The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC lOURNALS,

After summarising Hunt's speeeE on the Budget,
the Times remarks : When Mr. Hunt sat clown Mr. Glad-
stone rose. He began with the paradox that it was not
for the Abyssinian war the committee were asked to
consider how additional taxation should be raised, and it
appeared, when be explained his meaning, that he attri-
buted the necessity of raising further supplies to the
increase of the expenditure. The slightest reflection
will show that this statement is fallacious. Had the
addition to the estimates to which Mr: Gladstone called
attention not been made, there would have been a
remission of taxation, and it would have been as
necessary under such an hypothesis as it is now
to consider how additional taxes should be imposed.
It is impossible to suppose that two millions would have
been left in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and the same question as now would have had to be pre-
sented to the House of Commons. The real vice, however,
of such remarks as Mr. Gladstone made leads him further
than. this. Estimates are brought forward, are discussed,
and are approved, and some months later a member rises
in his place and declares against excessive expenditure or
" bloated armaments." Mr. Disraeli did this when
he was in Opposition, and when Mr. Gladstone was
Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston's
Administration, he occasionally intimated that he
dissented from the scale of expenditure he assisted
to support. On Thursday night, however, Mr. Glad-
stone and those who echoed his complaints did
not fix upon any special point of condemnation. The
estimates are rising. It is true. We wish it could be
avoided, and -so we suppose do most Chancellors of the
Exchequer. But is it not the fact that the nominal cost of
government all over the world is rising in consequence of
the change in the prices of commodities ? Can any part-
nership or company deny that their expenses of manage-
ment have increased materially in the last ten years ? And
if, in addition to this, a necessity has arisen for recon-
structing an army, for providing it with a new arm, for im-
proving the condition of the soldier, for changing the
organisatim of our fleets, additional expenditure must be
recognised as inevitable. Confining our attention to
the proper subjects of the, debate, what do we
observe ? In the first place, an estimate of the cost
of the Abyssinian expedition only too palpably
imprudent. It may be sufficient, but it is unsafe to reckon
upon it. In the next place, a determination to throw the
whole burden of it upon the income tax. Nothing that
was said last night removed the obvious objections to this
course. They were rather strengthened. It was
urged that it would be unwise to disturb trade by a medi-
fication of the import duties, but this plea would cover all
urgent necessities, and we are laniled in the conclusion
that the income tax must always supply the means of any
occasional outlay, however fanciful or unnecessary. We
protest in the strongest terms against the pandering to
immediate popularity which induces both sides to consent
to this fatal course. There is a third remark to be made
on the financial statement. It is proposed to borrow a
minion. It is true that a tax is designated to repay it,
although the security that it will be available for the pur-
pose is imperfect. But be it as sure as it may, there is
no justification for the loan, when we are at the same time
gratuitously repaying a portion of our debt. Let the
repayment by terminating annuities be suspended, and if
the income tax prove available it will make good the year
during which the repayment has been omitted. Mr.
Fawcett and Mr. Hubbard joined in recommending a
course against which no cne had any reason to urge. If
anyone would seek for an explanation of the anomaly that
injudicious counsels will apparently be adopted by default,
the-reason for it is perhaps to be found in the fact that
the mischief may be ultimately traced to those who occupy
the front Opposition bench, and that the Ministry suc-
ceeding to their places have inherited the consequences of
their errors.

The Post is altogether dissatisfied with the Budget. It
does not approve either of the additional income tax.
Actual experience has proved the income tax to have in
very great measure lost its elasticity, and to have dimi-
nished seriously in productive power. For years—ever
since, in fact, Sir Robert Peel imposed it twenty-eight
years ago, when the Whig Government lost its position
from precisely the same kind of mistake that Mr. Hunt
appears to us to he making now the income tax
has always made a return to the pressure of the
Finance Minister in excess of estimate and expec-
tation. The November Budget exhibited the first in-
stance of its failing to answer to the call. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer and those who advised him on making
the estimate allowed what they conceived an ample
margin for the depressed state of trade, and their pressure
has realised less than one-half of their expecta-
tion—less than one-half of the amount which
pressure would have produced at any time within the last
twenty-five years. The Post is surprised that such a fact
suggests no reflection and conveys no lesson to the present
Chancellor of the I?.xcheckuer. It does not believe that
the increase to sixpence will produce anything like the
sum he anticipates. The Government and the public who
were relying upon them are committing a serious mistake
and making a vital miscalculation.

