The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-21 00:00:00

THE PRECIOUS BUDGET.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
TIMES.—Mr. Locke King brought on last night his
annual motion fur the assimilation of the county fran-
chise to that of boroughs, and after a brisk little debate
Ministers were beaten by a majority of two to one. Ur.
King mustered a round hundred against the Ministerial
52—exactly one for each county in England and Wales.
Now, really this is too bad. It is too bad that people
who have been saying for years that something ought to
be done, and who on the strength of the present Go-
vernment saying the same have not withdrawn their
confidence from it, should bo put into this ignominious
position—for every usual supporter of Government
comes in for a share of its scandals. Think of the pro-
pais'er of the Reform Bill being beaten twenty year:
after, two to one, on a question of reform! This comes
of a man having once done a good thing—a circum-
stance well known to be ruinous to ordinary minds.
Well was his Lordship christened Finality John. He
is evidently one of those who worship the work of
their own hands, as if many as great a man had not
lived to see all his work scattered to the winds. He last
year fully admitted the intrinsic merits of Mr. King's
plan, acknowledging the strong claims of 101. house-
holders, and confessed that it was only a question of
time. This language, in which we entirely concurred,
had its natural effect on his 159 supporters, who all saw
that the opposition was virtually abandoned, and that,
for the future, they were to deal with the question as
they might think best. The result was, that the ma-
jority of 159 dwindled last night to less than one-third,
while Mr. King's compact and persevering century of
Reformers remained exactly what it was last year, viz ,
one hundred men—neither more nor less. It is not.
then, Mr. King that has gained ground, but Lord
John Russell that has lost it. He was distinctly
warned last session, both in the House and in

these columns, that unless he should be prepared
with a measure for comprehending some very
important classes now wholly unrepresented, he
would find many of his supporters leaving him in the
lurch. All that he could then say was, that it was a
question of time, and that the middle of July was too
late to set about it. Mr. King has brought it on in the
middle of February, and his Lordship is equally unpre-
pared. We think we have the greatest reason to com-
plain of this management, not merely because we are
anxious to see something done in the way of reform, bat
also because Mr. King has been allowed a more unqua-
lified triumph for his particular plan than we are ready
to accord. The principle of admitting all the 101 house-
holders at present unrepresented to the county franehise,
and of thus making the county the residuary legatee of
all other constituencie, is a very sweeping one, and
would require ; , some correction. In many, if
not most, of our counties the landowners and farmers
would be utterly swamped among a multitude
of tradesmen, shopkeepers, and even artisans.
Again, the proportion of 10/, householders is much
larger in trading than in purely agricultural districts.
In ten rural parishes containing ten thousand inhabit-
ants there may very easily be not more than a hundred
101 householders, allowing on the average a squire, a
clergyman, four farmers, a shopkeeper, a publican, a
blacksmith, and a carpenter to each. But in a town of
ten thousand inhabitants there will be net far short of a

thousand 101. householders. Should, however, the pro-
portion be 200 such householders to 10,000 agricul-
turists, and 800 of them to 10,000 inhabitants of a town,
then Mr. King's plan would give the trading classes of the
county four times as much representative weight as he gives
to the agricultural classes, besides leaving the former
in almost exclusive possession of the cities and
boroughs now sending Members to Parliament. The
plan would require at the very least that many large
towns, and perhaps whole districts, should be made Par-
liamentary boroughs, in order that they might not prove
overwhelming additions to the county constituencies.
But, thanks to Lord John Russell, Mr. King has obtained
a signal advantage for his naked proposition to make the
qualification the same in county as in town. Such is
our double complaint—first, that Lord John Russell has
procured for his followers the discredit of resisting Par-
liamentary reform; secondly, that he has given a real
advantage to a sweeping and unqualified measure.
