The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-03 00:00:00

LONDON,
FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 3, 1833.

We have for some time been endeavouring to
urge upon Lord ALTIIORP the, to us, plain
fact, that the house and window tax must be
abolished. What first led us to the conclusion
that the concession was no longer optional, but
matter of necessity, was the different symptoms
we saw of the middling classes becoming not
only aware of the injustice done them by those
who have had the making of the laws, but indig-
nant at the wretched cant advanced in their de-
fence. As long as a man is meek enough to listen
to the arguments of a man who justifies the
picking of his pocket he must be left to his fate;
but when he begins to insist upon his right to
let no hand go into his pocket but his own, one
may entertain reasonable hopes of persuading
him of the justice of punishing intruders. For
a long time all the buyers of this country
have very meekly listened to the arguments of
the sellers to be allowed to fix their own mono-
poly prices. In the same way all the taxed
have suffered themselves to he persuaded by the
taxers that they themselves should be com-
paratively exempt from the burdens of the
state. If we may judge from appearances,
this apathy or gullibility is fast passing away,
and Lord ALTHORP will soon find that all un-
equal taxes, all monopolies, whether of corn or
anything else, all restraints on trade and labour,
under whatever pretence they may have been
imposed, must be equalized, must be abolished.
The different meetings which have lately been
held in the metropolis and elsewhere, and the
tone and temper of the resolutions passed at
them with respect to the house and window
taxes, ought (independently of the positive in-
formation we announced two days back as
having been given to the Government on the
subject), to bring home conviction to Lord
ALTHORP'S mind, that although he has sue,
ceeded in frightening the selfish portion of the
House, by the threat of a property tax, the
assessed taxes, as at present imposed, cannot
much longer be collected. We admit.
what was said by Sir ROBERT PEEL that
a house and window tax has many of the
advantaged without the disadvantages of a pro-
perty tax ; but then we must insist upon its
being fairly and equally levied upon the whole
community. Had it been so, the inhabitants of
towns would not have thought of complaining
of it ; but when they have seen that in this, as in
every other case, the law makers have spared them-
selves, the matter of wonder is, not the present
outcry, but that so grievous an injustice should
have been borne so long as it has. The low values
at which the houses of the nobility are assessed,
is the fault of the assessors ; but the ingenuity
with which the scale for the window duty is
framed, so as to throw nearly the whole burden
upon the middling classes, belongs solely to the
venal and packed Parliament, which the voice of
public opinion has annihilated. That any man
should have had the face to defend the justice
of that scale in a reformed House of Commons,
was to us a matter of no small astonishment,
albeit that the man who most prominently did
so, was the ex-Member for Limerick.
Let us see what it is Mr. SPRING RICE, with
such peculiar modesty, undertook to defend.
The scale for the imposition of the window tax
is as follows :
windows.

Per Window. I Windows. Per Window.
s. EL
s. d. I
7 _SY4

8
10
20
30
71
15000 ...................
,65 105450
6 6% 150
We will say nothing upon the precedent here
established for the imposition of a gradu•
ated property tax, because we think that
it would be attended with any thing but
beneficial effects ; but we should be curious to
hear Sir ROBERT PEEL'S defence of it, if

indeed defend he would. To a plain man of fact
it would appear, upon the examination of this
scale, that it lets off the houses of the very poor,
for the simple reason that they cannot pay; it
then gently touches upon the inhabitants of
houses with eight and ten windows, who are
just raised above the class of daily labourers ; it
then comes upon the inhabitants of the 20, 30,
and 40 window houses, those inhabited by trades-
people, by professional men, by families of small
independent incomes; but directly it reaches the
houses of the nobility, down the scale sinks to
the level of the tax imposed upon the house of
a poor clerk or small tradesman. "Oh ! but,"
says the Irish Secretary of the Treasury,
whose property pays not a sixpence to
this tax, "you ought not to complain, for the
aristocracy might, if they had chosen, have
exempted themselves from ally payment, or have
put themselves upon an equality with the artizans
who inhabit houses with ten windows !" Nay,
this person had actually the impudence, the
brazen impudence, to claim a kind of credit for
the nobility in paying so much. " If," said he,
"Woburn Abbey were charged at the same rate
as a house with ten windows, it would pay
53/. only, instead of 711." The comparison
of the means of the Duke of BEDFORD
living in a palace with 500 windows, and in the
receipt of nearly 1,0001. per day, with those of
a mechanic, would be ludicrous, if the object
the Honourable Gentleman has in view did
not excite our indignation. We shall again
revert to this argument of Mr. SPRING RICE'S,
and the tables by which he illustrated it, but he
may be assured that mystifications of this kind
will no longer serve their purpose, and that the
doom of unequal taxation was fixed when the
Reform Bill became law.

