The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-10 00:00:00

over-cleverness that was ! It will be remembered
how, after frightening his hearers with an
imaginary deficit of between nine and ten
millions sterling (£9,400,000), Mr. GLAD-
STONE elaborately explained to them, with
an immense array of figures (that his admirers
oddly called eloquence), slowly, minutely,
and with the most extraordinary amplitude
of calculation explained to them how, thanks to
himself, thanks to his marvellous skill as a financier,
to his consummate and superlative ability as the
greatest of all England's Chancellors of the Exche-
quers, that imaginary deficit of £9,400,000 was to
be conjured into a clear surplus of—at the very
least—nearly half a million. Mr-GLADSTONE, in fact,
set down his prospective surplus at the modest
figure of £464,000 or thereabouts. We all know
the result—that surplus of £464,000 has turned out
after all to be quite as imaginary as the exaggerated
deficit of £9,400,000 this extraordinary genius pre-
tended he had to deal with! Never has there been a
more absurd, a more egregious, a more lamentable,
or a more disastrous anti-climax heard of at the

Treasury.
The country was given to understand that Mr,
GLADSTONE was to effect wonders by the novel

system of finance unfolded by him through the
medium of his Great Speech on the 10th of February,
1863, in that the first of his series of Financial
Statements during the last session of Parliament.
Well—in one sense—he certainly has performed
" wonders" with a vengeance by means of his
new fiscal and financial arrangements. The
Arcadian Treaty of Commerce between England
and France—the Treaty negotiated by Mr. COBDEN
and announced with so sonorous a flourish of
trumpets by Mr. GLADSTONE (4rcades ambo)—
will probably, " some time hence," be productive of
all those advantages which it has been predicted
will accrue from it for certainty. That is, if the
halcyon Alliance between the two countries (of
whose perpetual union this Commercial Treaty, we
presume, is to be regarded as the Marriage Settle-
ment) be not in the meantime knocked on the head
by the thundering broadsides of the " Gloires" and

the " Warriors !" Eventually, no doubt, in that
contingency, all the good promised to result from
this Treaty will result from it as promised. But,
meanwhile, we know for absolute certainty that
the operation of the Treaty, as yet, has been pro-
ductive of nothing but the most disastrous and
afflicting disappointments. So far as any benefits
from it to the revenue are concerned, the vines from
which we are obtaining these delectable French
wines might be productive of nothing else but—
Sour Grapes. We can't get at them. They are
beyond our reach : and the result is, that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer has still to deal with
deficit upon deficit, the French Commercial Treaty
to the contrary nevertheless notwithstanding.
Again as to those amazing little " Godsends"—as
the country on the 10th of February, 1860, was
taught to regard them by Mr. GLADSTONE—as to
those delightful little discoveries of his, the waifs
and strays of commerce going about in search of a
Collector, the pennies to be levied upon this and

upon that turn and twist in the labyrinth of trade

Something like those delicious roast pigs wandering
about in No-man's Land with a silver knife and
fork stuck in the crackling of each of them--
grunting temptingly "Come and Eat me 1" Well
—even Mr. GLADSTONE himself knows by this
time—how completely the " Godsends " promised

through those pennies owe their existence to his

own lively imagination. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer—in anticipation of his approaching
speech of Monday, his forthcoming Financial State-

ment—had the satisfaction yesterday of receiving a

memorial from the merchants, brokers, and traders
of the port of London, entreating him " that
whatever taxation the State may require should
be raised in the mode least onerous and annoying
to the class from which it has to be obtained"—
earnestly trusting at the same time that under any
and every circumstance "provision may be made

for the total abolition of the before mentioned
small vexatious duties in the forthcoming
Financial Statement, as," the words are
worth noting, they are the closing words
of this important memorial —" as being alike
[these small duties, these odd pennies picked up
here and there by Mr. GLADSTONE] annoying and
obstructive to trade and commerce without adequate
advantage to the revenue !" This, from the mer-
chants, brokers, and traders of London ! This, upon
the close of a whole year's trial of one among Mr.
GLADSTONE'S rash and ridiculous financial experi-
ments.

According to his Great Speech of last year,
' his Budget speech of the 10th of February, these
pennies were to pour gold abundantly into the
' national coffers without anybody being con-
scious of its abstraction ! It turns out to
be little else than an abstraction of another
kind altogether. The merchants of London
prove every word they utter in condemnation
.of these vexatious, annoying, and obstructive duties,
in the course of their memorial. They hesitate not
in the midst of that memorial, to remind Mr.
GLADSTONE that a quarter of a century has elapsed
since the total abolition of dues like those very dues
revived last year at his instigation revived
by him —although abolished five and twenty
years previously, as " unwise and impolitic.'
The object of taxation has been well de-
scribed as the production of the largest
amount of revenue with the infliction upon the
payers of taxation of the least possible amount
of inconvenience. Both of which objects these
new taxes of Mr. GLADSTONE'S contrivance
manage with wonderful adroitness not to attain !
They produce results in the shape of additions to
the revenue quite ludicrously inadequate—while at
the same time inflicting upon the payers of these
wretched pennies the utmost possible amount of
inconvenience. Conspicuous among the vexations
caused to trade and commerce by Mr. GLADSTONE'S
amazingly abortive contrivance there are enumerated
[by the merchants of London recollect ! men not
given to complaining, like this, without sufficient
\ reason for doing so]—sl great consumption of time
(ti me in English trade and commerce being a
(synonym of money) a dreadful amount,
of what reads oddly in this merchants'
memorial as " clerical labour," and constant delays
consequent upon perpetually recurring, and, under
this miserable infliction wholly unavoidable, errors
of calculation. So much for some among the nu-
merous inconveniences imposed by these new taxes
upon the taxpayers, that is to say upon the various
mercantile houses engaged in carrying on the trade
and commerce of England.
Now for the fruits of these taxes to the
revenue, a result described in the memorial
with the strictest accuracy as "an utterly
inadequate compensation." Take one of them—
the penny stamp on units sf entry, which Mr.
GLADSTONE predicted would produce at the
most moderate computation £300,000 .-- it has
just barely yielded £130,000 ! And it has
done even this, only through annoyances
defined iu the memorial as most "intricate,
vexatious,and obstructive." Again, the pennystamp
on delivery orders, which impost Mr. GLADSTONE
promised would produce at the very least £lOO,OOO
It has
literally brow •,
produced—not £lOO,OOO, not £lo,ooo—it hasiterally
ralig'at to the revenue a miserable little
e :
ne4lllng a°l4 of £,000! And even this—How?