But last night's affair has in more respects than
one a very ugly appearance. It is useless to con-
ceal that Government is losing weight both in. the
House and out of it. There are rocks a-head of all
sorts. To-night comes on the income-tax, which from
the first we have protested against, for the Procrustean
rule which it applies to the longest and shortest tenures
—to the rent which has been paid a thousand years, and
will probably be paid as much longer, and to the pro-
fessional or literary income which may cease to-morrow.
Farmers, tradesmen, and almost every other class, object
to the tax as it now stands, and their combined objec-
tions are likely enough to be expressed in the speeches
and votes of this evening. That' impediment passed,
then comes the window-tax, and Sir. Charles Wood's
house-tax. The public, we are much concerned to say,
does not appreciate the elaborate conscientiousness with
which Sir Charles has endeavoured to carve out his sur-
plus amongst the numerous expectants or non-expectants
of his bounty. The repeal of the corn-laws, and some other
large measures, have utterly spoilt them for half-and-
half boons. We really think that Sir Charles might
have retained the window-tax with better grace than he
has proposed to " repeal " it. We cannot help it—no-
body can help it—the public has a certain way of view-
things, and its present feeling is very much that which
Dickens describes in a large hungry family, which had
been led to expect a Christmas pudding, and received ic-
stead five yards of flannel. As matters li)ok at present,
there is not a little chance of this long-expected boon
being sulkily refused, in the hope that somebody else will
'do the thing more handsomely,—in fact, as Peel would
have done it. To some other measures we need not now
allude more particularly, but it is evident that Ministers
are not to be allowed so easy a timm of it as they have

hithert ) enjo)ed, and that the fourth session, so fatal to
the popularity of Governments and the constancy of
supporters, is beginning to tell. At such a crisis we
must call it an unpardonable blip to leave Mr. Locke
King in possession of Reform, with a popular cause and
a large majority. As to the promise of a measure next
session, who can pretend to say how we shall all stand
by that time? The announcement is like that of the
Newgate Ordinary who promised to take the second part
of his text next Sunday, though the persons be was ad-
dressing were to be hanged the next morning. The
only difference is that in the present instance it is the
preacher rather than the congregation that is in danger
of losing his position.
Whatever be the merits or demerits of the budget of
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is quite evident that
it cannot pass in its present shape, and the sooner this
truth is recognized and acted upon the better. Sir
Charles Wood has very properly pressed the House to let
him know the fate of his scheme as soon as possible, and
we think he is not likely to be kept long in suspense.
Sir Charles Wood calls upon the people of this country
to make a great sacrifice, to submit for three years more,
and thus to increase the probability of having to submit
for ever, to a most inquisitorial and unequal tax, which
used to be considered us a desperate resort, to be had re-
course to only in time of war. The fact that the income-
tax does not increase in proportion to the income shows
that the sense of its injustice and the facility of eluding
it offer temptations too grt at to be withstood, and
that it is, in fact, debauching the conscience of the
country. These inequalities and immoral tendencies Sir
Charles is at no pains to remedy, but flings them before
the House, to take or to reject in the lump, only re-
questing to be favoured with an early intimation of their
opinion. The measure is too bad to be altered, there-
fore it must be passed as it stands. The income-tax was
laid on by Sir Robert Peel partly to cover a deficit of
ruinous amount, partly to give a trial to a new system
of policy, which should remove the burden of taxation
from the country to the owner of property, or make up
for reduced taxation on the consumer by an increase of
consumption. Sir Charles Wood claims to tread in the
steps of his great predecessor, and how does he set about
it? With a surplus of two millions, he devotes to the
policy of Sir Robert Peel 412,000/., the sum which he
estimates will be required to meet the defi-
ciencies occasioned by the reduction of duty
on coffee, timber, and clover seed. Those, therefore,
who look with an eye of favour on the policy of Sir Ro-
bert will see little in the present Budget to reconcile
them to the re-imposition of an income-tax in a paltry
imitation of the policy of their leader, which seems to
remind them of its burdens and sacrifices without pro-
mising any of its magnificent results. But something
must be done for popularity. Principle is a noble thing,
but the greatest arithmetician, the most stoical calcu-
lator, must yield somewhat to expediency. Of all those
who have clamoured against taxation, the metropolis has
been the loudest against the window-tax, and therefore
the window-tax is to be sacrificed. A more objectionable
impost in a sanitary or architectural point of view can-
not be conceived, and, although its reduction or aboli-
tion contains within itself no revivifying principle.