Mr. Baring, a high authority on financial matters, would
have preferred that in substitution of a portion of the
proposed income tax, and concurrently with it, an addi-
tion should have been made to the duties upon articles of
general consumption, not, as we understand him, because
he objects to meeting a special and temporary charge by
an increase of the income tax or by an issue of Exchequer
Bonds, but because he fears that this increase of the in-
come tax will he made a precedent, and doubts whether
the bonds will be paid off. The Herald points out, how-
ever, that Mr. Hunt had declared with great distinctness
that if he had not felt that this addition to taxation was
to be only temporary he would have proposed to increase
indirect taxation. Believing the necessity to be but a
temporary one, he was unwilling to cause that disturbance
to trade which always results from an increase of duties
upon articles of general consumption. Mr. Gladstone
found the mode of meeting the charge adopted by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer simple and sound, and the
opinion of the House was almost unanimously in its
favour.

The Standard points out the laborious duty which Mr.
Hunt had to perform. He performed it creditably. The
move made by Mr. Gladstone was clearly and solely
factious; it could have no honest end, no creditable
motive ; and in the existing state of European affairs, and
of our American relations, it was calculated to do infinite
harm. The security and strength of England are not to
be made the playthings of parliamentary faction; her
safety is not to be risked upon the issue of a party vote.
Nothing could he worse timed or in worse taste than this
attack, which simply goes to prove that if be cannot crush
the Ministry under the ruins of the Irish Church, Mr.
Gladstone is prepared to attack them through a breach in
the national defences ; that no danger to Church or
State will outweigh with him the paramount object of
turning Mr. Disraeli out of office, no matter how.
• Mr. Gladstone has always protested against extravagant
expenditure, and the Daily News trusts that he is now
resolved to enforce retrenchment. The nibbling at details
will do little. The House of Commons has not the
patience for this kind of work, nor the administrative
k lowledge essential for its proper discharge. The only
may in which it can effect sensible reductions is by
reducing the lump sums which it votes for the several
services, and leaving it for the Government to find in what
points retrenchment can be effected without interference
with efficiency. One of the two functions of a great finan-
cier—that of lightening taxation while actually augment-
ing revenue—has been successfully accomplished by. Mr.
Gladstone. The other—that of reducing public expendi-
ture without impairing the efficiency of the public service
4-remains to be performed. The. country has confidence
in Mr. Gladstone's earnestness, and in his capacity to
accomplish this necessary work. It will welcome the
pledge contained in his speech, and will give him its
ungrudging support.
Ann Justice, one of the prisoners now on trial in the
Central Criminal Court, has been practically acquitted on
the capital charge ; and the Telegraph believes that all
who have paid attention to the evidence will be gratified
with that result. The truth is, that although the woman
Justice has lived on very intimate terms with the persons
who organised the attack on the gaol, the Crown could
not produce any facts showing that she was in any
way connected with the conspiracy. The evidence
adduced .to implicate her failed utterly, and at the
most only went to show that she was faithful to her
friends, and did not desert them in their trouble.
But, known to have close relations with them,
when arrested on the spot she was detained, and her
name was naturally included in the indictment. It was
the Lord Chief Justice himself, who, at the close of the
case for the Crown, interposed the remark that Ann
Justice had not been shewn to be in any way connected
with the plot. Still firm in her friendship, the poor
woman, on quitting the dock, kissed Barrett, and
whispered in the ear of-Timothy Desmond. Her hope of
immediate freedom, however, was. dashed •, for, although
discharged from the dock, she is still detained because
there are other indictments against her. But the deten-
tion is only a matter of form, and whatever may be the
fate of heelfed it virtually free. Her cause was
,perfectly fe in the hands of Mr. Mont Her
Williams,
who had been retained to defend her; but her acquittal
is a testimony to the rigid fairness of our courts and the
unbiassed temper of the bench.
Little more than two months ago Earl Iturelladdressed
his first letter '`to the Rigl't Hon. Chichester
M.l'., on the state of Ireland." The Star calls attention to
Lord Rusell's second letter on the same subject, ap-
pearslyhichca pamphlet about half the size o. its
in the shape of
•-liwy it from a
pretlece:ssor. The Irish ijuestion "r;
chaotic condition
Is it won-

7?~atl I

point of vie v, simply i
wrote hi 8 first, pamplii

..at„ under snuli circumstances, and yonsider-
i::; the changes xvilich have taken place :ince, his
see,,rid letter st;o:dAl be mainly occupied in correct-
leg or abandoning tl:e mistaken propositions of
01.3 first? Earl I:us:4ell's main proposal, in the first in-
stance, was, as we all remember, to divide the rent-charges
of the Irish Church among the lteman Catholics, the
Vpiscopalians, and the Presbyterians, according to num-
bers. Immediately on the appearance of the letter, the
impracticable, reactionary, and in every way objectionable
nature of such a proposal was pointed out. Earl Russell,
in his present pamphlet, frankly abandons the project.
kle still argues that it had a logical and political justifica-
tions at the time he put it forward. But, as the Roman.
Catholics decline State endowment, there is, he admits, an
.prici Of the matter.

