The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT .f th. PUBLIC JOURNALS.

7IION TEA 111111CINO PAPPIS OP TIIIITIRDAY.
GLOBE.—The surplus revenue which is now at
the disposal of the Minister, is regarded by the landed
interest as a circumstance which may be rendered
subservient to their own special advantage. The re-
peal of the malt-tax is now agitated by the land-
owners, and the aid of the farmers is invoked to
press this relief to the agricultural interests upon
the Government and the Legislature. Thus the
surplus revenue which the income-tax has wrung
from the community, and of which the agricul-
turists have paid a lesser proportion than the other
classes, is to be at once swallowed up. The removal
of a tax in which the agriculturists have an imme-
diate and special interest, and from the abolition of
which the other classes of the community would derive
only a remote and doubtful benefit, is sought to be
procured by this enormous sacrifice of the general in-
terests. We must, however, guard against miscon-
struction and misrepresentation. We should be glad to
see the malt-tax repealed, if the price to be paid for the
repeal were not exorbitant in amount and unequal in
its distribution. The income•tax—that iniquitous
and. unnecessary imposition, still oppresses the nation
by its unequally-distributed weight, and insults it by
the inquisitorial investigations into their affairs, to
which it especially subjects the merchant and the
trader. The coming session will compel Sir R. Peel
to develope his views and intentions respecting the
moshfieations or removal of this odious tax—a burden
for which, it is now made evident, there was no real
necessity; as the deficiency for which it was to provide
would have been made up from other sources. That
Sir Robert Peel would be quite willing to purchase
an extension of the term for which the income-tax
was originally imposed by a repeal of a considerable
amount of taxation, there is little doubt. The income-
tax is prolific—is collected with considerable ease—
and Ogees at the disposal of the Minister so con-
siderable an amount of surplus revenue, on which he
can rely, that there is good reason to believe that Sir
Robert Peel would not be iadisposed to relinquish the
malt-tax, or any other tax of equal amount, if he
could obtain, as an equivalent, the extension or
perpetuation of the income-tax. It is even probable
that he would propitiate the agriculturists, and re-
enlist them in his support, by yielding to their
wishes in this matter. For these reasons we deem
it necessary to draw the attention of the public
generally to this subject, and to state our objections
to the movement among the agriculturists to obtain
the repeal of the malt-tax at the present time, and at so
great a sacrifice of the general interests of the cowl.
try. If the surplus tevenue—as it appears in the official
returns of the quarter and year ending October 10,
1844—be referred to, it will be seen that the malt
duty is *early equivalent to that sum. Repeal the
malt-tax, and the case of the Minister in his attempts
to continue the odious income-tax is established. The
surplus revenue is swallowed up ; and, as the re-
venue for the coming year would be minus the
amount of the malt duty, the income-tax must be re-
tained to supply the deficiency thus created. The
advocates of malt-tax repeal will remind us that the
abolition of a tax is not necessarily a sacrifice of
revenue. The sum remitted on one article of con-
sumption will, we shall be told, by reducing the
price of the article to the consumers, find its way
back to the Exchequer from other sources. The
consumers of beer and British spirits, having less to
'pay for those articles, will be able to expend more
on other exciseable commodities ; and thus the con-
sumer will be benefited, and yet the revenue
will not sustain loss. That this argument
is valid, and would, to a certain extent, be
borne out by the result, we believe, and are
willing to admit. But we must, in such a case, look
not merely to sound financial principles, but to the
general policy of the party in power. These princi-
ples
were propounded by the late Ministry ; and, by
successfully opposing their practical application, Sir
Sir
Peel managed to obtain the Government.
Sir Robert Peel provides for present and prospective
deciencies in another way. His plan is to meet
financial exigences by increased taxation. The know-
ledge of this fact is sufficient to caution the public
against indulging any expectation that Sir Robert
Peel will relinquish the income-tax, and repeal the
inalt-tax. At all events, let the former be removed
before any appeal be made to Parliament for the
abolition of the latter.
STANDARD.—WhiIe we have to lament the
Apot:tacy of a few fops and fribbles in our own
Ci:urch, we tre happy to know that we are receiving
in pi :`table exchange some of the elite of the Church
of Ron;e—men who abandon their profession not in
a thirsty rirsuit of suplice services, and an admira-
tion of absurd antics; but from an inward conviction
that the faith arid practices of the fallen Church are
not the faith and pzactices inculcated in the Gospel.
