The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-24 00:00:00

who are mulcted, their books ransacked by inqui-
sitors, and their word of honour belied, feel jus-
tified in evading it if they can ; for we lay the
evasion of the tax much more on the roguery of
the tax itself than on the roguery of its victims.
Even the Daily News has at last failed the Free
Traders, and broadly avowed that such is the
obnoxiousness of an Income Tax that go—go
entirely, it must, and that Free Traders must
content themselves with getting duties laid on as
smoothly, and evenly as they can !
It comes then to this, that without the Income
Tax the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have
some 55,000,0001. to meet next year, an expen-
diture which ought not to be more than 52, 000, 0001
after the Peace of Paris ; and must either " cut
his garment to his cloth," or supersede an income
tax by a property tax. In the latter case he might
repeal all taxes on necessaries of life, and
leave them only on luxuries, like tobacco
and spirits, and other things in which
they are but little felt. The fiscal inquisition,
loathesome to every Englishman, and its torture
exacerbated by the pressure of a war rate, will be
endured no longer. The ante-Parliamentary week
must make this unmistakeably plain. A decided
nation is like a decided man, who clears the way
for himself by the very fact of his decision.
We may think a man prejudiced, ignorant, mis-
taken, or what we please, but if we know that he
and we must jog on together, and that he will
have his way, why there is nothing for it but to
let him have it. We may grumble as we do at
the weather, but we can't help it, and square our-
selves accordingly to eithar. Now Ministers
generally wish to "jog on" with the nation. What
the nation determines must be submitted to, there-
fore, as a shower of rain must. They would not
yield to a party antagonist, but the vox popu2i—
why, it is the voice of the maker of Ministers,
and bow to it they may and ought.

We feel the most assured confidence that in
asking for an overwhelming national demonstra-
tion against the War Income Tax we are but ask-
ing virtually for the salvation of the PALMERSTON
Administration. If the nation does not compel
Sir G. C. Lewis to throw overboard his hints to
the deputation, sad to announce at first enough to
satisfy it, the result must be that Lord DERBY
and He of Buckinghamshire will renew their
old proposals and will walk into office.
We feel equally assured that the estimates
will be adapted to what it is ascertained beforehand
can be got from the nation, and that we need not
be under the least apprehension of any financial
difficulty from compelling a Chancellor of the
Exchequer not to squander them. Respecting
duly our personal finances, is the only means of
teaching Governments to respect the national
finances. We are asked, perhaps, to show them
how they can do with the sum we leave them
that is their concern. If one Government cannot
another can, and horrible as it may seem in the
ears of the happy families, and their happy circles,
there are worse appointments made than putting 1
such men as JOSEPH HUMS or Mr. WILLIAMS at 1
the head of the national Exchequer.
We have no doubt Sir CoroirorA.LL thinks he
has very nicely broken the ice, and that he will
now have a tolerably free passage out of his diffi-
culties when Parliament meets. Adjustment to
varied classes of income an impracticable feat—
sixteen pence in the pound not asked for by sharp
practice or a sentence in an act, but from the de-
mands of expenditure--can the country trouble
him any more? A little time will show whether
the BKBHRLET dodge, the PANMITILE dodge, the
LEWIS dodge, each or all of them, will serve the
purpose. We are awake now ; and we hope
Ministers will not catch us again napping. The
motto still most be—AGITATE! AGITATE ! ! AGI-
TATE !! ! —and no time to be lost I

The remarkable speech delivered by Mr. ROE-
BUCK, on Thursday evening, at Liverpool, startles
thegeneral public into attention very appropriately
upon the eve of the reassembling of the Legisla
ture. It will be found upon examination to be
an eminently useful speech---a speech worthy of a
genuine and practical Reformer—a speech not un-
worthy of having fallen from the lips of the Hon.
Member for Sheffield, in his important and respon-
sible capacity as Chairman of the London Admi-
nistrative Reform Association. Higher praise than
this it would be difficult to accord to the re-
marks uttered only the night before last
by Mr. ROEBUCK before Mr. LAWRICKCE Hg-_
WORTH, M.P. (the Chairman of the occasion), and
his Financial Reform Associates of Liverpool.
Nevertheless, it is commendation to which these
energetic remarks are in every respect, we con-
ceive,
eminently well entitled. They were not
merely well-timed, moreover, in reference to the
interests of Reform generally—now that we have
arrived, in a manner, upon the very threshold
of the re-opening of Parliament—but they are well-
timed also in a very peculiar manner, in so
far as they affect the speaker's own political
reputation. Viewed under this twofold aspect
they can scarcely, we believe, be regarded any by a really sincere Reformer, without ex-
citing in his mind sentiments of strong and un-
affected satisfaction.

1 In the very preamble, or exordium of his
harangue, Mr. ROEBUCK intimated that he viewed
the occasion upon which he was then speaking,
as significative of a formal adhesion between the
Administrative Reform Association of London
and the Financial Reform Association of
Liverpool. Gracefully conceding to the latter
when he avowed this, the merit of a very
marked priority-1848-49 having witnessed the
formation of the provincial, as 1854.55 witnessed
that of the metropolitan Association. Neverthe-
less, remote from each other as were the periods of
their respective inauguration, and dissimilar as
were their general outlines—those of the Liver-
pool Association being in a manner as restricted
as those of the London Association are compre-
hensive—Mr. ROEBUCK, as the chosen President
of the latter, strenuously, and cordially, and
reasonably, insisted that their aim might be
regarded as nothing less than absolutely
and literally identical. That aim he defined
thus simply and significantly—That every
one in the community should be taxed according
to his means 1 Nothing more and nothing less
than this. For in the realisation of that single
g
project how many and, how various the reforms
necessarily requirin
to be accomplished as ',lore I
preliminaries !

The rise of tho great Metropolitan Reform As-
sociation Mr. ROEBUCK ascribed to the Finan-
cial Reformers of Liverpool, in a manner as
earnest as it was picturesque. i-Ie attributed
it directly to the horror
with which the
people of England, in tLe very midst of the late
Crimean contest wit:n Russia, learned that their
noble army -- " an army," said the speaker,
" never surpassed for its efficiency, for its power,
and fcr its will"—was " dwindling away, was
being destroyed, not by the arms of the enemy,
but by the accursed infirmity of purpose of a
Ministry !" Then it was, he exclaimed---" And,
when the people of England heard that this their
gallant army was thus being destroyed, they rose
up in all their magnanimous and magnificent
array of anger and power, and they put down