like that which has compensated by increased con-
sumption for the removal of so many burdens, it
was so deservedly unpopular that the sternest dis-
ciple of Sir Robert Peel might well rejoice at its ex-
tinction. Here, then, if not strictly logical and con-
sistent, Sir Charles Wood was at least likely to be
popular, and to gain golden opinions from :that very
numerous class of financiers who view the merits of a
Chancellor of the Exchequer from the commanding
point of view afforded by their own hearthstone, and
estimate the goodness or badness of his measures by the
amount of his demands upon their pockets. But Sir
Charles Wood could not be popular in a popular way.
He took those who argue against the window-tax on
account of its sanitary and architectural obliquities at
their word, and most rashly assumed, that if these ob-

jections to the tax could be removed, the tax itself might
be retained. The window-tax, after all, he seems to
have thought, is only a house-tax calculated ou an ob-
jectional principle; if I alter the principle I may retain
the tax. No one was ever more mistaken. The ground
on which the window-tax is' objected to is one thing;
the ground on which it is disliked is another. If
Sir C. Wood meant to carry out a system of
finance founded on scientific and farsighted principles,
he would not probably have meddled with the window-
tax at all; if he meant to court popularity he should
have abolished it altogether. As it is, he has incurred
much more odium than he would have done by steadily
pursuing the reduction of those import and excise duties
which narrow our hiraket., fetter our energies, and in-
terfere with our manufactures. The meetings held in
London and elsewhere since the promulgation of this
most infelicitous scheme sound much more like the first
transports of rage and disappointment than of gratitude
and satisfaction. The numerous class of persons who,
renting houses free from window-tax at upwards of
twenty pounds a year, find themselves compelled for the
first time to contribute in this form to the public reve-
nue, consider themselves, and with some justice, the vic-
tims of the system. They indignantly ask why it should
be that on the occasion of a large surplus they should
bo selected to mourn amid the general rejoicing, and
the popularity which Sir Charles might hope to ban

obtained by the remission of one-third of the window•
tax is far more than counterbalanced by the cla-
morous remonstrances of the victims o the house-tax.
Thus, whether we consider the Budget as designed to
satisfy popular outcry, or to carry out a scientific finan-
cial operation, it equally fails to conciliate support. It
gives a little to everybody, just enough to stimulate
their appetite for more, and then to disappoint it. It is
little necessary for us to add our voice to the general
chorus of unmeasured vituperation, but we cannot help
thinking that a great opportunity has been lost, or rather
frittered. away. Small reductions like these contained
m the Budget could have been made in any year, but
the existence of a large surplus, and the required re-
newal of the income-tax, seemed to suggest the
necessity either of remitting the income tax, or
of purchasing assent to its re-imposition by
some comprehensive financial measure. That op-
portunity has been let slip, and may not seen
return. It is not for little • amendments of
little duties, for peddling alterations, which are just suf-
ficient to
.show how much further they ought to have
been carried, that the people of this country are disposed
to submit to a re-imposition of the income-tax. The
principle of that tax is loudly condemned by public opi-
nion, and will not be acquiesced in unless upheld by a
Minister who offers to the nation a fair and reasonable
equivalent. To carry out a great idea, to reduce our
financial system to scientific and reasonable principles, it
has been and would be submitted to; but those who ask
for its renewal, with all its iniquities unabated, must
show themselves able to employ the funds which it
places at their disposal to a really profitable purpose.
We would therefore counsel the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer to take back his measure, and so to recast it as
that it may meet the hearty approbation of, at any rate,
some class of her Majesty's subjects. The present
Budget, while it has encountered so many bitter enemies,
has utterly failed te conciliate for itself even lukewarm
friends.
