The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-06 00:00:00

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Ecclesiastical Government of Norfolk Island—it
must be quite obvious to every one that the
measure is urgently requisite unler existing cir-
cumstances. Remembering, for example, that
that lovely island is no longer peopled by the off•
scourings of the earth ! That the artificial Hell
has reverted once more to a natural Paradise!
That iu place of those miserable convicts, who
occupied a position in regard to its beautiful ver-
dure such as the damned of the " Divine Comedy"
occupied in regard to the gloomy precincts of the
Inferno—(one of hopeless toil, agony, and degra-
dation)—Norfolk Island has received, as more
appropriate and congenial inhabitants, the redun-
dance of the interesting population of Pitcairn's
Island, the virtuous descendants of the lawless
mutineers against old Bounty BLIGH !
As to the Bill affecting the future condition of
the people of the lonian States—that, too, may
be recognised readily enough as, all things consi-
dered, most reasonable. Bearing in mind the simple
and wholly incontrovertible fact that by empowering
her MAJESTY'S subjects of the lonian Islands to
hold. Military and Naval commissons under the
Crown at their own will and pleasure, the Legis-
lature will be merely placing these people upon a
footing with the aggregate of the Colonial popula-
tion of great Britain in both hemispheres.
Finally, and most especially—as to the impor-
tant motion agreed to for a Select Committee
to inquire into the state of the Hudson's Bay
Territories ! What, possibly, we ask, could
be more urgently desirable, in regard. to
colonial matters, than that that particular
question, of all others, should at length
be thrust by her Mansfit's Secretary of State
under the consideration of the Imperial Legisla-
ture 7 Look for a moment at Mercator's Chart
of the World—and then answer ! Observe the
sweep of those enormous possessions across the
whole breadth of the gigantic continent of North
America! Possessions so vast that they have a
width of no less than 2,500 miles across—stretch-
ing from the shores of the Atlantic to the shores
of the Pacific ! So wealthy that it is calculated
that their unworked mineral treasures far sur-
pass in value all that has ever been produced
there by the fur trade ! So prolific in vegetation
that its dense forest masses remind one, more than
any other portion of the globe, of that rank and
and almost awful productiveness which ages ago, in
the Oolite era of the Geologists, required to be
" kept under" by the dread Pre-Adamits mon-
sters, the browsing Igoadon and the ruminating
Hy lceosaurus ! Yet this wonderful territory—so
vast, so wealthy, so prolific—has hitherto for the
last two centuries been abandoned by England,
almost unconditionally, to a huxtering Company of
Fur-Merchants, a Company looking solely to its
own pecuniary interests, and sacrificing to those
interests a track of country equal in its dimen-
sions to the better portion of the European Con-
tinent ! In the reign of King CHARLES 11., in
the year 1670, the original Charter was grouted
to the Hudson's Bay Company, making over to
them for a given period the whole of these enormous
possessions. Since then that Charter has been
renewed periodically by complaisance or ignorance,
or indifference of the Imperial Legislature. Nine-
teen years ago—in continuance of this mistaken
policy—the "rights" of the Company were con-
tinued for another term of one-and-twenty years,
by Royal Licence ! Consequently 1859 will, in
due course, bring the whole question again under
the consideration of Parliament 1 Is there not
recognisable in this one fact a really golden op-
portunity Rather apparently, we think, not to
say glaringly and undeniably ! Let not the op-
portunity be lost ! Whatever the Right Hon.
Gentleman the Member for Coventry may say
to the contrary, this much-lauded Hudson's
Bay Company is a kind of a Close Corporation,
notoriously requiring (of all things) to be burst
open, and searchingly ransacked, and thoroughly
and completely ventilated. Of course, Mr.
ELLICE thinks otherwise. That we might only
reasonably have anticipated. But, then, a great
many other Members of Parliament happily look
upon the matter quite differently. Insomuch so
that Mr. LABOUCHERE no sooner asks permission
of the House to have a Select Committee of In-
quiry (into the whole question) appointed than
that permission is at once conceded by the
popular branch of the Legislature. Let the
Members of this Committee be well selected, and
we shall not have much longer reason to lament
over our old heart-burnings about the Hudson's
Bay Company. The enormous dominions hitherto
abandoned to the fur-traders being at length,
we doubt not, in the fullness of time, opened
up to the energies of our British Colonists, and
through them to what Doctor JOHNSON me-
morably eulogised as " the benefits of Know-
ledge and the blessings of Religion !"

