The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-02 00:00:00

f‘ 171 re rr.TI -Ta -7> •-s`
THE SttN, LONDON, PRIDAY EVENING, DKCEMBER 2, 1859.

advertise all the Custom-houses to be let, and that the last
Custoni-house_ officer, the last Coastguardsman, end the
last smuggler .shOttlcl be preserved as curiosities iu the Bri-
tish Museum-e(a laugh)—but I am going to mention what
I think would be a great and practicable step in the right
direction, and what might ultimately lead to the accom-
plishment of the complete object which your association has
in view. If you examine recent Parliamentary returns you
will find that, excluding the property of every man who
does not possess £lOO in any shape, the whole property of
the country amounts to something like £700,000,000. My
own calculations make it £670,000,000. If that property
could be fairly got at, and a reasonable tax imposed upon it
all, a large sum would be' easily obtained. Some persons
may say that you would not get at as much of it as pays
incomes-4a, but there is no reason why you should not be
• able to put VAR' hand upon more of it. There will always ,
be peeple swilling to add taxation, but the more just your
syetemes the fewer they will be, and the more men are con-
vinced that a great change has been a great blessing the
more they will he disposed to support and continue that new
state of things. (" Hear," and cheers.) Suppose, then,
you were to passn law that every £lOO of property, exclud-
ing the property of those who do not possess £lOO, should
pay annually the sum of Bs. to the State ; that tax would
procure about 24 millions per annum, or more than four
times as much as the income-tax last year. It would be
impoed, over many more persons, it would be collected at
an inconsiderable expense, and if district committees were
appointed, partly by the Government and partly by tax-
payers, it would be more cheerfully paid and produce less
of heartburnine and complaint than the present income-
tax. (Cheer'.) What would be the pressure ? The pos-
hsees:poro off otShloOr
be
- muchy r , but tea,
cheaper stuog ah ,
ma,n
and d a
his trade, in all probability would receive a stimulus such
(ithWirgladt?olayildSeb
as it neert obtained before. (Hear.) The owner of £1,600
would pay £4 £o7€B,l* ; the owner of £lO,OOO, £4O ; the
owner of £lOO,OOO, a 00; and the owner of £1,000,000,
.£4,000, Is there anything unreasonable in that ? Is that
revolutionter doctrine ? (Cheers.) What would bo the
result ? lii the first place, trade would be extended to an
enormous degree. SO what you would repeal ; the present
incotnestax would go; and the duties upon 439 articles in the
tariff, dutfce to which your association has sworn eternal
hostility, would - also go. The income-tax produced last
year £6,300,000, and the 439 articles 1750,000 ; tea,
£5,270000; sugar; £5,979,000; and other articles various
stems, btinging up the whole amount to £27,000,000. If a
tax of Bs. upon every £lOO were imposed the duties upon
all those articles, including marine and other insurances,
• could be abolished, trade would be 'extended, intercourse
with other nations would be vastly and immediately in-
creased; manufactures, shipping, commerce, and agriculture
would all participate in the benefits of the change. Better
than all, the grand result of all, the scale of comfort of the
great body of the people would be a aised, while shopkeepers,
retailers, traders of every kind would find their condition
much improved. (Hear.) Since 18e6, to a large extent,
in consequence of a, repeal of the cornlaws, our exports have
more than doubled. Make the change I am now suggest-
ing, and our progress will be much greater then it has been
during the last twelve years. (Cheers.) I repeet, then, in
spite of those gentlemen connected with the press tit
Lon-
don who were so uncivil to me that our present system Pf
taxation is cruel in its operation to the poor. The guilt,
whether it be of neglect or of intention, lies and must lie at
the door of the rich and powerful, and at no other—(cheers)
—but let ?Us euppose that you do not go the length I
have stated, and that you do retain two taxes, which some
,people have a notion, though I think an erroneous one,
ought to be maintained for moral considerations—the taxes
upon spirits and tobacco. Those taxes produce a large sum,
they are paid mainly by the working classes, and I ask
you whether it would not be fair and reasonable to call upon
the upper and middle clessee to sustain all other, burdens
which might be required &relic purposes of the State ? I
know what I amnow saying will not meet the approval of
your association, which is agitating for the utter destruc-
tion of all Customhouses ; but, we must accept instalments,
and even our opponents, when they saw the advantage of
such a change as I have indicated, might at last consent to
