disfran-
chised, previously to the last election. But this
brings us to the other question discussed at the
Guildhall—that of the assessed taxes. This
question of the assessed taxes is, indeed, not a
speculative one, like that of the ballot, or trien-
nial Parliaments ; it is a reap and a pressing
grievance, and we know not what question con-
nected with the internal policy of this realm re-
quires more immediate attention. When we
peak of the assessed taxes, we more imtne-

diately allude to those peculiarly oppressive and
unequal ones—the window tax and inhabited-
house tax. As to that portion of the assessed
taxes which are laid upon luxuries, we have no
wish to disturb them. It is better that the
luxuries of the great should be taxed than the
industry of the people. The assessed taxes
sere laid on as war taxes, and as war taxes only ;
:he Government was bound by its,pledge to re-

mit them on the return or peace. But, on the
return of peace, the landed interest and the bo
oughmongers, who had drawn the country into
he iniquitous and fool►sh war for the restoration
the Bi.tubons, shoved the burden of its ex-
penses off their own shoulders upon the industry
i►f the people. That industry has never been
ble to recover itself from that time to this. To
assist in pressing the productive energies of the
people to the earth, the iniquitous change was
made in the currency by " Peel's Bill,"
xhich, by the alteration in the value of mo-
ney, added at least one•third more to the
taxes. It was a Bill, in fact, to increase the
taxation of the producers and the manufac-
urers of England, while it lowered the prices

out of which the taxes were to be paid ! The
ihominable inequality with which the house and
window taxes are levied has excited just indig-
union throughout the kingdom. A shopkeeper
who pays a larger sum iu those taxes than the
Duke of Newcastle or the Marquis of Lans-
downe may well feel himself aggrieved, and
hit k it high time that a mode of taxation
whiCh allowed the practice of aristocratic fa-
vouritism that has lately been expo-ed should
continue no longer. If the owners of the great
a ist,icratic seats and castles be made to pay up
arrears upon the same scale as the payments
if the middle classes, from the time of the in-

-titution of those taxes, there will be a large
find, in hand to apply to the exigencies of the
State though those should be immediately re-
pealed. If a substitute be wanting, tln clues-
,ion may arise whether a property tax (not an
income tax) might not be the most proper ; but
we maintain that, before any tax is substituted,

he Government is bound to show that it has
nide every retrenchment possible to make in the
,xpenses of the State. By engaging in the
Durch war the Government seemed as if it had
money enough, and to spare ; it keeps up the
army at 8,000 men more than three years ago ;
it gave away the sinecure place of Constable of
the Round Tower of Windsor the other day;

,nd the Pension List is kept up in all its extra-
v.tgance. The country wants cheap and good
,;overntnent ; it must have it, or be ruined.—

Vl6rning Herald.

The Members of the Cabinet are, with but
*ew exceptionE, individuals whose abilities we
whose honesty we dispute; who neve►

rusted each other, whom the people have ceased
,o trust ; to whoni events have given an import-
wee which their own incapacity is rapidly
Aking away. But we find every where a
earful and sorrowful conviction that the salva-

tion of England from the perils into which these
men have guided her depends upon the future
course which these men are about to pursue.
Cite elections have done what it was intended

by the framers of the Reform Act they should do.
they have fur a season destroyed the political
strength of the united and consistent party by
which that Act was opposed, and they have
elevated into temporary supremacy the variow-
and discordant factions by which that Act was
supported. The Conservatives, strong as they
are throughout the country in their rank, their
intelligence, their property, and even in their
numbers, are in the House of Commons power-
less, except as their alliance may give the victor)
to one or other of the parties into which their
nlversaries will shortly he divided. The inno-
vators, so lung as they remain banded under a
common standard, so long as the timid do
not shrink nor the scrupulous hesitate, are
omnipotent to do mischief ; England has de-
livered into their hands whatever she valued
or venerated in old time—the integrity of her
law and the sanctity of her religion, her Peer's
coronet and her King's crown. This is the first
result of the adoption of the Reform Act. A
second succeeds which its framers never desired,
but which its enemies early foretold. The inno-
vators have already ceased to be thus united.