The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-22 00:00:00

arlitiTiiTHE PUBLIC JOURNALS

There is nothing, says the Times, cheering In Count
Cambray-Digny's financial statement for the kingdom of
Italy. The imposition of the grist tax is the only intelli-

gible proposal, the only one likely to bring any very cer-
tain or very permanent relief to the Italian Treasury. The

eeficit for 1869 is estimated at little less than £10,000,000•

Of this the grist tax is expected to provide for £3,000,000•
By other economical measures, chiefly administrative, the
deficit will be brought down to about £3,000,000, "to be
covered," says the Minister, " by the development of com-
mercial prosperity." There is nothing new, nothing con-

soling in all this. It is what we have heard every year

from the Count's predecessors. When the Minister shall
tell us how the taxes are to be collected, we shill believe

in his ability to make both ends meet. When a
balance shall be established between the revenue

and the expenditure, the restoration of public credit
will be certain and immediate. The liabilities

of Italy are not in themselves desperate. The Cons°li.
dated Debt does not exceed in round numbers £250,000,000,

with an annual charge of £14,000,000, or about three-
eighths of the general revenue. The floating debt,
including the paper currency, may be computed at
£32,000,000, against which may be set the value of
Church property, amounting to £40,000,000. With a
capital amounting to £40,000,009, a debt of £32,000,000
ought to be easily paid off, no matter on what principle
the liquidation may have to be effected. We said
not long since that the Italian Parliament has hardly
ever discussed a Budget. We may add that it has

hardly ever voted a tax, that it has hardly ever intro-
duced an economy. Had it not been for the temporary
exercise of unconstitutional powers by the Government,
legislation would scarcely have moved one step forward
in Italy since 1859. The Minister of the Interior, it
is announced, has now bills on hand for the general re-
organisation of the central and provincial administration.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to introduce
reforms in every branch of his own department. We
know what all this comes to. The Prefectures, which are
more than sixty, should be reduced to less than thirty.
Equally sweeping measures ought to be adopted for the
abolition of the many superfluous tribunals, universities,
and other parasitical institutions. Bills to that effect have
repeatedly been laid before Parliament. In the abstract,
such schemes meet with the applause of the people and of
their representatives. But when the matter is brought to
a practical issue it is found that every man is ready only
to sacrifice his neighbour. The common welfare clashes
with a variety of petty local and private interests. The
Minister ends by finding himself alone against a multi.
tude ; and bills that have been brought forward with a
view to retrenchment often lead only to an increase of ex-
travagance. Wretched as the Government has hitherto
been, it has been hopelessly hampered by the wrangling,
time-killing, self-stultifying Legislature.
The Herald, speaking on the grist tax, says that the
notion of making up the balance of the deficit by au
increase in the produce of the taxes to the extent of three
millions beyond the additional six millions imposed strikes
it as singularly chimerical. Italy is taxed already, with-
out the grinding tax and the addition to her income tax,
not, perhaps, above her strength, but certainly above what
her people will contentedly bear. It must be remembered
that the events of the last two years have not failed to
exercise upon Italian industry their natural effects. To
anticipate any great revival of commercial prosperity with
a depreciated currency, with a feeling prevailing almost
everywhere of uneasiness and insecurity, and with the
certainty that foreign capital is not at present available to
fructify her resources, is little short of madness. The

result in a highly-taxed country—and for her circum-
stances Italy is now highly taxed—of imposing a new and
heavy tax, is to diminish the product of most of the old
taxes.

The Morning Post considers that the Emperor of Austria
nas undoubtedly adopted the wisest course in establishing

a constitutional Government in his dominions. Still,
however, it must be admitted that he has very up-hill
work before him. Financially considered the empire is
bankrupt. Specie is almost unknown. An inconvertible
currency has driven gold and silver completely oat of cir-
culation, and even a cigar is not purchased without the
transfer of a note which represents nothing more than
three-halfpence of our coinage. Specie is only to he pur-
chased at a loss of about twenty-five per cent. of the paper
currency, and the prices of commodities are necessarily
raised in order to counterbalance the depreciation. There
are few countries in Europe in which more abundant
opportunities are afforded for the indestment of capital,
but foreigners naturally hesitate about sinking their
money, much less making loans, when the State confesses
itself unable to pay the notes which are issued by itself.
Still, the only guarantee which, under such circumstance;
the Government can give, is now offered in the shape of a
political system under which every individual will not
only feel interested in upholding the credit of the State,
but will have the direct means of taking care that such
credit shall be maintained.