all our wishes. (Hear, hear.) For my complaint is that
the people wha govern the country are not informed upon
thisspiestion, that they do not wish to be informed, and
that they commit a great injustice upon the poor by allow-
ing the present system of taxation to exist. I soy further,
that Parliament is to blame because of the burdens it
poses upon trade and industry, and from which it most
unfairly exempts that vast amount of permanent property
which is to be found in the soil of the kingdom. (Hear.)
Let me direct your attention to a report of a department of
taxation in which there is a great deal of injustice. Theee
is a tax upon bills of exchange which produces £457,000,
and,another upon receipts and draughts which produces
£418,0 0; nearly the whole of those duties are paid by the
trading community, and only a small proportion by the
landed proprietors. So in the case of the tax on marine in-
surances. What can have been the composition of the head
and.heart of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Who first pro-
posed a duty on marine insurances ? (Cheers.) It is one of
the worst taxes that could be imposed, wholly indefensible,
and ought to be'abolished. (Hear.) There is a remarkable
peculiarity connected with the duty on fire insurances.
Landed estates de not require to be insured from fire ; that
was a good reason why no duty should be levied upon fire
insurances, for why should the warehouses and shops of
Liverpool and other towns be called upon to pay a tax which
Cannot be applied to landed property ? The fact is, how-
ever, that not only has a duty been imposed upon fire in-
surances, but from that duty all farming stock is especially
exempted. (Hear, hear.) No doubt under the old corn
‘laws agricultural labourers were periodically starved, dis-
contented, and revengeful, but farming stock is now
'no-more insecure than any other description of property.
I say • that the tax from which it is exempted is an
impudent and oppression tax. (Cheers.) Let me give you
one other illustration. A legacy duty is perfectly reason-
able, but to be fair' it ought to apply to all kinds of pro-
perty. Our legacy duty was imposed in 1797 ; the Minister
who proposed it wanted to impose it upon every description
of property, but he had not fathomed the depth ; no
plummet line will ever fathom the depth of the selfishness
of any particular class—no matter what class it may be—
intrenched in the seats of irresponsible power. (Cheers.)
Parliament obliged him to introduce two bills—one for per-
sonal property, the other for real property. What was the
result? Our patriotic Legislature passed the bill which
imposed a duty on personal property, but com-
pelled the Minister to withdraw the measure which
related to freehold houses and land. Last year the
probate duty produced £1,140,000, and the legacy duty
£1,400,000. In 1853 Mr. Gladstone sought to remedy the in-
justice in partly passing whatia called a succession-tax; 'he
stated that it would yield £2,000,000 a-year, but it has not
produced more than from £700,000 to £BOO,OOO, and it is
most unequaol in its operation. When a man dies and leaves
£lO,OOO in ships, or cotton, railway shares, or public
stock, it has to pay £l,OOO, or 10 per cent., in the
shape of succession duty, but landed property to the
same amount does not pay £l,OOO, or anything like it. In
the latter case a calculation is made, based upon the annual
value of the estate and the age of the person to whom it has
been left, and the result is that a far less sum than the
£l,OOO is paid to the State. It is a scandal and disgrace
that such an inequality should exist. (Loud cheers.)
But look for a moment at the grand result. From
1797 down to the present tims the legacy and probate
duties imposed upon personality alone have, together,
produced 103 million pounds. If you deduct 3 millions
on account of the succession tax there will still remain 100
million pounds, which has been derived exclusively from
personal property, and from which freehold houses and land
have been entirely exempted. (Cheers.) With such facts
before us I think we are justified in protesting against such
a state of things, and in asking our fellow-countrymen to
resolve that a fair and more honest system of taxation shall
be 'established. (Hear.) The poor are taxed oppressively
to spare the rich, and trade is taxed oppressively to spare
landed .property—(cheers)—nor is the explanation‘difficult
to find; our Parliament is essentially a Parliament of the
rich; I have shown you that 24,000,000 of people living in
houses.under the value of £lO are excluded from the repre-
sentation. which is confined. '
to 6,000,000, composing the
upper and middle classes; but our Parliament, besides being
a Parliament of .the rich, is•especially a Parliament, of the
landed gentry. -More than 200 members of the House of