HER A.LD.—The British House of Commons is to-night
to resume the discussion of the weakest, the most unjust,
and the most impolitic financial scheme ever presented
by any Chancellor of the Exchequer to the representa-
tives of the people. The first question upon which the
House will have to determine is the continuance or non-
continuance of the income-tax. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer tells us, and tells us truly, that this question
must be disposed of before the items of his Budget can
be considered, because his whole scheme is based upon
the re-imposition of this odious tax. Let us add to this,
however, that the question of the income-tax cannot be
satisfactorily decided without considering the whole of
the Budget, because it is to sustain that Budget that the
proposal is made to re-impose the income-tax. This tax
is suggested to supply the deficiencies in the revenue
which other parts of his financial propositions fail to meet.
It is because the ways and means of the Right Hon.
Gentleman do not furnish sufficient te meet the expen-
diture of the country without recourse to this extraor-
dinary Assessment that it is proposed. The income-
tax is, in fact, the price which we pay for the rest of
his financial measures. It is to sustain those measures
that we are called on to submit to the tax. Were we
asked whether those measures be worth the price, a shout
of derision from the whole country would be the 'reply.
Never was a proposal for raising the year's revenue so
unanimously condemned by the press. All classes
among the people are arrayed against it. By some
singular fatuity of blundering Sir Charles Wood has
contrived that his proposed remission of taxation shall
be as unpopular as the imposition of new . tax- s. His
boon of substituting a house-tax for the impost on win-
dows has excited a ferment fiercer than was excited last
year by his proposal to retain the window-tax in its
integrity. His reduction of the duty upon coffee and
timber is declaimed against as another blow at our colo-
nial interests. In a fit of exuberant generosity, he pro-
poses to give to agriculturists their seeds duty free.
Mr. Frewen, the Member. for an agricultural county,
points out that this is but a contrivance still further to de-
preciate the value of the tillage of the soil. Nay, when
the Chancellor's munificence rises to the height cf re-
lieving the agricultural interest from the expense of
the support of lunatics, the representatives of
that interest with one consent reject his prof-
fered gift as " a delusion, a mockery, and a snare."
We suspect, then, that the country will hardly be
willing to purchase such a Budget at the price of sub-
mitting to the income-tax. Unfortunate in windows—
not singularly successful in coffee—a positive failure in
timber—ridiculously breaking down in the matter of
agricultural seeds—and absolutely pelted with ignominy
from lunatic asylums —the ill-fated Chancellor will
hardly shelter himself from popular indignation behind
that rather unpopular individual the collector of the
income-tax. Still, however, the representatives of the
people have a duty to discharge that is of wider and
more permanent interest than the mere condemnation of
the Budget. It must now, once for all, be determined
whether the machinery of the income-tax is to be a
settled and permanent instrument of British finance.
It is impossible to disguise the truth, that if the vote be
now taken for the continuance of this impost, it is a
vote that the revenue of the country shall be now and
for ever hereafter raised by its means—each year's accu-
mulated precedent increases the difficulty of getting rid
of it. Another renewal, and it becomes one of the insti-
tutions of the country. When is this tax to be refused,
if not now? So lung as Parliaments agree to vote. it.
Ministers will be ready to propose it. If, in a time of
profound peace—of a financial surplus—of no unusual
demand upon our resources—if, under such circum-
stances, Parliament at once accede to its re-imposition,
when, or under what circumstances, will it be refused?
Is it, then, argued that the income-tax is to be perpetual?
To what class that is subject to its operation may we not
turn for some almost peculiar illustration of its injustice?
Indiscriminate, indeed, iu its oppr-ssion, it has so many
forms of injustice that each 'Jerson can, with reason, be-
lieve that he is the victim of a separate wrong. The
farmer complains that its mode of assessment upon him
makes it nothing but robbery in form of law, the manu-
facturer and merchant that they are taxed for uroats
when they suffer loss—the professional man bitterly
feels the injustice of taxing his hard-earned gains equally
with she in:erest of the miliionnire. Take any one of these
classes singly, and contemplating that alone. we can almost
fancy that each has a grievance peculiar to itself.
