The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-06 00:00:00

(,#ltTraing A-11v4

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 1844.

THE REVENUE FOR THE YEAR
AND THE QUARTER ENDING JAN. 5, 1844.
The income-tax now tells with effect. While
for several years previous to this impost, there
was a deficiency of between 2,000,0001. and
3,000,0001., the returns for 1844 show a total in-
crease of 5,742,0781., of which the income-tax
forms nearly the total amount, being not less
than 5,249,2001.; thus leaving a surplus over
ordinary years of 492,818/. But this sum,
though small, is a good omen, when we take
into account the reduction of establishments and
the curtailment of expenditure caused by the
new tax. It shows that the trade of the country
is improving, and we arc happy to find that under
the two great heads of revenue, the Customs
amid the Excise—time best tests of prosperity--
the increase is very remarkable. In the former,
the Customs, there is a decrease on the year of
2,091/., but there is an increase on the quarter of
not less than 552,879/. This at the same time
shows how the public have been robbed by the
plundering and audacioui tricks of. men well
paid for performing their duty, and how negli-
gent, to use a mild phrase, have been those
gentlemen called Commissioners of the Board
of Customs. It gives a proportionate increase
OR the year of more than 2,000,000/., while the in-
crease on the Excise for the same period has been
only 387,503/., and, if we judge by the quarter,
not more than 32,000/., the increase being
only 8,7631. The Stamps have fallen off; show-

ing a decrease in the year of 64;9451., and in the
quarter, 38,1011. The Taxes, also, have decreased
on the year 83,1061., and on the quarter, 17,3061.
The Post-office, while exhibiting a decrease on
the year of 13,0001., has increased in the quarter
2,000/. On Crown-lands there is a decrease both
in the quarter and. year; and in the Miscel-
laneous there is an increase of 1,055,3301., with a
decrease on the quarter of 9,6201. The total
ordinary revenue, including Imprest and other
Moneys, is 50,071,943/. ; while, in 1843, it
was 44,329,8631. We are gratified on seeing
these results, because they prove that, under the
greatest difficulties, this country shows her
immense strength and activity, and is prepared to
meet every danger. Sir ROBERT PEEL now has
a surplus, and he can afford to abate some of the
most obnoxious taxes.

