The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-17 00:00:00

lit ontin nm

LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 17, 1845.

We are glad to perceive that the objectionable na-
ture of the Board of Trade Railways Committee is
not likely to be withdrawn from the notice of the
Legislature. In the course of a somewhat animated
conversation which passed between the Earl of DAL-
nousii and Lord BROUGHAM, the latter Peer ex-
pressed an opinion, on Thuraday night last, confirm-
ing, in express terms, that which our readers may
remember we have, in many former articles, endea-
voured to enforce on their most serious consideration.
The Noble and Learned Lord said that " a judica
ture, like that which was exercised by the Board of
Trade over railway schemes, was a judicature
abhorrent to the constitution and odious to the whole
country:' The transactions out of which the con-
versation arose amply justified these misgivings as to
the working of the very anomalous body in question.
In reference to the several lines projected between
London and York, which had been under the consi-
deration of, and reported upon by, the Railway Corn-
n:issioners, Lord BROUGHAM wished to know
" whether the Noble head of the Board could tell him
on %%hat day, and at what hour of that day (for this
was a most important element in the case) their deci-
sion on the lines he spoke of was come to? It was well
known at twelve o'clock on Tuesday noon that the
London and York' had been decided against, and
the consequence was that the shares of the other two
projects f.,r such railway had risen two and three per
cent. premium long before the Gazette announcing
the decision was published." _ This was a question in-
volving what the Noble and Learned Lord declared to be
" a fact, communicated to him by a very important
merchant and broker." We ourselves alluded, not
long since, to a similar statement having been broadly
made by Mr. WAKLET, in the House of Commons,
and having received no contradiction—distinctly as
that was challenged—from her MAJESTY'S Ministers
at the time. It can admit of no doubt that the
subject of Lord BROUGHAM'S question on Thursday
last directly involved the character of the Board of
Trade Railways CommL tee. If the charge be true,
they cannot shelter themselves from the imputation
of a gross breach of duty to those who appointed
them (and who we still take leave to contend, paren-
thetically, had no title or power to make such an ap-
pointment), except at the expense of their character
for common management and ordinary official dis-
cretion. If the Board can vindicate itself from
having, in the conduct of its affairs, manifested
a lack of common business-like management and
official discretion ; this it can do only by throwing
overboard all pretensions to a strict, impartial, and un-
compromising discharge of its very responsible duty.
A main ingredient of the instructions upon which it
acted was, that its deliberations should be with closed
doors, and its decisions first promulgated in the
London Gazette. If the Earl of DALHOUSIE and
his brother Commissioners are prepared to show that
no premature communication of the Board's decision
in this case, prior to the notice in the Gazette, was
made by any parties cognisant of the Board's secret
deliberations ; they, the Noble Earl and his Col-
leagues, will only have to disprove the averment of
Lord BROUGHAM, that the intelligence which ought
not to have been known beyond the Board table,
till the coming out of the Gazette on Tuesday even-
ing, was already actually and largely operated upon
on the Stock Exchange by twelve on Tuesday noon.
Now, was tt is assertion disproved by Lord DAL-
HOUSIE ? Ills Lordship replied to Lord BROUGHAM
thus—" The fact was, that the precise time at which
the decision was made was in the afternoon. The
Board on that day was held in the afternoon ; and,
therefore, it was utterly impossible that the rise in
the shares could have taken place with the Board of
Trade."

This is really one of the most remarkable non se-
quiturs that ever illustrated Parliamentary logic.
When Doctor JouNsoN, in one of his stoutest fits of
critical scepticism, ridiculed the notion, not only of the
genuineness of the Ossianic Poems, but hinted his
conviction that the whole story which MACPHERSON
had got up of their discovery, was an imposture, a zea-
lous Highlander undertook to satisfy the scrupulous
lexicographer of the veritable antiquity of the poetry
awl the integrity of its translator and editor, by
triumphantly offering to produce to the learned author
of the " Rambler," the eery box in which the poems
were found. Just so much relation to the real issue
between the public and the Board of Trade has Lord
DALHOUSIE'S attempted refutation of the charge
against the Board of Trade Railways Committee.
If there were no possibility of Commissioners indivi-
dually communicating one to another, prior to the
meeting of the Board, what was the opinion or re-
port upon a given line, which he should be dispos—o
concur in—if there were no possibility that others,
more or less in the confidence of such Com Missioners,
should communicate to parties out of doors, for their
ov.vn nurposes, the ascertained resolutions the Com-
missioners would come to in any such given
case, and which resolution, they
.would thus
have had the means of certainly arriving at—
then there might have been some force or reason in

