The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-07 00:00:00

too. ' We are told also that the Southern States are
beginning to secede from each other. The Governor
of Georgia, irritated by President DAVIS having
violated its sovereignty, by assuming to dispose of
his troops without his authority, has disbanded a
whole brigade of heroes who were to have gone off
to the conquerors at Bull's Run. The New York
Herald exults in the evidence thus practically fur-
nished that the legitimate development of secession
is thirty-four independent military Sovereignties,
warring or squabbling with each other. There
is also a rumour that English and French ships
of war are to demand a breaking up of the
blockade ; we need not say that it can be no more
than a Yankee canard,

Europe has just now been witnessing another
illustration of the hand to mouth policy of the Em-
peror NAPOLEON. The index finger to this latest
illustration was pointed at it only yesterday by the
Moniteur. Said that official organ of the French
Government,—"The Times and other foreign jour-
nals make comments upon the pamphlet The
Emperor, Rome, and King of Italy,' which are
void of all foundation, and to which the Govern-
ment opposes a formal denial." Well, precisely.
It is what has often occurred before now. The pre-
sent is only another but a more than ever flagrant
instance of the insidious system according to which
the present ruler of France throws out a Feeler
every now and then in the shape of a grandiose
pamphlet that can be afterwards adopted or repu-
diated according to circumstances.
Looking back to this last brochure issued from the
great politico-literary manufactory of such
things, presided over by M. DENTU who
shall say that the Imperial style, the Im-
perial tone, the Imperial cognisance of facts not
commonly known, we will not say to the public
generally, but we will even say to the inner circle in
the sanctum sanctorum of Diplomacy, were not
visible throughout it? Besides, the instant reflec-
tion is this—lf the pamphlet were really, as the
Moniteur now ambiguously intimates—[ambigu-
ousy, we say, because, in truth, the repudiation is
not one jot less ambiguous in its language than the
very pamphlet that is repudiated !]—if this
pamphlet were really an imposture, were really in
every particular unauthorised, it must have been
put down, crushed, swept out of existence long ago !
The foreign journals would never have had the oppor-
tunity of making observations upon it, observations
that require to be pronounced erroneous by the Moni-
teur about a week afterwards ! Neither ourselves nor
our contemporaries could have had time or occa-
sion to draw from the Imperial and imperious lan-
guage used by the pamphleteer " suppositions
totally devoid of foundation." It is idle
to talk of it even. Why, no sooner
could the leaves of this pamphlet—damp from
the press, with the aroma of newness still fresh
upon them—have been placed in tempting piles
upon the counter of M. DENTU, and displayed in
delicate primrose paper-covers in M. DENTU'S win-
dows, than the whole would have been carted away
for destruction by the police of Paris as an insult
to "the Majesty" of France. Let any sane man
read the pamphlet and say otherwise. Why, in its
every syllable, in the whole air and manner of it,
it is not:so much that we are listening to an argument
taken down to dictation by the scrambling pen of
that ready writer, M. MOCQUARD—it is notso much
that we are hearkening to the authoritative tones of
the great imperial writer who has won his title by
his subserviency, meaning, of course, Monsieur le
Viscomte DE LA GUERONNIERE—it is a certain great
personage himself, whose voice is audible in the
every tone of every sentence. We are perfectly well
satisfied of this—that could the original MS. be
forthcoming, or could we get a glimpse of the proof
sheets of L'Empereur, Rome, et le Roi
d'ltalie, the hand-writing of the Third NAPOLEON
would there be discernible. Not perhaps that the
MS. would be found to be an imperial holograph
—but that, either in the original manuscript or in
the earlier proof-sheets, there would be recog-
nisable little significant ticks and interlineations
coming from no other hand. Apart from the tone
of the pamphlet itself, there is (we would again
particularly direct attention to this point), there is
the length of time that has been allowed to elapse
before the Illoniteur has been permitted, or rather
instructed, to repudiate it. That, we maintain, is of
itself—upon the very face of it—more than sus-
picious. During the interval that has elapsed be-
tween the issue of the brochure and the repudia-
tion of it by the Moniteur, the argument of the
pamphleteer has been afforded the opportunity of
making the tour of Europe. It has been distri-
buted among the reading public all over
Paris, it has been scattered far and wide
all through France, it has been discussed
by numberless foreign newspapers, more parti-
cularly by the press of the United Kingdom.
And then it is—when it has done the work it was
intended to do—when it has acted as another deli-
cate and yet daringly obtrusive Feeler—then, but
not sooner, it is cooly pronounced to be unautho-
rised. Still ambiguously, as we have said, but yet
in spite of the ambiguity of the words, with suffi-
cient distinctness. The pamphlet has done its duty
for the nonce, and it is now thrown aside like a
sucked orange. No wonder the correspondent of
our chief morning contemporary, writing from Turin
on the fourth inst., could—aided by the light of a
sadly protracted experience—find himself con-
strained to announce even then (on the 4th Septem-
ber, forty-eight hours before the repudiation of the
brochure in the columns of the Moniteur yesterday
morning !) " The French pamphlet "L'Empereur,
Rome, et le Roi d'ltalie, has created no sensation
here." Adding "The Italian officials were well aware
that no official importance could be attached to this
sympathizing publication" Nay, the correspondent
at Turin does not content himself with speaking
out thus plainly. He goes on to remark, with an
emphasis of conviction that is assuredly impres-
sive :—" It is very certain that up to this time
no motive for hope has been held out to
King VICTOR EMMANUEL'S advisers. What-
ever newspapers and the telegraph may say to the
contrary, I have reason to feel assured that na step
has been taken, not only towards the removal of
the French garrison from Rome, but even towards
an intimation to the Pope that he will be left to his
fate and must prepare to come to terms with his
Italian neighbours or his own Roman people."
These positive intimations recollect, come direct
from Turin ! And they come as the expression of
the deliberate opinion of this observant and ex-
perienced English correspondent. Hardly can his
assurances reach our shores moreover when they
are justified to the letter in a remarkable manner
by the repudiation of the pamphlet referred to,
through the columns of the official organ of the
French Government.

