The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-18 00:00:00

TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 18, 1851.

his anti-aggression measure. The metropolitan enemies of
he window-tax appeared by no means to share in the hila-
rity of the Prote,tionists, when they were next informed
that only one-third of the window duties on existing
houses would be repealed. Houses built hencefor-
ward are to be charged with a house-tax of a
shilling in the pound on the rental ; and at a farther stage of
the financial revelations it appeared that the reduced win-
dow-tax is also henceforward to be levied in the character
of a tax on houses. All dwellings, old and new, of less an-
nual value than 20/., are to be altogether exempted from
duty. Existing houses are to pay two-thirds of their pre-
sent window-tax as a final settlement and composition;
every owner being at liberty to open windows his plea-
sure without incurring any further charge. Thus, a house
of thirty windows, now rated at 91. 16s. 3d., will hencefor-
ward be burdened with a fixed payment of 61. 10s. 101 Sir
Charles Wood expressed an opinion that the old form of
calculating the house-tax according to the rental formed the
true principle of assessment. As an excuse for the arbitrary
alternative now adopted, he referred to his experience in the
matter of the stamp duties last year. An assessment for the
house-duty according to the value would increase the taxa-
tion of the rich, while it relieved the poor, and would pro-
voke an opposition to the measure which he was not willing
to encounter.
The difference between the window duty and the new
house-tax, with its exemptions, is estimated at 700,0001. ;
but of this reduction only half will take place during the
present year. The remaining surplus, therefore, will amount
to 1,192,000/. hereafter, and for the year ending April, 1852,
to 1,542,000/. The farther changes proposed in the financial
tariff consist in the reduction of the duty on foreign and
colonial coffee—now charged respecti•rely 6d. and 4d. per
lb.—to an equal rate of 3d. ; being a reduction of 176,000/.
The duty on foreign timber is to be reduced by one-half, at
a sacrifice, in their first instance, of 286,090/. Agricultural
seeds are to be exempted from all duties exceeding Is. per
cwt., making a reduction of 30,0001. The landed interest is
to be further assisted by a transfer to the Consolidated Fund
of a part of the expense of maintaining pauper lunatics, esti-
mated at 150,000/. In addition to these reductions, the
change in the sugar duties under the Act of 1848 will be
measured by a sum of 330,0001. The whole amount, if con-
sidered as a total loss, is no less than 1,672,C001. ; but Sir
Charles Wood estimates the actual reduction of revenue at
about 1,280,000/., leaving a permanent future surplus of
612,000/., to which for the ensuing year must be added half
the repealed window-tax, or 350,000/.

As We have said before, it is impossible to form a satisfac-
tory judgment of so complex and important a subject at first
sight, or to enter into its details. It will be generally
thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has under-
rated his surplus, which will probably exceed two millions.
It is possible also that the expenditure may eventually, as
was the case last year, be reduced considerably below the
estimate; but the House of Commons appeared to respond
to his appeal, when he declared that, in the present state of
Europe, it was not expedient that we should announce an
intention of disarming. With Austria openly avowing,
under the patronage of Russia, the intention of controlling
central Europe by
,military despotism - and in the view of
the armed masses which are gathering on the south and east
of the Alps, to tread out the last spark of hope and liberty in
Italy, and perhaps on the continent—it is well that England
should be prepared to speak in a voice to which even the
most headstrong ambition will listen. It is well that
France is at length awakening to the recollection of her an •
cient policy; but a Minister or a majority may any day find
that it is more profitable to divide than to dispute the prey.
If the duty of protecting national rights and constitutional
freedom devolves upon England, it will be well to make some
pecuniary sacrifice, which need only continue so long as oc-
casion requires it. No such apology will, however, justify
any superfluous expense, such as the extravagance which so
often prevailed in the dockyards. There is, probably, still
room in our establishments for a material reduction of cost,
without entailing any loss or difficulty.
With respect to the policy of maintaining a permanent
surplus, we have already expressed our opinion. Mr. Hume
is justified in his objection to the plan of purchasing Three
per Cents. at 96, when so many taxes remain which check
the industry of the people, while others might be greatly
reduced without any eventual loss. Tea, wine, malt, paper
soap, tobacco, and advertisements would, all or any of them,
prove a better investment of money than the discharge of a
debt which bears an interest of little more than 3 per cent.
Sir Charles Wood indignantly denounced the gambling
policy, as he called it, of reducing taxation below expendi-
ture in the hope of increase; but there is no reason why
it should not be brought to a level with the latter, when it is
certain in a year or two to overpass it. A bold Finance
Minister would further be encouraged to try profitable expe-
riments, by the diminution of the charge on the debt, which
will take place in 1854 from the reduction of the Three-
and. a-Quarter per Cents., and in 1860 from the falling in of
the Long Annuities.
We have no space to discuss the income-tax, which is to
be renewed in its present form, nor to explain the tendency
of the alteration in the window-tax. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer truly boasts that his measure wholly puts an
end to the sanitary objections to the tax. Windows as they
it
m hereafterust be
remarked form the
bh
aa
svi
se
of bee, n
assessment.n o t
Oa su
tt
bh
ee 30.
thaerer'hawnicill,