Lord DALHOUSIE'S explanation, and some ground
for the inference he so complacently founds upon it.
But since there were these, and, by possibility, many
other such mean, through which this official intelli-
gence might clandestinely transpire, the Noble Earl's
intended diFproof of the charge announced by Lord
BROUGHAM amounts to an utter failure. It is a shot
which, so far from hitting its intended object, is ab-
solutely fired in another direction. It is a clumsy
plea of an alibi which leaves the case it wa3 meant to
support ten times more damaged than it would have
been had no such plea been offered. We have never
been satisfied with the explanation in Mr. O'BRIEN'S
case, in all its bearings. But if that could scarcely run
on all fours, this of Lord DALHOUSIE'S is absolutely
lame and crippled. We have no doubt that Lord
BROUGHAM will soon find an ample case for the mo-
tion he pledges himself to bring forward, at an early
day, for the revision and extensive modification of the
present constitution and powers of the Board of Trade
Railways Commission.

The Property and Income-tax Renewal Bill has
passed the House of Commons. All that could have
been hypothetically urged against it on the argument
derived from its inequality, its anticipation in peace of
the resources which should have been preserved inviolate
for the exigencies of war, the tendency of its operation
to repress exertion or industry both in material and
intellectual enterprises or occupations ;—all this has
been conceded by its Ministerial supporters—and the
House of Commons have passed the measure without
even dividing on the question of the passing. What-
ever objections could be sustained to the vexation and
inquisitorial nature of the machinery, by which alone
it has hitherto been possible to assess or to collect it ; to
the lowness of the point or extremity at which the amount
of income liable to pay this impost shall commence; to the
hardship of that liabilityon the recipient of 150/. per annum,
from which the recipient of 149/. 19s. lld., or any lesser
sum per annum, is wholly exempt ; to the gross injus-
tice of mulcting, in the same proportion, the income al-
ready below the demands of the most modest, or even
needy household, and the incomes of many superfluous
thousands ;—all these have been taken, discussed, and
overruled. Yet the Bill has passed the House of Com-
mons. The Premier, when he first brought the scheme
forward three years ago, admitted that any tax was an
evil. It has been admitted since, by his own partisans
and colleagues, that this tax has about it all that evil
which belongs to a severe impost, without even taking
into account these aggravations of them to which we
have just referred. And yet it has been adopted by the
Commons after defeating, in the most signal manner,
every proposition for its amendment and modification,
however reasonable or equitable it might be. But
the last debate elicited certain other acknowledgments
of inherent defects and vices in the working of
this tax which make it almost incredible that
even on Wednesday night, at the eleventh hour, as
Sir ROBERT PEEL or Mr. GOULBURN would say—on
the penultimate proposition of the third reading—or
even the final question " that the Bill do pass"—some
vigorous stand should not have been made on the part
of some independent Members for the institution of
searching inquiry into the matters which had then been
brought under their notice.
What were these ? There was, first, the strongly
propounded hypothesis of Sir ROBERT INGLIS—the hal-
mate and confidential friend, supporter, ally, of the
Premier especially, and of his Government generally—
" that the income-tax was meant to be perpetual." This
hypothesis was neither denied, nor objected to, by the
Government or by the Premier. If ever " silence gives
consent," the inference is irresistible under such circum-
stances as these. Is it the desire and meaning of the
House of Commons that this tax shall be perpetual ?
How do they propose to answer for such consent to the
electoral constituency whenever they shall be sent
back to give an account of their stewardship? In
the second place, Mr. WAHLEY brought forward
the case of Mr. FIELDEN, the late benevolent
Member for Oldham, whose name is associated with all
recollections that are honourable to the integrity of the
head of a vast manufacturing concern, and the extensive
charity of a capitalist whom prosperity has never
made oblivious of the humbler beginnings from whence
it has raised him. It may be remembered thet
three years ago the Messrs. FIELDEN protested against
the assessment which had be en made upon them
in respect of income from the profits of their
establishment. They demurred to the assessment
on the very reasonable ground that, upon an average
of the three years on which the assessment was to be
taken, their works had been carried on at a loss, instead
of any profit. After a fruitless correspondence, the pro-
test was overruled, and their property was disirained
upon for the of iginal assessment. Since this, the Local
Commissioners have thought proper to assess the profits
of their concern at 24,000/. per annum—an assessment
which, it may be imagined, they at once disputed. The
Local Commissioners, finding that Messrs. FIELDEN in-
tended to resort to the means of legal appeal against
their assessment, requested Mr. Joust FIELDEN to allow
the matter to stand over till after the ensuing Easter
quarter. lie did so ; and in the meantime they have
actually claimed, and propose to enforce the assessment
on profits of 24,000 i. a year, in the face of the same par-
ties' declaration to a similar effect as that made by them
,in the first instance. Mr. WARLEY might well severely
animadvert on this proceeding. It was distinguished
alike for its bad faith, its insolence, and its
inquisitorial oppressiveness. The Chancellor of
the Exchequer's answer was—like the answers of Sir
JAMES GRAHAM and Sr ROBERT PEEL himself, on all
questions addressed to them in respect of the gross mis-
conduct of Government functionaries of any kind:—" the
Chancellor of the Exchequer knew nothing about the
case. It was the first time he had heard of it." Doubt-
less. So trivial a matter as the assessment of profits at
24,0001. a year, where the parties were prepared to show
they had worked rather to a loss than any profit at all,
had LO pretensions of gravity sufficient to disturb the
epicurean repose of the gods of Dawning-street Be
this as it may, Mr. GOULBURN'S auiswe•r was
reedy and conciliatory to a singular gree. •' If
the Local Commissioners were in error, it was to be re-
gretted that Mr. FIELLEN had not personally waited on
the Chief Commissioners under the Act in London, w ho
would have given hies every assistance in getting it rec-
tified." A I retry dilated expression this " error, " if'
Mr. FIELDEN'S complaint be well grounded, for such an
outrageous and fraudulent proceeding as the assessment
in such case amounts to on the part of the Local Com-
missioners. The remedy, too, so simple. Mr. FIELDEN
we uld have only to come up from his "dear, native vale
of Todmorden," as we have heard him call it—from one
extremity of Lancashire to the capital, in Middlesex—to
obtain that justice which it has been sometimes con-
tended, "is virtually to be had at every man's door."
Yet even this case does not so powerfully illustrate the
intolerable and unconstitutional operation of such a sys-
tem of taxation as the very significant fact distinctly
stated by Mr. BRIGHT, that the most shameful cases of
arbitrary and excessive assessment occurred in the coun-
try, owing to the Income-tax Commissioners, in
many instances the same individuals as the land-tax or
other Commissioners of the district, who, from that
position, often exercised their power to annoy and over-
charge in the most unscrupulous Manner their rivals in
trade or their opponents in politics. Yet still this Bill
has passed—we might have almost said, unanimously—
the House of Commons. Is there any hope of getting
its odious injustice modified, at least, elsewhere ?

