The Sun.
London, England, 1857-03-18 00:00:00

THE SUN LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 18, 1857:

we hope and believe, then, sees two things--one,
that Lord PALMERSTON is to continue in office
under the new Parliament ; the other, that there
may be more members in that Parliament, who
have said the candidate's catechism well, than
Lord DERBY wishes. Hence the warning that
if Lord PanfansTorr listen to them—by DISRA.ELI,
GLADSTONE, RUSSELL, and COBDEN he shall be
undone
Now, let us remind electors again, and again,-
too, if necessary, that Lord DERBY'S fear is the
ground of our hope. We can well imagine how
Lord PALMERSTON, on the Tiverton hustings, will
once more make all England laugh at Mr. ROWN-
OLIFFE'S expense, should MC. ROWNCLIFFE take
up our catechism and ask him the first question—
What do you think of the Ballot ? We can think
of half-a-doyen jocose answers which our genial
Premier will give him, but none of them probably
so laughter-causing as what he would actually say.
Not the more should we think Lord PALMERSTON
a man who would go out of office in a house of
pro-ballot men. "If the mountain will not come
to MAHOMET, MAHOMET will go to the mountain,"
might be PALMERSTON'S heraldic motto. It is
not your humorous, genial fellows who fight you
to the last, and sulk when they cannot beat you.
It is characteristic of such men, that on anything,
not in the religious sense a matter of conscience,
and we suppose Lord DERBY'S casuistry will not
place the Ballot in that category, they have real
pleasure in gratifying the many. It is not ex-
actly, nor by a long way, want of principle ;
it is the feeling that the majority have
a right to be pleased, and they ought
to be pleased. We would not say a word for
political tergiversation, but we wish to be just ;
and we believe that Lord PALMERSTON is exactly

tha man to concede what he would rather refuse,
out of sheer good feeling. He would not, like a
certain Derbyite orator at Stamford, tell the
refractory electors "he wished they had a dump-
ling stuck in their throats."

Again, we say, that just as an Apostle once
expressed his joy that " the Gospel was preached,"
although by those " who preached it of conten-
tion and strife," so we rejoice in the preaching
by Lord DERBY in contention and strife with the
Premier, of what we may call, we hope without
profanity, a political gospel. A very defective
one we own. We could easily perfect it. We
have merely taken, however, such political truths
as have assumed a practical form and been so
cell discussed, that infidelity or scepticism in re-
gard to them ought to exclude any man from the
grand assembly of politicians. Truths which, if
a man believe them not, he is nothing, politically,
to us. Our political creed is mercilessly Athana-
sian against all the misbelievers and disbelievers
in demands which are little more than a Bill of
Rights, and a Toleration, not a Religious Equality,
Act.

We demand as a simple right to give our vote,
so that none can laugh or sneer at, or punish us
for it. We demand for millions of taxpayers
a voice in levying the taxer which they pay—we
demand that the Bank Monopoly should follow all

other monopolies. Even those who differ from
us on the Currency Question can show no reason
why Banking for the Government and the issue
of paper should not be open to all on equal, i.e.,
on Free-trade terms.—We demand that half the
people in any parish should not have the power,
in the awful name of religion too, to extort money
by fear or distress warrants for their own pur-
poses from those who worship at their own ex-
pense.--We demand that the power to purchase
for money the command over troops, whose lives
and success in battle ofttimes depend upon their
officers, shall be abolished in the name of common
sense and army efficiency.—We demand a gra-
duatsci Income tax. Ind who—hardly now even
the sophist of 1853 himself—denies that it is
essential to common justice
There, then, is our list again. We will not now
encumber it with additions. Indeed, the candi-

date right on these points will not go far wrong
in anything else. Send Lord PALMERSTON men
determined to carry these points whether Peers
or Premiers like or not, and Lord PA.LMERSTON is
not the man to walk across the House to avoid
carrying the whole. Lord PALMERSTON—and all
Lords—will shelve all reforms if the House will

let them ; but Lard PA.LMERSTON, more than many
of the Lords will say, if the people will have
them, have them they shall, and I will give them.