that the vicious principle of graduation is transferred from
the old system to the new; and the capricious scale of
charges will apply to houses, as it has hitherto been calcu-
lated by windows. It will no doubt appear that the metro-
politan opponents of the window-tax will be greatly dissatis-
fied with the new arrangement; but the advocates of re-
duced duties on consumption, and of experiments on elastic
sources of revenue, will scarcely regret that so great a reduc-
tion is not wholly applied to the benefit of property.
That farther reductions will be pressed it is easy to foresee,
and we hope that some at least may be carried. Sir Charles
Wood's announcement of a permanent surplus of a million,
with deputations and Members crowding round him for re-
ductions, is as likely to end in his retaining his treasure as
if he were to advertise an intended journey through the
mountains of Beloochistan with a train of camels and bul-
locks, or an evening walk from Seven Dials to Clerkenwell
with his purse hanging out of his coat pocket.

(From the Herald.)
Sir Charles Wood last night presented, to an astonished
and disappointed House of Commons, his financial statement
for the ensuing year. It was perceptible to every person
that the speech of the Right lion. Gentleman excited, even
amongst the supporters of the Ministry, feelings the reverse
of those of satisfaction. In truth, if the feeling of the House
of Commons can at all be taken as the index of the feeling of
the country, never was there a Badget more unpopular than
that presented by Sir Charles Wood.
The House not unnaturally asked for a little time to con-
sider and understand the not very intelligible propositions
of the Right Hon. Gentleman. Financial statements are not
in themselves the subjects most easy of apprehension ; and,
in good truth, we cannot compliment the Chancellor of the
Exchequer upon possessing the art of making things clear in
statement. On the contrary, it was very easy to observe in
the countenances of Hon. Members, last night, the traces of
rather a painful effort to understand the speech that was
elucidating, after Whig fashion, the subject of our finances
for the next year. " Ignotium per ignotius" seemed the
judgment of most of those who looked for an explanation of
this complicated question in the speech. If the Budget was
an enigma, the expository statement became a riddle of
riddles—au interpretation even more mysterious than the
puzzle it professed to solve. The criticism of Dangle, in the
Critic, is the most expressive commentary upon " the con-
fSai sr
oCnh ar e worsewood confounded" of a Whig Budget, explained by
.

" Egad, after all, the interpreter is the hardest riddle of the two."
We may, perhaps, be permitted in part to claim the ex-
ercise of the same discretion as the Members of the House,
and to ask for a little time to understand the riddle. One
point, however, no mystification can obscure, and it needs no
sagacity to understand. The unjust and inquisitorial in-
come-tax is to be continued. This is the penalty that the
country is to pay for the indulgence in the free-trade theories
of Sir Charles Wood and his colleagues.

