The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-09 00:00:00

PROPERTY TAX,

OR TAX UPON INCOMES ARISING FROM REAL AND FUNDED
PROPERTY AS COLLECTED FOR THE YEAR ENDING
APRIL 5, 1843.

SCHEDULE A.
Income. Tax.
Land, Tenements, &c., England £73,728,429 £2,150,412
Ditto for Scotland
SCHEDULE C.
Annuities, Divic'ends, &c., Eng-
lr nd
Ditto for Scotland

£113,226,982 £3,271,248
INCOME TAX,

OR TAX UPON PROFITS, SALARIES, AND OTHER PRECA.

RIOUS SOURCES OF INCOME.
SCHEDULE D.

Income. Tax.
Pry fits and gains, England ...£50,296,645 £1,465,985
Ditto for Scotland... ........... 1,404,287 61,765
SCHEDULE E.
Public Offices, &c., England... 8,936,831 260,657
Ditto for Scotland ............... 468,095 12,353
SCHEDuLE
Occupancy of Lands and Tene-
B.
ments, England ............... 20,486,606 298,763
Ditto for Scotland ............ .. 468,095 12,353

£B2 060,559 £2,111,876
The items given for Scotland are only approxima-
tions, but are no doubt sufficiently accurate for the
purpose of discussion. The property-tax, therefore,
yields about three millions and a quarter sterling, and
the income-tax little more than two millions. It is
tolerably certain that the expense of collecting the
latter sum is at least two or three times as great as
the expense of collecting the property-tax, and the
cost in annoyance and hardship to the community is
out of all proportion in the two cases. The obvious
suggestion from these facts is, that the property-tax
alone should be retained, and the odious and expensive
income-tax abolished. When the real state of the
case becomes familiar to the public, as it must soon be
from Parliamentary discussion, this cannot fail to be-
come the popular demand. The removal of the in-
come-tax is evidently practicable. The state of the
revenue affords no reason for its continuance. It is
no longer possible to plead for it as a necessary evil.
It is an enormous evil, now stripped of every pretence
by which a palliation can be made out. It is of no
use to say that it was imposed along with the
property-tax, and that they must stand or fall
together. This may seem very good logic to the
landed interest, but nobody else will perceive the
vii consequentia of the argument. The conjunction
of the two taxes on the same basis was originally a
rank injustice, and a rank injustice it remains. The
representations originally made of the unequal
pressure which the scheme would produce, were
overborne by Ministerial influence rather than at-
tempted to be answered. The unfairness, indeed, of
taxing the precarious income of the struggling trader,
or the still more precarious gains of professional toil,
as heavily as the rental of a landed proprietor, was so
obvious that it could not be denied ; and was only
disregarded on the plea that any juster arrangement
would be so inconvenient as to be impracticable.
This unjust burden has now been borne for three
years, and it is time that it should be got rid of. Its
complete removal is the only fair mode of settling
the question ; because an income-tax, bearing the
same proportion to the property-tax which the valise
of a trading or professional income bears to the value
of a landed or funded income of the same amount,
would yield but little over the cost of collection.—
Chronicle.

TII COTTON TRADE.
(From MEessr Cs. Wrigley and
Sons'
Circular.)
The prospects of the cotton trade at the commence-
merit of the present year were of a very cheering
character, the low prices previously current having
assisted in a very material degree to cause the revival
of trade, which then began to show itself in a very
decided manner, and raised sanguine expectations for
the future, which, it is gratifying to add, have not
been disappointed. Trade, it is true, received
rather a severe, but only a temporary check
in the two first months of the year, arising
from a sudden advance of the raw material,
caused by a mischievous, and to many of those en-
gaied in it, ruinous speculation, founded on deceptive
estimates of the last crop of cotton in America.
During the month of January the transactions in
cotton were unusually heavy, and prices of American
advanced fully id. per lb. In the week ending
Feb. 2, the speculation had reached its climax, when
the weekly sales extended to the enormous amount of
109,570 bales, of which 84,200 were taken by
speculators. Immediately after that period the day
of reckoning began ; prices had then reached the
highest point they attained during the year. The
advance was so sudden, particularly with the
rather heavy stock then in the port, that consumers,
finding that they could not realise an equivalent
advance on goods and yarn, began to lose confi-
dence, and purchase mere sparingly,
Towards the
close of February it became very apparent that the
import from America, which until then had been un-
usually light, would soon greatly increase, as the
accumulation of stocks in the American ports had
already become unwieldy, and could no longer be
held back ; added to this, towards the middle of March
the false estimates of the crop could no longer escape
detection, so that all the visionary profits of the spe-
culators speedily vanished. Prices began to recede
early in March, and, with some trifling exceptions,
they have continued to decline gradually ever since.
Prices of most descriptions of cotton are now Id.
per lb. below those current in January last, and Lid.
to lid. lower than the highest point of the year. The
result of the speculation in cotton this year, so dis-
astrous to those engaged in it, and so ruinous to the