The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-12 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 12, 1869.

this doubt and perplexity is surely a reason
why a longer period should have been
allowed to elapse before giving practical
effect to the Budget. One cannot help
connecting this haste with Mr. LOWE'S repeated
warning that if the House would not consent to his
scheme as a whole, it must reject it as a whole; if it
would not sanction the mode in which he proposed
to raise his money, it must surrender the remission of
taxation which he offered to make. One cannot help
suspecting that Mr. LowE was fully -aware of the
faults which lie underneath his, at first sight,brilliant
scheme, and was afraid that the longer the scheme was
delayed the less chance it would have of passing in its
entirety. That there is no need for losing
the many good features of the Budget while
rejecting the bad we shewed in our previous article.
We need add only on this point that, by continuing the
income tax at sixpence for two years, the taxpayer
would scarcely have to pay out more money than he
would under Mr. Lowes proposals ; at the same
time the first plan would avoid the resort to a per-
manent objectionable arrangement.
The blots we pointed out in the financial scheme
are hit also by our able contemporaries the Econo-
mist and the Spectator. The first paper urges that—
" This plan of making all our direct taxes payable at
once—this catastrophic taxation; so to speak—is au
offence against a primary canon. Adam Smith said that
every tax ought to be paid when it was most convenient
to the subject to pay it. But it certainly is not at all
convenient to most taxpayers to pay very great sums—to
pay all they do pay to- the Government on one day. In
January, just when people are poorest and paying off the
accounts of the year just ended, the Government steps in
and asks for all its taxes—for income tax, land tax, house
tax, and assessed taxes. This may be paid, but it will
not be paid willingly or easily. It will cause much
grudging and many murmurs."

Moreover, Mr. LOWE'S apology for this mode of
collecting the revenue is really its greatest condemna-
tion. He argued that as wars were now very short
and very costly, we required a good deal of money
promptly. Yet supposing we had a war now, and
were suffering under a war income tax of 16d., it
would be impossible to collect it all at once—
it would be absolutely necessary to abandon
this concentrated taxation. Nor does this system of
isingle payment suit the wants of the Government
any more than it suits the convenience of the tax-
payer. " Government is daily paying ; it has to
support fleets and armies, to pay salaries, to pay
1 interest de die in diem accruing to the national
creditor. By the new system, as Mr. Lo WE with great
fairness owned, the Government would be mostly
much too poor and once a year much too rich."
More than eight millions sterling would be poured
into the Exchequer all at once—
"And one of two results must happen—either Govern-
ment would be a great deal too rich, and have a vast sum
floating, of which it would make nothing, or, what is more
likely, the advent of this sum would have been antici-
pated. During the autumn, in October and November,
the Government would be very poor and be large
borrowers of, the Bank of England. Both these
alternatives are very objectionable, though in dif-
ferent degrees. Nothing can be more absurd than
to tease the taxpayer to pay up vast money, and then to
let it lie as an unused banker's balance. And few things
could be more mischievous and unpopular than that
Government, in the autumn season of pressure, should be
a large borrower of the Bank of England."

The Economist goes on to point out another evil result
of this scheme, which, from want of space, we omitted
to mention on Saturday. So large a sum of money
suddenly abstracted from the accounts of the tax-
payers, that is, from the various banks and passed
into the Bank of England, would utterly derange
the money market. Every January the Bank might
be a tyrant. During the autumn it would have too
little weight in the money market, and early in the
year it would have far too- much. The argument that
a considerable sum would besaved by collecting all the
taxes at one time, is, in our contemporary's opinion,
of small importance, inasmuch as the money ought
to be collected at the time and in the way in which
it is most convenient for the taxpayer to pay it.
Supposing that Mr. LowE's principle is adopted, it
ought at least to be modified, so that the income tax
should be collected at one period of the year and
assessed taxes at another period, and thus the tax-
payer be saved from an excessive demand made all at
once. Finally, the Economist holds, with ourselves, that
it is by no means necesslry to lose the advantages
which Mr. LOWE offers, even while rejecting the
objectionable parts of his scheme ; and the suggestion
Saturday, that the income tax
should be continued at Gd., is made also by oar
con temporary.