... „...
the nation. Let us ask,
~ Quiquid delirant rages pleettultur Achivi."
ofa
mp oul isteimc ael
neteso ntoomy in Downing-street are
how is it that this odious income-tax, originally
levied only
rather Th The ravings
expensive
for a particular purpose—promised to be but temporary—is
row becoming a regular and permanent portion of our
system of taxation ?We have not space to-day to quote
the speeches that on the occasion of its imposition most
faithfully promised that its duration should net exceed
three years. How have those promises been kept?
llere we are now in the year 1851, and we are
threatened with the income- tax for three years more.
Is there a human being in England mad enough
to believe that at the end of those three years its
re-imposition will not be again Proposed? The question
which Parliament and the country have now to decide is,
whether this odious tax upon income is to be perpe-
tuated as one of the instruments of raising our revenue.
There is no blinking the true question. It is this
every man who votes for the resolution of Sir
Charles Wood, votes for a Perpetual income-tax.
There can be no possible reason assigned for its
re-imposition now which will not be equally valid when
the three years have expired. It is but delusion and
mockery to deny that the true question now to be
determined is whether the ineorm-tax is to be
levied as long as any one who reads these lines
shall have any income upon which it can be assessed.
We do not, however, mean to-day to enter upon the
discussion of an income-tax. We believe it is a question
upon which most persons in England have made up their
mind. We only desire to put people en their guard against
being cheated by the absurd pretence of a renewal for three
years, If we consent to it now we give Chancellors of the
Exchequer a lease of it for three years—but, as we know by
bitter experience, a lease renewable for ever.
The following letter addressed to us by
a gentleman who
has enclosed to us his card, and who occu-
pies a high position
among the mercantile classes of the town from which his
t
letter is dated, puts the injustice of be income-tax in a
light so striking that we gladly substitute it for any obser-
vations of our own .
"To THE 'EDITOR. OF THE MORNING HERALD.
.. sir,—As a very old subscriber to
toothy
valuable paper, permit
131 C, on the part of myself and friends,,
f that you for the part you
have taken in exposing the doing
under most inquisitorial body,
the assessors of the income-tax Schedule D. It has done more
keepers, traders
in these districts to put the shop , and merchants,
f temper .
8,:c., who were under its lash, out o .
anwith Government, and
created more moral and political inquiry
,t..t? any act in my remem-
brance.to We do not object property -tax, or the amount of the
are no
income-tax; but we complain that we are longer the depositary
secret
of the secrets of our own trade. EY must be laid open to
frequently our rivals), and
the Commissioners (who are every clerk
in the tax office.
" The following is
one of the queries the party surcharged has to

April a 1850, with the amounts
act
_heals, for the ptirchase of
Zunt of the sales Ipa: usiness done by you
de or b
anneTrhien,,w,hroitlienag
for
de aucyh
yoofu thein
each three
year, years,u iehin
goods, wages, rent, taxes, and other outgoings, so as to give a debit
and credit account of your profit and loss, under Schedule D, for each
edrindgisti
of those years ?'
" A pretty document this (and we call ourselves a free people) to
be sent into the tax office, where, of course, every clerk has access

share of pro-
fit
I had. what
to it.
askedeaami
peawithneerrehlatdr,aadieidd... --....
Hi" If you prefer giving oral evidence before the Cornmissioners they
money I had in my concern,
with other pleasant questions of the same kind, and then civilly told
me I might go, as they could not substantiate the. surchage.
" Will you be kind enough to giTe these hasty lines a Place in your
paper, or such part as you think proper; for I do not think one-half
whatto, 'that
borrowedpartners
of the public know what may fall upon them. In some districts I
am informed, the assessor and Commissioners act with delicacy, a'nt,
the impost is not so objectionable. It is not the tax I object to, but
the inquisitorial nature of it.
" I am, Sir, with much respect,
‘,.A. MANcitesTER --NlEttertasT.

" Manchester, Feb. 11, 1851."
We protest we think it is high time that a system like
that described in this letter should cease. The leading
feature of the Budget is, we repeat, the perpetuation of the
odious and inquisitorial income-tax. For the rest, popular
feeling is to be cheated by a repeal of the window-tax—
a house tax being substituted for it. Agricultural distress is
to be relieved by the remission of 30,0001., levied as a duty
upon agricultural seeds ! ! This, as Mr. Frewea very pro-
perly pointed out, is only a further sacrifice to foreigners of
the agriculturists of the southern counties. The ruin of the
colonies is to be completed by the abolition of the differential
duties on coffee. Canada is to be still further mulcted by the
reduction of the duty on timber, and the people of England
for all this are to pay the income-tax.
Let us not, however, forget that that there is one boon pro-
mised to the agriculturists—half of the expenses of lunatics
is to be borne by the Consolidated Fund! Happy and gra-
cious concession to the agricultural interest. It budgets of
age kind are to be produced,
who on say that the :Wary of

the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought not, upon this prin-
ciple, to be divided between the counties and the Consolidated
Fund ?
Enough for to-day. Let us repeat as our parting word,
that on Friday night the House of Commons must determine
whether the income-tax, with all that inquisitorial machi-
nery so well described by our correspondent from Manches-
ter, is to be established as a permanent portion of the finan-
cial arrangements of this country.
(From the Morning Post.)
The country has now before it the Finance Minister's esti-

