The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-20 00:00:00

EVENING,

discussion on the more vital points of the Budget shall
be taken forthwith. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
is, therefore, the man for us. With the discussions
which aro impending on the financial plans of Sir
Charles, we should think him a desperate gambler who
would bet in favour of a four weeks' existence of the
Ministry. Taking the measures of the Noble Lord and
the Right Hon. Gentleman together, the downfall of the
Whig Administration may be regarded as a moral cer-
tainty. There is nothing of a contingent character about
it. Lord Carlisle is a poet. If, therefore, he
means to pen tho epitaph of the Whig Cabinet,
it is high time ho were preparing himself for
the task. The extinction of the Ministry will, :no
doubt, be lamented by some parties. It would be
strange if that Ministry, bad as it has been, had no
friends. If it has no other parties to sorrow over its
dissolution, it must have mourners among those whose
situations will cease with it. Let, then, such persons
prepare their tears; they will soon have occasion to
shed them in profusion. The Budget of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer is unique of its kind. It stands alone
among all the financial statements cver made in the
House of Commons. In the absurdity, the injustice, the
iniquity of some of its more important provisions, it is
altogether unprecedented. " None but itself can be its
parallel." It were difficult to say whether the want of
capacity or of justice be the more glaring defects in the
measure. The union of the two attributes is singulary
striking. Taking it altogether, "we ne'er shall look
upon its like again." For the man who could propose,
or the,Ministry who could sanction so outrageous a finan-
cial scheme, it is difficult to make any allowance.
Both must be crushed by the measure. Mr. Disraeli
and his Protectionist troops must be delighted with
the Budget of Sir Charles. It is just the thing
which the Opposition leader must have wished to
have. No doubt he and they are already prepared to
take advantage of the chance which Sir Charles has
given them. The author of "Coningsby" must be already
preparing for an onslaught. Let us give him a hint,
leaving it optional with himself whether he adopt it or
not. We know that he will not regret it if he do.
What we would suggest is, that when the question of
sanctioning the Bill for another three years comes before
the House, Mr. Disraeli should be ready with a measure,
either in the shape of an amendment, or a substantive
motion, having for its object to protect precarious in-
comes against the unhallowed hand of the tax-gatherer.
Let all professional men—those who spend their days
and nights in unremitting and often uncertain labour, in
their struggle to earn a livelihood, be exempted from
the operation of this unjust and tyrannical tax. If the
Member for Bucks cannot insure the support of his Pro-
tectionist forces, we will guarantee to him the aid of a
sufficient number of Liberal Members, to render success
a matter of certainty. Nor will he win by a narrow
majority only. He will have a large majority in favour
of his proposition—the first majority, we believe, he
ever had since the commencement of his legislative
career. We cannot suppose that Mr. Disraeli will lose
so' favourable an opportunity of tripping up the heels of
the Whig Cabinet, especially as, for once in his life, he
will bo carrying out the wishes of the people, at the
same time that he promotes the views of his party.
Such a chance may not again occur in the legislative life
of the Hon. Gentleman—not even if his Parliamentary
existence were to be prolonged to the end of the present
century. Should we, however, be wrong in assuming
that the Member for Bucks will lead the opposition
against the Ministerial proposal to renew the provisions
of the property-tax as regards precarious incomes, we
cannot doubt that some of the Liberal Members will. It
is a thing which must be done. The term for which it
is proposed to renew the income-tax, with
_all

its iniquities and injustice, is three years. One
year's renewal would have been bad enough. A re-
newal for a period of three years is a thing not to be
endured. It is an impost on men's minds—a tax on
their bodies. To pay the tax on mere incomes derived
from mental exertions, many myriads have to spin their
brains at the imminent risk of impairing the faculty of
reason. Myriads more are shortening their days by
labours which break down the body as well as destroy
the mind, in their anxiety to keep themselves and fami-
lies in a respectable position in society. To them the
income-:ax is not only oppressive, but an act of abso-
lute cruelty—a piece of downright inhumanity. For
such unhappy beings—persons in as deplorable a condi-
tion as can be imagined—Sir Charles Wood has no
bowels of compassion. But the House of Commons has,
and before a !fortnight has passed away the Right
Honourable Gentleman will be furnished with a proof of
legislative humanity, which neither he nor his colleagues
in the Cabinet will altogether relish.