The Spectator is loud in praise of what we have
considered the commendable features of Mr.
LOWE'S scheme the various remissions of
taxation and the transfer of the assessed
taxes to the excise department, for which last
change, by the way, Mr. WARD ITuNT claims
the credit. But our contemporary points out that
the plan of paying income tax in advance is most
objectionable, inasmuch as it may be paid on profits
which will never be realised. This objection is the
more serious inasmuch as Mr. LOWE does not pro-
pose to make any alteration in the payment under
schedules C and E, but the fundholder and
the civil servant will continue to have their
income tax deducted from their income at the time
that this is paid. Moreover, the concentration of
taxes on one month, and that month of all others
when men are most short of money, because all
their other bills have to be paid at that time, would
make January " a month of bitter tribulation and
anguish to small traders." The Spectator urges "the
excessive inconvenience to the Bank of England of
receiving all the Government deposits at one time of
the year, and being famished all the rest of the
year," and hopes " that the sixpenny income
tax will remain as it is for this year, and the proposal
for a change in the time of the collection
of this tax will be dropped for the present."
Altogether, we are well pleased to find the objections
we raised to the Budget urged with so much force
by journals of the weight and the ability of the
Economist and the Spectator. We sincerely trust that
Mr. LOWE may be induced to modify his scheme, and
that to-night he will, instead of pushing it forward
with unnecessary and unfair haste, announce that he
is open to argument, and that his scheme is open to
improvement. This is his first Budget, and if he
will only modify it, it cannot be exceeded by his
future Budgets, for it will be as sound as it is
brilliant.

IT is difficult to contemplate the case of a swindler
hoist with his own petard without feeling sorely
tempted to a display of unchristian satisfaction.
And this feeling is by no means diminished when
the victim of his own fraud happens to
be a public servant trading at the public
expense upon the opportunities of his position. A
remarkable story of this kind was revealed at the
Central Criminal Court on Friday. The case was one
of singular interest, and also of great public importance.
An Admiralty clerk, named GAMBIER, and an engi-
neer, named RUMBLE, were, it seems, in the habit of
extorting money from persons who tendered for
Admiralty contracts, on the false pretence of using
influence in their favour. The business of RUMBLE,
who had no connection with the Admiralty, was
to conduct negotiations. He informed contractors
that the influence of his " friend at the Admiralty "
was paramount, and that it was useless to hope for
success without his aid. For a fair consideration
that influence would be exerted, and the individual who
secured it would reap his reward in the acceeptance
of his contract. The business of GAmßrEn was to act
as the mysterious agent whose assistance was indis-
pensable to the success of Admiralty tenders. He
had really not the slightest influence in deciding
the fate of a tender; but he was a first-class
clerk at Somerset House, had the earliest informa-
tion touching the acceptance of contracts, and might
readily impose upon tradesmen who knew neither his
name nor his position. It is very probable that
the system was successful in some instances. But a
contractor, named MAXWELL, wiser than his
brethren, receiv6,l RUMBLE'S offer of the "influence"
with suspicion, asked some leading questions, and
finally informed the Admiralty authorities that he
had been offered decisive agency in favour of his
tender for the sum of £3O. The authorities saw
really that RUMBLE must have a confederate at the
Admiralty, and in order to discover who the inyste-

rious medium was, Mr. MAXWELL undertook to make
a pretence of accepting RUMBLE'S offer.
The trap succeeded. RUMBLE promised the influ-
ence in return for £3O. On the 22nd of January he
told Mr. MAXWELL that his tender would be accepted
thenext day, quoting figures of other tenders, and the
like plausible details. The truth was that GAMBIER'S
position enabled him to know what tenders
would be successful, though he had not
the slightest control over the decision.
Mr. MAXWELL carried out his scheme by
paying the money; but, unfortunately for the con-
federacy, it was paid in three £lO notes, the
numbers of which had been recorded. The Admi-
ralty authorities then speedily found out that 'the
(leas ex: mach ina was GAMBIER. lle was seen
on several occasions in close conversation
with his agent. One of the numbered notes
was paid to an insurance company in GA3IBIER'S
name. In his pocket-book was found this not
very hieroglyphic inscription :—" Feb. 2nd, R.
for Mxl., elm, £10," which resolves itself with
very small consideration into a memorandum
that for his share in the MAXWELL elm business the
prisoner had received £lO. The guilt of GAMBIER was
as clear as the open agency of RUMBLE; his counsel
made no attempt to deny the facts, but only to
diminish the inference to be drawn from them. But
the just conclusion is that the two prisoners were
not harshly punished by a sentence of eighteen
months' imprisonment. For this offence was not an
ordinary case of fraud; it was also a libel
on the public service. Such statements, if
believed, must produce the impression that
the management of our great departments
is tainted with dishonesty, and that the
some of its chief ser-
nprobable yblbethat in some instances
nationats. mustlt b
seemse swindled
these false pretences of influence have been success-
ful. If so, the honest contractors who believed that the
Admiralty authorities, like everybody else, had their
price,have the satisfaction oi learnirig that their money
was thrown away. GAMBIER had no more influence
than RUMBLE. The warning ought to be final.
Amongst the many fmults of our departmental
service, that of being bought and sold for a few
pounds is certainly not one.