Commons are the nominees of some dozen of the chief pro-
prietors of land in the respective counties from which they
come. (Hear.) 'What is the remedy ? There are two reme-
diis which perhaps may go together. One consists of
spreading information upon .this subject, making this so
universal that even with our present bad system of repre-
sentation the wrong might be redressed in some great excite-
ment and after some long and perhaps perilous agitation;
the other is the amendment of our representative system.
Surely it cannot be safe or advantageous to shut out
24,000,000 of people from representation in Parliament. The
great mass of our countrymen are wholly unrepresented.
Those who pay far more than half of our indirect taxes have
no voice in the Parliament which imposes them. Oar mo-
narch is not absolute, and can perhaps do little to change
our system of taxation while our Houses of Parliament are
nut really responsible to the people for whom they purpose
to legislate. I asked the ingenious gentleman connected
with the Times, who discovered that if a working man set
up a carriage and ;pair his employer would be fined to en-
able him to maintain that expenditure, to give him a plain
answer to one or two questiOns. Do not the 24,000,000 who
liWe in houses under £lO pay half of the reveaues of the
State? Do they not work harder and produce more of value
from their industry than' any other equal number of people
in any other country in the world ? Are there not more of
them without property in land, houses, or other invest-
ments than is the ease in an equal population in any other
civilized and Christian country ? Are they not wholly un-
represented ?—purposely excluded by the Reform Act of
1832, and dreaded now by the monopolists of power? Only
the other day you had on this platform the expelled Minis-
ters of the last Cabinet. A year ago what were they doing ?
They were pretending to construct a Reform Bill. You re-
collect the exceeding duplicity they manifested upon that
question. You recollect their grievance of the people's
wishes, their utter contempt of the people's understandings,
and you remember their ignominous and well-merited
downfall. (Cheers.) ;You have now another Cabinet which
at,this very moment itieliscussing the same question, not, I
hope, to come to the same result by attempting the same
system of subterfuge; thernare men in the present Cabinet
who honestly wish that the representation should be greatly
iniproved. they know what was the question upon which
their predecessors were thrown out, and upon which they
succeeded to power. They knew what was the understand-
ing; what were the declarations; what, if you will, were
the pledges by which a majority was secured against the
GOvernment of Lord Derby. I know' some of the difficul-
ties they have to contend with. There may be colleagues
who do not like Reform at all; there may be colleagues
who are faint in their affection for it
.; there may be some
whose courage is alwaye :oozing out at their finger ends
when there is something good to be done. I have seen
Statesmen—so called—who were fit for nothing but clerks.
I make no comment on the present Cabinet. I simply
describe the circumstances • under which they suc-
ceeded to power, and the expectation of the peo-
ple with respect to this great question. I hope and pray
that Ministers may see that the future of their Govern-
ment, and for a long time the future of their
party, depends upon the honesty and courage with
which they deal with this great and unavoidable question
(Cheers.) A word more and I have done. I am assailed
with virulence, even charged with falsehood, by those
masked conspirators against the commonwealth who write
in the leading columns of the Times. Congenial slanders
aro vomited forth every week in the linee of the great Satur-
day reviler, but the facts which I have stated to-night re-
main, and they Ph-train, 1 hesitate not to say, to the dis-
honour of our country and the weakening of our Govern-
ment. Aristocracy intrenelted within the citadel of power,
and resting upon generations of unchallenged rule—
monarchy itself,- venerable with the willing homage of a
thousand years—authority of every kind must be shaken,
and will pass away, unless it be based upon the true inte-
rs:es and commend itself le' flue conscienee of the people.
(Cheers.) I ask that Parliament should be made a real re-
presentation of the property, tue Mostly, and the intelli-
gence of the nation—that we may be 'delivered, if possible,
from'clutotic legislation, from reckless expenditure, and from
a taxation oppressive,
unc al, and 'Unjust. (Cheers.) The
n andwquheenstiitonis
made,be grasped
aswsttee a
monopolists of power reject hat demand with scorn. The
so
a
day may come when wit e made in a louder voice than
mine, when ,
this
ac
ruderse m'lß
than, ;

