The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-04 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON,

of his motion the Hon. and Learned Gentleman entered
into a detailed statement of what he considered the
abuses of the Government of India.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL considered that an inquiry in
India would produce great excitement and mischief. If
an inquiry were necessary it had better be before a Com-
mittee•of the House.

Mr. [loam considered inquiry necessary, but did not
approve of sending a Commission to Indic.
Sir JAMES HoGG defended the Court of Directors and
tho East India Company.

The motion, which was supported by Mr. BRIGHT,
and opposed by Mr. MANGLES, was eventually withdrawn.
Lord Jorm RUSSELL then-moved, in pursuance of the
resolution of last session, that the House resolve itself
into a Committee to consider the mode of administering
the oath of abjuration to persons professing the Jewish
religion. The Noble Lord recapitulated the history of
the attempt of Baron ROTHSCHILD last year to take his
seat, and concluded by declaring that, in his judgment,
it was for acts and not opinions that Parliament ought
to legislate.
Sir ROBERT Itecas reiterated his former objections
to the measure.
Mr. M. GIBBON considered the measure should have
been introduced earlier, and hoped that if it were again
rejected in another place, the Government would take
some decided step.
Mr. PLUDIPTRE and Mr. NEWDEGATE opposed, and
Mr. WEGG•PROSSER supported the motion, which on
a division was carried by 166 to 98.
The usual formalities having been gone through, a
Bill was introduced and read a first time, and ordered to
be read a second time on Friday week.
On the order of the day for the committal of the
Designs Act Extension Bill,

Mr. AREWRIGHT moved that it be deferred for six
months.

After a short discussion the amendment was nega-
tived by 132 to 42, and the Bill passed through Com-

mittee.

The Apprentices to Sea Service (Ireland) Bill, the
General Board of Health, and the Process and Practice
(Ireland) Bill were each read a second time.

The Marine Mutiny Bill and the Mutiny Bill were
read a third time and passed.
The House adjourned at Half•past Twelve o'clock.

After exhausting every pretext and subterfuge
that could be devised for procrastination, Sir
CHARLES WOOD is at length driven to extremities.
He must now " screw up his courage to the sticking
place ;" no further excuse or apology for delay is
available. The new Budget, the successor to that
PRECIOUS production which was so unanimously re-
pudiated by all classes and parties throughout the
country, and so ignominiously rejected by the Par-
liament, ;;.must be produced this evening. The
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER must bring forward an
entirely new financial scheme, one that will be more
just and politic, more equitable and expedient than
that which so strongly excited the public indignation,
that it was compelled to be withdrawn without de-
bate or discussion.

That most injudicious project contained three fatal
mistakes, any one of which was sufficient not
merely to render it unpalatable to the com-
munity, but to render any Cabinet unpopular
that could sanction such unwise and obnoxious pro-
positions. These were, fint, the prcjected application
of by far the greater portion of the expected surplus
to the reduction of the national debt; secondly, the
transparent humbug respecting the pretended aboli-
tion of the window-tax, while it was to be retained
and perpetuated to two-thirds of the present amount,
with all its monstrous inequalities : and, thirdly, and
worst of all, the gross injustice of asking for a re-
newal of the income-tax in its present monstrous form,
without alteration or adjustment of any kind, and thus
making the precarious earnings of industry contribute
as highly to the national Exchequer, for the liquida-
tion of the national liabilities and the maintenance of
the national establishments, as the rents or dividends
of accumulated or realised property. Sir CHARLES
may have " come to a conclusion" that it should
be so, but he may rest assured that the
country has arrived at a very different de-
cision ; and obstinate as he may be, he will find that
it is absurd to make the Dame Partington attempt of
keeping back the tide of public opinion with his
financial brooms. He must necessarily give way,
and if he cannot do so with a good grace—if he do
not " swallow his leek" without threats or grim-
aces, his sinsi will be visited on his Ministerial col-
leagues, and the entire Cabinet will be involved in
the destruction occasioned by his recklessness and
incapacity.