_ .
It is stated in a Morning Paper that a vote
of censure was passed last night upon Sir
FRANCIS BURDETT, at a meeting of the dele-
gates of the parishes of Westminster, and that
it was proposed that the Hon. Baronet should
be required to resign his seat : the latter propo-
sition, however, it is said, was not agreed to, as
the delegates did not feel that they had any au-
thority to entertain it. This is the fact. The
81 delegates were authorized by the parishes to
discuss only one subject, the house and window
taxes ; but we believe there was hardly a dissen-
tient among them as to the impropriety of Sir
FRANCIS BURDETT'S conduct, and were he to
resign his seat and to stand for Westminster
again, there would not be the slightest chance
of his return, notwithstanding the many years
that he has been among them, and the dislike
that is usually entertained by large constituencies
to encourage proposals of change. The people,
however, seem to be coming rapidly to a con-
clusion, that the Members of the House of
Commons are not quite the free agents that
many of them wish to be. According to the
constitution of England, the Commons are sup-
posed (it is a sad fiction, we are ready to confess,
but it ought not to be a fiction) to be direct
parties to every measure which passes in their
name ; and it appears to us that the intention of
choosing representatives was not to allow
them to do as they pleased, but to be the
organs of the constituencies who, from their
number, could not be present and vote
for themselves. Many of the Members of the
House of Commons, however, Whig as well as
Tory, seem, by their conduct, and even by their
language, to imagine that the moment they are
chosen as representatives of the people they
cease to have anything to represent—else, should
we have anything so absurd as Acts of Par-
liament, or votes of Parliament in the name
of the people, contrary to their own de-
clared views ? If Members were fairly re-
turned by ballot, they would not venture
upon these insults to their constituents,
for then they would have none of the cor-
rupt and bearing clown influence which enables
a man to regain a seat for a constituency whose
interests he has betrayed. If we are not to have
vote by ballot it ought at least to be binding
upon a Member of the House of Commons to
resign his seat without chance of resuming it,
when he has broken the promises upon which
he attained it. Such is the course in every
other transaction of life among honourable men,
and we do not see why, when the obligations of
honour and duty are in question, the Members of
the House of Commons should be exempt.

The London and Birmingham Railway Bill
has, we perceive, passed the Lords with some
amendments. From the slovenly manner in
which business is transacted by their Lordships,
we are not able to say whether they are or are
not of importance. We should imagine that they
are not, and that we may at length congratulate
the country upon the commencement of a na-
tional undertaking which will give a stimulus to
our industry, as incalculable as that which we
have received from the application of machinery
to our cotton manufactures. All we have to
regret is, that the lines have not been made
`double ; but that it will come to that, we
doubt not.

The last official accounts from Oporto are far
more cheering than any which have arrived for
several months ; and, by letters from several
distinguished British officers in the Constitu-
tional service, we find that little doubt is enter-
tained of a successful result to the present
struggle, provided an end hc: put to the intrigues
which embarrass and impede the operations of
the Commander-in-Chief. The inhabitants of
Oporto, notwithstanding the numerous privations
which they have experienced, have not relaxed
in their attachment to the Constitutional cause,
and more than 2,000 have offered to join the
army in its intended march upon Lisbon. When
that movement will take place, however, is uncer-
tain, as great difference of opinion prevails on the
subject in the Cabinet of Don PEDRO. One party
is for moving at once upon Coimbra, where the
Pedroites have many partisans, and, ,having the
Niiguelites in their rear, obtain such an addi-
tional force at Coimbra, as would not only
secure them against any defeat by the Miguelites,
but offer a point d'appui to the inhabitants of ,

