The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-11 00:00:00

EV ENING,

MONOAy

TO THE SECRETAR Y OF TUE lelllAD.FUltll
REFORM ASS OCIATIOIS-.
(EVERY MONDAY AND WEDNESD.A.Y.)
I Sir,—On Wednesday the 6th, the mu ch perplexed
Episcopal and Capitular Estates Man tg ement (No.
2) Bill was read a third time with Limon dments, and
passed.
On Thursday the House in Cominitt( le made some
arrangements for the securing of ord( sr when the
Speaker and Members proceed to the Ho rose of Lords
as summoned. A thing certainly not drone before it
was needed.
On the same evening Mr. Hume mov E d for laying
before the House the minutes of the evidence taken
before the Select Committee on Income i ind Property
Tax; the Select Committee itself havin; ;7 determined
by a majority of 7 to 4 that the evidence was in too
imperfect a state to produce.
This whole subject presents the easiest opportunity
that can be desired, for any man to shut t iis eyes and
run into the wrong. Scarcely anybody i s concerned
in it, who is not acting under some degr 3a of mysti-
fication, either in the way of keeping beelk something
that is true, or advancing something that is not.
The key to the whole is to bear in mi rid, that the
question of the Income Tax is the stru; ogle between
the rich and poor, to prevent the rich From paying
their share, and throw as much as possible upon the
poor and the Working Classes, who are pa vying in some
cases at eleven times the rate of the i rich already.
Besides which, there is a lurking hope,. that if the
Government can be prevented from latish g money by
AD Income Tax, there may be an inereas, id chance for
raising it by a:duty on foreign corn, in other words
the restoration of the Corn Laws. If Ihe Working
and smaller Middle Classes cannot or ail It not see into
this, they must take their own way, and amay do any-
thing they like, except expect me to g i along with
them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is on the
side of the Working Classes ; but for re. a sons known
doubtless to himself; he does not seem dis. posed to say
so. When the question of prolonging the Income
Tax for three years was before the HMIs e, there were
evidences of a growing conviction, that in justice to
the Working and .Middle Classes, it oug I,t to be per-
petual. At this moment, by one of tLe strangest
acts of inconsequence producible in p slrliamentary
history, the Member for Montrose, who I iimself pro-
fesses to be a supporter of a perpetual L ucome Tax,
rose and proposed that the tax should tea prolonged
for one year instead of three, with a view , as he said,
to see if it was possible to correct its .inequalities.
Of course all the representatives of the rich man's
purse which is not to pay, chimed in v 4 th him full
joyously, and the restriction to one year was carried
spinet the Government with a majority of 14, by
the union of the friends of the restor a tion of the
Corn Laws, the high Tories, and what called them-
selves the Reformer:.
Do what they can to conceal it, the party here
termed Reformers, are fighting under a fallacy,
known or unknown. And that fallacy is, the asserted
unfairness of taxing temporary inco; ies. If the
Working Classes have not the time, or th,e genius, to
look into this and understand it, they n i ust be pre-
pared with their purses, and make up th Eit minds to
" fork out" at eleven times the rate of their rich neigh-
bours to the end of time. The case is :simply this.
Suppose I have 1001. a-year coming to me tor life
only. Am Ito set up a cry, that beca;use it is for
my life only, therefore I ought not to pay- during my
life, at the same rate that would have be e.n paid for
ever if it bad been eternal to my heirs ?' Calculate
the value of the two properties,—the l'Lfe property
and the perpetual. Take them into the :market and
see what will be bid for them; and then nee whether
the amount of taxes to be ultimately paid for each, is
not to the fraction of a farthing in the, same pro-
portion. You would all see this cleat ly enough,
if you had not a notion that somehow, or other
the other side was to help you. No elan is ever
permanently helped except by the truth ; and the
truth is not come at, till it can be wins sowed from
the chaff that is thrown about it. Get .rid of this
Temporary Income fallacy, and then the-.re will be a
possibility of fairly trying the other que:t tion, which
is whether property acquired by prese at industry
ought to be taxed at a different rate. So long as the
question is tried under false colours, it can not succeed
if it is right. The result of present procs edings is to
hash up this question with the other, and so keep up
a cloud which only plays into the hands of the rich
men who do not want to pay. And to sv ;ch a length
is it carried, that you will even find among e these pro-
fessed Reformers some earnestly begging, that there
may be no exception in the Income Tax for the incomes
under 1501. a-year. " What can be plainer," says
one of these managers of the popular jute rest, " than
that if a tax is to be just, it must extend to every-
body ?" Yes, 0 most fit to be fed, neer( ling to the
popular idiom, tenderly with a spoon !—if this tax is
the only tax which anybody pays; but how if the holders
of the lower incomes are paying eleven tiLmes their
share already under some other ? Would you put
reasoners of this kind, into a " manager's" place at
