The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-01 00:00:00

eity .!-.flinit 21Etatt

LONDON, SATURDAY, Figitu:mr,
I I, 18

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has already be-
gun to receive hie annual applicants for the aban-
donment of this part and that part of the existing
system of taxation. Sanitary reformers want him to
forego the duty levied on windows.
Nevlin to3irier
proprietors, and publishers generally, want him
remit the imposts on paper, as a manufactured com-
modity. Some want him to run his pencil through
the inalt-tax, and others desire the same thing to to
done by the tax on advertisements. It must be ac-
knowledged that the Right Honourable Baronet has
rather a perplexing time of it, among so many,
such diversified, and such persevering interro-
gators. Deputation after deputation is admitted
to an interview with him in his official residence, and
ar, to little or no purpose whatever. Keeping a steady
eye on the loose memoranda to be afterwards gathered
together for the formation of his Budget, he clings with
44,41.:71,VN2 ',, !I tY7- icli"g i't.ter,it, t,..,-,:.,. - '
(-RAU* low paltry or unjwt—for swelling the
71i4iiiiv.:44 $ revenue., Let it be demonstrated as
partgaltiFA ..y_itporciArt the health of the people is
\c:)

nouncement following the very day after of the Finan-
cial Minister having received the Hon. CHARLES
VILLIERS, Sir JAMES DUNE, Mr. WILLIAM
EWART, Mr. MURDO YOUNG, Mr. GRANT,
and Mr. INGRAM, who attended upon him
to the end that they might protest with
all imaginable emphasis against the continuance
of the duty levied on advertisements. The know-
ledge of the mere circumstance that movements of
this kind are being made, with a view to forward the

cause of reform in the prevailing- system of taxation

acts as an encouragement to those who sympathize in
any manner with the promoters of that essentially
patriotic undertaking. Hence it is that we look
with complacency on the annual flocking of deputa-
tions to the cfficial residence of the Right Hon. the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, satisfied that although
he may (and inevitably will) remain inflexible to the
force of the most cogent and persuasive arguments,
the public at any rate will be awakened from sluggish..
ness to the appreciation of Truth and Justice.

The Ultramontanists, wboae present object appears
,o be, so far as practicable, to allay the storms of in-
dignation excited in the hearts of the Protestant
people of England at the recent Papal aggression, the
attempt of a foreign potentate to exercise power and
authority over the English soil, contend that it is
merely " a spiritual and ecclesiastical supremacy"
that is claimed—a supremacy which is inseparable
from the constitution of the Roman Catholic Church,
without which the schismatic body who resisted the
assumption would be, to use the words of Dr. Cul.-
" a branch cut off from the tree,
or a stream divided from the fountain, or
a sunbeam from the sun." The admirable
pamphlet of Mr. EDWARD JAMES,* to which we
directed the public attention in the early part of the
week, however, furnishes the best answer to those
allegations by showing, that even in what are now
termed " the times of Catholic England," the Roman
PONTIFF " had not by our laws and constitution any
recognized or admitted spiritual authority in Eng-
land ;" but, on the contrary, that the spiritual claim
which in these days was connected with the
presentation to benefices, and the control
of the Ecclesiastical Courts, was as strenuously
and boldly resisted by our Roman Catholic ancestors
as it is in the present day by every European nation,
no matter what may be the dominant or prevailing
religion. The " Voice from the Vatican" was indeed
unceasingly heard, endeavouring to support the
attempted usurpation, but there was a feeling of
nationality, a manly and uncompromising spirit, that
maintained the independence of the British people,
and prevented them from bowing their necks to the
Italian yoke. During successive ages, generation after
generation, century after century, that independence
was jealously and vigilantly guarded. Even when the
" Papal ban" was more formidable, and carried with
it greater terror than it could be supposed to occasion
at the present day, the ancient British Church as-
serted its right to govern itself at all times. It con-
stituted a powerful and influential body even in the
therle
idea
trrtroei
pv oapli
adoptei otr
Metropolitan
nu,
riAa
I.uefu ut sh 're NE
English, w b o
sixth
bce eennHt uc
eroyn,es
nebcderefaoatrreeedu.
had
t htehi
re s) ational
nation.
to recognise him as bishops their spiritual
superior, and also
.to
respec-
tive dioceses certain rites and observances.
Both these demands, however, were steadfastly op-
posed, and after ample discussion and calm and mature
deliberation rejected in every particular.
thenThesupreehmieef
authority of the Bishop of ST. DAVID'S,,
piscopacy, was
the
and metropolitan of the English E
boldly asserted, and it was declared that " it was not
for British interest to own either the Roman pride
or the Saxon tyranny." It was not, indeed, until
many years afterwards, under,the Norman dynasty,
during the reign of the first HENRY, that the
Arch-
bishop of CANTERBURY was recognised as the English
Primate.
Shortly after that spirited assertion of the indepen-
dence of the British Church, PAULINUS, a friend and
companion of AUGUSTINE, who had been appointed
Bishop of Northumbria, by EDWIN, King of that
district, was superseded by OSWY, the successor of that
Monarch, in favour of AIDAN, " to whom the Kurt;
granted spiritual authority over his dominions, fixing

LEN,

• "Has Dr. Wiseman violated the Law ?" By Ed-
ward James, Esq., ALA., of Lincoln'? Inn, Barrister-
at-Law. Londoa: James Ridgway, Piccadilly.

Considering the many difficulties at all times sur-
rounding a Chancellor of the Exchequer—bringing
him anxious days and sleepless nights, even un-
der the most favourabli circumstances—it must
be confessed that in the long run, and "in
his own generation," he is acting wisely when
thus ridding himself of these periodical deputations.
Instinct assures him that only in this way can he re-
lieve himself from a multiplicity of embarrassments.
Experience tells him that when once the revenue
table is docked in one quarter, it must be forthwith
added to in another. He knows that without this
immediate and premeditated compensation, he runs
the risk of finding himself a defaulter to the tune of
an odd million or so at the end of the financial twelve
months. To ask him, therefore, spontaneously to
consent to the remission of such and such
particular imposts is about as likely to
elicit a favourable response as to ask a
hungry giant to lay down his knife and fork at
a banquet. The cravings of the financial appetite
must be attended to ; and, unhappily, we English
have found those cravings to be altogether insatiable.
Speaking plainly, therefore, it is little less than mere
waste of time, after all, to go down each January to
Westminster for the purpose of laying the various
grievances of the population before (of all men in the
world!) the very man who, from his position and re-
sponsibilities, is the most solicitous to maintain
those identical grievances to the very uttermost.
One resource we have left, and the only one likely
to prove effectual—the House of Commons. There
we may look with something like confidence for the
ultimate triumph of our opinions ; but even there
only through the resolute application of agitators and
petitioners out of doors. Without such preliminaries
we may hope in vain for aid of this kind from the
Imperial Legislature. True, that advantages indirectly
arise to the cause we hold so much at heart from
these annual deputations to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. It helps to rouse public attention to the
existence of a great evil to learn that Mr.
CHARLES DICKENS, and Mr. CHARLES KNIGHT,
and Mr. WILLIAM CHAMBERS, and Mr. T. B.
CROMPTON, and Mr. PETER BORTHWICK, waited
upon the Right Hon. Baronet in Downing-street, for
the purpose of suggesting to him the propriety of
abandoning the paper duty as one pernicious in its
influence on the morals and intellects of the commu-
nity. Equally advantageous in its effect is the an-