The plans in active operation in Hindostan,
Sinde, and the Punjaub, cannot fail to excite
some interesting discussions in the ensuing session.
Every additional information from these quarters,
together with the circumstances in which the
Indian Government is placed, however, only lead
to the conviction that the great measures in
progress will receive a deliberate and impartial
consideration at the hands of nearly all parties, and
that it will be generally admitted that the occupation
of the countries bordering on the Indus is the result
of necessity and not of choice. Most persons who
have viewed the extent of our dominions in India are
quite satisfied that they are sufficiently large, and that
it would be desirable, under ordinary circumstances,
to confine them to the limits settled within the last ten
years ; but if it become a question whether it is safer to
extend them, or to risk the loss of those already attained,
no man can hesitate for a moment as to the alter-
native. We have powerful and restless neighbours in
the west. The Punjaub would be a rich prize to a
body of Affghans, Persians, and Russians ; the Go-
♦ernments of these countries or their agents have
made no secret of their intentions ; and England would
justly be regarded as guilty of cowardice and suicide
if she allowed any Power whatever to take possession
of districts on our frontier absolutely necessary for
self-defence. We want no more territory, but we
want to preserve what we possess ; and unless we
have the thorough command of the Indus, from its
source to its mouth, and the great tributary branches ;
unless we can raise a strong barrier against encroach-
ing neighbours, and use these rivers not only for
trade but for protection, the peace of some of the
most valuable districts would not be worth two years'
purchase. This is the view of the question taken by the
two great parties in the State. For this purpose the
Whig Government, at an enormous expense, sent an
Dully into Caubul, and the Tories have the same ob-
ject in annexing Sinde to Hindostan. The Whigs,
in fact, have the merit of discovering the plan, and
their opponents have the merit of carrying it into
effect. What madness, then, in a Whig journal to
attack Sir C. NAPIER and Lord ELLENBOROUGH
for doing what Lord AUCKLAND fully intended, and
wickedly magnify the sickness of the brave Sinde
army for party purposes ! In the chronicle of yes-
terday we find these words :—" Sickness has in-
gloriously decimated the gallant army under Sir
C. NAPIER in Sinde. Of 8,504 men, composing the
garrisons of Hyderabad and Kurrachee, 3,856 were
sick. The malaria of Sinde,' says the Bombay Times,
'is much more formidable than the snows of Caubul.'
Any position on the Indus, after its fall, must prove
fatal to the occupiers ; and thus the boasted
conquest of Lord ELLENBOROUGH proves nothing
but a pestilential grave." Why will this
paper not leave Sinde alone ? Why will it
heap coals of fire upon the heads of its patrons, and
compel impartial readers to contrast the sickness of
Chusan, and the heart-rending disasters of Caubul,
with the partial and temporary sufferings of our troops
in Sinde? "Sickness has ingloriously decimated the
gallant army of Sir CmtaLes NAPIER!" Who ever
heard of a glorious declination ? But what did the
withdrawal of Sir JOHN KEANE, with the best of his
army, and the appointment of General ELPHINSTONE,
do in Caubul ? The troops were not ingloriously
decimated by sickness, but they were ingloriously
defeated by an enemy that common foresight and
common bravery might have set at defiance. They
were not confined to their barracks and hospitals
by the inclemency of the climate, or by diseases
brought on from natural causes ; their General and
their officers gave them up to the enemy without
a struggle; when in the snare, they were slaughtered
like noxious animals, and out of fifteen thousand
men, women, and children, only one reached
Jellelabad to tell the tale. Put what is more, they
were located in a country where every man's hand
was against them, leaving no excuse for a surprise ;
while the decimated troops of Sir CHARLES NAPIER
are hailed as friends, and their sickness, which the
lying writers in the Bombay and Delhi papers seem
to exult in, is as much lamented by the natives as by
every true-hearted Englishman. We have given ex-
tracts from these papers, as in duty bound, but at the
same time place little confidence in their state-
ments. They are exaggerated to an enormous extent.
No writer who says that the army of Sinde could
be overpowered by a handful of Beloochees, is a
friend of his country, or to be believed upon his
oath. Of the same stamp is a paragraph in the
Canton Press, which states that " the Plenipoten-
tiary loses no opportunity of denouncing the gross
iniquity of the invasion of Sinde; and on this
question there is, perhaps, no man alive more com-
petent to give an authorative decision than Sir
HENRY POTTINGER." This lie is easily put down, by
no less an authority than Sir lIENRY POTTINGER
himself. In the blue book containing the correspon-
dence on Sinde, we find the following decisive ar-
gument in justification of Sir CHARLES NaPIER's
conduct, long, be it remembered, before the
Ameers had committed the treacherous acts which
roused the vengeance of the Indian authorities.
" They," said Sir HENRY POTTINGER, " had
themselves literally imposed upon us the neces-
sity of dictating the arrangements provided for by
the late treaty, and they must henceforward consider
Sinde to be, as it is in reality, a portion of
llindostan, in which our position makes us para.
mount, and entitles us to act as we consider best and
fittest for the general good:of the whole empire." So
much for the adverse opinion of the man best com-
petent to judge. But without the opinion of such an
authority any one acquainted with the history of the
transaction can judge for himself: The Ameers are
not the rightful owners of Sinde ; they were, till
they set up for themselves, tributaries of the
Caubul Sovereigns, and having ground down
the unfortunate native population by every
possible extortion, and ruined the trade, and con-
sequently the resources, of the country, like Brother
Jonathan they became repudiators. They did
more. They broke treaties ; they intrigued with
Persia ; they received and entertained Russian
spies disguised as Turks ; they attempted to raise
Lahore against Hindostan ; and committed such acts
of treachery on the march of our troops to Caubul,
that Lord AUCKLAND, if he had remained in office,
had no other alternative, but to crush them at
once, as Lord ELLENBOROUGH has justly done. While
animadverting on the aberration of one Liberal paper,
which attacks its opponents and kills its friends, we
see with some degree of pride that two Tory journals,
once equally adverse, but from a different cause, to
the occupation of Sinde, have changed their opinions.
On mature deliberation, the writers in these papers see
that self-preservation, and not conquest, is the object;
and, with a frankness which does them honour, they
abjure their former doctrines and support a system
essentially necessary to the prosperity of British
India, and the very existence of our empire in the East.