THE SOUTH NOTTS ELECTION.
The very severe contest which has taken place in
South Nottinghamshire will no doubt be long remem-
bered on the banks of the Trent, for the excitement
which it occasioned, the zeal with which the battle was
fought, and the close hazard of the result. But there is
considerable interest in the subject for those also who
were not so immediately concerned in the struggle as
the dwellers in Robin Hood's county. The success of
Mr. Barrow points to an important fact in the history of
our representative system. Fortunately, the grounds on
which he received such energetic support are singularly
cleared from the entanglement of any of the ordinary
points of difference which are put forward as the rallying
cries of electioneering contests. Nor was all this vehe-
mence excited, as was often the case in old times, by mere
family or local rivalries. Both Lord Newark and his
opponent came forward on ,tho same side of public
questions. Both are unequivocal supporters of a pro.
tective policy; both enunciated the same views on the
absorbing topic of Papal aggression. In short there evas
no political question of any moment—we might perhaps
say no political question at all—which was at issue be-
tween them. Nor can it strictly be said to have been a
personal question, except so far as Mr. Barrow was
known to the constituency, while Lord Newark, we be-
lieve, although he is said to have materially improved
his position in this respect during the contest, had been
previously almost a stranger to them. But the social
influences respectively represented by Lord Newarleand
by Mr. Barrow were found sufficient, on the present oc-
casion, to bring about a more severe ned more exciting
struggle than bas for a long time been afforded by a
Parliamentary election.
Of course, we may put away from us the standing
stock of inanities which will fill some of our free-trade
contemporaries up to the brim—we mean all those
phrases about liberty of election, despotism of landlords,
undue influence, and the like. In all constituencies,
and through all time, wherever people are at all eager
about the result, they will resort to such methods of
persuasion and pressure as shall most easily suggest
themselves; and these will be more or less unjustifiable
in proportion as the canvassers are more or less regard-
less of the duty of doing to their neighbour as they
would have their neighbour do to them. Those who
think they can bring about a state of things in which
they will so reconcile the right with the expedient, as
to enable a man to obey the dictates of his conscience
without danger of any inconvenience to any of his
worldly interests, may perhaps agitate for the ballot as
an instalment of such a blissful existence, regardless
of all the objections to that measure; but as we are not
only sceptical about the possibility of this Benthamite
paradise, hut extremely doubtful as to the ballot being
any approximation towards it, we are rot at all disposed
to join these speculat, rs in blowing their bubbles.
The recent contest in South Notte if it could be re-
garded es one between landlord and tenant, a colour
which some are endeavouring to give to it, would not
only be a very mischievous circumstance just now, but it
would be unimportant from being necessarily excep-
tional; for the interests of landlord and tenant are much
too closely connected to suffer scything like a permanent
divergence. Nor, we aro boued to say, does it aprear
that Mr. Barrow at all endeavoured to array class against
class, and to put himself forward as peculiarly the re-
presentative of any one order among the electors. In
this respect it is totally distinct from the ridiculous
pretence at a contest, which some decoy farmers in the
interest of the Manchester school are getting up in
Bedfordshire, where a Mr. Houghton, who represents
himself as a tenant-farmer, asks for the suf-
frages of the electors under the anomalously com-
bined characters of a Cobdenite, and a farmer's
friend. The farmers, we may remark,l would not at all
improve the condition of their cause, by returning men
of their own class to the HOLM of Commons—even men
whom they could trust, for we do not imagine for a mo-
ment that they would ever send representatives of Mr.
Houghton's stamp. The men who would probably seek
this office would be bad farmers, and worse legislators;
and we are sure no man can be a good legislator who
forgets his constitutional position as member of a deli-
berative council, and is willing to sink into that of the
delegate of a class. But Mr. Barrow belongs by educa-
tion and habits to that body which may most reasonably
be expected to furnish the leaders of our rural popula-
tion. He is a country gentleman, an active magistrate,
and so forth. But it appears he is the architect of his own
fortune, and the confidence which is reposed in him by a
majority of the electors of South Nottinghamshire, is given
to his personal ability and straightforwardness, not to all
those various accidents which go to make up what is so
well understood in England by the term " position."
Now, it would be a great injury to our representative
system if this latter source of recommendation were al-
together to fail of its effect. In fact, it can hardly so
fail as long as England remains what it is. But suppos-
ing it could do so, it must arise from circumstances that
would make the business of legislation in the Lower
House a thing to be avoided by those who occupy the
highest ranks in our social scale, and this would inevi-
tably tend to make it also cease to be the coveted prize
of the highest merit of all kinds, and thus degrade the
standard of men serving the office of legislator. It
would be a misfortune we repeat, taking the English
character as it stands, if the heir of the Pierrepointa, or
the Clintons, or the Bentincks, did not come forward as a
candidate for Nottinghamshire with a considerable pres-
tige in his favour. But on the the other hand, it must not be
forgotten that it would also be a great misfortune if such
men, by the mere weight of their lineage and station,
could so occupy the representation of our counties, as
to leave no opening for men capable of advantaging the
country, and who deserve the opportunity of so doing,
from inferior degrees of beady. Such a monopoly
would not only be injurious to the composition of the
House of Commons, but it would be not less so, perhaps,
to the nobility itself. Much, too, depends on the par-
ticular condition of the period at which the two kinds of
influence cerne into comparison. Personal qualifications
will be more especially regarded at a time when strong
political struggles are going on, when great interests are
at stake, and greet questions are debated. Such is the
case just now. The farmers throughout the country
feel that their very existence as a class is hazarded, and
they are fully aware that it is above all things important
A
to them to secure able and industrious champions. ct-
ir g on this conviction, they have selected Mr. Barrow as
their Manger.—Post.

13:Gpatello3 wore sent off yesterday from the Colonial-
offiee to the Governor of ceyloo, mad also to silo Gover-
WM of Jawirlips.