Electors—be up and stirring I It is time for
.t. Now, especially, is your opportunity. Now
when we are all of us upon the very eve of wit-
nessing the " Penal Dissolution" of the " Mo-
ribund Parliament."
Who, among alt the various candidates, will be
the fittest represent hives ? Who the ablest ? Who
the likrllest ? The decision will be one, remember,
involving the possible duration of its result for a
period of not less than seven years—the time of a
long apprenticeship ! It becomes consequently a
matter of supreme importance—so long as Parlia-
ments continuo to be septennial—it becomes a
matter of absolutely supreme importance, politi-
cally speaking, to select wisely among the dif-
ferent candidates presenting themselves to the
constituencies. To select, we repeat, that man of
all others who shall give promise of being the
ittest, the ablest, the likeliest of representatives.
In talking thus, of course, we are alluding
simply to one of the throe descriptions of con-
stituencies into which the possessors of the elec-
tive franchise may be most accurately and signifi-
cantly distributed.
L There aro notoriously still scattered hero and
there sparely over the political surface of the
United Kingdom—certain Pocket Boroughs I In
spite of the Reform Bill, in spite of the ostentatious
taboo affixed in 1832 to the whole system of
Rotten-Borough-mongering, in defiance (to bor-
row an expressive phrase from the vocabulary of
our Gallic neighbours) in defiance of the legisla-
tive aneantissement of Gatton and Old Sarum, in
defiance of the tardier but equally contumelious
disfranchisement of Sudbury and St. Albans--
there are still, we repeat, thinly sprinkled up and
down among the electoral districts of the Three
Kingdoms—certain snug seats for Younger Sons,
and (during their minority) for Warming Pans,
and (in the absence of any younger sons at all)
for complaisant and obsequious Nominees. Take,
for example—but we won't be invidious !
11. There are independent constituencies where
the electors have really no further choice what-
ever to make during the natural prolongativo of
the political life of their present representatives.
Take, as a case in point, strikingly illustrative of
otuherrr)e byeanieg—the position held in regard to each
o
Finsbury and THOMAS DUNCOMBE.
There as by the influence of a sort of an inevitable
affinity—they are bound together indissolubly.
The constituency has its very member—the mem-
ber his constituency. An association begun
twenty-three years ago, and continued since then
uninterruptedly. DUNCOMBE having been chosen
by 2,514 votes in 1834 as M.P. for Finsbury—
by 4,497 in in
himselfl 83 7
and
dd
hisby
1835 t
eby 48
election9s
of
6(then),67B in 52
:
colleaguebeing successively, in '4l and
'47, altogether unopposed.
8
111. There are comparatively independent con-

stituencies, where the previous choice of the pos
sessors of the franchise obviously and glaringly re-
quires to be most seriously reconsidered, and
that, moreover, at the very earliest available
oppoiiunity.

It Is to this last-mentioned category that we
would most earnestly direct our foregoing recom-
mendations. The first are bound hand and foot,
body and soul, heart and conscience. They are not
to be reasoned with. They are not in any way
to be influenced. The Ballot and the Ballot alone
will be the signal for their political emancipa-
tion. As to the second, we have not the smallest
desire in the world to interfere in any respect
whatever with their really enviable and halcyon
felicity. They have won for themselves an immu-
nity from intermeddling. They have earned a right
to what we may call the Political Flitch 1 While
other Members who are mere Rats or Recalcitrants
are, in Parliamentary phrase, worthy only of
being sent to Coventry—Members for those
most fortunate constituencies, if we had the heart
to send them anywhere else, we would infallibly
bid to the old Essex town of Dunmow I The third
section alone constitutes the source of our entire
solicitude—that, we mean, of the dissatisfied con-
stituencies.