,;• .„331
•
"
to iitOrinTar.

HER MAJESTY.

WINDSOR CASTLE, April 11.
The Queen, accompanied by Princess Louise,
drove out in the grounds yesterday afternoon.
Her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Louise,
Princess Beatrice, Prince and Princess Christian
of Schleswig Holstein, and the ladies and gentle-
men in waiting,
ing in the private chapel.
attended Divine service this morn-

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(FROII OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS, SUNDAY, April 11,

The two Houses are hurrying on their business with
breathless rapidity. Votes and measures which would
have excited a week's wrangling under different circum-
stances are dismissed without a thought. The Left is dis-
posed to let anything go in order to bring the session to a
close. But there are some important questions which
demand attention ; and even the approach of the great
contest does not prevent the Left from raising them.
Yesterday the Marquis de Lavalette made an official de-
claration of the highest importance. M. Jules Favre is a
Paris deputy. He does not need leave of absence to meet
his constituents, and his election, moreover, is as secure
as anything of the kind can be. lle has, therefore, found
time to bring forward a very exhaustive interpellation on
foreign affairs. Tunis, Crete, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and
Germany were all touched upon. 'What was the Govern•
these countries ?

The question was a leading one, and M. de
Lavalctte gave it a decisive answer. He did not state
the intentions of tho Government in some respects
meat going to do in respect of its relations with each of
so clearly as M. Jules Favre wished, but on the most
important points, the unity of Germany and the prospect
of peace, he could not have been more explicit. Unam-
biguously he recognised that events iu Germany were
events with which France had no concern. The Germans
would be left to settle their own affairs. The " policy
of France," he said, "is a policy of peace.
And again," he reiterated "that peace, the object of our
wishes, is neither compromised nor uncertain. We shall
maintain it by all legitimate means." Loud and prolonged
cheering from all parts of the House followed this declara-
tion. M. Jules Favre and M. Thiers both expressed their
satisfaction. And the Bourse, for once, has not gone
down after a pacific speech. I have no hesitation in stating
that this is the most decisive peace declaration we have
had of late years.

The Left is beginning to shew considerable activity in
face of the coming contest. A little more union might
have been desirable in face of the desperate nature of the
struggle upon the eve of which the country finds itself, hut
the indivirinml candidates snare neither time nor labour in
counteracting the propaganda of the Government. M.
Jules Simon, for instance, has been making a tour of three
or four days in the Herault district. During this short
time he held nine political meetings, and, in addition,
addressed an assembly of 3,000 on Free Trade in the Interior.
Not content with this very fair amount of " stump," M.
Jules Simon had hardly got back to Paris before ho made
his appearance at tho Thatro du Prince Imp6rial, and
made another long speech with great success.
There can be no mistaking the activity of the campaign,
in short, on both sides. Demands for leave of absence
abound every day in the Corps L6gislatif, and deputies
even depart without leave. The Emperor, lam told, has
been advised that no more than 200 deputies remain in
the capital, and that if the session go on much longer there
will not be a quorum. If a very plausible report is to be
trusted, there is some slight difference between the
Minister of the Interior and the Minister of State respect-
ing the official candidatures. M. Rouher is absolute in his
demands that the candidates chosen by the Government
must support the Government root and branch. The
Minister of the Interior is less exacting, and would give
more latitude to local predilections, provided the candi-
dates would support the Government in the main. M. do
Forcade la Roquette would not insist upon too compro-
mising an adherence.