mate of the expenditure and resources of the nation for the
ensuing year. Sir Charles Wood has informed us in what
mode he proposes to deal with his again recurring difficulty
of a surplus, of whose survival of its birth, however, he is
not yet quite certain; and we may infer, from what he said
in explaining hiS proposition, the principles on which he pro-
poses in future to create revenue.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer asks the House to grant
him a renewal of the existing income-tax—pare and simple,
without any modification of principle, or graduation in scale
—for a further period of three years.
We do not propose at this moment to enter into any de-
tailed examination of the propositions of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer. We propose simply to offer a few general
observations on the tendency of our financial legislation, in
order to explain to our readers why the decision of the House
of Commons on the present Budget appears to us more than
usually pregnant with probable important consequences.
We mast ask them to go back with us to the 11th of
March, 1842, the period when the imposition of the pre-
sent income-tax was first proposed to Parliament by the late
Sir Robert Peel, Now, what were the circumstances of the
country at that time? Why, on Sir Robert Peel's acces-
sion to power, the country, as far as its financial condition
was concerned, was in a state of absolute collapse. The
springs which had hitherto supplied the tide of revenue
yielded a continuously decreasing stream, while the amount
of expenditure was concurrently advancing; the condition
of inland revenue gave unequivocal symptoms that indirect
internal taxation had been strained to the utmost limits of
productiveness—the Excise had not answered to the whip ;
Customs were drooping; the financial condition and pros-
pects of India were most gloomy and discouraging ; and, in
short, increasing and apparently annually recurrent defi-
ciences stared us in the face. In this eminent difficulty Sir
Robert Peel saw no resource, but, in his own words, " to
make an earnest appeal to the possessors of property to make
a great present sacrifice for the purpose of repairing that
mighty evil."
That appeal was cheerfully and nobly responded to, and
the gap created by ten years of erring legislation was filled
up. Sir Robert Peel, however, entertained views beyond the
mere and immediate equalization of income and expenditure.
He believed that by an extensive reform of our commercial
tariff he could not only ensure a reduction in the price of
articles of consumption in the cost of living nearly commen-
surate with the amount of new taxation imposed, but that
his system would, in process of operation, create such an ad-
ditional revenue, that ultimately he should be in a position
to remit the income-tax altogether. We know now but too
well that he dreamed dreams which never came to pass.
While seduced, probably, by the momentary popularity
which such a policy confers, both Sir Robert Peel and the
Ministers, who have succeeded to and adopted his principles,
have indulged in such continual and progressive remissions
of indirect taxes, operating upon consumers, that we now
depend upon direct taxation to such a degree that it would
be exceedingly difficult to get rid of it without an entire re-
vision and re-adjustment of a great portion of our commer-
cial and fiscal system.
Well ! we have now come to a point at which we may
stop and consider whether we shall do this, whether we shall
turn aside, or whether we shall continue in the path chalked
out by the propounder of the commercial policy of 1842 and
1846 ? Sir Charles Wood is for the latter course, and he
certainly enunciated in support of his views some of the most
extraordinary dogmas in political economy imaginable. He
believed, among other things, that no part of any duty on
imported articles, the produce of foreign countries, is paid by
the foreign grower or the foreign merchant; and that no
portion of the Excise Duties on domestic production, such as
the malt tax or the hop duty, are borne by the British
owner or occupier of the soil, but that in all and every case
the contributions to the revenue come exclusively out of the
pocket of the consumer. We will not, however, stop to re-
mark upon this patent fallacy at this moment. We only
allude to it because it is in obedience to this code of com-
mercial faith that Sir Charles Wood is ever pulling a brick
out of our system of import duties and indirect taxation
through the medium of Excise imposts.
Now, the fact to which we wish at this juncture especially
to direct the attention of the public is, that every one of these
annual petty remissions, which fritters away accruing re-
serves, rivets the mill-stone of the income-tax more firmly
round our necks. By degrees, direct taxation will become
the only resource to which the Finance Minister can have
recourse to fill his purse when it suffers a collapse. The
Customs and
lExcise at this moment present a flourishing ap-
pearance. et, without being alarmists, we may venture to
suggest thattheir condition is possibly, as the agricultural
depression is said to be, exceptional. At all events, every
narrowing of the area of taxation diminishes the security of
the revenue. Suppose that the comparatively small number
of articles in future contemplated to be made liable to taxa-
tion fail to produce the calculated amounts, and not only do
not give the Finance Minister the anticipated 612,0001.
surplus income, but actually leave him in a deficiency,
where will he go for income? The consumer won't allow
him to return to import duties, for he has impressed him with
the belief that though apparently paid by the foreigner they
really come exclusively out of the native pocket. Excise,
perhaps, won't produce revenue, even if he is bold enough to
make the experiment of attempting the resumption of aban-
doned taxes. What will remain ?—to what can we resort?
Additional direct taxation? After the fashion of the io-
rant and impatient savage, we can cut down the tree tWget
at the fruit, and when that easily attained but peremptory
supply is gone, why, we shall have nothing to feed upon, and
starvation will stare us in the face. This, depend upon it, is
the tendency of our present financial legislation ; and we
earnestly urge upon the public and the Parliament to reflect
seriously, and weigh carefully, the history of the last ten or
fifteen years, before they pronounce a judgment on the pro-
position of Sir Charles Wood.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)
Long-looked-for has come at last. The Budget is before
the country. Sir Charles Wood delivered himself last night
of the mighty matter. The period of his travail is over. He
has got rid of a burden too heavy to be borne. lie is relieved
from a load of anxiety. This morning he must feel as in a
new world. He is doubtless, to-day one of the happiest men
in her ➢lajesty's dominions.
But though the subject of happiness himself, the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer is the author of an incalculable amount
of misery to others. His Budget has already been produc-
tive of great grief in many quarters, and will yet,as it reaches
the remotest parts of the country, occasion deep disappoint-
ment in many more. Little does the Right Hon. Gentle-
man imagine the amount of misery, in all parts of the land,
of which his last night's developments will prove the s)urce.
The hopes which his Budget disappointed will prove the pre-
lude to broken hearts. All classes expected something,
and, with one exception, are all doomed to disappoint-
ment. The window-tax is to be i❑ name remitted, and
there are to be reductions in the imposts on coffee, and on a
certain description of timber. All other interests have been
slighted. Sir Charles Wood has set their claims at nought.
The advocates for a repeal of the paper and advertisement
duties—the friends of a reduction of the duty on tea—the
applicants for the remission of taxes on soap—the claimants
tier a modification of the duties on carriages, all, all are
doomed to disappointment. Their successive deputations
have gone for nothing. Their elaborate statements, their
forcible representations, their earnest pleadings, have failed
to produce any impression on the mind of the Right Hon.
Gentleman. One deputation after another quitted the pre-
sence chamber of Sir Charles, when detailing the grievances
under which their respective " interests " groaned, under
the conviction that he was about to do something for them.
Deputations are remarkably expert in deducing inferences.
And each deputation that lately waited on the Right
Honourable Gentleman imagined they saw with unerring
certainty indications of his intention to diminish, if not en-
tirely remove, the burthens under which they severally
laboured.