Bradford ? I doubt. What is clear however is, that
part of the plot is to make the holders of incomes
under 1501. pay like the rest ; they being already
among the people who pay at eleven times the rate of
the rich on things which they consume. Surely
there would be no harm in holding up one of this
kind of popular Reformers and saying, 4, These be
your gods, 0 Israel !" And all the time, observe,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer is struggling to his
utmost for your rights, and your men will not let him.
And here it may be as well to say to you at once,
that I do not think the claim for a different rate on
what is called Industrial Property, will fin ally be
found tenable. Suppose that at Bradford you were
settling a rate for watching against fires by night,—
what chance would there be, for the owners of Indus-
trial Property to carry a demand for paying at a less
rate than the rest ? They would immediately be
told, that if anybody was particularly concurred, it
was themselves. But it will be urged, that t axes are
not all paid for such clear and definite objects as
guarding against fire. That this is true, the more is
the pity ; but what security the industrious have, is
through the taxes, and the way to go about to, amend
is to aim at a sounder system of expenditure, and not
at paying a smaller portion of an unsound. Besides
this infirmity in principle, there are all the difficulties
in execution. Who are to be allowed to claim ? Is
the manufacturer in the West Riding who, we are all
glad to hear, is making his twenty or thirty thousand
a-year since the revival of industry by the removal of
the Corn Laws,—is he to claim the lower rate., while
the widow of one of his old managers who thinks
herself fortunate in having been left a couple of
hundreds a-year, is to pay at the full ? The
difficulties on this ground alone will add seriously to
the mass.
But whatever may be the strength or weakness of
the claim for industrial property, it can never be
fairly tested and debated till it is separated from
the claim for being temporary. What I want the
Working Classes to he aware of, and will not cease
from endeavouring to impress upon them
.whether
they thank me for it or not, is that the war is being
carried on against them, with knowledge or without
knowledge, under cover of the fallacy of Temporary
Incomes. It is on this point a hue-and-cry is easiest
raised ; and as long as it goes on, it will make the best
of fences for those whose real object is to throw taxa-
tion on the Working and Middle Classes.
But the great cry on the present occasion was,
" Why will you not vote for reporting the evidence ?
What possible objection can there be to reporting the
evidence ?" This is one of the movements in parlia-
mentary fence, which you would be better able to
judge of if you had nothing else to think of. The
objections are two. First, that the voters on the two
sides on this occasion will necessarily be set down as
showing the strength of those who are for and against
making the rich pay their share; and as well the two
sides know it. And secondly, that there is room for
the strongest apprehension, that the demand for pub-
lishing the evidence on this occasion, is neither more
nor less than a demand for publishing evidence in-
vited and collected with a view to everything but
the point my clients want to see established. I would
venture a wager, that no question was ever asked in
this Select Committee tending to bring out a precise
and closely-worded opinion upon the point in which
what I call my clients are mainly interested. Lead-
ing questions may have been asked like "Do not you
think the taxing of temporary incomes very unfair ?"
to which the witness of course answers " Very in-
deed." But I will risk a guess, that nobody put the
question to any witness whose answer would be of
authority, whether it was not as just that a property
held for seven years should pay for seven years, as
that a property held for ever, should pay for ever.
This I know, that I did all in my power to get put
on the Committee, and asked the leaders first on one
side and then the other to do it, urging the point that
I was the only man who had spoken in the House fur
the interest of the Working Classes, and that it was
fair they should have one representative in the Com-
mittee ; but it appears they knew better.
In all this, you will see that my assumption is, that
the Income Tax in some shape or other, is to be, as it
ought, perpetual. The fraud is in attempting to
make it for limited periods ; so making the man who
has only three years' tenure of his property, pay as
much in the whole as where the property is perpetual.
Or to put it in another shape, the fraud is in trying
to let off the holders of perpetual property, with pay-
ing three years' taxes ; paying, in short, no more on a
property worth thirty years' purchase, than on a pro-
perty worth three. Some people cannot understand
this ; and lam afraid, between those who shut their
eyes and those who have none, they are a strong party
for the present.
The result on division was a remarkable one; 15
each v, ay. This not amounting to the legal number
for "a House," the division went for nothing, and the
question was tried again next day, when it was car-
ried against reporting the evidence, by 62 to 50.
On Friday the House was prorogued, with the
usual formalities. The effort to secure an orderly