The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-29 00:00:00

I,•_/:':.1.-)01*C. MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1858.

Once more we avail ourselves of the invaluable
assistance of the " Shade of COCKER," by repub-
lishing, at. the request of many correspondent•,
the admirable " Dialogue on the Income Tax,"
which appeared in The Sun of Thursday last. The
gross iniquity—the palpable unfairness of the
present system is so clearly explained, that "he
who runs may read," and any man of ordinary
comprehension can understand the mode in which
he is plundered under " that masterpiece of State-
craft," that contrivance of surpassing ingenuity
for extracting the largest possible proportion of
money from the pockets of. the industrious and
intelligent creators of wealth, in order that a
proportionate immunity from taxation may be
enjoyed by the possessors of wealth, or, in other
words, " a tax upon the working bees of the
social hive for 'the relief of the drones." As the
&ear-sighted Spirit declares, " the deep ingenuity
of the contrivance consists of two things—first,
the artfulness by which it deludes its victims into
the belief that they are taxed equally, or propor-
tionately, with other classes of society ; and,
secondly, the facility with which it extracts money
from the pockets of various classes in precise]) the
inverse ratio of the amount of property possessed."
The accuracy of these assertions is fully established
by the carefully prepared tables, which show the
sums actually contributed by different owners of
accumulated and realised property—some, such
as the owners of Long Annuities, which are to
expire in 1860. We date from the sth April,

1857, from which day any change must take
effect, and assume the unit of 1501. per annum
taken by "the Spicit," are worth but 4161.,
while others go on to the full value
of 3,7501. ; the former paying at the rate of
21. 85., the latter of only 55. 4d. per cent., or,
in other words, the former being charged nine
times as much as the latter.

The true principle of taxation is that defined
by " ADAM SMITH," and quoted by " the Spirit."
It is that " the subjects of every State ought to
contribute towards the support of the Govern-
ment, as nearly as p.issih!er iu proportion to their
respective abilities." Nothing more equitable or
reasonable can be stated. There is nothing of
graduation in this, no special burthen on wealthy
men, no tax on prudence, every man pays for
protection; and he should do so according to his
(neAns, and the value of that which he enjoys.
ft is exactly the principle of fire insurance—and
it would be ridiculous to assert that the man
who insured property to the value of 100,000/.
.should be charzEd the same price which the m tn
..vho had oillY 5,000/. or 10,000/. was required
to pay. The latter would speedily object to the
manifest imposition, and there is no possible rea
son why the defrauded contributors to the
national revenue should be more patient, under
the fraud by which they have been mystified.
There are, however, two classes of taxation,
the distinction 'between which must be fully re-
cognised. The revenue is required for the pay-
ment of -the just claims of the public creditors,
and also for the maintenance of the national
establishments. Now, there is no possible rea-
son why the former should be a burthen on in.
dustry. No man has a right to mortgage the ex-
ertions of his children beyond the value of the

property which they may inherit from him. Tol
ilo so would be to render them slaves. The
moneyocracy, and their obedient servants, may
strive to disguise this simple truth. Filial piety
may desire to reserve the memory of their proge-
nitors from the shame of leaving unsatisfied de-
mands. But it has never been supposed that a
father could leave one of his children wealthy,
while all the others were not only left penniless,
but bound to satisfy debt created for the improve-
,nent of the property bequeathed to the favoured
one. The debts should, in the first instance, be
liquidated out of the assets, before any moral
obligation could bind the unportioned children.
Now, last year, the cost of the Funded and
Unfunded Debt amounted, in round terms, to
twenty-eight millions sterling (28,112,8241. 9s.
2d.), and we may assume that it will continue at
the same amount. In ordinary times, when the
Temple of JANUS is closed, and there is no great
war to occasion an extraordinary outlay, the main-
tenance of the national establishments in a state
of complete efficiency will amount to something
less, but for argument sake we may assume at an
equal amount. Here, then, we arebound to obtain
56,000,0001., of which one moiety shall fall exclu-
sively on property, the other on propertyand industry
jointly. The one should be provided by direct
taxation, the other partly by direct and partly by
indirect taxation ; or, what would be the same
thing, by a direct tax, pressing equally on pro-
perty and industry—in proportion to their rela-
ive means. Not only can this be accomplished,
but we venture to put forward a plan by which it
inay be fairly and equitably achieved ; thus saving
Sir G. C. LEWIS a portion of the labour for which
Lie is so handsomely paid.