The fond delusion is now dispelled. They have awoke
out of sleep. They dream no longer. Their eyes are opened.
The terrible reality of their situation now appears to them
in its true colours. The Budget brings no relief to them.
They are booked for certain, with the perpetuation of their
burthens for at least another year. To those who are al-
ready weighed down by what Falstaff would call an "in-
tolerable quantity" of taxation, the circumstance of seeing
no chance of relief for another long year must be disheart-
ening indeed. Little does the Chancellor of the Exchequer
think what long faces and heavy hearts his Budget of last
night has already caused in all parts of the country.
It may seem paradoxical to assert, yet such is the fact,
that, with the exception of not having to receive any appli-
cations at all for a remission or reduction of taxes, nothing
could have been more pleasing to him than the number of
" interests " that sought relief. When deputation after de-
putation was announced to him, he, no doubt, said within
himself—. The more the merrier." Had he been
applied to by only one or two interests, for
the removal or the reduction of the burthens
which pressed upon them, he would have had considerable
difficulty in resisting their demands. But when his door was
besieieed by scores of deputations, representing every concei-
vable "interest" under the sun, and each more clamorous
than the rest, his difficulties vanished. His answer to each
was, that as he could not comply with the wishes, or accede
to the applications of all, he would not meet the wishes of
any. As he could not do everything, he determined on doing
nothing, always excepting the measures of relief, if such they
may be called, which the Budget announces.
The window-tax part of the Right Hon. Gentleman's plan
will be received with derision. It is a miserable measure,—
in every way worthy of the Papal aggression measure of the
Premier. It is melancholy to see the man to whom is con-
tided the administration of the financial affairs of
this great country bringing forward so poor and paltry
a measure. Sir Charles Wood is a mere financial
pedler. His mind is incapable of forming any
great and comprehensive plan. His window-tax proposal is
a mockery. It is a downright delusion. It has the impress
of dishonesty on its forehead. It professes to be that which
it is not. It ostensibly abolishes the window-duties; whereas
it does no such thing. Two-thirds of the tax are to be re-
tained under another name. What's in a name? If the
rose by any other name would smell as sweet, the window-
tax will lose none of its unpleasant odour, because it is
henceforth to be paid under the name of a tax on house-rent.
A more bungling Budget than that which Sir Charles
Wood last night unfolded to the House of Commons, was
never framed by a Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is a
burlesqne on the office which the Right lion. Gentleman
fills. It has this peculiarity about it—that all the interests
which sought relief from the pressure of taxation have been
refused, while those classes whose clamours were not heard
by Sir Charles, sad whose persons did not darken the
doors of Downing-street, are the happy men who
have received the financial favours of the Right
Honourable Gentleman. Swift represents those per-
sons as happy who expect nothing, because
they will not be disappointed. But much happier still must
be those who, though they expected nothing, have received
benefits at the hands of Sir Charles Wood. Those persons
connected with the coffee and timber " interests" must feel
themselves the happiest of her Majesty's subjects.
But though Sir Charles Wood's Budget has created, and
will create, so great an amount of disappointment in all parts
of the country, we wish to guard those classes of the com-
munity who are especial sufferers from the pressure of taxa-
tion not to fall into the mistake of assuming that the finan-
cial plans of the Right Hon. Gentleman are unalterably fixed
for a period of twelve months. He may yet be compelled to
change his mind. Ile was constrained to change it several
times last year, with reference to the stamp duties. And
what lie was compelled to do before he may be made to do
again. The pressure from without which necessitated all
alteration of part of Sir Charles Wood's financial schemes
will, if applied with equal energy and perseverance, be
equally successful now.
shoredget
whichis tse parts
so flagrantly f t e
iniquitous,Chancellor
of h
so
glaringly the
Exchequer'sthat if the public be but true to itself it cannot be
o
perse-
vered in. The financial scheme which the Right
Hon.
Gentleman developed last night has many obnoxious things
in it; but the crowning one is the proposal to perpetuate the
income tax for three years more. Sir Charles does not affect
to pretend that the income-tax,
as the measure now stands,
t unjust,