Were it not that the income-tax will expire na-
,urally to-morrow, we should probably have had
further delays, but the speedily approaching dissolu-
tion of that horrid monster, and the absolute impos-
sibity of prolonging its hateful existence by any
financial quackery, rendered it essential to bring the
subject under the consideration of the popular branch
of the Legislature without further procrastination. As it
is, we may congratulate the English people on the great
fact, that from and after the termination of the finan-
cial year on Saturday, the sth of April instant, the
country will be free from income-tax of any descrip-
tion, until a new Bill receive the Legislative sanction,
and pass into a law with the assent and approbation
of the three estates of the realm. Even this is some-
thing to rejoice at. Whatever change or modifica-
tion may take place must prove beneficial to those
who earn their daily bread by their physical or intel-
lectual labour, and who for the last nine years have
been most unfairly plundered
.under the guise and
sanction of law.

The equal taxation of every description of income,
without reference to the sources from which it may
be derived, is so unsound in principle, so unequal in
operation, that it would be a mere work of superero-
gation to offer any arguments on a point
that must apparently be obvious to the
meanest capacity, were it not that the British
Parliament had deliberately adopted the iniquitous
system, and that a person, who unfortunately occupies
a position that gives a certain degree of weight to his
opinions on financial questions, had recently an-
nounced, the "conclusion" he had arrived at, in favour
of the present form. It becomes every man, then, to
protest earnestly and emphatically against its con-
tinuance. There ere no causes in existence that
should induce us to consent to its renewal, for even
a limited period, without an equitable adjustment
being previously effected. In 1842 it was carried as
a mere temporary makeshift to replenish the exhausted
Exchequer, which had wasted away under heavy de-
ficiences fur several successive years. In 184.5 it was
willingly renewed because the series of experiments
had been entered upon that eventually led to
the abolitioa of the bread-tax and the establishment
of free- trade principles. The country was enjoying a
transient gleam of sunshine; the money marketwas easy,
cash abundant, and at low rates of interest. Every thing
was cwdeur de rose, all was activity and enterprise—
the people had no time to think on political subjects.
The matter therefore passed almost sub silentio, and
the impost was renewed without difficulty or dispute.
The impost was again renewed in 1848, without
discussion, but the same effect was produced from
very different causes than those in operation in 1845.
The nation bad then passed through a commercial
crisis of no ordinary magnitude. There had been a
fearful pressure on persons even of the most un-
doubted solvency, and many first-class firms were
unable to weather the storm ; credit was almost ex-
tinct, the operations of industry paralysed. The na-
tional revenue participated in the general gloom; when
the working classes were without employment, they
could not indulge in their ordinary comforts, and
thus the produce of the indirect taxes was materially
reduced, and the national income was inadequate to
meet the national expenditure. It was not at such
a time, or under such circumstances, that fiscal
changes could be sanctioned, or that any portion of
the direct taxation of the country could be re-
linquished. No attempt, therefore, was made to ob-
co
tsliepepreonpelnet.were
proposedn"
ttaeinnt con-
tented rteov
resist
the increase system—the
m
by the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, which they did
satseero
than to anyjection to its character as a direct successfully. But that success was attributable to
the unfair and partial assessment of the charge, rather
im-
post. It was the simple fact that incomes under
schedules D and E were proposed to be taxed as
objection
highly as those under schedules A. end C, that led to
the decisive failure ofthe proposition to increase the
charge from 7d. to ls. in the pound, or from 21. 18s.
4d, to .5/. per cent.