The accumulated and realised property of the
lountry has never been estimated at less than
FIVE THOUSAND MILLIONS OF POUNDS STERLING.
ft has generally, and we believe more correctly,
been calculated at from seven to eight thousand
millions. We shall, however, for the sake of our
present argument, assume it at six thousand mil-
ions. One-half per cent. on this amount would
produce 30,000,0001., sufficient to pay the inte-
rest and cost of management of the public debt,
Ind some of the damnosas hereditates banded down
from our forefathers. There would, when the
costs of collection were defrayed, be but little, if
snything, towards the maintenance of the national
establishments, which might, for the present at
least, be supported by the items of indirect taxa-
tion which we are prepared to indicate!

This one-half per cent, on capitalised value
would be by no means an extravagant charge. It
is far less than was intended to be charged by the
original land tax, which declared that " per-
sonal property should pay three shillings in the
pound, and that real property should be
charged, with as much equality and indifferency
as possible, by a pound rate, towards the sum by
the Act imposed. This would be no less than 3s.
in the pound on personal property, while it may
be presumed that real property would contribute
in a still larger proportion. In fact, 4s. in the
pound was the rate charged. Of course, when
property was thus burthened, it should be the
exclusive charge ; and this we are prepared to
concede, giving up the Land Tax (making compen-
sation to the proprietors of that which has been
redeemed, according to the value of their pay-
ments) ; giving up also the obnoxious House Duty
and the tax on legacies and successions. We shall
prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, in The
Sun Budget, which shall shortly appear, that it
would be for the benefit of the great majority of
the parties now charged to pay this commuted im-
post, while, without injuring them, it would be
an extraordinary boon to the rest of the commu
nity. Our space warns us that for this day we
have gone the full length of our tether ; but we
Thal] follow up the subject, and prove the perfect
possibility of our scheme.

Sir EDWARD LYTTON—as we are constrained
by law and by courtesy to call him whose
name, "familiar in our mouths as household
words," is simply, and briefly, and gloriously
" BIILWER" to us all—graced by his presence as
Chairman, at the London .Tavern, on Saturday
evening, the annual dinner of the Commercial Tra-
vellers. The Honourable Baronet, it may here be
briefly remarked, in justice to himself and to
the occasion, not merely graced the proceedings
by his presence, but while so doing really, and
truly, and literally " glorified" them, at once by
the charms of his oratory and the lustre of his
reputation. Insomuch that an incident, always
during the last ten years invested with a peculiar
degree of interest, has this year, under his distin-
guished auspices, been elevated to one of very

particular importance. The anniversary banquet,
we mean periodically gathering the promoters of

one of the most attractive and characteristic

among all our great charitable institutieus.
An institution we do not hesitate to de-
signate thus entitled to public sympathy,
by this twofold right of pre-eminence—because
i❑ it, in " The Commercial Travellers' School,"
we do in truth distinctly recognise an eleemosynary

establishment peculiarly befitting a great mercan-
tile race, acting upon, or at least, let us say,
striving to act, in accordance with the divine and
beneficent principles of Christianity. As Sir
EDWARD LYTTM observed, in his very admirable

speech on Saturday evening, it would be nothing
less than a stigma and a disgrace to the nation if

the orphan children of men as useful, as honest,
and in every way as respectable as our Commercial
Travellers, were thrown upon the world without
friends and without hope, " and that, too, at a
time when this good-hearted mother country of vs*rs
is fostering at her breast and rocking in her arms the
lawless offspring of the JACK SHEPPARDS and JONA-
THAN WILDS of Society I" Not but that the far-seeing
and philanthropic author of " PAUL CLIFFORD,"
the sagacious and astute publicist to whom we
are indebted for the wisdom stored up in the
celebrated political thesis of " England and the
English," the large-hearted, bright-eyed romancist
of " Lucretia," who in that terrible wcrk may
he said to have cast a plummet into the Gill ph of
Crime, and to have sounded (sternly and inexor-
ably, but with the noblest purpose in his view) the
abysses of moral depravity amongst us--not but
that he, of all men in th.ia country, cherishes a
certain wistful sympathy for the policy (" the
beneficial and merciful policy" he calls it),
securing to the children of felons nowadays

the saving aid of the Imperial Govcon-
fnent ! No—but as he explicitly added,
(,n Saturday evenirag, to the confession of the
more than amiable, weakness.involved in this same
sympathy with tl Ae lawless offspring of our crimi-
nal population— —ic I do say
that great care must
be taken, or e' se it will be rather an advantage
than not, to .ire the Child of a Felon !" And so—
impressed witin a seise of this imminent necessity—
Sir Enww) LYTTON, immediately an opportunity
ffers for .ao doing,
frankly lends his helping hand
to the building up of some generous and substan-
tial Counterpoise ! To which end—although (as
one of the speakers intimated on Saturday even-
ing) at considerable personal inconvenience to
himself--he hastens up to London in the genial
Christmas time to act as Chairman, in 1856, at the
annual dinner of the Commercial Travellers.