admits of justification. He has not a word to say in defence
of the clause which places on a footing of equality, in regard
to the payment of the income impost, the toil-worn author,
the exhausted medical practitioner, or any other person
earning a bare subsistence by an unceasing pressure on his
brain, with the more fortunate holder of Consols, the
possessor of a certain income from a Government situa-
tion, or the recipient of rents from heritable or
other property of fixed annual value. No. Bold
and self-assured as the Right Hon. Gentleman is, he has
not the effrontery to make any attempt to show that such a
state of matters accords with the dictates of justice. But
though not doing this in theory, he does a good deal worse
he does it in practice. He proposes the renewal of the in-
come-tax, with all its unjust and iniquitous provisions, for
another term of three years.
It is for those who ire the victims of this injustice and
oppression, to say whether he is to succeed or not. If they
arouse themselves at once to determined effort against the
perpetuation of this hideous feature in the Budget of last
night, Sir Charles will yet be defeated. Let the country
everywhere raise its voice in opposition to the miserable
abortion of last night, and the right hon. author of the
measure will be fain, as he did last year in the case of the
stamp duties, to lay violent hands on his own financial
offspring.
(From the Daily News)
If ever there was a Chancellor of the Exchequer on whom
it was incumbent to bring forward a Budget that would re-
deem his own character, and reflect some respect and Dopu•
lFity on the Administration, it was Sir Charles Wood last
night. That gentleman must, or ought to, have felt, how
unfortunate has hitherto been his career. Compelled to deal,
in his first years of office, with a famine and with continued
deficits, he still failed to persuade the country that his mode
of meeting those deficits was either acceptable or wise.
Still, every one made allowance for the difficulties of his po-
sition; and so he stumbled on, until during this year, the
last year, and the year to come, this Minister has had a sur-
plus to deal with of at least sever. millions in three years—a
surplus, too, that the buoyant rise and prosperity of the
country might have enabled hies to give away wisely at
seedtim• and gather up again at harvest. With the mantle
of Peel upon his shoulders—with a House of Commons
and a public full of admiration for what Peel had
accomplished, and most ready to venture any ex-
periment in pursuance of the same policy, what might not a
Chancellor of the Exchequer have done? He might have
immortalised himself, and given fresh youth to his party.
For the old age of parties, after all, is the slumber of doing
nothing, the incapacity that loses opportunities, with the
fatuity that sees not dangers as it approaches.
Sir Charles Wood has done not one of the things that he
might have done. Fascinated, or it might be said—petrified,
like his colleagues, by the menacing attitude of that agricul-
tural interest, which the popular force had compelled to
sacrifice their private interest to justice, the whole thought
of the present Chancellor has been to propitiate that in-
terest, and to dole out to these country gentlemen what
financial boons he had to bestow, not largely enough to con-
ciliate them, but in dribblets, which they accepted and de-
spised.

