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

SATURDAY

the administration under which that evil
happened." Then it was that the Administrative
Reform Association of the capital upon an
ampler and a grander scale than its prototype
—took pattern and took courage from the course
pursued, ever since 1848, by the Financial Reform
Association of Liverpool. The purpose of that
new political League in London being to put an
end to the cause of the mischief—that being, as
Mr. ROEBUCK boldly-defines it, " the Aristocratic
Government of this country !" Inspirited by which
patrioticpurposetheAdministrativeßeformers have
now, as the President of their Association informs
the publio at large, an organisation so complete
that it enables them, whenever they please, to
communicate with somebody in every post-town in
England ! The endeavours of this energetic
movement being, at the present moment, threefold
—firstly, to discover the mode of taxation itself ;
secondly, its collection ; and thirdly, its distribu-
tion. No wonder that, talking to a sympathetic
audience upon such generalities—no won-
der, we say, that at such a time,
and under such circumstances, Mr.
ROEBUCK found himself in a manner constrained
to note in a particular manner that great and
crying Grievance of the Hour—the Income
Tax ! No wonder that, talking of the Income
Tax, he should take occasion to reiterate his old j
dogged, unanswerable, knock-down argument—
" That a man who hadi a hundred or a thousand
a-year from funded or landed property was far
more able to pay a tax of 5 or 6 per cent. than al
man who made a hundred or a thousand a-year
by his brains or his labour." Further, still,
Mr. ROEBUCK added—" My argument was
this—that a man who had a hundred a year
from landed property and spent that hundred—
and if sickness came upon him, or if he died,
there was the hundred a year still for his family.
But I said too—and little did I think how soon
I myself would be an example of the fact—soup-
posing a man belonging to that elass—which cer-
tainly is not very popular—the class to which I
myself belong—a lawyer--suppose that man made
a thousand a year in the arduous exercise of his
intellectual faculties, suppose from year to year
he went on making that sum, until by the overtax-
ing of brain he was stricken down in a night ! "
What then ? Where is the 1, 0001. per annum ? Where
in a lesser case are the 5001. a year—the 4001.
a year—the 300/. a year—of the over-wrought
professional man, of the man drawing his income
annually not from funded or landed possessions,
but from " the sweat of his brain ?" Gone !
A eruelty—we take it—wholly unjustifiable !
An argument altogether unanswerable ! No—
the Income Tax as at present levied is a wrong
so flagrant, and by this time to the country at
large so entirely obnoxious, that—it cannot by
any possibility be persisted in by this or by any
other Government. Mr. ROEBIICK has confirmed
our impression to that effect, whatever may be
implied by that official jargon of specious gene-
ralities with which the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer----as in duty bound—wards off the home
thrusts of a pertly perverse Deputation !

If the new Chinese War has been rather singu-
larly and strikingly inaugurated by the bombard-
ment of Canton—the new Persian War has been
opened in a manner still more startling and ex-
traordinary. Our expeditionary forces against
the dominions of the SHAH have celebrated the
commencement of their warlike operations, both
military and maritime—the latter under Admiral
Lzarr.„ aided by General OUTRAN, by taking pos-
session of the island of Karrak, and forcibly occu-
pying the seaport of Bushire—the former under
Brigadier CSAMBERLAYNB, by coolly returning
upon his own footsteps along the Khyber Pass to
Peshawur 1 The celebrated feat accomplished by
the King of /PIiA2SCII with his 40,000 men, being
about equivalent to the one last mentioned ! The
next news will be, of course—supposing this intel-
ligence as to the retreat of CZAMBERLAYNE with
his 5,000 sepoys be confirmed—that Col. JACOB
has emulated his compatriot by withdrawing his
troops in like manner along the Bolan Pass to
their Scindian starting point near Shikapoor. In
which case DOST MABOII3IIOI and his Ameers
will have to bear the brunt of the
encounter, such as it may prove to Le, with the
Persian warriors despatched across the western
frontiers of Cabul—supposing the design be still
entertained among the Affghans of reasserting
their right of sovereignty over the Heratees. Ge-
neral Sir J. OUTRAM and Admiral Sir H. LEEKE
being left all the while to make the best they can
out of the unfructile conquest of Bushire, out of
the valueless possession of the Island of Karrak,
and out of those terrific atmospheric peculiarities
of the Persian. Gulf, which are the terror even of
the almost case-hardened inhabitants of the Bag.
dad Pachalic !

All this blundering and bungling in regard to
Persia cannot but necessitate, we conceive, from
the approaching Parliament immediately it shall
have reassembled, a new and very urgent demand
for explanations from the Ministerial organs of
her MAJESTY'S Government.

The reader who has followed the E mperor of
Ansratt in his tour through 'Venice and Lom-
bardy can hardly fail to feel a sort of contemp-
tuous pity for that much-deceived Monarch.
Instead of a triumphal progress, what a reception
has he everywhere experienced ! Vainly has
official ingenuity been taxed to gather crowds of
dupers in the streets, and marshal groups of
native sycophants in the palace and the theatre.
" GOD bless him " has died in the throats of the
venal--the noble have eschewed the palace as they
would a lazaretto—the theatres have been de-
ierted by their usual habitues. A melancholy
young Monarch, surrounded by his guards
and officials, and shunned by his subjects
—sometimes even hissed such has been
the spectacle that has been everywhere pre-
sented, save at Milan, where the attitude of
the population has been, and is, positively
menacing. Had the Emperor anticipated anything
like this he would never have undertaken so
memorable a tour. One can hardly say whether
the sullen apathy or the savage pasquinade would
be most ungrateful to the Imperial mind, What
a frightful satire is that triumphal arch at Milan,
paid for from the
Imperial purse, and topped by
~ne population in the night with a crown of real
skulls ! Is it a subject of congratulation or the
reverse that the satire can hardly be said to be
exaggerated ? For what has been the character
of Austrian rule ? Has not murder gone hand
in hand with oppression ? Have not the noblest
been crushed with the strong hand, and the fusil-
!ade and the scaffold crowned the arch of the

prison ? Has not the press been silenced,
the free interchange of thought forbidden,
the aspirations of freedom quenched, as far
as might be, in blood t Who of all the Ishmaels
from truth and honour—;vho of all the sycophants
of tyranny, is shameless enough to meet these
questions with a denial ? Must
wd stop here ?
Is there nothing but pity for the mortified GppreFt-
;or—not a word for the people ? We have greate:'

hope than ever of a future fur Italy worthy of her
renown—worthy of freemen. An inextinguish.
able hatred of oppression is a vindigvAtion of Eter-