HARRY BROUGHAM, t11;_; HARRY BROUGHAM
of 1816, reappeared (among the Lords, alas !)
on Tuesday evening. Would that he could un-
peer himself for a while, and be the HARRY
BROUGHAM of the Commons till the Income Tax
question is settled. He has himself described, in
his published speeches, with all his own vigour, the
battle to which he alluded and in which he was so
prominent a chief. He it was who compelled a
Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had intended a
surprise, to listen to petitions and debates for six
weeks before he could get a division, and then to
submit to defeat by a majority of 37 ; and who laid
down, as Mr. WILBERFORCE observed, the whole-
some principle, " that War and Income Tax are
wedded together." Lord BROUGHAM has asserted
the very princii,le we have ourselves maintained
against Sir G. C. LE-wts' statement to the deputa-
tion. In opposition to him we affirmed that the
House of Commons could not, any more than pri-
vate individuals, fix unconditionally their expen-
diture first, and get the money afterwards; that
they must, on the contrary, have regard, in
framing their estimates, to the probable amount
they could raise. This doctrine Lord BROUGHAM
not only affirms—not only demands further reduc-
tions than those premised by Lord PANMURE, but
also reminds Sir GEORGE that the very thing was
done just forty years ago. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer then was thoroughly flogged out of an
Income Tax which brought in 15,000,000/ , or
the Tax flogged out of him—and he brought in
amended estimates less in proportion ! 1 It will be
well for the cotton lords to remember this, and
not to forget that the Estimates will be shaped
according to the temper of the Housse on the
Income Tax.

The speakers on Tuesday night busied them
selves chiefly on what the country looks upon,
for the most part, as party debate, and therefore
skips the long weary columns; not so in regard to
the financial part, of the discussion. Each speak-
er's statements will be carefully scrutinised in
respect to the all-interesting Income Tax. It is
remarkable that not a speaker defended the uni-
form rate. ,Mr. DISRAELI, of course, did not.
Lord BROUGHAM denounced it, as he did in 1842,
and even so long back as 1816. Mr. GLADSTONE
himself, who said that " the question of the vary:
jag rate was a question between the air and the
clouds"
—yet admitted that an equal rate was such
injubtice, and mull the tax so dangerous in time

of peace, that ho had on that ground arranged for
its cessation in 1860, and maintained that that
agreement ought to be adhered to. Lord DERBY
decidedly took on this point the same view as Mr.
DISRAELI and Mr. GLADSTONE. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL and Mr. GLADSTONE in the strongest
terms demanded that the naval and military ex-
penditure should be reduced to the old peace
standard—and all demanded that the great ques-
tion whether we are to have an expenditure that
requires the war rate of Income Tax should be
settled forthwith. The country and the House
have every encouragement, therefore, to force
economy on the Government.
Not only the Manchester School, but the
Peelites, and the Derbyites demand a peace
expenditure, which means two things, the cessa-
tion of the war elevenpence, and of the unjust
arrangement of the tax itself, at least, in 1860.
We renew, therefore, our oft-repeated advice,—
AGITATE I AGITATE ! AGITATE !
But the nation has additional grounds for en-
couragement. The Leviathan is, to use a " Hi-
bernicism," once more "turning its back upon
itself." Any degree of tergiversation on the
part of " the leading journal" is by no means
uncommon, nor should we think it worth while to
notice it, so far as the Times itself is concerned.
But we have recently pointed out the direct con-
nection between Downing-street and Printing-
house-square. The complicity being indicated by
the very suspicious similarity between the views
of the journalist published in the morning, and
of the Financial Minister expressed in the after-
noon. The exact figures, too, 80,00,000/., being
spoken of in both quarters, proved that
there had been previous consultation. On
the 23d ultimo the Times declared that
the money was wanted to discharge an existing
obligation, and to counteract an exhaustion in
actual process ; so the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer first tells us that he must have the money,
and then suggests the mode which he hopes will
be the least distressing to our feelings. It then
asserts that " it is only a choice of evils," and that
"it is scarcely worth while to talk very strongly
about the Income Tax before we know the extent
of the necessary evil, and how much money is
wanted. All anticipations are useless when we
must shortly know the facts of the case, and it is
equally useless at this moment to protest against
any tax that may happen to be galling us."
Again on the 26th ultimo it announces that
" the oscillations of the War Income Tax question
are beginning to yield to the strong attraction of
the year 1858, and show evident signs of settling
down at that point in the compass ;" that " the
letter of the Act is kept as a slight convenient
intrenchment in the distance, not for the purpose
of actually retiring behind it, because that would be
illiberal and cowardly, but rather for the purpose
of pointing to and producing the impression on
the enemy that you might take advantage of its
protection if you liked, and that therefore he must
not push you too far ;" adding, " With respect to
this single year's continuance of the War Income
Tax, it is perhaps not worth while, under all the
circumstance', to fight against our destiny." All
its arguments were to .the effect that it was a
question of expenditure, not of taxati'm, and
that we should patiently and submissively await
the announcement of the intentions of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, and not complain if the
-" pettifogging quibble," or " slight convenient
intrenchment in the distance" were made avail-
able. Even yesterday it followed in the same
course. It declared, that " the whole tax is ac-
tually doomed to extinction as a peace tax. Not
only the war 9d. (q. 11d.), but the peace 7d.,
lies under sentence of death, to be carried into
execution this time three years." . . " The
road has been rough and the lane a long one, but
at any rate the turning is well in view." The
whole tenour of its remarks counsel submission to
destiny, in the shape of the will and pleasure of
Sir G. C. LEWIS.