After his peddling with the stamp duties last year and
flinging the brick tax to the agriculturists, who did not
thank him, one might have expected this year that he would
have looked largely around him, dealt out the surplus, and
arranged a scheme of finance in some way becoming his po-
sition and the progress of the age. He had been driven close
last year in a division on the window duties, and these he
especially declared his intention to deal with. Well; the
remission of such a tax would have been a boon to the
industrious classes. And all men consoled themselves
that if no new impulse was to be given to trade, still that
the civic classes would be rid of a barbarous and heavy tax.
Greatly will they be mistaken. The good Chancellor is
not the man to do anything largely, frankly, or wholly.
He is a genuine pedlar, who will give the people an inch, but
never an ell ; who will higgle with them for a fraction ;
and who could never bring his mind to let one hand
part with a shilling, without a prospect of filching
back ninepence with the other. Such is his mea-
sure about the window-tax. Repeal it, indeed! Bless
the mark ! The man had not the heart to do
anything so frank. And so the window-duty is to be abo-
lished for all new houses, but they are to pay a five per cent.
tax on the rent. The owners of existing houses are to be
gratified by a remission of one-thirl of their present window -
tax. But shops or houses worth more than 204 must pay
9d. in the pound; and so must farmers who live in houses
above that value. So that in lieu of the window-tax, which
could not be augmented from its unpopularity, John Bull
has got a house-tax, without a grievance to plead against it
—five per cent. on the rent to commence with, and ready for
the first augmentation that is to come. The house-tax, it is
plain enough, will not be paid by the owners of house pro-
perty, although the Chancellor argued upon the few claims
such property had to exemption. The house-tax, like rent
itself, will be paid, nine-tenths of it, by the industrious, the
trading, the professional classes. It will be paid out of in-
come, not property; and is, in fact, but an immense aug-
mentation of one or two schedules of the property and
income-tax, and those already the most unjustly over-
burdened.

After having combined as much blunder, pettiness, and
injustice as was possible in the chief measure of his Budget,
what could be expected from the smaller items? Some of
them are just enough, as far as they go, and as the make-
weights of a good and large scheme, might haN e passed.
We last week recommended the reduction of the timber-
duty in justice to the shipbuilders, and of the coffee duties,
if real coffee were any longer to be tasted. These are unex-
ceptionable. But what shall we say to the marvellous ge-
nerosity of taking 1.50,000/. of the expenses of pauper
lunatics and flinging it upon the Consolidated Fund? This
relief of the locality Sir Charles Wood would not give
to towns, but merely to country districts; and
these he probably would rid of all the expense but
for the cherished necessity of retaining for the county
justices that control over the expenditure, whether paid by
the Consolidated Fund or not, which the Chancellor thought
indispensable to the being of the state. In truth, Sir Charles
Wood, in these arguments, and indeed throughout the whole
speech, seemed labouring to prove his fitness to serve as a
Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Stanley and Disraeli
Ministry. The squirearchy itself could show nothing more
orthodox or more crass than Sir Charles Wood.
After such a Budget as,this,propounded at such a time, we
may consider the days of the Whig Ministry to be numbered.
Lord John Russell is a spirited leader, well able to face about,
and when foes close around him, show undaunted courage,
with the resources of a free and liberal politician. But
what can he do with such a colleague as this?
how can lie face the clamorous crowd of angry religionists
with a Bill that does not satisfy them, yet disgusts the poli-
tician? How does he meet the public, accustomed to and
expectant of that address and even grandeur in dealing with
financial difficulties that recoaciled men to burdens, and re-
placed discontent with conlidence? Sir Charles Wood's
Budget will this day be welcomed throughout England by a
shout of derision. It is not that an amendment might be
carried against it, but any amendment; and the best would
be a vote repudiating the whole thing on the simple ground
of the incapacity of its proposer.

PROPERTY AND INCOME-TAX.
A Parliamentary return Printed on Saturday, at the in-
stance of Mr. Moffatt, contains the following particulars with
reference to the operation of the income-tax, which the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer intends to re-impose " for a limited
period." The total number of persons who paid income-tax
in the year ending the sth of April, 1849, was 144,626, and
the gross amount received Ras 5,605,532/. The receipts are
thus made up :
Schedule A .

