The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-23 00:00:00

Olt „11,1t4

LONDON?
SATURDAY MORNING, APRIL 23, 1842.

'Th'e second reading of the Income-tax Bill, promoted
by monopolists and class-legislators, in order to uphold
tour opoly and class-legislation, was moved almost the
first thing last night in the House of Commons. The
Tories are extremely eager to pass it; and if their eager-
ness be gratified, the i•ault will lie with the Opposition.
So streng as they master, and such a jumble as is this
long Bill, with its 189 clauses, schedules they
will not fight as they ought if it get out of Committee
for a month or six weeks. If the Opposition, united as
the bulk of them appear to be on this subject, do their
duty, they may yet arrest the progress of this mea-
sure, and merit the 'enduring gratitude of the people.
The argument that by so doing they will delay the
tariff', was weH met last night by Mr. C. BUI;LE R. That
gentleman, with the sagacity, moderation, and elo-
quence which shine forth in him, moved
.that the
second reading of the Bill be put off for six months,
and, in making that motion, showed very clearly that
the charge or de?ay should be fixed on the Tories rather
than on the Whigs. Want of space alone prevents our
quoting the passage. The grounds on which the Bill is
pressed forward, form a strong argument, in fact, for
resisting it. If the necessity to pass the Tariff be a .jus-
tification of the Income-tax, it will only be. necessary
for any Minister to couple a still.more obnoxious mea-
sure—if that be possible—a measure wholly subversive
of our liberties, with some measure altering thwTa-
riff, setting loose all the trade of the country, and we
shall be obliged to bolt the mischief for the paltry be-
nefit of re-fastening what he loosens. Such a course cif
proCeeding may be subversive of all just legiSlation ; it
is, in fact, cheating men into submission to. improper
laws, and it ought to be, for its own sake, most fer-
venJy, strenuously, and constantly resisted. •

That part of the Bill which establishes an inquisition
into men's affairs, and the means of doing it was well
described last night by Mr. C. Butaxit, and we cannot
give a too wominent place to his description, nor too
emphatically call our readers' attention to the subject.
Ile said—

There were first the Tax and Statnp Commissioners at the
head of this hierarchy ; then the Commissioners-for--generalpurposes ; then the Comtnis;oners for special purposes ; then
there were additional Commissioners, and these not being suffi-
cient for the inquisition, there were Assistant-Commissioners.
One of the benefits from this Commission would be, that what
the Chief Commissioner did not eat, the Assistant-Commis-
sioners would lap up. Lie did not mean to attempt to throw the
Commission into ridicule; they seemed to him to have all the
respectability of a very fearful instrument of very grinding
tyranny. What was the power invested in these Commis-
sioners? They not merely gave them a power of investigation--
they were not merely tax gatherers, but they gave them a
judicial power. He found in this Bill no less than seven clauses
giving a power to the Commissioners of levying large fines.
They had the power of levying fines to the amount of 20/. or
25/. Then added to this pc“.% er was a special power given
them, that in case of a lal.e return they should inflict a further
penalty of treble the amount of the taxto be collected. Let them
consider what a poser this was. He would give them ar. in-
stance of it. There was clause 55. This clause empowered
the Commissioner to go round and call on the people to dei
in a correct statement of their income ; and all incomes above
1501. were to be taxed, and to be recovered in any
of her Majesty's Courts. Any person neglecting to make
such a return, would be liable to forfeit a sum not ex-
ceeding twenty pounds, and treble the amount .of the
duty to be charged by virtue of this Act. Now, suppose a gen-
tleman had 1,000/., if he neglected to make a direct return, he
was liable to treble 30/. besides the fine. Now he asked whe-
ther this tsx could be compared to any other ? Why, they.gave
a power to the Commissioners under circumstances distin-
guished from every other tax, namely, to conduct the proceed-
ings in secret. In all other matters, if a person was charged
with fraud, he had to submit to the verdict of a jury in open
Court, but under the present Bill everything was conducted in
secret. This was a monstrous violation of the liberty of the
subject. Every tax to be collected by such means must be a
bad tax.