Lisbon, who are waiting only for a convenient
opportunity to declare themselves against MI-
GUEL. Another party is for less decided
measures, and for waiting the arrival of rein-
forcements from England and France, but they
seem to forget, that whilst they are reinforcing
the army of Don PEDRO, MIGUEL also is
exerting himself in putting his own army into a
more effective state. In difficult enterprizes,
desperate means frequently accomplish what
caution would destroy ; and as the result of
every active demonstration on the part of the
Constitutionalists, has been favourable to them-
selves, it is difficult to conceive why they con-
tinue to play the slow, and, as they call it, the
sure game. In our opinion, the sure game
would be the desperate one, considering the
manner in which the resources of the contend-
ing parties are obtained, and how their respec-
tive armies are composed. The official accounts
mention the reported insurrection in favour of
Don PEDRO at Figueras, but not in a way to
divest the rumours which have been circulated
of an appearance of exaggeration.

The opponents of Sir JOHN HOBHOUSE
say he will certainly be re-appointed Secretary of
Ireland ! We have reason, however, to believe,
that Sir JoirN would refuse the offer were it
to be made to him, and that his resignation was
merely hastened by the late affair in Parliament.
The little intercourse that he has had with Ire-
land already has been sufficient to convince him,
that he was not qualified for an office requiring
more than ordinary forbearance and courtesy.
It was fortunate for Sir JOHN HOBHOUSE that
he had so good an opportunity of resigning with
credit.

An attempt has been making to revive the
Cholera Board, but we are happy to find that
the Government have set their face against it.
The disease, should it again make its appear.
ante among us, will in future be treated in the
usual way of other non-contagious maladies, and
a great expense will be saved to the country. It
is but just, however, to the Lords of the Coun-
cil to say that under their control the cost of
the Cholera Board in England was hardly a
fourth of what the Irish Board cost, and not one-
eighth of what was paid to the Paris medical
Commission.

The French Papers are filled, for the most
part, with reports and remarks on the present
crisis of affairs in the East. The anniversary of
LOUIS PHILIP'S birthday was to be celebrated
in the usual manner. The Corps Diplomatique
was to be received by his MAJESTY, and Count
Pozzo DI BoRGo to act as spokesman on the
occasion. Some disturbances had occurred at
Lyons and Marseilles, but they were not of a
serious nature.

The debate last night in the House of Com-
mons upon Colonel TORRENS'S motion on the
currency, had the result we expected,—viz., the
negation of the motion. The catastrophe, how-
ever, came on rather sooner than we had ima-
gined it would, for the House was so sick of
currency physic that the Doctor's own speech,
with a short reply from Lord ALTHORP, settled
the matter. Mr. CAYLEY'S motion was deferred,
the gentleman being indisposed.
The topic of chief interest discussed in the
course of the evening, was the introduction of
poor laws into Ireland, which Mr. RICHARDS
directly moved. He, however, withdrew the
motion, in favour of an amendment of Lord
ALTHORP'S, to form a Commission of Inquiry.
That the result will be the recommendation of
some plan which shall compel landlords
in Ireland to do their duty, we cannot
doubt. We have long advocated the
temporary introduction of poor laws into
that country, as the means that might properly
be employed for bringing the inhabitants within
the pale of civilization, which the atrocities we
daily hear of prove them not to be in at present.
At the same time we should look forward to
all the evils dreaded by Mr. O'CONNELL
from the permanent introduction of the English
system into Ireland. We do not think we can
do better than refer the Commissioners and the
House to a report made by a Committee on the
poor laws, which sat at Philadelphia in 1825.
The following extract will give our readers some
idea of its value :
" Upon the whole, your Committee are convinced, that
the effect of a compulsory provision fur the poor is to
increase the number of paupers,--to entail an oppressive
burden on the' country,—to promote idleness and licen-
tiousness among the labouring classes,--and to afford relief
to the profligate and abandoned, which ought to be be-
stowed on the virtuous and industrious alone, that the
poor laws have done away the necessity for private
charity—that they have been onerous to the community,
and every way injurious to the morals, comfort, and in-
dependence of that class for whose benefit they were intended
—that nn permanent alleviation of the evils of the system
can rationally be expected from the erection of poor-
houses, or from any similar expedient ; and that the only
hope of effectual relief, is the speedy and total abolition of
the sys,em itself. In this country, where there are no
privileged orders, where all classes of society have equal
rights, and where our population is far from being so dense
as to press upon the means of subsistence, it is indeed
alarming to find the increase of pauperism progressing
with such rapidity. * * We are fast treading
in the footsteps of England."