... £2,656,796
..• 320,098
„ C ••• ••• 750.781
„ 1) .•• •• • ... 1,529,398
„ E ••• ••• •.. 348,459
The total income on which; the duty was charged was up-
wards of 54,000,0001. The amounts received from the various
classes of income were as follows:

Under £l5O a year from 35,799 persons ...... £77,998
£l5O and under £2OO from 38,902 persons ... .. 178,654
200 and under 3uo from 28,274 persons
300 and under 400 from 14,162 persons ...
400 and under .500 from 6,896 persons
500 and under 620 from 5,010 persons
000 and under 700 from 2,878 persons
700 and under SOO from 1,852 persons
800 and under 900 from 1,549 persons
900 and under 1,000 from 775 persons
1,000 and under 2,000 from 4,659 persons
2,000 and under 3,000 from 1,286 persons
3,000 and under 4,000 from 622 persons
4,000 and under 5,000 from 327 persons
5,000 and under 10,000 from 617 persons
10,000 and under 20,000 from 215 persons
20,000 and under 50,000 from 96 persons ... • 80,511
50,000 and upwards from 19 persons

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
TATTERSALL'S—YESTERDAY.
LIVERPOOL SPRING CUP.
6 to 1 agst Mr. Meeson's Doubt—takoa to 1001.
LIVERPOOL STEEPLECHASE.
10 to 1 agst Sir John
10 to 1 agst Abd-el-Bader
10 to 1 agst Maria Day
10 to 1 agst Rat-trap
12 to 1 agst Vain Hope—taken
14 to I agst Peter Simple
20 to 1 agst Rescue
20 to 1 agst Maurice Daley
20 to 1 agst Fugitive
25 to 1 agst Venice
25 to 1 apt Currig—taken to 100/.
The movements on this event were confined to a dc-
cline in Vain Hope and Peter Simple.
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE HANDICAP.
9 to 1 agst Mr. Meiklam's Cocktail—taken
METROPOLITAN HANDICAP.
12 to 1 agat Lord Eglinton's Comus
CHESTER CUP.
11 to I agat Mr. Treen's Rhesus, 5 yrs, 7st-12 to 1
taken freely
22 to 1 apt Mr. J. Brown's Haricot, 4 yrs, 6st 121 b
—taken
25 to 1 agst Lord Strathmore's Montague, 5 yrs, 7st
21b—taken
30 to 1 agst Mr. Saxon's Black Doctor, 3 yrs, sst 41b
50 to 1 agst Mr. Liater's Nancy, 3 yrs, 4st 121b—
taken to 2004
3,000 to 45 agst Mr. Carew's Eva, 5 yrs, Est 41b—taken
1,000 to 15 agst Mr. Disney's Sir Richard, 5 yrs, 7st—t
1,000 to 10 agst Mr. Herbert's Spot, 5 yrs, 7st 31b-1
1,000 to 10 agst Capt. Lowther's Tarn Wadlin, 5 yes, Est
—taken
Several hundreds were laid out near the close upon
Rhesus at 12 to 1. the layers refusing to go on; the bet-
ting apart from this was flat anti unimportant-
DERBY.
DERBY.
6 to 1 agst Mr. Howard
Prime Munster—taken an,,
's Grecian—taken
_. freely
6 to 1 agst Mr. Halford's
afterwards offered
12 to 1 agst Mr. Nichol's Newnnuster—takea and
afterwards offered
12 to 1 agst Mr. Osbaldeston 's Mountain Sylph colt
22 to 1
Mr. Gerard Sturt's Lamartine—taken
25 to 1 agat Mr. Meiklam's Constellation—taken
asst
25 to 1 agst Mr. J. Clark's Marlborough Buck—take
30 to I
30 to 1 agst Lord Stanley's Storm—taken
40 to I agat Sir J. Hawley's Confessor—t to 1001.
1,000 to 20 agst Mr. Higgins's Theseus —taken
80 to 1 agst Mr. F. Garner's Serus—taken
100 to 1 agst Sir G. lleathcote's Lady Geraldine colt
—taken
Grecian and Newminster were in great force, sever al
hundreds having been laid out on cacti at the quoted
pikes; 25 to 1 was taken to a good deal of money about
Constellation, 80 to 1 to two or three hundred pounds
about Serus, and 10,000 to 100 about the Lady Geraldine
colt.

OAKS.
2 to I agst Lord Caledon's Sister to Wanota—taken
2 to 1 agst Lord Stanley's Iris—taken