The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-24 00:00:00

of war purposes—in the future), while she is
in the very act of pocketting Savoy and
the Savoyaxds ! And to crown everything

for the tri
umph of NAPOLEON'S policy—to com-

plete our ignominious treatment to the very last de-
gree, we are expected meekly to hold our tongues,

,o utter no word of complaint or remonstrance—

through (clear of our possibly offending his Imperial
Majesty ! This is positively, literally the argument
which has for weeks past been addressed to the
BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS by the Ministerial
Chiefs of her Britannic MAJESTY'S Government!
The House of Commons, moreover, is (marvellous
to relate) wonderfully compliant. The Ministry
that acts thus, that argues thus, that diplo-
matizes thus, that thus strangely regulates
the finances of the country—adding deficit to deficit,
and buying a one-sided free trade treaty for
£1,000,000 sterling, in order that the nation may
be mulcted (by a war tax) of £10,000,000 in a year
of peace that yet requires £30,000,000 in the way
of warlike expenditure—this amazing Cabinet
so acting, so arguing, so diplomatising, and so re-
gulating our finances, carries everything before it
in the House of Commons by one large majority
after another. It was only, therefore, in the re-
gular order of things, that the 10d. income tax was
"agreed to" last night quietly, meekly, obsequiously
in Committee of Ways and Means, when, in due form,
the following memorable resolution was placed in
the hands of Mr. MASSEY by the Right Hon. the
Chancellor of the Exchequer :—" That towards rais-
ing the supply granted to her MAJESTY, there shall
be charged, collected, and paid, for one year, com-
mencing on the 6th of April, 1860, for and in respect
of all property, profits, and gains, charged or charge-
able under the act passed in the 16th and 17th years
of her MAJESTY'S reign, shaper 34, for granting to
her MAJESTY duties on profits arising from pro-
perty, professions, trades, and offices, either by
assessment, contract of composition, or other-
wise, the following rates and duties, that is
to say : Upon any assessment on the an-
nual value or amount of any property,
profits, or gains (except property, profits, and
gains chargeable under schedule B of the said
act), the rate or duty of 10d. for every 20s. of the
annual value or amount of all such property, profits,
and gains respectively ; and for and in respect of
the occupation of lands, tenements, hereditaments,
and heritages chargeable under schedule B of the
said act, the rate or duty of sd. in England, and of
32d. in Scotland and Ireland respectively, for
every 20s. of the annual value thereof." True
there was an amendment proposed, according
to previous announcement, by Sir HENRY WIL-
LOUGHBY—a moderate amendment enough, that in
this resolution, instead of 10d., 9d. should be
substituted. After a little pro forma discus-
sion, however, the amendment was negatived
in committee upon a division, there being for it
132, but against it 187—leaving in a house of
319 a clear majority of 55 for her MAJESTY'S
Government. Certainly matters are going on swim-
mingly—for the Emperor NAPOLEON HI. He
takes Savoy. He dictates to Italy. He has van-
quished in successive wars the best troops
of Russia and of Austria. And now in re-
gard to his intimate ally, England—how has he con-
trived to measure out his Machiavellian policy ? To
perfection, he has in a great measure gagged the
House of Commons, or at least the Ministerial side
of it. He has twirled Mr. COBDEN'S sagacity
round his thumb as effectually as if he
had been fingering a paper light for his
cigarette. By his immense armaments—hie
imposing navy and his superb army of 600,000 men
flushed with victory—he constrains us (his allies)
to keep up in a time of profound peace warlike
armaments that cost us upon the year £30,000,000.
And having ingeniously contrived to increase
our deficit by another million through the
medium of a commercial treaty, that yields to
France almost exclusive advantages, he compels
us, at his autocratic bidding—to please him—to
buy his favour—to propitiate his smiles—he com-
pels us to drain the nation by a tenpenny income
tax by the most odious and unjust of all war
taxes, to drain the nation within the compass of
the halcyon year ensuing of £10,000,000. In the
presence of all which facts we are expected to
fling up our caps for Mr. GLADSTONE as a
Master-Financier. " Can such things overcome
us "—not " like a summer cloud," but rather be
it said like the ominous darkening of a wintry storm
—" without our special wonder ?" Whatever our
emotions may be, however—we must hold our peace,
lest perchance our Imperial ally (having under his
supreme command that enormous steam fleet and that
vast army of 600,000 men) should possibly take offence
at the freedom of our language! Surely Lord JOHN
RUSSELL'S famous panegyric upon Lord PALMER-
STON must have a very different reading now-a-days.
Surely the words should run now—if they be
truthful—He is not the Minister of Russia, he is
not the Minister of Austria, he is not the .Minister
of England—HE /S THE MINISTER OF FRANCE!

The disturbance at Pesth, on the 15th of March,
which the Austrian authorities have endeavoured
to make light of, turns out to have been a serious
affair. The police and Austrian soldiers, as by
courtesy they are termed, certainly thought so.
They mustered in great numbers, and did not, of
course, fail in those brutalities which Austrian men
with muskets and bayonets in their bands are ever
ready io perpetrate on the unarmed. Had the
students of Pesth been French Zouaves, these same
gentry would probably have run for it till they
found themselves safe at Vienna. We have a right
to think so, for it is a maxim in the code of honour
that a man who can wound or kill another who is
not equally armed is a poltroon and a cowarl He
is a brute, not a man.

The 15th of March is in Hungary the anniver-
sary of patriot blood. On that day the Hungarian
revolution began in 1848 ; and on that day all pa-
triotic Catholics, and,
in n
ndli,happily, that is the vast
Catholics
majority of ungaiy, celebrate
requiems for the repose of the souls of those who
fell that year on the field of battle and on the
scaffold the WALLACES of Arad and Pesth
being held in especial remembrance. We
who admit the superstition, from a religious point
of view, of such a service, can yet admire the senti-
ment which seeks for blessing to the souls of victims
who " cry froiri"the altar before tho throne " for
vengemice on their savage murderers. Vengeance
which seems imminent. And if we cannot believe
that the souls of patriots are, in suffering, to be
mitigated only by priestly services here, we can
yet cordially sympathise with the tenderness for
the peace of such noble souls which is felt by these
honest believers in purgatory. But the Austrian
Government does believe with the young Catholics
of Pesth. More blind or benighted victims of
superstition are not to be found in the cabins of
Ireland, than on the throne of the Hapsburgs.
FRANCIS JOSEPH and his servants believe in the
efficacy of such services as the students desired
to celebrate. And yet these wretches, having
strangled and shot nobler men than them Selves,
pursue them, according to their .own belief, into
the world below, and having inflicted the ex-
treme of human penalties,
to be
deire tokeep
under what theythespenalties of
believe a