Yet this is the policy, the profound and enlight-
ened policy, that M. MICHEL CHEVALIER would
have England and her statesmen abandon every-
thing to with implicit conacnce. If anything at
all were required to demonstrate the wisdom of the
words that fell from the lips of our veteran Premier
only the other day at Dover, upon the occasion of
his installation as Lord 'Warden of the Cinque Ports
—words so extravagantly resented immediately
afterwards by M. CHEvALIER—that demonstration

would be found amply supplied in this last flagrant
evidence of the facility with which his Imperial
Majesty of Franco can play fast and loose with
the hopes and fears of all parties and sections of
parties throughout Christendom.

" How to shelve doing justice to Income-tax
payers," would be the appropriate title to the
Report, such as it ie, of the committee which sat
on Mr. HUBBARD'S scheme this year. The Report
itself bears the stamp of its intent on the face
of it ; and when the mode of its concoction is ob-
served, its real character is still more evident. Mr.
HUBBARD himself was in the chair, and of course
could not vote except the members were equal.
Such members of the committee were absent as
left a majority of five to four for the shelving
policy. As the time was hastening away, the
evidence taken far froni complete, and four widely
different reports were proposed by the Chairman,
by Mr. LowE, by Mr. SOTHERON ESTCOURT, and
by Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, Mr. CRAUFORD
proposed, and the Chairman concurred with him,
that the Minutes of the evidence should be printed
and reported to the house without observations.
This proposal, obviously required by the state of
the discussion and investigation, the gentlemen of
the shelving parted outvoted by the temporary
majority of one. Having succeeded thus far,
and Mr. HUBBARD seeing the determination to
burke the subject, and, therefore, taking no further
active part in the 'matter, Mr. LOWS and Mr.
ESTCOURT withdrew their Draft Reports, and the
five proceeded on that of Sir STAFFORD NORTH-
COTE. The result was very singular. Remem-
bering, we suppose, the story of the advice once
given to a Judge, they struck out all Sir STAFFORD'S
reasons, and gave only his conclusions. They were
agreed to do nothing; such was their will and
pleasure ; but, beyond the conclusion to leave
acknowledged injustice where it is, they had
nothing which they dared to place before the
public. The budding Tory Chancellor of the
Exchequer has the honour of heading the refusal
of Income-tax justice.
We agree with Mr. HUBBARD that such a con-
clusion of the matter cannot be regarded as the
conclusion ; and it is, therefore, gratifying to learn,
from his letter to Mr. JOHN STUART MILL, con-
taining comments on the reports and proceedings
of the Committee, that the hon. member sees no
ground for discouragement to the advocates of Re-
form in the actual position of the question. Doubtless
the Government and its officials will endeavour to
use this miserable report as a conclusion of the whole
matter; but a real grievance cannot be thus sup-
pressed. While incomes, almost as diverse in their
practical value as gold and silver, are taxed as if
they all resembled the more precious metal, the
receivers of what we may call the silver incomes
will make their voice heard.
It is well known that some eminent mathemati-
cians have contended that an equal tax on all in-
comes, be their source what they may, is equitable
as well as equal. It is one of the innumerable
cases in which pure theory must yield to the modi-
fications of facts. Each kind of income, that for
instance derived from professional skill, and that
from land or money in the funds, pays as long as
it lasts—therefore pays, they say, proportionably,
Proportionably to its duration, we grant ; but not
proportionably to its " exbendible power." An
income from the funds may be entirely expended,
and its possessor at his demise, or during an inca-
pacitating illness, will leave to his family the same
income as they had ever enjoyed. If the profes-
sional man does the same, his death beggars his
family, and a paralysing illness adds the charge of
his own support. Taking the funded and the pro-
fessional income, as fair examples of the two great
classes of income, the dictum of the equity of equal
Income-tax assessment is seen and felt by every
heir to disease and mortality. The mistake of the
mathematicians referred to is quite as great as if
they calculated the-mechanical power of a system of
pulleys, as though it were precisely in the ratio of
the velocity of the bodies moved, with no regard to
such unmathematical facts as friction and rigidity of
ropes. Illness and death are the friction and the
ropes which the practical man cannot afford to
overlook .

