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

property which they may inherit from him. To_
do 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-
ment 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. Os.
2d.), and we may assume that it will continue at
the same amount. In ordinary times, when the
Temple of Jertus 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-
tive meal*. Not only can this be accomplished,
but we venture to put forward a plan by which it
may be fairly and equitably achieved ; thus saving
Sir G. C. LEWIS a portion of the labour for which
he is so handsomely paid.

The accumulated and realised property of the
country bas never been estimated at less than

FIVE THOUSAND MILLIONS OF POUNDS STERLING.
It 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-
lions. 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,
and some of the damnosce hereditates handed down
from our forefathers. There would, when the
costs of collection were defrayed, be but little, if
anything, 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 33.
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 coarse, 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
shall follow up the subject, and prove the perfect
possibility of our scheme.

Sir EDWARD LTrroN—as we are constrained
by law and by courtesy to call him whose
name, "familiar in our mouthsads householdgwords,' is simply, and briefly, an
loriously
" 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 banuet,
we mean periodically gathering together the pro-
moters of one of the most attractive and charac-
teristic among all our great charitable institutions.
Au institution we do not hesitate to de-
signate thus entitled to public sympathy,
by this twofold right of pre-eminence—because
in 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 LYTTON 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 ours
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 work may
be said to have cast a plummet into the Gulph of
Crime, and to have sounded (sternly and inexor-
ably, but with the noblest purpose in his view) the
abysses of moral depravity amongst u3—not but
that he, of all men in this 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 Govern-
ment ! No—but as he explicitly added,
on Saturday evening, to the confession of the
more than amiable weakness involved in this same
sympathy with the lawless offspring
of our crimi-
nal population—" I do say that great care must
be taken, or else it will be rather an advantage
than not, to be the Child of a Felon !" And so—
impressed with a sense of this imminent necessity—
Sir EDWARD LYTTON, immediately an opportunity
offers for so 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.