The Marquis of WESTMINSTER, it will be observed,
has signalised the commencement of the new year, by
the munificent donation of 5001. to the " Great
Fund" of the Anti-Corn-law League. If there had
been any reasonable doubt before of the N 9ble Mar-
quis's adhesion to the principles and the object of the
League, this costly evidence of his decided approba-
tion of its views, and his sanction of its course, would
suffice to set that doubt at rest. But his Lordship's
letter, covering this subscription, is a document that
carrias the expression of approval to the language of
hearty congratulation. It is a very characteristic
letter. The strong good sense and manly simplicity
which used to distinguish, in years past, the well re-
membered speeches of the Marquis in Parliament, are
conspicuous, here, in every line. The receipt of so re-
markable a communication must form a memorable

feature in the history of the League. The almost
regal income oi th,:. very e2..cnsive
influence which his public acts are calculated to ex-
ercise (not only on account of his great wealth, and
his vast landed property, but also because of his ac-
knowledged judgment, experience, and sagacity,
in all questions of domestic economy and legis-
lation), impart a character of almost public
authority, as well as of public interest, to
his denunciation of the corn-law monopoly.
Even the landed interest itself—that portion of it
which still obstinately adheres to the principle of pro-
tection to home-grown corn, and the bungling imbe-
cility of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S "sliding-scale,"—cannot
fail seriously to consider, that if there were really any
substantial benefit to the landowner or farmer in re-
taining such mischievous absurdities on the statute-
book, the Marquis of WESTMINSTER must have all
the reason in the world to uphold them,—at least, so
far as considerations of his own personal advantage
might influence him. Now, we will not put this
view of the question on any principle to be deter-
mined by the greater or the less degree of bias which
interested views might exercise on the opinions of
this particular individual. We shall assume that he
would be as much swayed by a regard "to his own
interest," as it is called, in looking at this matter, as
any other opulent landowner ;—that he would be as
much governed by an universal impulse of
our nature as any of his own tenantry,—
neither more nor less. But it will hardly
be denied to us, that a public man who has, through-
out a long and very able career, developed such
powers as the Noble Marquis has brought to bear in
the House of Lords (we may select for our illustra-
tion, the debates on the Pains and Penalties kill
against Queen CAROLINE in 1821, especially as to
the exclusion of her MAJESTY'S name from the Li-
turgy ; those on the Repeal of the Test and Corpora-
tion Acts in 1828, and those, again, on the Roman
Catholic Relief Bill in 1829), may be supposed to
form an accurate estimate of the real working of any
fiscal or financial project. Observe how briefly and
distinctly he disposes of the Customs Duty question,
in calculating the effect of losing the amount of reve-
nue now received into the State coffers from the
occasional imports of foreign corn :

" As to the duty—that it is said would 13,3 lost to the coun-
try, if not insisted on—l am satisfied that such would be the
prosperity of all classes from the abolition of this impost, such
the advantage that would accrue to all the moneyed concerns of
the community, that, in a very short time, the general wealth
would be so far augmented that the national revenue would
outrun the amount of any duty that has been proposed, whe-
ther 35., is., or bs."