Conspicuous, of course, among these are the
constituencies that are partially satisfied and par-
tially dissatisfied—prominent, perhaps we should
rather say pre-eminent, among which may be at
once mentioned that of her MAJESTY'S Loyal City
of London. There, as in the instance of SirJ. Dunu,
the electors of the great Metropolitan constituency,
are satisfied cordially and thoroughly 1 There, as in
case of my Lord JOHN RUSSELL, they are painfully
and notoriously dissatisfied Hence the source of
the very profound disquietude felt throughout the
whole constituency. Hopes on the one hand hav•
ing been fully realised---predilections on the other
having been grievously disappointed. Insomuch so
that the return of Sir JAMES DUKE may be counted
upon as all but absolutely certain I While that of
Lord Joint is so singularlydubious that his friends
are looking askance as to a saving clause—here to
Tavistock, there to Edinburgh 1 Another class
coming within the same comprehensive third cate-
gory, is that of constituencies where the present
members feel themselves so entirely engulphed in
a slough of unpopularity that they themselves
withdraw, with the best grace possible under the
circumstances, from a contest that could only by
possibility result in their ignominious discomfiture.
As in the very striking instance of Mr. COBDEN
and the West Riding of Yorkshire. Yet
another class in the self-same category of mal-
content or dissatisfied constituencies, still re-
maining—not already specified. Constituencies,
we mean where the freak, the petulance, or the
flagrant ingratitude of the electors upon the occa-
sion of the last Political Passage of Arms requires
to be in some signal manner expiated. Ecce Sig-
nuns—the Liberal borough of Bradford, and the
distinguished and veteran Reformer, the author
of the " Corn Law Catechism I" Bradford, we
doubt not, however, will do its utmost in 1857
to expiate what we have termed the freak, petu-
lance, or ingratitude of 1852, in regard to Gene-
ral PEREONNET THOMPSON. As conscientious,
liberal-minded, acute, and laborious a Represen-
tative of the People as any a Radical Reforming
constituency could se!ect. Here, as elsewhere,
therefore, let us hope that the Electors—roused
t 3 a sense of the vital importance of the situation
—will at once bestir themselves.

It is universally admitted that if the Income
Tax were about to be imposed for the first time,
the system at present in operation would not for a
moment be tolerated. The so-called equal taxa-
tion of all incomes, without reference to the
sources from whence they may be derived or the
manner in which they may be obtained, is so un-
equal in operation, so unsound in principle, that,
were it not an established fact, had it not repeat-
edly received the legislative sanction, it would
seem a mere waste of time to adduce arguments
against it. Even those who are the most strenuous
opponents of any modification acknowledge the
magnitude of the evil ; but in place of striving to
provide an adequate remedy, they attempt, or pre-
tend to attempt, to direct all their exertions
against the impost itself, while at the same time
professing Free-trade principles, and an in-
tense desire to reduce materially indirect imposts.
This is really an artfully-devised scheme to disgust
the nation with a tax so inequitable and so oppres-
sive, so as to induce the people to tolerate the indi-
rect imposts, which at the same time fetter our
commerce—place an unfair proportion of the na-
tional burdens on the industrial population, and
take far more from the pockets of those by whom
they are actually paid—the consumsrs--than finds
its way into the National Exchequer. These par-
ties well know that a judiciously-assessed and fairly-
apportioned Property Tax is by far the best im-
post for the community at large, that it is alike
equitable and expedient, pressing on those bast
able to sustain the burden, and making every man
contribute to the liquidation of the national lia-
bilities and the maintenance of the national estab-
lishments, secundunt status, et facultates, according
to his means, the stake he posesses and the OM-
tion which he occupies in the country.