The truth is, that the tax itself to each and all is one
gigantic and universal grievance—a grievance resting
upon two of its characteristics—its inequality and its
inquisitorial character. It is under the show of equality
most cruelly unequal. A tax of 3 per cent. upon the
owner of an income of 1,000/. a year is a very different
thing from the same proportioned impost upon the man
of 3001. While the first may hardly feel it, it may de`,l
prive the second—scarcely able to make both ends meet
—perhaps of the means of educating a child—it presses
upon the struggling tradesman with a severity to which
the demand upon his opulent rival bears no assignable
proportton—it clutches with remorseless and unrelen ing
grasp the very class that can worst afford taxation—
those whose ordinary expenditure just reaches
their income. Taxes upon luxuries self-denial may
escape. The tax upon income perjury only can
evade. The man upon the verge of embarrassment it
plunges into difficulty—the struggling man it crushes—
the sinking ma's it pushes down. In the fact that no
reduction in expenditure can evade it—eume persons
fancy a merit—we see in it a great cruelty. The bed of
Peocrustes was the most terrible invention of human
torture. Still more cruel is the inequality of is opera-
tion upon professional income and ou real property.
How much of the income of any professional man may
fairly be said to be profit applicable to his own pur-
poses—how much of it income which he can be said to
have to spend. Must we not first inquire how much of
his income is of necessity expended iumaintaining a po-
sition in society essential to his professional gains ?
Is the money expended on the carriage and horses
of the physician any portion of his income in any
sense in which income is a fair subject of taxa-
tion? Nay, must we not deduct from gains
.depending
on the precariousness of human life that portion of them
which must be devoted to the sacred object of making
provision for those who are dependent for their bread
upon his earnings? Deduct these items from the gains
income
at any professional man, and the residue alone is
at his own disposal. It is out of the gross amount that
he must pay the income-tax, which yst is assessed upon
a nominal sum of three, five times, perhaps ten times the
amount of his available funds. We can but glance at
considerations which ten times our space would not
enable us fully to discuss. Even beyond its inequality
—gross and palpable as is that injustice—we deprecate
the inquisitorial character of this impost. We have
been able, in some degree, to estimate the sensation
produced by the plain and practical letter of "A
Manchester Merchant," which appeared in the Morning
Herald of Tuesday. Is it, we ask, to be endured that
British merchants should be obliged to disclose to any
men—to their rivals in trade—every secret of their part-
nership—every item of their ventures? Yet this the letter
of our correspondent feelingly established the commis-
sioners had a right to demand. It is not the language
of cant to say that this system is un-English. This pro
its •
nounces, in our mind, its severest and most truthful
condemnation. There is a sturdy independence about
the Saxon character that ill brooks this prying by Go-
vernment officials into the private details of each man's
affairs. To the respect that legislation pays to that very.
spirit of independence we verily believe we owe much of
the qualities that give dignity to the English character. It'
is a spirit that legislation may foster, but which the tax-
gatherer may break down. There is something abhorrentto it iu that inquisition which demands of you to subject
all your concerns to any commissioner of revenrouf
e,
If an Englishman's house be his castle—the ledtrguesive
an English merchant should be subject to no
:infer the
oyes—no man should have a right to come
dealings—the
of his income—the nature of his
neg elehbour the
purposes of taxation, and extort from his
particulars of his livelihood—the
secret of his gains.
struggles of his honest poverty,
a taxth:njust in its principle,
Away, then,confession of the
Ennogwlistheliln t its
machinery. Let the H
ousveide fur the revenue of the
ty. consonant to our feelings
cruel in its opewreatisramy. Iviniqtisitoorficalomatounns-
Minister that he must pmroore
Let us say that there is,
caouudnrutryorbeya
to which the country has a
one section of the House.
for a determine resistance to the renewal
right to look
It is to the friends of the late Sir
gsoremeeabreetaon:q
of this impost.