But now nous ehangons tout cela. The nation
fortunately did not accept the sinister advice ; a
storm was raised about the ears of the Minister,
and he has seen the necessity of reefing his sails
before the coming storm. The Times has received
an opportune hint, and this day declares that
" the British people have wistly determined to be
rid of this most grievous impost ! To be rid of
the war 9d. now, and the other 7d. as soon as
possible, is the ruling desire of all classes, from
peers to the pettiest tradesmen. . " The
most that can be expected is t) be rid of the extra
Income Tax. . . • " For the present let no
Minister be able t r urge, as an excuse for keeping
on a fraction of the Income Tax, the pretext that
any section of the community is in the least de-
gree indifferent to its abolition." What, then,
would have been the case if they had submitted
to their destiny, as counselled by the Times ? Let
the Leviathan solve that enigma if possible. Mean-
while we are justified in accepting this extraordi
nary change, not as the opinion of the journalist,
but as an'echo from Downing-street—as the first
fruits of the earnest and indefatigable agitation
that has been inaugurated. But we are only at
the very commencement of our task ; the same
course that has triumphed against the extra war
charge will suffice to insure an equitable adjust-
ment thereof—distinguishing between permanent
and precarious incomes, between the proceeds of
accumulated and realised property and the fluctu-
ating wages and earnings of indu-try. One more,
then, we repeat to the people Agitate ! Agitate !
Agitate ! and final and complete success must at-
tend your exertions.
Follow the successful precedent of EIGHTEEN
HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN. Cut Off Once MOTO the
supplies—cut them. off in February—and we shall
then have estimates shaped to what we will pay,
not to what a Government would like to spend.

In another part of our present impression will
bs found a report of the proceedings at the Annual
Meeting of the London and County (Joint Stock)
Bank, which took place yesterday. After the
recent instances of mismanagement and criminal
misconduct in connection with other establish-
ments of a like nature, it must bo a source of
gratification to the reader to light on a report so
satisfactory as that which the Directors were
enabled to present. Despite the shock given to
public confidence by the miserable exposures to
which we have referred, the London and County
Bank, under the existing management, ha; it
will be seen, yielded a dividend of 6 per cent.
on the last six months, or 11 per cent. on the
entire year ; and this without any " cooking of
the accounts," or any of the wretched subterfuges
which have so often been resorted to to gull the
shareholders and the confiding public. On the
contrary, everything fair and above board—a
straightforward balance-sheet checked by
a public
accountant, and accompanied by recommenda-
tions for the future testifying to the integrity of
the Directors. Glancing over the Report, we
find the gross profit Of the Bank for the half-
year,last account, and after making provision for bad
including balances brought forward from the ''l
and doubtful debts to amount to 119,257/. 3s.
4d, leaving after deduction of all charges a
amount it is the six per cent. dividend
net profit of 38,0811. 61 From this