The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-26 00:00:00

move. It is quite cleat, that if Austria chooses,
-he can, when she will, stop the career of Russia
in Turkey ; and we have no doubt that Austria
Nill not allow Russia to occupy Moldavia and
Wallachia, or to meddle further with the in-
ternal affairs of Turkey. We may now see the
wisdom of the course which has been adopted
in the question between Russia and Poland.
With the exception of Prussia, no Power could
interfere with effect between Russia and Poland ;
Ind Prussia was disinclined. But Russia has
been weakened by her victory. Her weakness,
'n the first place, has been made apparent to
Europe. In the next place, the cruelty of the
measures which despotism found necessary for
its security, has given her a constant enemy in
Poland. She is in the situation of one who can
only keep.his enemy down by pressing on him.
The moment he rises, the enemy is also on his
legs. Russia has had rope enough in the affairs
of Poland and Turkey, and she will never reco-
ver the consequences.—Morning Chronicle.
That the people of England shall not be taxed
but by their own consent, we need not say, is
one of the great leading maxims of our Consti-
tution ; perhaps the most important one. It is
a maxim, also, in respect of which the public
mind exercises a vigilant and wholesome jea-
lousy, as far as Parliament is concerned. But
here are no people on the face of the earth who
more patiently bear an enormous weight of local
taxation, imposed by select juntas, who arro-
gate to themselves the right of disposing of the
property of their fellow-subjects by rates and
assessments, made with closed doors, in dark-
ness and in mystery, and over the application of
which imposts the people have no control, nor
are they allowed to be present at the revision of
the accounts touching the expenditure of their
own money. In regard, to taxation the people
of England are under the curse of Issachar—
they are " the ass between burdens ;" but they
certainly exhibit more of the patience of that
overloaded and long-enduring animal, when
taxed by petty local oligarchies, than when the
great Council of the nation fixes on them its
fiscal talons. It is true the " doings" of the
self-constituted Select Vestries, at length roused
their indignation ; but tire rapacious exactions
of those local tyrannies were borne with asto-
nishing equanimity for a greater length of time
than they would have been endured in almost any
other country ; and after all, it is likely that,
hut for the energetic denunciations of the
Press, those nuisances would still have
flourished in all their pestilent luxuriance.
Let us look to another source of local taxation,
Ind the jobbing and extravagance connected with
it ;—we mean the county taxation, which is
transacted in Courts of Quarter Sessions. Long
have the jobbing and extravagance been borne
with exemplary patience which swell the county
rates in most counties of England to an enor-
inous amount. This jobbing and this extravagance
are greatly facilitated and encouraged by the
privilege which the Magistrates in general as-
sume of discussing the county business, and
transacting all matters of account, with closed
•loors. The eye of the public not being upon
them, no sense of shame—no dread of public
opinion--exists to set any limits to corrupt and
venal rapacity, wherever it builds its own sordid
schemes upon the impoverishment of the people.
In those dark conclaves, whenever a virtuous
Magistrate opposes himself to the prevalent spirit
of jobbing, he is put down by numbers, who find
in the secrecy of the proceedings their best
protection. It is with pleasure we see that at
last, in a few counties, a spirit of resistance begins
to display itself towards this system. We feel
that we do an essential service to the public in
promoting every legal effort to enforce economy,
not only upon the Government, but upon all local
authorities that exercise the taxing prerogative.
We feel that a most salutary control would be
exercised over the taxation and expenditure of
counties if the Magistrates at Quarter Sessions
were obliged to transact all the county business
in the face of the public. It is part of the duty
of the Clerk of the Peace, we believe, to audit
the accounts of the County Treasurer ; and yet,
in such a way is patronage exercised in the dis-
posal of those appointments, thatiu some counties
he Clerk of the Peace is also the County Trea-
surer, and has thereby the agreeable duty—
which, of course, he never fails to perform—of
passing his own accounts. We believe not only
the propriety but the legality of holding the two
offices may be fairly questioned ; but of this
again. As to the closed doors :—Supposing
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by
the Treasury benches, was to insist on always
bringing forward his Budget with closed doors,
and that the same suspicious precaution of ex-
cluding the public should take place whenever
the various Estimates came on for discussion,
and that, in short, the House of Commons
should insist upon dealing with the purse of
the nation as it pleased under the protection of
impenetrable secrecy, what an outcry would
there not be raised from one end of the kingdom
to another ! But why should the tax-makers
of the Courts of Quarter Sessions be allowed a
protection against the control of public opinion
.which,.at least in practice, is not claimed by the
High Court of Parliament ?—Morn. Herald.
It seems to be universally admitted that the
time has arrived when, without an entire and
manifest disregard to the peace, the welfare, or
even the integrity of the empire, it is impossible
longer to delay the employment of strong and
unsparing measures with a view to chastise and
restrain the Papist rebels of Ireland. It will be
difficult, no doubt, for the members of the pre-
sent Administration to recommend such mea-
sures to Parliament as the circumstances of the
case require. It cannot be forgotten by them-
selves, were the rest of mankind even resolved
to forget, that the system of agitation and the
trade of disloyalty in the Sister Kingdom have
had their most valuable and effective patrons in
the members of his Majesty's present Govern-
ment, and that to their countenance and sup-
port the system is indebted for its gradual ad-
vance towards perfection, arid the trade for its
continued accession of prosperity. This con-
sciousness, afflicting, depressing, and paralysing
as it must be to airy body of statesmen in-
trusted at the present moment with the govern-
ment of the empire, will not, it is generally
understood, induce the Ministers who labour
under it to retire from a position in which the>
cannot perform their duty without incurring the
odium of treachery to their former confederate,
and allies ; neither will it, we are confidently told,
compel them altogether to abandon their duty.
and leave those ancient allies and confederates to
pursue unrestrained and unpunished their career
of disorganization and rebellion. Ministerial in-
genuity, we are given to understand, has hit upon
a compromise. The Popish agitators are to be
controlled, and, if they persevere, to be punished ;
but as a salvo to the consistency and the con-
sciences of those members of the Cabinet who
are identified with the cause of agitation, while