The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-03 00:00:00

levied within the current six months, though apper-
taining to the whole year ! To maintain the stub-
born and imperative necessity of doing this inexor-
ably at all cost, at all hazard, and under all
circumstances, does not admit, we maintain, of
being proved logically defensible. It is unjust in
the very outset. It is arguing, among other ways,
thus as between ourselves and posterity :—lt is
maintaining that we should do everything
for posterity charging the whole cost upon
ourselves, and leaving no portion of the burden for
after generations. An inexorable arrangement
like this may work well enough hypothetically in
Arcadia or Utopia, in Tempe, or in the Flying
Island of LEMUEL GULLIVER, but it is wholly inap-
plicable to this common sense age of commer-
cial reciprocity. It is, in point of fact, about
as rational to place the Exchequer at the mercy
and under the guidance of Mr. GLADSTONE,
because he can indulge in such fantastic day
dreams of finance, tricking them out the while
in all the graces of an accomplished rhetorician
—as it would be to place over some Farm not of
Four Acres, but a gigantesque farm of four times
forty thousand acres, some rarely gifted pedagogue,
great at once as a grammarian and as a philologist,
simply because he could parse and construe to a
very nicety the mellifluous numbers of the Georgics
of VIRGIL ! Yet there are people who swear by
Mr. GLADSTONE, as Chancellor of the Exchequer,
who are infatuated with what they deem his all but
miraculous aptitude as a financier ! Commending
him above all things, not for his unquestionable
genius as a debater, not for his almost perfect mastery
of the chief among the higher arts of the rhetorician,
but (save the mark!) actually (0 ye gods and little
fishes !) as a Financlir! Meanw4ile under his
regime at the Treasury we have at this moment--
we can hardly repeat it too often—the Income-Tax
of a whole year being collected within the current
half-year !So much for our Paragon of a Financier !
And this, remember, in the very year (1860)
in which, according to Mr. GLADSTONE'S own in-
genious arrangement, we were to be at length
rid of the Income-tax altogether ! Rid of it
altogether, in sooth—are we to be rid of it
now at all? What says one of Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S own Ministerial colleagues upon this
point? What says, in regard to the Income-
tax, the right hon. the Secretary for Ireland, col-
league with Mr. LANGSTON in the representation
of the city of Oxford ? Why, Mr. CARDWELL
frankly avowed on Monday, while addressing his
constituents with especial reference to this delightful
subject of comment and contemplation among
any assembly of Englishmen--" My hon. friend
anticipates the day when the Government will be
able entirely to remove the income-tax. (' No, no,'
from Mr. LANGSTON.) I understood my hon. friend
so ; but, if he does not entertain that anticipation,
all I can say is, that I concur with him. (Laugh-
ter.)" A capital joke, certainly. We presume the
"laughter" must have been hysterical. However
this may have been, nevertheless—it is note-
worthy, upon this agreeable topic, that here,
in 1860, is one of the ministerial colleagues
of the model financier, Mr. GLADSTONE,
(who was to have dropped the tax altogether in the
current twelvemonth)—here is one of the colleagues
of this consummate able Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer facetiously concurring with an hon. friend
who does not anticipate that the income-tax can be
entirely removed by the Government ! So much
for the rare fiscal and financial capabilities, pre-
science, and forethought of Mr. GLADSTONE as
Chancellor of her MAJESTY'S Exchequer. So much
for the vaunted genius of this new DANIEL come
to Judgment at the Treasury !

The Secretary for Ireland has certainly indulged
us with a couleur de rose view of that sister island
hitherto regarded alone as the Emerald Isle, perhaps
because viewed from this side .of St. George's Chan-
nel almost exclusively through the eyes of the
"green-eyed monster" of Jealousy. " Gentlemen,"
quoth Mr. CARDWELL on Monday, when address-
ing himself, with a beaming aspect of exhiliration,
(for looks not thus entirely expressive of
satisfaction must have belied these words of
unalloyed delight and exultation), " Gentle
men," said Mr. CARDWELL, yesterday in the
Town Hall at Oxford, addressing himself simul-
taneously to the Ancient Society of Druids and to
those other old friends of his, his own constituents
—" Since I last met you I have spent almost
the whole of my time in administering the govern-
ment of certainly not the least interesting portion of
her Majesty's dominions ; and I am anxious to state
to you in a few words my feelings with respect to
the sister island." Having said which, thus pro-
ceeded the hilarious Irish Secretary (and we would
especially call attention to the phrases we have
italicized)—" When I visited Ireland I found, in
the first place, that her communications were mul-
tiplied, that she was traversed by railroads in
general superior to our own, and which
united the products of her soil with the markets
of commerce, and created a system of inter-
communication which was of the utmost social
importance, as well as material advantage.
I found her agriculture prosperous, her commerce
advancing, and her poor rates, lately so heavy,
diminished to the lowest possible amount; but,
above all, I found both an unequivocal thirst for
education and the means of !Adz:tying it, which
must tend to raise the .characte.,,..etof her population,
and to elevate the whole tone of the country
and its Government." Where, possibly, can be
a land in all the wide, wide world more
flourishing than the very one answering pre-
cisely to this glowing description ? All this
implying, however, in each and every syllable
of it—that the halcyon epoch thus reached in the
history of Ireland is wholly attributable to the
marvellously benifieent influences of the present
most benign and sagacious Government ! Above all,
of course, to the magic agency for good of Mr.
CARDWELL'S own inimitable administration of
the affairs of the Irish Secretaryship ! A little
further on, however, in the Right Honourable
gentleman's harangue, we are enabled to discover
the real significance of this flowery fanfaronade.
It all amounts, then, we find, to a boastful
flourish of trumpets about Ministers, 'before
coupling together the names of the coming Reform
Bill and of the existing Coalition Government.
" Gentlemen," said Mr. CARDWELL, after
touching, as we have seen, so very gingerly
upon the condition of Ireland, " Gentlemen, in the
course of the session which is now fast approaching
we shall have to deal with the great question of
Parliamentary reform. I know that in touching on
that
aslivbittetigtn, in dealing with that question, we shall
be n
sunken wrecks a dangerous sea, full of shoals and
; but the navigators who preceded us , '
have pointeii out some of its bearings, and the rock
upon which they were shipwrecked will not be that
ono on which we shall strike. We shall approach
this question with great disadvantages, for I believe
there is in the country a sincere and
general
that the question of reform shall be satisfactorily
arrivesde
silCe
e t
at rest." An admirable conclusion to
at—
this—now that Nlr. CARDWELL'S friends are again
in power, and himself along with them! Now, for-
sooth, the question must at length be set at rest—
not while the Derbyites were i.n office, and when ,