that will be surrendered with fear and humiliation for 'which
reason and justice now pleads in vain. (Loud cheers.)
The meeting was ilterwards address' i by Mr. .ITuclu-
HART, Mr. EwART, and others, and did not termhiate till
a late hour.

LAW INTELLIGENCE'.-(THIS DAY.)

COURT OF CHANCERY.
(Before the Lord Chancellor.)
APP.EAL.-YOUNG V. LINDSA.T.
This is an appeal from a decree of the Master of the Rolls
in favour of the plaintiff.

The contention is whether the plaintiff is entitled to re-
cover £l,OOO in respect of freight of cargoes of coals at £52,
from England to Hong Kong and Shanghae, China, per
ship Queen of .A.ibor ; and whether the defendant i 3 liable
to pay extra charges and expenees under the charter party.
Mr. Selwyn, Q.C., was heard for the respondent.
Mr. Collins followed on the same side.
Mr. R. Palmer, Q.C., was heard in reply.
The Lord Chancellor affirmed the decree of the Master of
the Rolls, and dismissed the appeal with costs.

ROLLS' COURT.
(Before the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Romilly.)
MOTION.-JUDGMENT.-LYALL V. HICKS.

His Honour, the Master of the Rolls, said—On perusal,
of the evidence in this case, I am of opinion that the plain-
tiff has not made out any case to justify me in granting an
injunction. In March, 1857, the parties entered into con-
tract with the Coolies Etni;ration Company, to transport a
cargo of coolies from Calcutta to the Mauritius, and the
expense of repairing and fitting up a ship for that purpose
was £1,953 Bs. 11d., which sum was paid by the plaintiff,
and he drew bills on Hicks for that amount. Bills had
been. given by Hicks to the master to within £53 of that
amount, and his Honour considered that the master had
no right to hypothecate the ship, and that there was no
lien on the ship for fittings up or repairs.
His Honour declined to make any order, and dismissed
the bill with costs.

SHERIFFS' COURT.
(Before Mr. Kerr.)
DOING. THE (MEN OUT OF HALF-A-CROWN. SMITH V.

PERRATON.

This was an action to recover a balance of rent.
Mr. W. B. Davies appeared for the plaintiff, and stated
that the parties had agreed as to a balance.

Plaintiff was called, and said that ho and defendant had
agreed about taking certain premises.
Mr. Buchanan (for the defendant) —ls there any agree-
ment in writing ? •
Witness—Yes.
Mr. Buchanan—Produce it, then.

>To offer being made to produce it,

_ . . _
gib Honour looked over to Mr. Davies, and, laughing,
said—lt won't do, you know. Mr. Buchanan will stick to
his point.

Dir. Davies—l know that. My friend has a. copy of the

agreement.

-His Honour—Alt, but ho don't want to produce it:
Mr. Buchanan—lt has a very ugly look in one corner.
His Honour—lf there it an agreement in writing it must
be produced.

Mr. Buchanan—l suppose plaintiff's agreement is as ugly
as our own in one corner.

Mr. Davies thought that as there had been an agree-
ment between the parties as to an amount, perhaps the
agreement could be dispensed with.
_ _

His Honour thought that if a portion of the particulars
was struck out Mr. Davies could try.
Mr. Davies objectod, and'plaintiff was nonsuited. Costs
allowed.

His Honour told plaintiff that the Queen was entitled
to half-a-crown, and if ho did the Queen out of her right
he would surely suffer. Thousands of pounds had been
lost in consequence of the non-payment of this half-crown
to the Queen.

PRESERVATION OF LIFE FROM

SHIPITRECK.

Yesterday a meeting of the Royal National Life-
boat Institution was held at its house, John-street,
Adelphi—Thomas Chapman, Esq., F.R.S., in the
chair.

Mr. LEWIS, -the secretary, having read the
minutes of the previous meeting,
The silver medal of the institution was presented
respectively to R. Hook, R. Butcher, F. Smith, W.
Rose, J. Butcher, A. Mewse, T. Liffen, and N.
Colby, and £l9 to themselves and other men for
their general gallant services in saving life in the
Lowestoft lifeboat, which is in connection with
the National Lifeboat Institution, but particu-
larly for rescuing the crew, consisting of 14 men,
of the steamer Shannon, of Dublin, which during
a heavy wind was wrecked on the Holm Sand
on the Ist ult. A reward of £9los. was also voted
to the crew of the same lifeboat for their services
in putting off in her and rescuing the crew of five
men of the schooner Lord Douglas, of Dundee,
which during a heavy gale of wind parted from her
anchors and drove on Corton Beach on the morning
of the 26th ult. • Also a reward of £9 10s. to the
crew of the same lifeboat for subsequently saving,
on the afternoon of the same day, the crew of four
men of tho schooner Silo-a, of Glasgow, which was
also totally wrecked on Corton Beach during the
heavy gale of that day.
The silver medal of the institution was voted to
Lieut. the Hon. R. F. Boyle, R.N., chief officer of the
Coastguard ; the second service clasp to Robert Par-
rott, who had previously received the society's medal;
and £8 ss. to the crew of the institution's lifeboat at
Tenby, for putting off and rescuing, during a heavy
gale of wind, the crew of three men of the smack
Bruce, of Milford. A reward of £l2 was also given
to the crew of the same lifeboat for putting off during
the night of the 7th ult., with the view of rescuing
the crew of nine men of the brig Policy, of Sunder-
land, which was wrecked off Tenby.
A reward of £6 was likewise granted to the
society's lifeboat at Braunton, North Devon, in ac-
knowledgment of their valuable services in rescuing
the crew of six men of the brig North Esk, of Sun-
derland, which, during a very heavy gale of wind,
was wrecked on Braunton Sands on the morning of
the 2d ult.

