The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-09 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1850.

The members of the medical profession and of the
naval service are alike under great obligations to Captain
BOLDER() for his motion of last evening—the first be-
cause he has rescued them from the degradation to
which they have been so long subjected by the Lords
of the Admiralty, who, with the true Morgue aristo-
cratique, are never so well pleased as when
they can trample on a gentleman of intellectual
attainments who happens to be not aristocratically con-
nected, and the second because he has done his best

to secure to them the services of a superior class of
medical men, who have hitherto avoided entering the
navy because they
.do not choose to subject them-
selves to the insults and " larks" of the boys,
Rugby, Eton, and Harrow boys, though they might
be, into whose society they are, under existing regu-
lations, exclusively thrown. It has long been a sub-
ject of complaint that assistant-surgeons in the navy;
men who must have attained the age of twenty-two
years at least before they can offer themselves for
examination for their diploma, are located in her MA-
JESTY'S ships in the cock-pit with the midshipmen, the
majority of whom are young gentlemen of from 12 to 18
years of age. The matter has been frequently brought
before the House of Commons, and last evening Captain
BOLDER() succeeded in carrying the following reso-
lution by a majority of 48 against 40 :—" That the
accommodation provided for the assistant-surgeons on
board her MAJESTY'S ships of war is inadequate and
insufficient for securing the full benefit of their pro-
fessional service."

Nothing could be more puerile than the arguments
adduced by the officials in opposition to the motion.
Admiral BERKELEY contented himself with declaring
that it was not for the advantage of assistant-
surgeons that they should mess in the ward-room,
that is to say, it is more advantageous for them to
mess with boys than with men, and then tauntingly
asked at what schools assistant-surgeons were
brought up to make them one jot superior to the
midshipmen. The education, without which a sur-
geon cannot enter on the duties of his profession, is
as superior to the education at Eton, Harrow, and
Rugby as can well be imagined. At those schools Latin
and Greek, and Latin and Greek alone, are taught, and
very few of the alumni of those noted schools can
write or even spell correctly their own language.
The assistant-surgeon, on the contrary is, in
addition to being an excellent classical scholar,
a perfect master of his own language and of French,
and, in the majority of instances, of German, and is
moreover necessarily a chemist, an anatomist, and
well acquainted with the various branches of natural
philosophy, but, unfortunately, he is not a man
of aristocratic connexions, and then fore he
is placed in the cockpit to be the butt of the Lord
JOHNS and Lord THOMASES, fresh from Rugby, Eton,
and Harrow. Sir FRANCIS BARING declared that fie
accepted the proposition, but was afraid it could not
be carried into effect. The wish, not to say the foregone
conclusion of Sir FRANCIS BARING, is father to this
fear, and this declaration of the First Lord of the
Admiralty is about one of the most contemptuous
pieces of impertinence towards the House of Commons
of which a Minister was ever guilty. Should
the House refuse to vote the salaries of the First
Lord and his colleagues until they shall have de-
visul some practicable plan for carrying out the
wishes of Parliament, the dull edge of the inven-
tion of Sir FRANCIS BARING will be whetted
in a marvellously short space of time,
and that accommodation will be at once
found which is now declared to be imprac-
ticable. As Mr. ilumE very justly observed,
" where there is a will there is a way ;" and it is a
want of will, and a want of will only, that prevents
this necessary accommodation from being afforded to
the assiatant•surgeons.

It has become but too painfully apparent that
nothing is to be expected from the Commissioners of
Land-tax for the removal of the unjust, unequal, and
oppressive apportionment of the impost on the dif-
ferent divisions of the county of Middlesex, or, indeed,
of any other county or district throughout the king-
dom. These gentlemen appear fully determined to
travel in the beaten track on which their predecessors
originally entered, to increase and perpetuate the
mischiefs which sprung up through successive ages.
Their decision is rendered final and conclusive, no
appeal is permitted, and they can therefore pronounce
anyjudgment,however absurd or indefensible, without
the possibility of its being subjected to review or re-
versal. They have accordingly confirmed the former
assessments, letting the wealthy districts escape on
payment of a halfpenny, a farthing, or even half a
farthing, in the pound, as in the cases of Paddington,
St. Pancras, and Marylebone ; while the poorer lo-
calities, as St. Andrew's, St. George the Martyr,
and St. Paul's, Covent-garden, must pay one shilling
or upwards in the pound. This is equity and justice
with a vengeance; and yet one gentleman, who had
been half a century a Commissioner, and who must
therefore have had ample experience as to the princi-
ples on which their decisions were founded, thought
proper to designate the attempt to remedy the ac-
knowledged grievance as " of a revolutionary charac-
ter," and had even the hardihood to deny that there
was any "inequality in the land-tax." Under such
circumstances it is scarcely necessary to say that the
Marylebonians—as they delighted to term themselves
—carried all before them at the last meeting, held the
4th instant, and that the less prejudiced members of
the body were overruled by a decisive majority of
more than four to one, the numbers being—for con-
firming the former assessment, 31 ; against it, 7.
The evil will, however, work its own cure.
It will no longer be possible for the Chancellor
of the Exchequer to evade the subject by
declaring " that all the means which the law
and circumstances allowed have not been ex-
hausted." Every possible step has been taken to ob-
tain justice, and that justice has been deliberately
and decisively withheld. The Commissioners have
refused to exercise the powers with which they were
entrusted, and Parliament must now legislate fur
the entire country, without reference to the anti-
quated opinions of these " learned pundits."
The question, therefore, now to be considered is,
the nature and character of the new enactments,
and what amount is to be levied under
the ancient tax. Will the spirit in which it
was originally framed be carried out, and a tax
of 41. in the pound be levied on the annual value
of all real estates and personal property, and 20s. in
the 1001. on all unproductive personalty ? or will there
be an equal rate of ls. in the pound on all property
throughout the country ? or, finally, will the present
amount only be collected by an equal rate throughout
th e country ?—which would make the charge some-
thing about 2jd. in the pound in every district. The
a 1 ova appear to be the only alternatives, for
we can scarcely suppose that AliDisters or
ti. Parliament would venture to abolish the
charge, and merge it in the " general property-tax,"
es proposed by the Commissioner of " half a century's
i'anding ;" or even to reduce the cost of redemption
5.0 m more than 35 to 25 years' purchase, as sug-
gt's ted by Mr. SIMPKIN.
a 'he Hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. MACGREGOR),
when t speaking of the legislative error committed in
refer, Ince to the redemption, truly said " that there
never was a grosser blunder than the principle for