But it is these very reasons which render it
acceptable to the community at large that hor-
rify red-tapists. It is opposed to the very first
principles of "State craft," which is to press the
needy to the uttermost, and to permit the
wealthy to escape with comparative impunity.
Poor men under our present artificial system are
mere political cyphers. They either are deprived
altogether of the elective franchise, or if they
possess it they are subjected to so many improper
and corrupt influences either through the dicta-
tion or coercion of landlord, employer, or cus-
tomer, or through the application of a pecuniary
bribe, that they are virtually unrepresented.
Therefore the burdens are as far as practicable
transferred to their shoulders. The constitu-
tional maxim that "taxation should be coin-
cident with representation" is wholly repudiated,
and those who have few, if any, friends in Parlia,
ment receive the hardest hits. The over-toiled
operative or labourer, earning a scanty subsistence
by unremitting toil, and having no provision put
aside for a rainy day—whose family a brief illness
of, or accident to, the father and provider will con-
sign to the tender mercies of the Union Work-
house, contributes far more largely to the National
Exchequer than the purse-proud millionitaire, or
the fortunate possessor of wide-spread domains ;
and that although the money is required for the
satisfaction of debts contracted for the preserva-
tion or improvement iu value of these properties,

. .
or for their present protection. In fact, as a

of earning sufficient t) bring him within the
existing area of taxation, could within a few hours
produce a scheme which would be a vast improve-
ment on that now in operation. Ther® is one way,
and one only, in which absolute and perfect equa-
lity could be obtained ; and that is by charging an
equal rate on the capitalised value of every
description of property, whether productive
or unproductive, which might, if the owner
desired it, be converted into cash. There
may be some cases of hardship even under
this system, which would at the same time be the
most just and politic, the most equitable and ex-
pedient, that could be devised. But the objec-
tions would be comparatively few in number and
weight, and it is impossible to raise the national
revenue without annoyance and inconvenience to
some parties. But even without resorting to an
exclusive tax on property—without altogether
liberating industry from the trammels by which
it is fettered and restrained, a close approxima-
tion to au equitable apportionment may easily be
devised. One of the best suggestions was that
repeatedly put on the notice-book, but not brought
forward by the Hon. Gentleman the Member for
Birmingham. It is true that it is only applied to
classes, not to individuals, and that it pressed
unduly on industry, but still it would be willingly
accepted for the time being; and we have no
doubt that its practical operation would prove
the feasibility and expel iency of further progress
in the same direction. Let the people, then,
steadfastly insist on the modification of the In-
come Tax as earnestly and energetically as they
recently did on its reduction. Let every candi
date be compelled to give expression to his views
on the point, and none be supported whose opi-
nions are not satisfactory, and the grievance will
speedily be removed. Sir G. C. LEWIS, or some
more competent successor, will discover how
easily that may be accomplished which is now
declared to be exceedingly difficult, if not alto-
gether impossible.

LATEST NEWS.

SINGAPORE, FEB. 5.

The fetes at the commencement of the year
have passed without any disorders.

Notwithstanding this apparent security the
white population does not feel confidence.
The leading men in China endeavour to calm
the effervescence of the populace, their interests
being bound up with those of the Europeans.

FRANCE.
PARIS, TUESDAY EVENING

The Moniteur continues its list of nominations
in the Legion of Honour on the occasion of the
anniversary of the birth of the Prince Imperial.
It now publishes 214 nominations to the rank of
knight among officers of the army, and officers,
non-commissioned officers, and privates in the gen-
darmery.
The answer of the King of Prussia to the last
communication of the French Government has been
received. The terms are said to be pacific, awl,
what is not often the cwe somewhat to the point.
His Majesty was evidently in a benevolent humour
when he wrote or dictated them. It would ba
hazardous to say what the next communication will
be. The conference will soon open again " for
the despatch of business." The two Commissioners
sent by the canton of Neuchatel to Paris to assist
Dr. Kern have been received by the Minister for
Foreign Affairs.