What Sir ROBERT PEEL'S opinion on this point is,
—the most unpleasant upon which the view of a First
Lord of the Treasury, governed by the or-
dinary feelings of Ministerial leaders, can rest—
it is not for us to anticipate. But we warn
him, notwithstanding the smart array of im-
proved receipts which appears in the financial
statement just published, that the people will not
continue to pay the agricultural taxes to which they
are at present subject, nor the enormous Excise and
Customs taxation which so scandalously increases the
charge of the first necesssaries of life, and of those
other articles of consumption and food which custom
and the care of their health have almost incorporated
into this class of necessaries. From his productive
property and income tax (by which, during the last
year, he has managed to squeeze out of the recesses
of John Bull's exhausted pockets no less than
five millions and a quarter (!) in addition to
assessed and all other taxes), the Premier will
assuredly have to provide for some such coming de-
mands e.s the repeal of the whole, or the greater por-
tion, of the malt duty ; of the duties on tea, sugar,
coffee, &e. And as to the duty on foreign corn, the
" handwriting on the wall" has already shadowed
forth the prediction that it has gone front him. Lord
WESTMINSTER has now expounded the intimation fin.
him, with a perspicuity calculated to silence the last
efforts of Treasury scepticism.
But, perhaps, our high-spirited and capacious-
minded Premier is solacing himself, still, with some
secret hope that he may yet charm to a grim repose
the now excited and angry vigilance of the over-
burdened people. Haply he trusts to allay the ap-
proaching tempest of their discontent, (whose coming
is announced by muttered "curses—not loud but
deep"—upon the selfish legislation which paralyses
our domestic industry, impoverishes and starves our
native artisans, cramps and depresses our commercial
enterprise, and clogs the healthful action of the na-
tional industry with unnatural restraints and factitious
impediments, and monopolitical checks)—by some
new devices of his " lulling craft." 'Vain of his suc-
cess in political Mesmerism, he speculates, it may be,
on as quietly casting the high spirit of the British
public into a dreamy torpor and patient inanition,—as
if he were plausibly prosing to Tamworth farmers
about some day " buying them the best bull in all Bir-
mingham," for the amelioration of their stock. Perhaps
he hopes to extend his school of dupes from tythings and
hundreds to counties ; from counties to cities; from
cities to the broad limits of the whole United King-
dom. But the days of shadow-catching are over.
Ile will not tempt the farm labourers of his own
manor, again, to any such amusement, unless they
have previous demonstration and experience of the
fact that he has repealed the giant grievance of the
existing corn-laws. If, however, Sir ROBERT PEEL
will not do us the honour to listen to our assurances,
let him take what comfort he can from the Marquis
of WESTMINSTER. That Noble Lord goes at once to
the cream of the practical question, and extinguishes
tke whole puppet-show delusion of recent landlord
and tenant festivals, with a straightforwardness of
pnrpose, and a simple vigour of expression, that re-
mind us of some of the best hits of COBBETT in his
best time. We have always given, and shall con-
tinue to do so, full credit to the great landowners who
meet, at agricultural dinners, the farmers and graziers
of their vicinity, for the sincerity of the expressions of
good feeling and sympathy which they are in the
habit of addressing, on such occasions, to their tenantry
and fellow-guests. But these interchanges of feeling
and good will, valuable as they are, will never go to
the remedying of our existing distresses, till the incu-
bus of a corn-law monopoly is removed. Until that
be done, landlords—nobles or commoners—must put
up with such stern truths as these :
"It may' be all very well" (writes the Noble Marquis)
"at agricultural meetings, to talk of the advantages of long
leases, of tile draining, &c., and to drink the health of the
labourers; but to what good effect? Long leases are, in cer-
tain districts, and under certain well-known circumstances,
desirable enough; good draining has long been understood and
practised, where there have been sufficient means, sufficient
enterprise, and a soil requiring it; praise has no doubt been
deservedly lavished upon the farm labourers; but there is
something still to be done much more important to them,
which is, to give them the means of obtaining an independent
livelihood, solid pudding being preferable to empty praise, and
this cannot be effected without the abrogation of these mis-
chievous enactments."

In a preceding article we explained the process by
which it has happened that Church lands, and espe-
cially the episcopal estates in Ireland, have become
generally deteriorated, and the progress of agricul-
tural improvement in them intercepted, more than
on any other estates in the kingdom. We return now
to the subject, with the view of showing how effec-
tual an amended kind of tenure might be rendered,
for the better providing for the spiritual wants of the
whole mass of the population, Catholic as well Pro-
testant, in Ireland.
Let it be conceded, then, that the intermediate
letting of the bishops' estates to undertakers on leases
of twenty-one years' duration, subject to annual fine,
is an evil. -What we propose is, that a compromise on
the part of the State should be immediately entered
into with the bishops, in esse, with the view of ter-
minating this obnoxious kind of tenure. It is calcu-
lated that about the sum of 83,6301. is annually
realised by fines, under the present system. This
sum may, therefore, be considered as the annual
value of an annuity, terminable with the various lives
of the existing annuitants. Let a composition be
efficted on this calculation, which it should be im-
perative on both parties, bishops and undertakers, to
accept. It would follow then, that all their ]ands
would be immediately out of lease, and they would
come into the possession of the State, subject to the
perpetual annuities payable to the bishops, to the
amount of 45,258/. per annum, this being the present
yearly income derivable from the rents.
It would be necessary, then, to fiirm a corporation
aggregate, in which this property should ba invested,
in trust. It has been calculated by eminent survey-
ors that at a very muderate computation their lands
might he made to yield at least a rental of 500,0001.
We should recommend the State to employ this ex-
tensive fund, first, in the payment of settled stipends