EARL RUSSELL'S SECOND P4MPII:LET ON
'IRELAND.

Earl Russell's second letter on Ireland, now published,
concludes with the following passage :

In my former letter I had to notice a gross personal
attack made upon me by a Secretary of State before my
publication appeared, and I thought myself entitled to
return the blow. At present lam glad to have no Ruck
attack to resent. But I cannot forbear to notice that
General Peel, on April 2, made a biting jest on the party.
to which I have the pride to belonv.

" The Liberal party have been referred to," ho said,
" as the engineers and pioneers who clear the road ; but
I rather look upon them as guide posts, which point
out the road—and a very bad road it often is—but who
never advance one inch themselves." (Cheers and
laughter.)
General Peel is so honest and so good-humoured, that
one is always inclined to take in good part anything he
may say. But, lest his joke should be taken in sober
earnest, I venture to put to him the following questions :-
1. Was it not an inch of advance to abolish fifty-six
close boroughs sending 111 members to Parliament, and to
deprive thirty more boroughs of one member each ?
2. Was it not an inch of advance to give representa-
tives to Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham, a conces-
sion which the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel
peremptorily refused?
3. Was it not an inch of advance to rekrm the poor-
laws, a task which Sir Robert Peel professed himself
unable to undertake ?
4. Was it not an inch of advanc t:1 commute the tithe in
kind, in England, a vexation to the clergy and laity alike,
a task to which Mr. Pitt found himself unequal ?
5. Was it not an inch of advance to abolish slavery in
mir colonies, a measure to which Lord Derby, in his better
days, so greatly contributed? _ _ _

6. Was it no gain to religions liberty to enable the
Baptists to register the hired of their children without
baptism in the Church, and the Unitarians to be married
without a blessing in the name of the Trinity, and to re-
lieve all Protestant Dissenters from the yoke of being com-
pelled to take the sacrament according to the rites of the
Church of England?
7. Was it no gain to freedom of trade to repeal the
navigation laws, to form a commercial treaty with France,
and to reduce the tariff from the large volume which Mr.
Iluskisson boasted of, as a digest, into a single page?
Were not the financial plans of Mr. Gladstone an inch in
advance ?

8. Were not the introduction of poor laws in Ireland,
the commutation of tithe, and the Act for the sale of en-
cumbered estates, an inch in advance to that country ?
Lastly, was not the support given to the unity and
independence of Italy an inch in advance, in behalf
of the great cause of " Civil and Religious Liberty all
over the World," the old standing toast of the Whig
party ? _ _

I can imagine that this list, added to Catholic eman-
cipation and the repeal of the corn laws—measures of
which the Liberal party were the pioneers—will grieve the
heart of many an old Tory, and that General Peel, on
reading it, will say with Macbeth—

" A fourth ! Start, eyes !
What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom ?
Another yet ? A seventh? I'll see no more ;
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass
Which shews me many more."
Yes, "many more !" The diseased mind of Ireland has
yet to be ministered to ; a " sweet oblivious anti-
dote" may yet induce her to forget her griefs, ancient and
of modern date ; the " perilous stuff " which weighs upon
her breast may yet be removed, and in her exultant
strength she may hail " the wearing of the green " as
the emblem of a new hope and the sign of a renovated
youth.

Yes, " many more !" To name but one : National
Education—a measure really national, pervading the whole
people, and leaving in the shade the meagre proposals of
the present Government —would clear the way for that
long and fair train of further reforms already reflected to
us in the glass of the future.
When we reflect that for twenty-six years Wilberforce
and Clarkson laboured without success to abolish the
slave trade, and that twenty-four years more elapsed before
slavery was extinguished by law—when we remember that,
although for more than a century the House of Stuart
have ceased to compete for the Crown, the grievances of
Ireland are yet waiting for full redress—that for twenty.
six years the cause of Catholic emancipation met with de-
feat at county elections while its leaders were ostracised—
we must acknowledge how slow and feeble is the progress
towards knowledge and justice, even of the noble-hearted
people of this free country, When we perceive how many
there are even now who fail to feel for the ill-used Irish-
man as their predecessors failed to feel for the enslaved
African, we must own that we still shrink from the light
of day.

" What from this barren being do we reap?
Our Senses 'narrow, and our reason frail;
Life short, and truth a gem that loves the deep,

And all 'things weighed in custom's falsest scale ;
Opinion an omnipotence, whose veil

'Mantles the earth with darkness, until right
And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale
Lest their own judgments should become too bright,
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too
much
•
--I remain always yours faithfully, RUSSELL.