The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-25 00:00:00

Choi.u.

The arrangements for opening Osaka are pro-
gressing. The opening of Yeddo is doubtful.
The Japanese have established a line of steamers
between Yokohama and Osaka.

FRANCE.
BOURSE, Dec. 24, Three o'clock.--The market
closed as follows :

41 per Cent.
End of month —
3 per Cent
End of month 6B 65
Credit Mobilier
End of month l6B 75
Credit Foncier 1368 75
End of month 1361 25

Bank Shares 3lOO
Ital'an Loan
Eud of month 45 20
Mexican Loan 13 75
Do. Bonds
Spanish Threes 87 50
Rome Debt 35
Deferred —

RAILWAYS.

Account

Orleans ... 8561
Northern 11724
Lyons and Mediterranean
Southern..... 5531
Western
Eastern • • 532k
Sardinian
__

Austrian
Lombard 350
North of Spain 62f
Saragossa
Roman 5O

THE INCOME TAX.

TO TILE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sin,—The increased amount of ld. in the pound
Income-Tax on allowance for the Abyssinian war
emboldens me to address you once more on this
most unjust (as levied at present) and iniquitous
tax, but which said tax is fully capable of being made
the fairest and most equitable of all modes of taxation.
To expect any change in its assessment or revision of
direct v. indirect taxation generally during the
present Parliament would be idle and childish. But
I trust the whole system of taxation will be one
among the many tasks of our new Reformed Par-
liament. Perhaps it may not be amiss just to re-
view the history of the tax from the time of its first
imposition, just this time 69 years ago, by the im-
mortal Billy Pitt. He first proposed it on the 3d
of December, 1798, curiously enough almost the
very same month and day of the month that our
present Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed the
increase of the tax this year. -But mark the differ-
ence of the two periods. In 1798 we were engaged
in about the most gigantic war that England, or
even the world, had ever seen. To have attempted
to make any difference between dependent and pre-
carious incomes and independent incomes would
have been utterly impossible, and out of the ques-
tion at such a time as the close of the last
century, when we were at war with the greater part
of the continent of Europe, with Consols at 474, a
famine in the land, a rebellion in Ireland, a mutiny
at the Nore, and a host of other maladies and
grievances whose name is legion, cum multis aliis
gum nunc prescrihere longum est. Then William
Pitt never for one moment contemplated the con-
tinuance of the tax after war should have ceased.
That was a heavy impost, such as the present
generation living in these days of profound and
piping peace have but a mere abstract idea of.
Its absolute necessity, however, alone reconciled
the people of England to the imposition of this
burden, which our ancestors of 70 years back bore
not only with patience but with enthusiasm. I
speak for myself, and I have no doubt Ido for
you and many others of the genuine true Liberal
(but not Whig Melbourne-Russell Bedchamber)
school,when I say that that old long French and Eu-
ropean war, albeit most unjust, uncalled for, and un-
necessary in its origin, nevertheless brought out the
finest passions and spirit of the English nation, and
as it was remarked many years ago, at the end of
the last century, and the beginning of this. "We
were a nation" such as the mean mind of Lord Rus-
sell, and many other of the soi-disant Liberals, who
governed the country so beautifully for o many
years, can have no more idea of than the dirt they
kick and trample on with their toes in the streets, in-
asmuch as when we were once engaged in the war
nothing remained but to go on with it in the most
courageous and magnanimous manner possible ; and
this the people of England, to their praise be it
spoken, did. Yes, to their praise be it spoken, as
long as we continue a nation. In many respects,
with all the privations we had to endure, England
never saw such days as these. But to return to the