The King of Naples, with the view of conciliating
the Western Powers, has, it is said, promised some
large contracts to English and French capitalists.
The members of the Senate, Legislative Corps,
Council of State, &c., were admitted to the Tuileries
last night, to present their felicitations on the
happy event of the Prince Imperial having corn
pleted his first year yesterday. His little Highness
is, as you are aware, inscribed on the muster roll
of the Ist Regiment of Grenadiers of the Guard, and
the men of that gallant corps have celebrated the
auspicious event by thebanquets, accompanied with
appropriate toasts. The public, who seemed to
have forgotten all about the matter, were reminded
of it by the flags hoisted on some public buildings.
The Court tailor, also, who in matter of joyous
demonstration is next to the Grand Master of
the Ceremonies, himself the most enlightened
man in Paris, had given notes of prepara-
tion. For three evenings previously a stream
of gas-lights played round the shop-front for
half-an-hour, and experimental flags fluttered
over the doorway. The ]lfoniteur of yester-
day and to-day has several columns filled with
promot'on in the army and the Legions of Honour,
and, what is still better, a number of poor children
are received into the Orphan Asylum, which is
under. the patronage of the infant Prince ; and
which owes its foundation to the funds subscribed
last year to offer a testimonial on the occasion of
his 'birth. Nothing is left undone to render the
heir to the throne popular, and keep him present
in the minds, if not in the hearts, of the people.
It was supposed that the anniversary would
be signalised by a pretty comprehensive. crea-
tion of new nobility. The intention has been
often attributed to his Majesty; and it is still said
that he has not abandoned it altogether. In his
more thoughtful moments he has perhaps recoiled
from such a parody of the first Empire, never less
opportune. The ice, however, has been broken by
the Dukedom of Malakhoff, and there are many
among the aspirants to nobility whose victories on
the well-known battle field in the rue Vivienne are
considered by themselves as on a par with the Mar-
shal's attacks on the Crimean stronghold. Due du
Grand Central, Marquis de la Bourse, and Comte de
la Coulisse would surely sound as well as Duc de
Bouillon, Comte du Tron-bonbon, and Baron de la
Marmalade, and posterity would not make much
difference between a genuine aristocracy and the
pestiche. Few eyes detect, at a distance, the dif-
ference between paste and diamond. They who
have set their hearts on patents of nobility, as well
as on railroad concessions, may well be gratified in
the one as they have been enriched in the other.
The French addition squadron is expected to
reach the Chinese waters by the end of April.
Feruk Khan, the Persian Envoy, will leave
Paris for London this week. Before his departure
his Excellency will have an interview with the Em-
peror Napoleon.
BOURSE, March 17.—The following were the last
quotations :

Cash. fr. c.
li per Cents

End of Eionth.
—fr. --- c.
71 15

70 93

3per Cents
New Loan —
Bank Shares 4,105 Roman ...
Credit Mobilier 1,435 Austrian
Belgian Fives ...... ... 99 - Spanish Threes
Piedruontese (5) 9l 25 Home Debt
RAILWAYS—FOR CA8II•

fr. . fr c
Orleans 1,480 c
Western
Northern 985 Strasburg
Lyons 1,520 New Ditto
Mediterranean 2,010 Grand Central
Lyons Geneva
Cette

to call attention to the state of Italy. I.Ld the policy
followed, diminished the reputation of the country--
Count Solaro here interrupted the orator, and de-
clared he had not said so.

" Count Cavour was happy to accept that declaration.
As for the cost of the firtifications, it was certainly a
heavy burden to the country ; but still the treasury was
not so low as to prevent their undertaking a work so
necessary for the defence of the country, and calculated
to place in a stronger light that policy which had secured
to Sardinia the sympathy of all Italy and the esteem of
Europe. - (Loud cheers.)
" M. Ponziglione, a member of the Right, contended
that the fortifications of Alessandria had been com-
menced illegally, like those of Casale. If he voted for
the bill, he would at least ask Ministers whether they
were as free from other influence as they were free of the
Austrians 1"

The debate was adjourned, but the result is
known by telegraph; which appeared in The Sun
yesterday. A vote of 5,000,000 f. for the fortifica-
tions of Alessand.ria, was passed by a majority of 106
against 14.