Coming amongst his commercial auditors as a
stranger, according to his own graceful depreca-
tion of comment upon his being there and then
amongst them in the Chair of the Commercial
Travellers—although himself bound to the mer-
eantile world merely by the natural bonds subsist-
ing (from times of remote antiquity) between
Commerce and Literature. " Entering that
room among strangers to him personally,"
he said, "he yet felt as if he were
coming amongst familiar friends : and he trusted
that on leaving it that impression would be recip
rocal." This—from Sir EDWARD LYTTON himself,
be it remembered ! For, as the Honourable
Member for Hertford (Mr. THOMAS CHAMBERS)
remarked, very charmingly, a little later on in the
evening, Sir EDWARD LYTTON could not be a
stranger in any assembly where the
English language was spoken—possessing,
himself, on the contrary, " the awful privi-
lege and responsibility of speaking by every
fire-side in England, in. America, in fact wherever
the Anglo-Saxon tongue was known 1" Thus, as a
friend, let us add, as a very dear friend of us al l
—not by any possibility as a stranger—Sir
EDWARD LYTTON, or, rather, we must per-
force here speak of him simply by his name of
fame—" BuLwzn," cannot but have his presence
on Saturday evening at the London Tavern, as
Chairman of the annual dinner of the Commercial
Travellers, hailed with a sense of very peculiar
satisfaction by all ranks and classes of his fellow.
countrymen. His presence there affords addi
tional and impressive evidence of his sympathy with
meritorious need, and above all with the hope, with
the ambition, in one word, with the Future of the
Rising Generation. It was evidence—through the
poet, through the novelist, through the dramatist
—of the kindly nature, of the warm heart, of the
comprehensive aspirations of the philanthropist.
And the particular object of these gene-
rous sympathies on Saturday evening—
was it not an object in a very especial
manner, worthy of them, worthy of the most ear-
nest and cordial consideration ? That object
being simply the promotion of the interests of the
Commercial Travellers' School—a charitable es-
tablishment— in which the orphan children of an
eminently deserving class are tenderly nurtured
and wisely educated. An institution so intrin-
sic Illy excellent in its character, and so obviously
good in its general design, that it has, in one
single decade, sprung from the merest germ to a
full and ripened maturity—a maturity giving
every promise of permanence. Having already,
after an existence of nearly ten years from the
date of its commencement, funded pro-
perty to the amount of 13,0001., pro
ducing an annual income of 4001. sterling
Yearly subscriptions yielding 3,600% upon an
average ! Making together, with the interest on
the futided property already ea eationed, a total
fixed income of 4,0001. ! Educating by means of
this yearly income 109 boys and 52 girls, alto-
gether 162 children—securing a home for them
through a munificent outlay of no less than 26,0471.
expended upon land, contractor, architect, drainage,
gas works, farm-buildings,&c.! It was the advance-
ment of this noble institution which was the aim
of the convivial assemblage of Saturday—an aim
imparting an air of importance to the festivities,
evolving from them their golden fruits to the
tune of 1,5001., aad securing to them the lustre
inseparable from the oratorical graces, the heart-
born eloquence, the fame and the genius of per
haps the most illustrious living representative of
our national literature.

Mr. SMITH O'BIIEN again. This time on
affairs in general, and the Income Tax, and old
Ireland in particular. The mode, a lengthy epistle
—with a reproduction of which, by the way, we
have not deemed it necessary to trouble our
readers. Of course, the letter possesses the usual
characteristics of the writer's productions, saving
and excepting hopefulness and elevation of tone.
With a great deal of balderdash there is here and
there a sprinkling of good sense. With not a
little narrowness of view and querulous captious-
ness, there is a little to which we can yield assent.
Altogether, the effect it produces amounts pretty
much to this—regret to recognise symptoms of the
writer's being drawn from the privacy that is good
for him into a vortex requiring a cooler head and
more ductile morals than his to be steered through
without danger to his peace and quiet, and the
welfare of others.