The Daily News, in an article on the release of Mr. Trait
on his professions of strictly lawful intentions, says tha
his arrest was a precautionary measure, and any elaborate
discussion as to the possibility of holding an American
citizen accountable in the United Kingdom for speeches
made against this country in New York is rendered un-
necessary. If such a right exists, it is evidently one
which our Government would only exercise in extreme
cases. Train, however, cannot reasonably complain of his
brief detention. Knowing that the Habeas Corpus was
suspended in Ireland, he resolved to proceed thither, and
did his best to notify the British Government that a
terrible enemy was on his way to its shores. A man
who, by his own confession, had put down all the generals
and public men in America, from Grant to Jay Cooke,
was not to be despised. Mr. Train, however, has given
his word, and we are all safe again. His ideas have doubt-
less been considerably clarified and corrected since Friday
evening, and if he should forget what he has learned he
may at any time be re-arrested. He had better, however,
go back to the place from which he came. There are those
in the United States who would believe and cheer him if
he described" his visit as a successful and brilliant cam-
paign. We understand that he claims £lOO,OOO damages
of the Queen's Government for his three days' detention.
It seems a moderate sum to ask, considering that he might
just as easily have made it half a million. There is
nothing treasonable, however, in asking for money.
In answer to the argument used by the Bishop of
L )ndon against the consecration of a new bishop in Natal,
:hat such a consecration would be of doubtful legality as
no person can become a bishop without the Royal license,
the Standard argues that this applies only to consecrations
to English dioceses, or to dioceses legally constituted by the
Crown in our colonies. Otherwise the Crown has no
rights in the matter. This is the case in all colonies which
possess a local representative Government. The Crown
cannot assign dioceses or territorial jurisdiction, and there-
fore declines either to issue its mandate or grant its letters
patent. The consecration of Archdeacon Bethune as
Bishop of Niagara is a case in point. The Metropolitan of
the Church in Canada applied to the Crown for its license,
to enable him to proceed to the consecration, but the Duke
of Newcastle, the then Colonial Secretary, replied, that
in consequence of the Westbury judgment it appeared that
the Crown had no right to issue its license : that it would
be contrary to its dignity to assume a power which it did
lot possess, and that the bishops were quite competent to
proceed to consecrate without it. Bishop Bethune is, as-
tounding as it may seem to Dr. Tait, a living example of
the possibility of the Church electing and consecrating her
ewn bishop without the intervention of a Minister of State-
it seems to the Standard that the Natal case is exactly
Parallel with that of Canada, and that the proposed con_
secretion can hardly involve any of those appalling conse-
quences anticipated by the Bishop of London.
Mr. Seely, it will be remembered, last session, attacked
the Admiralty accounts on the ground that they totally
raisrepresented the cost of the work done in the dockyards.
His
argument was, that if any private shipbuilder had to
'wild a vessel, he would consider as part of the expense of
building her a number of items which the Admiralty had
either partially or wholly excluded. One of the ships
selected by Mr. Seely in order to shew the untrustworthi.
ness of the accounts, was the Frederick William, which he
maintained had cost the country £281,694 or about £.30,000
more than was admitted by the Accountant-General of
the Navy. Now, from a paragraph in the Controller of
the Navy's "submission" to the board on the 29th of
January 1867, the Star learns that this same Frederick
William was begun as a sailing three-decker in 1841, was
converted into a screw ship between 1859 and 1862, main-
tained in the first division of the reserve between 1862 and
1864, and in 1861 for the first time, went tG sea. In other
words, it was not till twenty-three years after she was first
laid down that she left harbour. It is perfectly clear,
therefore, as clear as if we had all the office records
before us, that the Admiralty for twenty - three
years did not know its own mind abant this vessel,
'nd came to, perhaps, half-a-dozen different decisions
et :ut her.

The creditors of Overend, Gurney, and Co. (Limited)
may legitimately indulge in some self-gratulation in
the prospect of so soon receiving in full every shilling of
their claims. But to the shareholders the Daily Telegraph
I.,intB out that, while their position might have been
‘vorse, it might also have been much better. Little more
t an twelve months ago they might have got the creditors
to accept as a final discharge, in a few prompt instalments,
that amount which has now been doled out in small and
nearly imperceptible driblets. But the pugnacious spirits
of the Defence Association thought otherwise, scorning all
compromise, and claiming entire immunity. It will not
say that they were morally wrong in raising the question
at the time and in the way they did ; but as a matter of
expediency their course was about the worst possible. In
repudiating. any liability whatever they compelled the
other side' in self-defence, to stand by the. letter of the
bond, and in the gradual embitterment of the struggle
every chance of reconciliation became boneless.