The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-20 00:00:00

BARONIETEIt-30.37 ; still falling

Wm-D, North and North-Easterly; fresh, with slight
snow and sunshine. There is very great variation in the
weather for the last few days.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
This DAY.—Morning, lh. Tim—Afternoon, lh. 45m,
To-Ntolutow.-Morning, 2h. 4m.—Afternoon, 2h. 20m

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TII E SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, FEB. 20, 1860.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget is
founded on a good and a bad principle. It is a com-
bination of good and evil, in which the evil pre-
dominates considerably. He deserves credit for
his endeavour to sweep away a number of petty
imposts on commerce which have hitherto tended
more to vex the public than add to the Revenue.
Besides, it is carrying out the principles of
free trade in all their natural tendency,
but while with the one hand he is doing good, he
is limiting its benefit with the other. H seems
afraid of doing too much -without a countervailing
check on his prodigal bounty. Again, in order to
force his own hair-splitting theories on the people
he attempts to lure by apparent advantages. We
do not find so much fault with his giving the
French an advantage for a certain time if he did not
make us pay for it, and that on the nail. Why has
he not east around, and managed a reasonable loan
and so spread the extra charges for this year over
several, in which there will not be similar demands
if we are to remain at peace If peace with France
is to be purchased by an immediate sacrifice on our
part, why not let us partake of the advantages ? It
is rather too much of a good thing to pay down and
reap no corresponding gain. If we buy what is
termed a bargain, let us see what it is worth.
Already we perceive that the French are show-
ing signs of apprehension lest the plan should fail,
and arc endeavouring to modify some of the terms
by accelerating the time of their coming into ope-
ration. This is a concession evidently founded on
the strong spirit manifested here against the one-
sided character of the provisions of the Treaty.
By means of the electric telegraph, the Emperor
of the FRENCH may be supposed to be sitting at
our Cabinet Councils—else why should he have so
suddenly modified his plans ? For no other reason
but
to smooth the temper of the debate coming on
this evening.
Mr. DisRAELi
foreseeing the manoeuvre of at-
tempting to bind the House of Commons to the
terms of the treaty has given notice of a motion
for this evening to the effect that " the 'House does
not think it fit to go into committee on the Customs

Acts, with a view to the rciduction or repeal of the
duties referred to in the Treaty of Commerce be-
Dtween her MAJESTY fl.11(1. the Empror of the
FRItNCII, until it shall have considered and as-

sented to the engagements in that treat
And thi,.; is but right. It is in strict conformity
to constitutional practice, and ought to be per-
sisted in. Why should there be any thimble tiggiut
in a m atter of such vast national concern ?
Is it t(I please a Government who has rushed
into power by a of accumulated perfidy and
shameless, combination of discordant parties ? If the
treaty be good, let it have fair play; scrutinize its
merits, which may be many, wad search into de-
Izerits, -which may be few ; but few or many let the

treaty stand the test of impartial inquiry. We can-
not hope for more, and ought not to shrink from less.
Let there be justice done, without favour or
affection. We will even go further : let the
French have the benefit of the doubt, for
we can afford it, and will not grudge a make-
weight for the sake of good fellowship and
genial friendship. But we will not consent
to be bullied and then sneered at for our foolish
good nature. If short accounts make long friends,
fair play is best for all and will be found to last the
longer, with no heart-burning as al consequence.
Let the treaty then be discussed on its ovn merits
and the Budget afterwards.
Now, as regards the Income Tax, which has been
so often and so justly objected to, how is it that
Mr. GLADSTONE did not look into its working
enormity of pressure, and discriminate between
fixed and precarious incomes ? It is clear that he
intended to resort to this abominable impost,
and yet he shunned the opportunity of
being just. Is that statesmanlike? Is it politically
honest? Is it not pandering to the rich at the
expense of the poor ? Why has he not had re-
course to a property tax and equalised other duties,
so as that property should pay for its protection.
Want of time or opportunity is no answer. We
believe Mr. GLADSTONE to be personally honest,
as honest as honest can be ; but we condemn the
Chancellor of the Exchequer as being too bad as
Mr. GLADSTONE is," perhaps,;not so good as he
might be.
While on this odious tax we may point the
Chancellor of the Exchequer's attention to a plan
for raising a larger amount by an income tax
on fairly graduated principles, which we copy
from a contemporary. Let him try it for this year
by way of a beginning, and if he must continue the
tax hereafter it will not be so justly objected to.

