The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-21 00:00:00

TILE PAPER DUTIES.

The promised repeal of the Paper Duties is in a
bad way. Its friends will have to roll that stone
up hill again for many a session before their task
is done. The matter has been in bad hands. It
required much more delicate treatment than it has
received at the hands of Sergeant Parry and Mr.
Bright and Ingram, and the other gentlemen who
have undertaken to do this work for us. Perhaps,
if Mr. Milner Gibscrn had been allowed to work it
out in his own mild-tempered method it might
have slipped through ; perhaps, if Mr. Gladstone
could have been persuaded to make it part of a less
revolutionary Budget it might have passed. But
all its most active friends have been cruel to it.
Mr. Bright has attempted to make it a popular
cry, and to carry it through the Legislature by
force. Unfortunately, the suaviter in modo is not
his gift, and the fortiter in re is not, in this in-
stance, his opportunity. Mr. Gladstone has brought
it into invidious competition with the Tea Duties
and the Income Tax, and has allowed it to crop
out as the incorporate representative of a financial
deficiency, and as the parent of a Shilling Income
Tax in the year to come. Sergeant Parry has
managed to identify it with an empty insult to the
House of Lords. Some other gentlemen have cast
upon it a strong suspicion of mere self-seeking. Al-
together it has been ill served by its supporters, and
what might possibly have been accomplished by
prudent and gentle conduct has been brought to
certain loss by the violence, intemperance, and too
unabashed selfishness of those who most vehemently
desire it. It is now, indeed, said that the division
to-night will show a majority of not, less than 30
peers against the b;11. As cne of the class most
interested we have great reason to regret that this
ehould be so. We had made all our arrangements
for another state of things, and nothing can be
more noxious to the regular adminstration of an
immense establishment than the uncertainty
which has lasted for some time, and which
it now seems is to be indefinitely pro-
longed. But in a free country they
who would effect any object must note the flood and
ebb of public opinion. It is by the prevailing sen-
timent of the nation, and not by the loud or fierce
cry of a section, that public measures are influenced.
When the national sympathy is fully engaged a
threat or a defiance may roll through the land like
an earthquake ; when the people look on in apathy
loud talking is simply ridiculous. Such is the case
at this moment, and Mr. Bright and his friends
have assured the Lords of this unwelcome fact.

On Saturday the winnawings of that very mis-
cellaneous gathering which met at St. Martin's hall
went up to Lord Derby to turn him from his avowed
purpose of throwing out this Paper Duties Repeal
Bill. Like other proceedings of our too zealous
friends, this was not very wise. Even Mr. Bright,
who is not usually remarkable for his judgment,
seems to have seen the absolute folly of this pro-
ceeding. The Falstaff who had gathered these fol-
lowers shrank from marching through Coventry
with them. It was tolerably evident to any one
that Lord Derby, who is not officially responsible
to any popular meeting for his opinions, would
never have consented to receive at his private house
a set of strangers who had publicly derided the
House of Lords as an " anomaly," unless he believed
that he could very effectually answer them and da-
mage their cause. Perhaps Lord Derby calculated
that by making as conspicuous as possible the com-
position of the body who were agitating this ques-
tion he should convince the public that the Lords
had to deal only with a class seeking to evade a tax.
This has turned out very much as he must have an-
ticipated. With the exception of Sergeant Parry
there is no one named among the gentlemen who
appeared in such unexpected numbers in St. James's-
square who is not avowedly writhing under the in-
cidence of this tax. They are all publishers or paper-
makers or penny newspaper proprietors. There is not
even one eminent author among them, not an histo-
rian, poet, or even novelist. There is not a President
of a Literary Society, or even of a Mechanics' Insti-
tute. There is no one who is only indirectly
interested as an author, or as a purchaser, or as a
reader. The agitation is confined strictly to those
who actually pay paper duty. There was much