The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-06 00:00:00

COMING EVENTS FORESEADOWED.

It is about a quarter of a century since the atten-
tion of all Europe was concentrated upon a travel-
ling carriage which was rolling with a gentle
celerity from Rome towards London. The world
was all anxious to hear the new policy of England
from the lips of the occupant of that carriage, who
was coming from Rome to London to declare it. For
nearly a month England was in suspense, waiting
the arrival of Sir Robert Peel. To-day the most
conspicuous disciple of that great statesman has
his moment of concentrated attention. What Sir
Robert Peel's holiday tour was in October, 1834,
Mr. Gladstone's cold is in January, 1860. For
forty-eight hours no other question has been asked
among politicians than " How is Mr. Gladstone's
throat ?' England and France—ay, and by aid
of telegrams, even Rome and Sardinia, have been
occupied with the doubt whether Mr. Gladstone
will be able on this night to declare the great secret
of the impending Budget. Happily, it is, so far
as Mr. Gladstone is himself concerned, a circum-
stance upon which we can speak lightly. It is a
matter of hoarseness and gargles. It is merely a
question whether the great performer is in voice.
There are, as in all cases where a great tenor or a
priceless soprano happens to fall under the in-
fluence of our moist climate, protesting surgeons ;
but there is nothing to cause disquietude beyond
the moment. If to. day should be found impossible,
'I hursday or Friday may be counted upon. It was
hard upon the impatience of our youth that Sir
Robert Peel's carriage-wheels should want greasing
) often, and it teases the curiosity of our maturity
that Mr. Gladstone's voice should require rest and
treatment just when he has something to tell which
we are all so anxious to hear ; moreover, there is
nothing dignified in a creaking wheel or a hoarse
voice ; and, although the disability is as real as if
the cause were greater, it seems just--xittre ridicu-
lous that all Europe should hold its breath because
one English gentleman cannot make an oration in
his best manner.

It must be owned that there was a great anxiety
about this promised piece of eloquence. Much has
been expected from it. Upon its form and its sub-
stance much depended. That half-knowledge which
we have of the bargain with France has aroused a
very uneasy curiosity. The world is not entirely
composed of Manchester men. If it were, how happy
and c mtented, and confiding and uninquisitive, we
should all be! Large profits and quick returns,
heavy consignments and hungry markets, quick
rolling machinery and busy mills, well-paid work-
men, millionaire masters, and a Chancellor of the
Exchequer who is certainly about to tell us nothing
to our disadvantage ! Or, if the world were all
coalowners or all ironmasters, we could wait with
patience, and attend the coming revelation with a
quiet smile ; for hope deferred does not always make
the heart sick. If it be not too long deferred, and if
the fruition be tolerably sure, there is a certain
pleasurable excitement in the suspense. But, un-
happy, we arc not all cottonspinners, or coalowners,
or ironmasters. Nor are we all desiring with in-
tense thirst to imbibe huge quantities of bad Bor-
deaux. There is a tolerably large class of persons
who are expecting nothing to their advantage in
this budget, but who are awaiting with great
anxiety the revelation of how much income tax they
will have to pay in order to buy the advantages to
be enjoyed by their happier and much richer fellow-
subjects. That ninepence—that bitter ninepence--
which is the fatal figure Mr, Gladstane was to an-
nounce, requires all the gilding of Mr Gladstone's
most oleaginous oratory to make it slip down un-
questioned. Country squires, professional men of
all classes, traders who cannot distinguish vintages,
and do not know a Latour, 1847, or Laffitte, 1844,
from a St. Emilion, 1859, silk weavers who think
of Lyons as their natural enemy, and English
clockmakers who speak with dread of Paris clocks,
require a very finished effort of oratory to ac-
comodate themselves to the necessity of paying
ninepence in the pound for a change which at first
view does not strike them as being worth the
money. Even financiers have been asking whether
we have not been outwitted in a bargain which it
is contrary to all the principles of free trade ever
to have entered upon. They have been saying that,
even if duties had continued upon the indispensable
articles of merchandise which we hurry to the
Lowther arcade to buy, France would have been
obliged in her own interest to let in our coal and
iron; and they ask whether the terms of the com-
pact into which we have entered are such that we
are now shut out for ever from including in our
financial arrangements such a generally unobjec-
tionable tax as that upon wine. Beer-drinkers, and
barley-growers, and hop-merchants are also anxious
to be convinced, but rather distrustful of the pro-
mised eloquence. Steady men of business, who
study the prices of stocks, wish to have it explained
to them, in melodious prose, how any possible terms
that can be given by France can compensate for the
present loss of two millions of revenue. Income-
tax payers, whose name is legion, and whose cries
are piteous, wish to be told in pleasant periods why
it is that Mr. Gladstone's undertaking with himself
to abolish the Income-tax has in this ultimate year
of the predicted accomplishment been so wofully
broken, and why he has thus brought that noble
promise to ninepence. Moreover, the whole crowd
of besieging impertinents are pressing forward to
know what it is which the French Emperor has
given Mr. Gladstone to put in his bag, and they
will be by no means satisfied if Mr. Gladstone
should recur to his old classical recollections, and
tell them of an ancient philosopher, who, when an
impertinent fellow asked him what he had under
his cloak, replied, " I carry it there in order that
you should not know."
Of course, all these are not our objections. We
only collect and copy the floating leaves which blow
about us. We would not for the world be sus-
pected of not having orthodox belief in the com-
mercial treaty. Holding on strong to free trade, we
arc bound to see in this great infraction of all free
trade principles that celebrated exception which is
always necessary to prove the rule. As the tee-
totaller who, after taking the pledge, resolved to
have just one drunken bout to treat his resolu-
tion, so we believe it right to indulge in just
one commercial treaty in order to be jolly over our
consummated free trade system. We would not on
any account be supposed to have any bowels of com-
passion for silk-throwers or growers of Cape wines,
or to herd with such grumblers as beer-consumers ;
but we confess to a strong curiosity upon all these
matters, and we confessanlsiooattoiosoomtoepinatrolilaemraenncte
of
any delay in the communication
ooFseratnhcise.evolnfiNolgr.,
teheh
with
Gladstonewat conipcannot abpepeena rmiand
it will he a great national inconvenience. Perhaps
nobody knows the subject so well as he does; it is
certain that no one could put so favourarholaetamgatltoesrs
upon it. No doubt, it does not seem ag_
to postpone a statement for two or three days. A