The accounts from Zurich are to the 10th instant.
when the Diet was still sitting. The note of M.
GUIZOT had caused much excitement among the Liberal
Members, who regard it as put forth in aid of the
Jesuits rather than for the purpose of calming the ex-
citement. A correspondent, who writes from Zurich,
on the 9th, gives the following remarks made by some
of the speakers:—

" M. Kera, the deputy for Thurgau, was the first who
alluded to the subject. He said that the communication was,
to say the least of it, strange, considering that the French
Ministry must have beenperfectly aware that the instructions
given to the deputies relative to the corps francs, are ahnost
unanimous in favour of the suppression of th at force. M. Drouey,
the deputy for the canton of Vaud, went into a lengthened
examination of the dispatch, which he considered as a direct
intervention on the part of the French Government in the
internal affairs of the Confederation, which ought to rouse
the feelings of the country. M. Neuhaus, the Deputy for
Berne, also considered the dispatch as an insult to the Swiss
nation, and an unwarrantabla interference on the part of a
foreign Government. He demanded of M. Mounson, the
President, what answer he had made to the note. The
l'resident replied, that no one was more anxious than he was
to repel anything that could militate against the liberty
and independence of the nation; but he would not allow his
anxiety to respect the susceptibility of his countrymen to go
so far as to compromise their relation with foreign Powers
who were friends and allies of Switzerland, by misconstruing
the intentions of those Powers in lending their advice. The
Deputy for Bale accused the Jesuit party of having begged
the dispatch from the French Government as a means of de-
feating their adversaries. This accusation was strongly re-
pelled by the Jesuit party, and especially the deputy for
Neufchatel, who said that the position of those with whom he
acted was a painful one, because, though disapproving of the
conduct of their adversaries, they could not avoid being in
some degree involved in the severe censures which that con-
duct had drawn upon the whole Confederation. The Diet
then took up the question of the corps francs, and after a long
discussion the subject was referred to the same Committee
as has &ready been appointed to consider the question of the
Jesuits."

The Cazate
.cire Bas!e draws the following comparison
between Lord ABERDEEN'S note and M. GUIZOT'S

" Whilst the former breathes sentiments of kindly feeling
towards the Confederation, although England is less inte-
rested in Swiss affairs than France, the note from M. Guizot