Robe: t Peel. Nineyears ago that statesman, high in
theconfidence of his country, succeeded in imposing thes
unpopular tax, when no one else could have done so.
But even he could not have carried it if he had not
pledged himself that it was impossed to meet 1. tempo-
rary exigency, and should not be converted into a per-
manent instrument of finance. Upon previous occasions
men might believe its renewal temporary : the question
now beyond doubt is, whether it is to be made perpe-
tual. Is the imputation to lie upon his memory that
the country was cheated into the concession of this tax
under false pretences? Is the pledge under which he
obtained that concession to be redeemed? We have
heard solemn and feeling perorations in which free-trade
votes were justified as the preservation of sacred trusts
confided to the sAmakers by the example of their de-
parted leader. We doubt not that OM were 4,4"fr0

but let us say, that the votes upon the income-tax l
test their sircerity. Tha, t atesman obtained from the
country the income-tax upon a distinct promise that it
should not bo made a perpetual impost. Confiding in
that promise, the country cheerfully acceded to its tem-
porary imposition. In a spirit of deep solemnity we ask,
htwhoi
enll
ofituodhrfuo
cos
it:lh
tr wehi
eh:po have
d?
eefdpgharei s
opinions,
o
n proclaimed
vote
fr t themselves
h e redemp-
tion
tedwhstiachte,smevaeuncafrllosmonthtehetmomtob,ketehpe
inviolate.
ADVERTISER.—The Premier and the Chancellor
of the Exchequer are brothers in adversity. It is diffi-
cult to say which is most to be commiserated. They
doubtless sympathise with each other. They may do
much by reciprocating their compassion, to keep each
other in countenance. Poor Lord John ! Poor Sir
Charles ! " Sure such a pair," of legislators, " were
never seen." It may seem unkind, bat the truth must
be told. The sorrows of the Noble Lord and of the
Right Hon. Gentleman aro but beginning. Sir Charles
Wood will, this evening, have a foretaste of what is in
reserve for him. The discussion, as the Parliamentary
phraseology has it, " is to be taken" on the Budget to-
n'ght. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will, conse-
quently, be this night's victim. The immolation of the
Premier, or, rather, the commencement of the process,
will take place next week, when the Papal Aggression
Bill again comes before the House. From all we can
see or hear, Sir Charles Wood will be compelled, before
the clock strikes twelve to-night, to come, in his own
mind, to one of two conclusions. He will feel that he
must either abandon his Budget, or resign his situa-
tion as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ho had better
make up bis mind at once to co the former. If be
hesitate, the inevitable result will be, that he will have
to do both. If he persist in his adherence to his finan-
cial abortion of Monday night, the penalty he will have
to pay for his foolish pertinacity will be the loss of
office. With himself will, of course, go his Budget. It
cannot exist an hour after his official career has closed.
If it were otherwise, we could understand those feelings
which would lead him to cling to it with all the affection
of a father. We can comprehend, that there may be
such a thing in the Ministerial world, as a man having
so devoted a regard for his offspring, as to inspire him
with a heroism which would prompt him to sacrifice
himself for the sake of a favourite measure. This eau-
not be so with Sir Charles Wood and his Budge:. Any
attempt to save it from the destruction wtth which it is
menaced will most certainly be ineffectual; while the
very attempt to avert the impending annihilation, will
necessarily involve his own official extinction. If he at
once abandon his Budget—if he cast out and cast off his
own offspring, he may possibly thereby save himself.
But it cannot, under any circumstances, be saved. Its
doom is sealed. The sentence of death is written on its
forehead. A few weeks hence, and it will be in its
tomb. It will have had but a brief existence. It has
been born but to die. It has been ushered into the
world merely for the purpose of being extinguished.