O those deputations ! They are the peculiar
infliction, horror, bugbear, and incubus of your
unfortunate Administrator. They haunt him like
remorse. They dog his footsteps like the memories
of an evil conscience. They are to him what the
slave was in the chariot of PH7LIP of Macedon—
reminding him in the very hour el his ovation of
his political mortality. They are the death's heads
—" grinning horribly a ghastly grin"--at the feast
of power, taking the flavour out of the d.shes, the
perfume from the flowers, and the bloom snff the
fruits of office, served up in the otherwise appetjoing
and delectable banquet of Government.

If there is one social nuisance abhorred with art
especial abhorrence by each one amongst us—with:
out a single dissentient voice to breathe a syllable
in its favour in the way of extenuation : it is that
nuisance of nuisances, that arch bore of bores
known generaiclly as " a man with a grievance."
We all know him. His name, indeed, like that
of another, is Legion. He has so very much to say
for himself, and it is such a dismal story at the
best. Perhaps the most felicitous type we have of
the class in fiction is the one sketched by the re-
morseless pen of Mr. THACKERAY. To the
readers of " Vanity Fair " the mere mention
of poor old Mr. SEDLEY after his downfall
will conjure up again the familiar effigy.
We are there again with honest DOBBIN, in the
back parlour of the little public•house in the City
—fairly caught by the button-hole—with that de-
plorable object confronting us—the man with a
grievance ! He has got the crumpled packet of
dirty letters out of his pocket in a twinkling—the
string is in his mouth—he is selecting " the one"
for our inspection, first of all, just to begin with.
There is the dreadful perspective of all the others
that have to follow—with the spoken, lachrymose
running commentary !

Well, what the man with the grievance is to the
individual in private life—in public life the depu-
tation is to the Administrator. But with this
difference—that the infliction in the latter instance
is far worse, inasmuch as it is not simply a man,
but a cluster of men, representing a whole class or
multitude—a cluster of men headed by a spokesman
carefully primed for the occasion in regard to a
grievance, the enforcement of which upon the
attention of the unhappy Minister has been duly
and deliberately preconcerted. And, grouped
round the prominent figure of the spokesman, come
the rest of the members of the Deputation—bearing
a resemblance less to the old classic Chorus than to
those skirmishers, "outside the conversation," in
the refractory ward of the Workhouse at White-
chapel, described with so much humour by Mr.
CHARLES DICKENS in the last number (the second
number) of the " Uncommercial Traveller," in All
the Fear Round. Supporters of the speakers,
who themselves take no further part in the
discussion than might be expressed by saying that
they italicise with a murmur, or punctuate with
an exclamation !

And certainly on Saturday afternoon Ministers
—at least three or four of the Ministers—had a
veritable surfeit of these Deputations ! There was
a deputation of licensed victuallers, who had an
interview at the India-office with Sir CHARLES
WOOD, as her MAJESTY'S Secretary of State, for
the affairs of Hindostan ! Though what possible
connexion there may be between the licensed
victuallers and our Asiatic empire—is a problematic
thought left entirely to the wildness of vague con-
jecture. it probably expresses only the sub-
division of labours forced upon the mem-
bers of the Cabinet by the extraordinary throng-
ing and crowding of these attendant deputations.
However this may be—there was Sir CHARLES
WOOD on Saturday at the India House face to
face with this deputation of licensed victuallers.
Then there was a deputation on the part of the
Dublin wine merchants, who "had it out" in a
pleasant interview with Mr. LAING, as Secretary
to the Treasury. Besides which the Right Hon.
MILNER GIBSON, as President of the Board of Trade,
received at the Board of Trade, with all befitting
gravity, and in due succession—a deputation from
the Liverpool Shipowners' Association, and another
deputation which was this time a deputation of
paper manufacturers. The last-mentioned appears
to have been the most resolute and the most out-
spoken of them all; for, not content with saying
their say at the Board of Trade, in the preience
and hearing of the right hon. the President of the
said Board, they proceeded at once to the official
residence of Mr. GLADSTONE in Downing-street,
and there enjoyed the luxury of talking the mat-
ter of their grievance all over again with
the Right lion. the Chancellor of the Exche-
qner. And here we may complete the dread-
ful catalogue of these Saturday deputations by enu-
merating those which actually waited in the course
of the afternoon upon thzt unfortunate administrator.
Besides the particularly resolute deputation last
mentioned, then—Mr. GLADSTONE had the delight
of receiving one by one—a deputation from the
distillery trade— a deputation from the wholesale
stationers of London—and distinct deputations
upon resolutions 10, 11, and 12 of the proposed
i verp oo l, from
Budget—from Edinburgh and Leith, from Glasgow,
fGrormeennoeclkfa,stf,rofrmomH.Cuolrl,k,fraonmd
from Liverpool,
from Dublin,
from Aberdeen ! Could not some hurnare member
frame a bill analogous to Martin's Act in its bene-