another
In the first plac3 he draws attention to the
movement in England against the continuance for
ri
bi his aaspptrhoev aml
most
tf
justa Pro-
perty Tax,es. gear
which
Even of
all ax
hich hee describes
of thean Income
sre portion of the Income
Tax, if properly Tax. He next expresses
gra-
duated, meets with favour
at his hands. So
far we have no cause for exception. At this
stage, however, he makes a bolt. "If
therefore," he says, " the present Income Tax
were applied to purposes useful to Ireland, I
would rather urge a modification of its provisions
than a diminution of its amount." But the
ques
tion now at issue, in his opinion, is—" Whether
the British Government ought or ought not to be
encouraged to subject the resources of Ireland in
order to maintain a war establishment for the
promotion of objects in which Ireland has no
imaginable concern !" Why, this is " a more
excellent song than the other." The notion of a
diversity of interests between two portions of the
same empire, connected as Esgland and Ireland
are, is even more absurd than the defunct cry of
a repeal of the Union. Who ever hoard of a
people, to whom Imperial advantages were thrown
t
open, being permitted to claim the immunities of
a province? Yet this is what Mr. SMITH 0' BRIEN
evidently contemplates. Ireland is to be part
of England when it is profitable to be so,
but not a part of it when it is not is to
share in all the glory and solid pudding,
but to shirk Imperial taxation. And Ireland is
badly used because this is not the case. If Eng-
land were draggin-
g Ireland down, there might be
some colourable reason for repugnance to Imperial
tax;,,tien ; but the o contrary being notoriously the
case, the ludicrousness of the notion is only
equalled by the want of generosity it betrays.
We trust and believe Mr. SMITE( O'BRIEN is
but an indifferent exponent of Irish feeling on
the matter. He next proceeds to inquire what
the empire and what Ireland has gained by the
late hostilities.

Be sure, the picture he paints of the operations
and result of the war is not of the brightest.
Agreeing, however, with much that he advances
respecting the mismanagement of the war, and
the inadequacy of its results, we eau by no means
sympathise with the spirit manifest throughout
his remarks. His pleasure at that which occasions
us regret is but too apparent. Coming to
the last three months, we find him giving a qua-
lified disapproval of King BOMBA'S Government,.
which looks as if he meant it to be inferred that
Naples is better governed than Ireland. In-
deed, from what follows, it would hardly be going
too far to assert, he appears as the advocate of
that much-injured monarch, who is one day
stabbed and another nearly blown up by his own
subjects, who ought to know the nature of his
rule best. From Naples to Tierat is hut a mo-

ment's flight to Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN. What pos-
,;ible good can come to Ireland of a war with
Persia ? What possible justification can
there be of it? "I," who have all
knotty points of policy unravelled at my finger's
ends, " I profess that lam unable to discover
what moral right the British Government pos-
sesses to interfere, in regard to contentions re-
specting a country which is situate a distance of
many hundred miles from its frontier, or what
!ogitimate interest England can have in giving
armed effect to such interference." One is almost
tempted to reply, would there not have been
wisdom in barring the widow's garden•
gate ere the writer lay perdu among
the cabbages ? But we have said enough of this
miserable document, which is insulting to the
Irish people, discreditable to the writer, and only
calculated for the meridian where Russia meets
with advocates, and Englishmen with traitors to
their national interests and would-be sappers of
their imperishable renown.

Elsewhere in our impression of this evening
will be found a very remarkable letter, si4u
"Justitia," addressed to one• of our morning con-
temporaries. It is a communication we cannot
but think peculiarly entitled to public considera-
tion. If for DO other reason, for inas nuch •ts
it distinctly maintains a late rather notable
decision of the Horse Guards, a decision involving
the Summary Dismissal of two officers from her
MAJESTY'S Army, to be—illegal. Asserting this
illegality in plain terms (indeed, in so many words)
co be "allowed by competent law authorities." An
opinion curiously coincident, by the way, with
a hint thrown out pretty much to the same effect
not long ago, through a certain terse, pithy, sen-
tentious paper, published in a recent nabib-r of
the Lalt Quarterly. As to the accuracy of this
rather startling estimate of a rather startling de-
cision—that, of course, remains yet to be
demonstrated. At any rate, as we took
particular occasion to remark at the period of the
double and peremptory dismissal alluded to, it is
impossible—while commending the prompt and
haughty spirit in which H.R.H. the Cimmander-
in-Chief evidenced his resolve to put an end, if
possible, at once and for ever, to practices so dis-
creditable to her MAJESTY'S army (practices so dis-
creditable to it if allowed to be continued with
impunity)—lt is impossible, at the same time,
we say, not to regard with the liveliest sym-
pathies of condolence the noble family thus
poignantly affected, for the sake of beuefitting the
Service by means of one Stern and Conspicuous
Example ! It is impossible, let us add, not to
cast one regretful glance upon the memory of a
brave old soldier, who now " sleeps well " after
" life's fitful fever," one whose gallant heart would
have thrilled with pain tinier a blow so dire and
in a manner irreparable, one whose whole career
gives him a recognisable claim upon the respeot
and gratitude of the national remembrance.