The Right Honourable Gentleman to whom it owes its
parentage will before many weeks, possibly before many
days, have elapsed, have to act as chiet mourner at its
funeral. Some persons are prepared to see Sir Charles
Wood make an attempt to save his offspring from a vio-
lent death by indulging, should the House persist in its
hostility to the measure—in the threat of a resignation
of Ministers. We do not share in these apprehensions.
We anticipate nothing of the kind. That is a game
which cannot always be played with safety, much less
with success. The trick is becoming stale. It will not
do to be too frequently repeated. When resorted
to on every occasion in which Ministers are thwarted,
it loses all its effect. It may have been all very
well to try the effect of the thing when Lord John
Russell first found his Cabinet in jeopardy; but
because it was successful then, that is no reason
why it should be successful now. Each successive
repetition of a menace of this kind diminishes its effect,
until it ceases to have any effect at all. Two years ago
Lord John Russell's threat of resignation inspired an un-
easy and a regretful feeling in the country, because it
was hoped that the Noble Lord's Government would im-
prove as it went on. Wo have all lived to see, that un-
dignified expedient resorted to too often already. Be-
cause the circumstance of parties or the country were
peculiar at the particular moment, Lord John Russell
has, on more than one occasion, forced obnoxious mea-
sures down the throats of an unwilling Parliament and a
reluctant people. But the time for carrying his pur-
poses by such unworthy and such unconstitutional
means has gone by; the threat would make no impres-
sion now; it would not inspire an atom of alarm in the
public mind. The Noble Lord would have the mor-
tification of finding that the nation no longer
said, " Oh, pray don't resign." He would
hear quite different language. On his ears
would fall { the ungrateful words, "Do re-
sign, by all means. It is high time that you did.
You ought to have done it long ago." We are aware
that some of the friends of the Whig Cabinet—the in-
terested friends, for they have no other—say that no
succcessors can be found to the present Ministry. That
is all nonsense. The forsaken lover in the song con-
soled herself with the reflection that " there is as good
fish in the sea as ever yet were taken." The same may
be said in reference to Ministers. Terrible, indeed,
would be the dearth of statesmen in this great country,
if it could not produce twelve or fourteen men, equal in
acquirements, capacity, and the other necessary quali-
ties for an Executive, as the present occupants of Down-
icg-street. It would not, indeed, be easy to meet with
an equal number of persons, of average education,
more imbecile or more incompetent than the
Whig advisers of her Majesty. The Russell
Ministry were feeble, tottering, and unpopular
before. They were on the high road to disaeletion.
l'he Papal aggression measure of the Noble Lord, and
the Budget of the Right Hon. Gentleman, were all that
was wanting to clap an extinguisher on them. These
measures will only accelerate an event which was inevi-
table under any circumstances. Should Sir Charles
Wood be so foolish and so disrespectful to the House,
as to threaten that Ministers will go out in the event of
his Budget being meshed, then we trust there will be
found iu that as,,embly sum- one with sufficient spirit to
reply to the menace, by telling them to " go," and not
to stand upon the order of their going. but to go at once.
The country, from one eked to the other, will echo the
words. The nation, as with one voice, will say, " Amen."
The Whigs will quit office unpitied and unlamented.
They have, for a long time past, been barely tolerated.
The Russell Cabinet has been a Cabinet of sufferance.
The time has arrived when the country must have a
mug Government—a Goverment which will reflect
the opinions and promote the real interests of the
people.
POST.—When, in 1845, the then Prime Minister
'came to the conclusion that the interest and credit of
the country rendered it necessary to demand from Par-
liament a renewal of the tax directly levied upon the
income of the nation under the Act of 1842, for a further

limited period of three years, the proposal was thought
a matter of sufficient moment to make it a subject not
merely of mention, but almost of direct recommendation,
in the Specch from the Throne. Sir Robert Peel had,
when first he made his "earnest appeal to the posses-
sors of property to remedy the mighty and growing eiii"
by which the country was ala:med, end its enterprise re-
stricted, ,xprcssed his doubts whether, in three years, the

.. .
operation of the. new system of financial and commercial
leg:slanon would produce such an effect on the revenue,
as to enable him, et the expiration cf that period, to
dispense with the direct end burdeoseme taxation
to which, under the peculiar eircurnstances—cir-
cumstaeces which he hoped and believed to be ex-
ceptional—ha had asked the country to submit.
