The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-25 00:00:00

of Peace, and as the consequence of that inestimable
friendship for which we have to thank our Impe-
rial Ally, our dear ally, NAPOLEON 111 ! We might
even say our extremely dear ally : remember-
ing, as we have all of us, only too
much reason to do, that we value
his friendship somehow or other—[it is an almost
ludicrous calculation this, but it is, nevertheless,
unhappily as events are proving, only too fright-
fully true)—that we actually set down the value of
his friendship annually at rather a high figure—at a
figure so very high that it necessitates now in every
year of Peace the squandering of £30,000,000 upon
our war establishments, and the setting forth in-
exorably upon the national balance-sheet the
appalling sum of £70,000,000 as the minimum of
our expenditure !
As another only too notorious illustration
of the perilous predicament in which we
have thus contrived at last to place our-
selves —it is well known how egregiously,
under the alluring guidance of our experiment-
ing Chancellor of the Exchequer, we have
blundered into the absurd system of em-
ploying year after year, during a time of Peace,
what is, par excellence, designated The WAR TAX
—that is to say, of course, THE INCOME TAX—
a tax that Common Sense tells us we ought in
reason to have sedulously kept as our Financial
Reserve for warlike emergencies ! Instead of doing
which, we are all this while striving more and
more earnestly to exhaust the advantages derivable
from this source of revenue : insomuch so that
we are habitually adding, at Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S pernicious adviee, one or two pennies
per cent. per annum under this tax , upon
incomes—and, for every penny additional of
Income Tax, remember there is a supplimentary
annual £1,000,000 rung out of the earnings of
this hardworking and overtaxed population ! In
this way JOHN BULL is realising more and more
vividly as time advances the significance of SPEAK-
SPERE'S phrase—" dropping the heart's blood for
drachmas!" If onlypoor JOHN would at length come
to recognise the advisability—in the instance of the
Income-tax—of looking aficr the pence, he would
soon see how effectually the pounds, nay the mil-
lions of pounds, would then look after themselves !
In 1860—just as a stop-gap—a slovenly way (it
may be objected, and certainly with some show of
reason, too), a slovenly way enough, of regulating
the finances of this great empire—in 1860 just as a
stop gap, just for the time being, just as the
merest temporary makeshift—for one year more
we were to have the Income Tax ! That was
Mr. GLADSTONE'S clumsy device—for contriving
(for one year more) to tide over difficulties.
Well—and we had the Income Tax : an Income
Tax that time, that is for 1860, of tenpence in
the -pound. And—every penny of Income Tax
being, as we have remarked, equivalent to an
annual total of £l,ooo,ooo—we had as the result
of a 10d. Income Tax in 1860 a round sum of
£10,000,000 sterling, ten millions through the
WAR TAX raised for the purposes of revenue in
a year of Peace, in one of those costly new-
fashioned years of Peace, with which we have to
thank our very dear Imperial Ally across the
Channel for making us acquainted ! Now this
kind of system, we believe in our consciences, may
be persisted in just a trifle too long for the nation's
calm endurance. War has often cost us less
than we are now spending year after year in the
interests of peace, under the guidance—there of our
Imperial Ally, here of Mr. GLADSTONE, our boasted
model Chancellor of the Exchequer ! In regard to
which latter personage, by the way, it must
certainly occur to one sometimes that his
boasted financial skill is surely a little
overrated. In the old-fashioned times of Sir
ROBERT PEEL, when budget after budget somehow
secured to the country a surplus, and not as
now invariably a deficit, one might then boast
with some show of reason about the financial
capabilities of the great administrator who, even
as First Lord of the Treasury, managed thus mag-
nificently to assume to himself the responsibilities,
without at the same time arrogating to himself the 11
title, of her MAJESTY'S Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Instead of this, now, in the instance of our much
talked of and sonorously glorified model Financier,
Mr. GLADSTONE, we have year after year to deal
with the difficulty of a deficit in lieu of having to
loiter over the delightful contemplation of an annual
surplus, no matter how small—and we have the
additional mortification year after year of behold-
ing this miserable difficulty of a perpetually re-
curring deficit dealt with by our model Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer How, in the name
of Fortune, or rather of Misfortune, How ?
Why, by the clumsy, blundering, dunder-
headed device of clapping another penny or so
upon the Income Tax, and thus raising, as the case
may chance to require, an odd million or two
additional ! Why, the veriest blockhead in
finance could do the thing quite as
cleverly as that ! Poor, honest, dull-witted,
light-whiskered JOE GARGERY, taken from his
forge, dressed in his uncomfortable Sunday's best,
and installed, much to his bewilderment, in the
offices of 6, Old Palace Yard, would do quite as well
in that way, as a Paragon Financier, as a model
Chancellor of the Exchequer. As to
our other friend, our Imperial friend,
across the water—looking at the expensive and
warlike character of the peace we are now annu-
ally enjoying under the auspices of his friendship,
we cannot in reason be regarded as very captuous,
under the circumstances, if we acknowledge that
we are beginning to cast a wilful retro-
spective glance at the old entente cordiale between
France and England under King Louis PHILIPPE
an alliance that had at any rate the advantage of Not
costing us £10,000,000 of yearly Income Tax,
£30,000,000 for our War Establishments, and up-
wards of £70,000,000 for our annual Expenditure.