The Sun.
London, England, 1828-03-06 00:00:00

was again under the considetation of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer a Bill to "consolidate" all the
Laws on the subject of Stamp Duties, and that it
would be brought forward at no very distant day.,--
It is to be hoped that the Chancellor and Mr. Daw-
son will make up their minds to repeal the. Receipt
Stamp Tax altogether,it is:amost:obnoxious tax and
nothing wa Lila make Mr. Goulburn more popular than
to propose and carry its repeal. Mr. O'Connell and
the Dublin Association might rail at Mr. Goulburn
in•vain, after such a concession as this to the people.
—The tub which Mr. Canning threw out to the
whale was the Finance Committee, which, after all,
may end in little or nothing. If we were Mr. Gout-
burn we would throw out a real tub to John Bull ;
such a tub as the repeal of the Receipt Stamp Tax
would cause the people to forget, almost altogether,
Corn Laws, Assessed Taxes, Free Irade, and a
great variety of other grievance, and wants.—Morn-
ing Herald.

_ The suggestions of the Finance Committee, to
be of any real use to the country, should be both
prompt and decisive. If its labours are to he a boon
to the community, the bis dat qui cito dat is strictly
applicable to the case. But when the number of
departments and the intricacy of the details are con-
sidered, which this Committee must wade through,
to say nothing of the delay necessarily arising from
collisions of opinion among them, it is almost hope-
less to suppose that anything like a thorough inves-
tigation and satisfactory result can be obtained within
the usual period of a Session. For these reasons
we agree entirely with Mr. Hume in thinking that it
would have been a much wiser plan to have had
more Committees, of fewer Members, to each of
which a distinct department, or head of inquiry,
should have been referred ; and though there might
have been some discordancy in the results, these
would have been with much more ease amalga-
mated than the country is prepared to undergo
the delay, which, we fear, may convert the
labours of this Committee, for a long time at
least, into a mere tub to amuse the whale.—
in seeking for objects of retrenchment, there are
some, we should imagine, which need not wait
for the scrutiny of this Committee. Of this
description are the Hackney-coach Commission-
ers, which, with their whole retinue of clerks, in-
spectors, &c. might be lopped off not only with-
out loss, but with manifest advantage to the public.
As far as revenue is concerned, their duties might
be transferred to the Stamp-office ; and as for regu-
lation, that point which seems now almost entirely
lost sight of—the convenience and accommodation
of the public—Nl ould be much better consulted by
the providing of public vehicles being thrown open
to every one, subject only to a few necessary re-
straints, which might be much better attended to
than those in existence now aro by their transfer to
the Police, of whose duties they evidently form a
part. We are greatly mistaken, too, and the coun-
try will be much disappointed, if the present First
Lord of the Treasury does not, with his own pene-
trating eye, discover and cut down some other ex•
crescences before they reach the Finance Committee.
The fires, it is said, are already lighted much earlier
than heretofore, not only at the Treasury, but at some
other of the government offices; and the house-
keepers and messengers lub their eyes with asto-
nishment at beholding persons at their desks between
ten and eleven o'clock in the forenoon who used
never to appear till one or two, and often not at all.
In short, an active head produces corresponding ac-
tivity in all about it; and even the Finance Com-
mittee will do well not to find its labours and sug-
gestions anticipated by the " quick step" of the
Duke of Wellington.—lbid.

" Corporation and Teat Acts Repeal Bill, for ' Repeal-
ing so much of several Acts, as imposes the' necessity of
receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as a quali-
fication for certain Offices and Employments,' presented;
and read. la."

The above extract is from- the printed votes sf
the House of Commons of Tuesday. No mark of
any division accompanies the notice, and the Bill,
which is to break down what has long and gene-
rally been considered the bulwark of the Church of
England is entrusted among others to Mr. Wilmot
Horton, a Member of the late, and a supporter of
the present Government. Is this Act to be passed
through the rest of its stages in the same cool and
indifferent manlier as it has passed its first ? Is
there any man who intends to oppose the next
Bill, " the Catholic Emancipation Bill," so
thoughtless as not to perceive that the fight is
now to be lost or won—that if the first be carried,
the second must of necessity he carried also ? Is
there any man who loves the Church, so blind as
net to seo that if these Bills arc passed, the next
inevitable step will be the pulling down of the
Establishment altogether ? " The end of all Go-
vernment is the greatest pOssible happiness of the
?greatest passible number." So say the Ultra Li-
berals, and so say we. We do not stand up for
Establishments as ends, but as means. Show us by
example, for, in great questions of policy, example,
and not reasoning, is the only safe guide—show us
a country wherein there is any thing approaching to
purity of religious doctrine, or regularity of religious
practice, without an Established Church ; anti if, as
indeed the advocates for the repeal of the Test Acts,
as yet in words admit, an Established Church be
desirable, chew us by what means it may be main-
' tained without political privileges, or what is under-
stood by an Established Chursh undistinguished by
political privileges front other Churches. " The
Church is not of this world," say the sectaries.
True. Her doctrines, her precepts, are not; they are
Heaven-descended, and lead Heaven-ward. But are
men to use no means for preserving them undefiled,
because they are excellent in their origin and
object ? Many men are apt to imagine that the or-
derliness of religious deportment, which distin-
guishes the more respectable of our sectarians, is
s67lething inherent—that the dissolution of Este-
blislne"nts would not in any respect affect it. This
is a grievoue -.mistake. The Church is to them
what the intended tower on the plain was to be to
the sons of Noah—it limits their wanderings within
a certain space—and even those whose orbits are
most eccentric, do still revolve round it, and are re-
gulated by its attractive influence. We do not deny
that the Dissenters also operate beneficially on the
Church ; they stimulate her to activity; farm which
it is the nature of established place, somewhat to
disincline its occupants. But all these reciprocal ad-
vantages must he abandoned by breaking down the
wall of partition whipli at present separates them. his
said, the wall is already broken down by the Indemnity
Bill, but this is a mistake. What the Church en-
joys as matter of right, the Dissenters enjoy only as
matter of permission. We do not object Fo this.
We wish no distinction to he kept up, but such as
is of advantage to both parties; such as•excites to
purity of doctrine on the one hand, and to activity
of exertion on the other, We have heard it said
that the bench of Bishops dq not intend to oppose
the Repeal Bill, because they de not approve of
the samement as a test. We hope this report is in-
correct. If the Bishops abandon the Church, which
looks up to them as her retained defenders, what do
they expect that the Church shall do by them, when
the sectaries turn their attack against them ? For
is not the right of the Bishops to sit in the Upper
House of Parliament a much higher political distinc-
tion than the admissibility of a member. of the
Church to a seat in a Corporation ? And .if the
Dissenters will not eecept of the smaller privilege
vermi4sively, but will have it authoritatively, a for-
tiori will they not insist on the abrogation of the
greater privilege ? We hope the report is incorrect,
from our regard to the logic of the Bench ; for it
must be evident to much meatier capacities that the
impropriety of the form rf the test, if it be improper,
is no reason for doing away with the substance.—
A contemporary said,: the other day, on the sub-
ject which we have been discussing, " It is not law-
ful to Christians to support establishments which are
ancillary to Christianity, by means destructive of
Christian charity." To this truism it is only ne-
cessary to answer, that in supporting the Established
Church, as a handmaiden to Christianity, we do not
destroy charity, but give occasion for its exercise on