Of course the stock objection to Mr. HUBBARD'S
valuable suggestions was too plausible not to be
brought forward—it would not precisely meet every
individual case. Of course not. But will the Perfec-
tionists, or rather the advocates of gross imperfection,
because perfection is unattainable—will they venture
to generalise their argument. Will they lay i t
down that no reform in any department is to be
attempted, till one can be devised which shall bear
hardly on no individual case. If they will not
maintain this absurdity their argument is utterly
worthless. But they know it to be so. They know
that no statesman ever pretended that his proposals
would remedy every evil of the kind they were in-
tended to meet. No law reform, or political reform,
or tariff reform, ever proposed to do more than to
redress a large proportion of• the inequalities
incidental to every general arrangement. The
'praise of Mr. HUBBARD'S scheme is, that it is a
long stride in the right direction. Show him
how to make it a yet larger one, and no
one would be more thankful ; but in tho name of
common sense and equity do not reject it because it
is not of perfect application.
Mr. HUBBARD, like the late Mr. JAMES WILSON ,
holds it to be necessary to regard the community
for income-tax purposes, in classes. The reason is
that to estimate the comparative value of individual
income would be a most costly, if not an impracti-
cable task. There is, indeed, one distinction not
regarded in these modern discussions, but which
was not overlooked in the old income-tax—the
number of persons dependent on One income, Wo may
advert to it more fully on another occasion ; we
merely remark now that, in the case of incomes
under a certain amount, the difference is one most
painfully felt, and that it is one with regard to
which there is hardly the possibility of imposition.
The difference of the real income of two clerks both
receiving £303 a-year, but one having no family,
the other anxious to educate and start in life re-
spectably six or eight children, not to mention larger
families, is obvious enough. And it may well
be that an aged parent, on one side or
the other, depends on him also. We know
some of the ready replies. But no reply can
convince probably even the childless clerk, and of
course not the other, that the income of the former
cannot better afford a tax than that of the latter.
The £3OO is indeed, in one case the income of two
persons, in the other of eight.
Two notions seem to have had no little influence
with the committee. Neither, however, will bear
discussion. In opposing the undeniably sound
principle of Mr. HUBBARD that "net income only
ought to be taxed," Mr. LowE, one of the hardiest
defenders of present Income-tax injustice, had
nothing better to say than that the present practice
had arisen rather "from practical convenience
than from abstract speculation," That some-
thing must be conceded to practical convenience
is true. Mr. HUBBARD'S stopping at classes,
as distinguished from individuals, is, a con-
cession of that kind. But to represent a
system as rising from it, is to damn it hopelessly.