A reward "of £ll was also given to the crew of
the institution's lifeboat at Castletown, Isle of Man
for putting off and rescuing-four of the crew of the
Ohio, of Stettin, which was wrecked,durin,g a gale
of wind, off Castletown, on the 19th uit.
A reward of £6 was likewise voted to the crew of

the Barmouth lifeboat, for puffin!, off to the assist-
ance of the Troy, of Boston, U.S.,cottgn laden,
which during foggy weather was oserved to be on
shore in a dangerous position in that nighbourhood.
A reward of £6 10s. was also granted to the
society's lifeboat at Berwick, for saving in a heavy
sea the crew of six men of the brig New Astley, of
Aberdeen, which was wrecked in a heavy high sea
off Spittle Point, on the 9th ult.
Eighteen lives were also saved during the heavy
gales from four wrecks by the institution's lifeboats
stationed at Yarmouth, Winterton, and Whitburn.
It was reported that since the recent heavy storms
the institution had paid £153 for services in its
lifeboats.
The silver medal of the institution and XI were
voted to Mr. P. Smith, coastguard chief boatman,
and £5 to his crew, in acknowledgment of their
gallant services, in wading into the surf, at the
imminent peril of their lives, and rescuing by means
of ropes the master of the Norwegian brig Caro-
line, which during a terrific gale of wind was dashed
to pieces on the night of the 25th ult.
The silver medal of the institution and £3 were

also voted to a fisherman, named Charles Mitchell,
and £l5 to eight other men, in acknowledgment of
their very gallant conduct in rescuing four of the
crew of the sloop Busy, of New Quay, Cornwall,
which during a hurricane was wrecked-off that port
on the night of the 25th Oct. •
A reward of £5 was also voted to several men
for saving, by means of cliff ladders, the crew of
three men from the schooner Diligence, of Whitby,
which was wrecked off that port.
A letter was read from the officer of coastguard
at North Berwick and the Rev. J. Steward, stating
the necessity of a lifeboat at that place. A wreck
had recently occurred in the'neighourhood, when
the whole of the crew perished., . The officer was
of opinion that they might all have been saved
had a lifeboat been on the station. Miss Burdett
Coutts had, with her usual munificence towards the
lifeboat cause, offered to pay the, cost of the lifeboat
which the institution is about to send to Silloth,
near Carlisle. The institution decided to station
new lifeboats at St. Andrew's arid Thurso, in Scot-
, land, and at Portrush,,in Ireland. It was reported
that the institution's lifeboats had, during the re-
cent storms, been instrumental in rescuing 85 poor
sailors from death. The boats had also been the
means of saving thousands of pounds worth of pro-
perty by aiding distresSed 'vessels to get off from
dangerous positions. . The. Liverpool Dock Trus-
tees applied to the institution to order a lifeboat on
Peak° s plan to be built for them.
The thanks of the institution were presented to
Mr. C. Clifford, in acknoWledgment, pf hia able and
indefatigable exertions in bringing to a state of per-
fection an improved plan for safely lowering boats
at. sea, which had already been the means of saving
many lives from drov z ng, •
Payments amounting to £631 were made on
various lifeboat establPnents. The committee
earnestly appeal to the public for support to meet
the. heavy demands on the institution. Admiral Sir
Thomas Cochrane, K.C.B. and A. Jaffray, Esq ,
who are liberal contributors to the funds of the in.-
stitution, having been. elected vice-presidents, the
proceedings closed.

THE SAUSAGE CASE AT KlNGSLAND.—Yester-
day evening the inquest was resumed before Mr. Hum-
phreys and the jury empannellcd to inquire into the death
of William Eaton, alleged.to have ,been.poisoned by, eating
bad sausages. • -Evidence was gone into bearing upon the
healthiness of the animais whose flesh is said to have formed
the substance of these dainty delicacies, and the inquiry
was again adjourned till Tuesday next.