We lately mentioned the case of Mr. Macnamara—a
man ,to whom his neighbours, of all ranks and re-
ligious persuasions, give the highest character for
probity and purity of life, and who declares that he
has been led to the studies and convictions that caused
him to abandon the Church of Rome by the beastly
immoralities of the Irish Romanist clergy, and the
protection extended to those beastly immoralities
by the Irish Romanist bishops, one of whom sought to
' bribe him, Macnamara, to silence upon the point, by an
offer of high promotion. This is not a proposition on a
point of doctrine, upon which a limn may be mistaken.
It is evidence in the matter of fact, by a compe-
tot Ond an unexceptionable vvitnesa. We have
seen no attempt to answer Mr. Macnamara's heavy
clihrge. In Germany, too, " the straw begins to
move," as will be seen by the following extract from
the Jowl des Debats of Saturday :—" A
Catholic' priest, rector of a village of the upper
Pro;tince ..of Silesia, has published a letter on the
subjelst of the tunic of Treves—this letter has ap-
pearid in tniny of the journals of Germany, and
an iinpresgon of no less than fifty thousand copies
of iVlisci been taken from one publisher of Leipsic
in eight days. The Chapter of Breslau has cen-
sured the priest, who will be probably dismissed.
It has been proposed to open a subscription for
the compensation of Mr. Ronge, the gentleman in
question, his parish is called Laura llutte."
The Journal de.s Debats gives a translation
of the letter which has caused this great sen-
sation in Germany. It is an earnest and eloquent
protest against the exhibition by Arnoldi, Bishop of
Treves, of some rag which he offers for public worship,
as part of our blessed Lord's raiment. The letter has
a good deal of the plainness and vigour of Luther's
earlier style, but with much more of classical polish.

FREE TRADE IN ALL THINGS.
(From the Struggle.)
There are very few thabseem to understand, or are
-willing to trace, the workings of monopoly. It
always shields itself under the plea of supporting
some feeble class whose interest the public should
consider more than their own. "Oh you should
stop French shoes, for if they are allowed to
corns, whatever is to become of our shoemakers ?"
" You should stop foreign gloves, foreign silks, and
all that, or the people employed in making these
articles wil be ruined." Free-traders, to be con-
sistent, connot lend themselves to stop any of these;
for they maintain that it is the interest of the publio
to " buy in the cheapest market," both as to grain and
every other article. And if they cannot show that
such freedom of imports is the greatest advantage to
the greatest number, they ought at once to abandon
their principles. Let us, for instance, take shoes
as a specimen. Suppose that, quality for quality,
we can get foreign shoes for eight shillings for which
we now pay ten shillings. I don't suppose we can
in reality get them any cheaper than the English
shoemakers can sell them for, having the advantage
of a market at home ; but, for illustration's sake, we
vill suppose so. The shoe maker is a loser by this
free trade, but all the shoe wearers are gainers, and
they, of course, are the most numerous class. Nay,
we shsn see that others are gainers as well as they.
What becomes of all the two shillings saved at every
pair of shoes ? These are not thrown away, but ex-
pended with other artisans in purchasing additional
articles. The shillings will soon be converted into
new umbrellas, new pots or spoons, new shirts or
sheets, new books, or perhaps into an adtional pair
of shoes in the year. Persons engaged in the manu-
facture of these articles are sure to get the difference.
Free importation, which is nothing more than free
competition, I believe is beneficial to all the parties
concerned, and to the shoemaker among the rest. It
is almost certain to set his wits to work, to enable
him to make as good and as cheap an article as his
Parisian competitor, who has to pay all the ex-
penses of import; and if he find out that one disad-
vantage he labours under in the contest is dear eating,
lie will be ready, as he ought, to enforce the principle
of competition in this also. To the purchaser of the
article it must necessarily be an advantage. To the
country at large it is equally so. Every country gains
in proporion as it possesses itself of the greatest
amount of necessaries and enjoyments by the least
amount of labour. Whatever quantity of shoos are
imported, they roust be paid for by something made
in this country ; that is, the labour expended on shoe-
=eking in trance must be exchanged for the labour
expended on something in England, say linen yarn,
or whatever else it may be. Whether the linen yarn
he sent direct to Franee,exported
to whether it be
le some other place for gold, and that gold paid to
France, it amounts to thsamtetrhing. The cheaper
eh bete
oes can be got, and the it must be to the
• whole country. And it' the Englishgenius
stibliravuseoolaateit to
s.
far shod-making this competition will
their advantage 1 if not, they ,w
into other branches of lal;:icr whereto they reall- excel.
I believe we want nothing but perfect freedom te,
bring out the capabilities of every t.awitry—freedon;
. to carry our labour to any part of the world we
please--fraedom to the whole world to bring their
labour to us--and freedom for every workman
at home to apply his genius and talent in any depart-
runt of enterprise he thinks proper, without control.