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

LONDON, TUESDAY EV

his anti-aggression measure. The metropolitan enemies of
the window-tax appeared by no means to Aare in the hila-
rity of the Protectionists, 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houses would be repealed.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 at his plea-
sure without incurring any further charge. Thus, a house
of thirty windows, now rated at 9/. 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 far 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 ditlerencs between the window duty, and the new
house-tax, with its exemptions, is estimated at 700,000/. ;
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 1,512,000/. The farther changes proposed'in the financial
tariff consist in the reduction of the duty• on foreign and
colonial coffee—now charged respectively 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 List instance, of 286,0801. Agricultural
seeds are to be exempted from all duties exceeding Is. per
cwt., making a reduction of 30,000/. The land4cl 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 1,672,000/. ; 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 -epenly avowing,
under the patronage of Russia*, the intention oT 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 tosdispute the prey.
If the duty of protecting national rights apd 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. Therb is, probably, still
room in our establishments for a material rbduction of cost,
without entailing any loss or difficulty. s
With respect to the policy of maintaining a permanent
surplus, we have already expressed our opinion. Mr. flume
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 overiaass 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 1851 from the seduction 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 incortfeLfax, which is to
be renewed in its present form, nor to eiPlain 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 th• tax:, 1, Windows as they
have been, and not as they are, will hereafter form the
basis of assessment. On the other hand, it must be remarked
that the vicious principle of graduation tie. 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; bat 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 tempt= of a million,
with deputations and Members crowdinivound him for re-
ductions, is as likely to end in his retaining his treasure as
if he were to advertise an intended jtitirney 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 Hon. Gentleman cxcited, 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 Budget more unpopular than
that presented by Sir Charles Wood.
The House not unnaturally asked fora 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 hiking 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 tbr an explanation of
this complicated question in the speech." If the Budget was
an enigma, the expository statement became a riddle of
riddles—an interpretation even more ‘mysterious than the
puzzle it professed to solve. The critiinsm of Dangle, in the
Critic, is the most expressive commentary upon the con-
fusion worse confounded" of a Whi
g udget, explained by
Sir Charles Wood.
" 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 Home,
and to ask for a little time to understind the riddle. One
point, however, no mystification can obscure, and it needs no
sagacity to understand. The unjust ittid inquisitorial in-
come-tax is to be continued. This the penalty that the
country is to pay for the indulgence in the free-trade theories
of Sir Charles Wood and his colleagues,

6. Qulqu,d delirant reges pie'dtuniar Achivt.”

The ravings of political economy in Downing-street are
rather expensive amusements to the ;nation. Let us ask,
how is it that this odious income-tax,' originally levied only
for a particular purpose—promised to be but temporary—is
now 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. Bow have those promises been kept?
Here we are now in the sear 1851, and we are
for three years 'more.
'England mad enough
threatened
a with
human the incomehemg - taxin
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,
income is to be perpe-
tuatedts of raising our revenue.
oneodioush e instruments
t r
untnpoe
nn
There is no blinking the tritewhether
of
t.
as this
question. lt 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' 'Me 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 income-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 on 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 occupies a high position
among the mercantile classes of the town from which his
letter is dated, puts the injustice of the income-tax in a
light so striking that we gladly substitute it fur any obser-
vations of Our own .
" TO THE EDITOR OF VIE MoRNING HERALD.
" Sir,—As a very old subscriber o your valuable paper, permit
me, on the part of myself and friends,o _to thank you for the part you
have taken in exposing the doings 1 that most inquisitorial body,
the assessors of the income-tax under Schedule D. It has done more
put the shopkeepers,e traders, and merchants,
&c., who were under its lash,
outta temperuir with Government, and
created more moral and political
04 y than any act in my remem-
brance. We do not object to aPr Pweerty-tax. or the amount of the
income-tax; but we complain th t
a ver are no longer the depositary
of the secrets of our own trade. E _ y secret must be laid open to
the Commissioners (who are frecillentlY our rivals), and every clerk
in the tax office. the queries the party
" The following is one of surcharged has to
answer in writing:—
" ' The whole amount of the Sales made orb usiness done by you
for each of the three years, ending A pertil 5, 1850, with the amounts
paid by you in each year, under disnheads, for the purchase of
goods, wages, rent, taxes, and other ti
outgoings, so as to give a debit
loss,
and credit account of your profit and under Schedule D, for each
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
to it.
IS" If you prefer giving oral evidence before the Commissioners they
asked me where I traded to, what partners I had. what share of pro
fit each partner had, and what borrowed money I had is 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 ere these hasty lines a place in your
paper, or such part as you think proper; for I do not think one-half
of the public: know what may fail upon
.them. In some districts, I
era informed, the assessor and Commissioners act with delicacy, and
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 MANcuEsTER MERCiIANT.

or the rest
" Alanchester, Feb. 11, 1851."
We protest we think it is high time that a system like
leading
r p opula
that described in this letter should cease.
The,
ofedaitouurse
soufdthinecißuuisdigtoertiails,
inlyceouireep.etaxat,.tb; perpetuation of the
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 remissmn cf 30,0001, levied as a duty
upon agricultural seeds!! This. as Mr. Freveea very pro-
perly pointed out, is only a further sacrifice to foreigners of
the agriculturists of the houthern counties. The ruin of the
colonies is to be completed by the ab,lition of the differential
duties on coffee. Canada is 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 I Happy and gra-
cious concession to the agricultural interest. It budgets of
this kind are to be produced, 17h9 91t4 5aY that the Wary of