Sir Robert Peel's doubts were the only portion
of his coda of faith which were justified by events.
In 1845, after three years of experimental finance, he
found that it would be, we will not say impossible, but
hazardous, to dispense with this adventitious and ex-
ceptional, at least so it was represented to be, aid to the
revenue. Parliament and the country, advised by the
Crown, and urged by the Minister, acquiesced in the
proposed renewal. Tho income-Lax was extended for
a further period of three years, the extension being ac-
companied with protestations from the people against
the impost being converted into a permanent tax, and
promises from the Government that this should be the
last time of asking. Previous, however, to the expira-
tion of the limited extension, Sir Robert Peel resigned
the administration of public affairs, and another Minister
sat on the Treasury Bench, during whose tenure of
office occurred the commercial distress of 1847; famine
in Ireland, almost universal bankruptcy, and actual uni-
versal distrust in Great Britain, shook the credit and
incoepoolyrfuotewfdhtabateesvear
resources of the kingdom till they tottered to their foun-
dation. It was manitest to the merest tyro in finance that
the ordinary sources of revenue would not be sufficient to
the occasion, and that it was not possible that the finance
tune, Parliament
Minister should do otherwise than ask the country to
en
the demand on
grant him a further lease of the income-tax. It was
granted freely, frankly. tit
aettuitehsee.escri
protested that they
circtuhmestljtunscteisc,eanodf they
i 3
idea of this exceptional mode
being
gal system country. The
raecpcouudinatteodf
etmhephuartgicesnileyy
toh.fethe
element
reusing
inretvbeenufien
Governments who have availed themselves of the impost
party, or of
ever whatever political opinions, ventured to defend the
tax qua tax. Sir Hubert Peel, in 1842 and 1845,
the hope,
ahtotphee,
operation
atthi
ueu
haveview. a2cskentowaleedigeegdle umnreemeehrevre.d
and
coonft fih de e
newnt
commercial
gay?.
Sir Charles Wood in 1848, held out to the country not
tern would render the permanence of the income-tax un-
necessary. These were the promises, these were theunder-
taking, on the faith of which the possessors of property
assurancemerely
thrice answered, with unabated energy, to lobe call of the
respective Governments. They responded trustingly,
nobly. Has faith been kept with the country? Has
either or any Minister made any attempt to fulfil their
promises to the nation? We regret that to those ques-
tions truth compels us to answer—No. Sir Robert Peal
chalked out for hi. own guidance and that of Parliament
a line tortuous and leading to most dangerousr esults,
but with a sort of plausibility in its approaches which
seduced a large party. 113 assumed that there w re
many taxes unduly restricting the access to commcdf ice
1 Iconsumer. It was evident that the on the part of the
sudden removal of these taxes, whatever they might be,
would diminish the revenue below the amount necessary
for the current expenditure of the country; but he con-
tended that the increased consumption, consequent on
increased ability from reduction of price, would,i n
process of time, again fill up the measure of income to
the brim. To preveot, however, any possibility ofieuught
while awaiting the rising of the to-be-fertilisicg stream,.
he asked for, and obtained, a per-centage upon the. ree
come of the People. To a considorablq extent his an-
ticipations were realivd: he found himself actually pos-
sessed, in 1845 and in 1845, the last year of his tenure
of office, of a surplus almost, if not quite sufficient to
enable him to dispense with the exceptional assistance
of the income-tax. He —a had not, however, the moral
courage to do justice and to keep faith with the nation.
Moved up by a full-blown and frotby prtV4tity
he Wtilgott to epenieue rtwisisie of toniton—iko