The circumstances are now,
however, very different
from what they were at any of the former periods.
It is no longer pretended that the tax is to be con-
tinued only for a limited period. It is well under-

stood that it is t be permanent, and most probably at
even a higher rate than at present charged. None
now in existence can hope to see the day when Eng-
land will (after the next few weeks) be free from the
property-tax. There is a handsome surplus in the
Exchequer, so that any experiment may be reasonably
tried. Everything indicates that this is the most
favourable opportunity for placing the matter on an
equitable basis, and the people are not disposed
to let slip that opportunity to gratify the whims and
caprices of the financial Minister. Let all those who
are favourable to full and impartial justice
to all without distinction, who think that the great
constitutional principle that every man should bear
his just proportion of the public burdens, and should
contribute to the national expenditure secundum
statum et facultates, join heart and hand, and the vic-
tory will be speedily achieved ; that is, if Sir C. WOOD
should have the hardihood to enter the lists once more
in favour of " the conclusion " he had arrived at.
What matters it if the Whig Ministry fall in the
contest ? Better that ten such Ministries should be
swept away—that all the traditions of office, the
etiquette of Downing street should be disturbed and
violated, than that the British Parliament and the
British people should continue to sanction such in-
justice as that which would be perpetrated by the re-
newal of schedules D and E without alteration or
modification.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
The National Assembly proceeded on Wednesday to
renew the Presidents and Secretaries for the ensuing
month. In the Second Committee, M. EUGENE SUE
was elected President by 18 votes against 17, given to
the Dec DE BRCGLIE.

The negotiations for the formation of a definitive Mi-
nistry have again completely failed.
The Messager, the organ of M. TRIERS, has the fol-
lowing on this subject :
" Yesterday M. Odilon Barrot met M. Fould at dinner
at the house of a friend. The conversation having turned
on the recent failure to form a Ministry, M. Odilon Barrot
declared, in the presence of M. Fould, that the President of
the Republic had never called upon him for a programme of
his policy, and had never made him any proposition what-
ever, from which it may be concluded that the President of
the Republic wished to make it appear that he was seeking
to form a definitive Ministry, but in reality never made the
attempt. As to the law of the 31st of May, M. Barrot denies
that he had expressed himself respecting it as has been stated.
He was merely disposed, by way of conciliation, to adopt the
modification proposed by the committee on the Municipal
BiP, if it should have received the sanction of the majority,
but he went no further."

The Journal des Dam's publishes in extenso the pro-
test of the French Government against the incorporation
of the Selavonian and Italian provinces of Austria with
the German Confederation, and precedes it with the fol-
lowing remarks :
" Our correspondent at Berlin writes us that the German
journals show great discontent at the importance which the
Debats has attacbed to the pretensions of Austria. The as-
sertions, hot: ever, of the German journals can neither change
the nature of things nor destroy facts. France has twice
protested, as we have before said ; she did so at Vienna by
her note of the 31st of January, and afterwards by that of
the 23d of February. She has done still more ; she has very
recently communicated to the Imperial Cabinet, and to all
the other Cabinets who signed the convention of the Con-
gress of Vienna, a memorandum in which the question raised
by the pretensions of Austria is discussed in all its phases, and
in its relations with the politics of Europe. Has Austria the
right to demand the admission into the Germanic Confedera-
tion of her Selavonian and Italian possessions? Does it come
within the competency of the Confederation? Both of these
points are treated at length in the memorandum of the
French Cabinet, and the dangers of such a system to the
Germanic Confederation and to the peace of Europe are forci-
bly pointed out."
Tne brother of M. BAROCHE, the ex-Minister, died
yesterday.
There was a perfect panic at the close of business at
the Bourse yesterday, and the most improbable:reports
were circulated to account for the fall in Government
Stock. The Five per Cents. opened at 93f. 35c., and closed
at 92f. 75c.; the Three per Cents. closed at 57i.; Or-
leans Railroad Shares, 885 f.; Havre, 275 f.; Great North-
ern, 475 f. ; Avignon, 205 f.; Vierzon, 447 f. 50c.; Basle,
155 f..; Bordeaux, 402 f. 50c; Paris and Strasburg, 367 f.
50c.; Tours and Nantes, 276 f. 25c.
BUSINESS DUNE IN .b'OREIGII RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, APRIL S.
Boulogne and Amiens, 9% Central of France (Orleans
and Vierzon), 18—East Indian, 1514—Luxembourg, 1%—
Ditto, n—Orleans and Bordeaux, —Paris and Stras-
bourg, 10Y8— Rouen and Havre, 11%— Sambre and Meuse,
33/4—Tours and Nantes, 6%.