One point is, we think, omitted by Mr. Buus.u.
Some of thaw Commissioners, constituting a hart of the
machinery for carrying out the Bill, are to be taken fr9m
the people. As Sir 11. PEEL explained the matter on
the 18th ult., they are to be local parties, who enjty the
respect and good-will of their neighbours. r.flis;l66ple
are to be made, then, to levy this tax on themselves, ..:and
relieve the Government of the, odium of the extortion.
They are to scourge themselves with the instrument
which Sir R. PEEL puts into their hands. Will any of
them be fools enough ; will any of them be wicktd
enough to do this ? We hope not. If there be persons
already employed and paid by the Government, who
must perform the odious task, we would excuse them ;
but if one man be found sobasc as vtluntarily to lend him-
self to the levying of this tax, whether uaaCorninissioner
or in any other character, he ought to be hooted and
drummed from society-. During war time, when there was
a necessity for the tax to save the nation from invasion,
to accept such a fruitless and thankless office waa pa-
triotism—to assume it now—to assist in levying this tax
for the Monopolist, will be to make one's self accessory to
against the prosperity and the
their guilty conspiracyhappiness of the nation. No man ought to take such
an office on himself ; and, we trust, that whoever shall
take it, wil,l be made to feel the contempt and scorn
of all his neighbours.

The horrid crime perpetrated by Good, coming so
zoon after the similarly horrid crime perpetrated by
Greentiere, tootler with the terrible crime of Couryoi-

s:er, and the murders we almost daily read of in various
p its of England and Ireland, are calculated to strike us
with awe and terror, and awaken a doubt whether
our criminal legislation- be constructed on a proper basis.
The crime of murder is yet punishable with death,
nevertheless that is the crime which appears to be me?'
increasing, and to become in its form more terifl
There is something redeeming in a revengeful manlvb°
has been, or fancies he has been, injured by another,
cutting off his enemy under the influence 'of his mad-
dening passion; but cold, calculating murder, conjoined
with treachery, perpetrated from some, sordid motive, hi
those on whom women lavish their affections, or la
whom men place their confidence, seems truly appalling;
N,o man can guard against it, and no man who learns of
the one murder but must suppose that others are com-
mitted which are not discovered. Hare, Burke, Bish°P
Greenacre, Courvoisier, and now Goad,
all at once occur to us as having stained the modern
annals of England with some of the most revolting crimes
on record.

Yet no man can walk about without being warned
by gaols, prison-vans, and military policemen, or take UP
a newspaper and read " Police-office," at the head d
half-a-dozen columns, without being made sensible of
the existence of a great machinery for the repression of
c ime, and witho...t being warned emphatically of
th s2rious penal consequences of transgression. In
spite of all these admonitions—in spite of the terrors Or_
death—crime, we are afraid, is increasing, and as'
sliming a more revolting character.
It is clear that the legislative penalty (ion not math
repress it. We doubt whether the legislative' example
may not promote it. The Legislature sports with the
lives of the people as it sports with their property
and has no more repugnance to starving men, women,
and children to death, by a Corn•law, than it has
to appropriating our property according to its own
devices. Without being able to trace exactly the influence
of its example in promoting, crime by the enactment 9f
a starvation law, it is clear that such a law dooms the
multitude to poverty and want, and nourishes in.theal
all the hateful passions. Of the general vicious frame
of mind thus engendered, the crimes of Greenaere
and of Good are some of the rankest offshoots. The
motive for starving the people by a Corn-keeping-out
law, is 'sordid, like the motives of these murderers ; and
the effect of the law only seems to us les; horrid, be-
cause we cannot have distinctly brought before us the
cases of individuals cruelly put to a painful death by the'
law. The crimes which we have referred to the ineffi-
ciency of the law, and the encouragement given to criale
by the lawn-latter, without thinking of the effects of hi 9
sordid conduct, are enough to make the public panic and
inquire—Are we proceeding, so far as law-making is con'
corned, in the right path ?

It is, perhaps, known to our readers that, of late, con'
siderable attention has been paid to improving tile
method of drawing up Acts of Parliament, and meat of
the great. Bills which the Whigs brought in, such as the
new Poor-law Bill, and the Commutation of Tithes' Big'
&c., were accompanied by a synopsis. which enabled
the reader to understand the Bill. But the income-41
Bill appears to be drawn up in a confused and perplexoa
manner ; it has neither index nor synopsis, and must 6e
' unintelligible to the public. We should imagine that
• Sir R. PEEL has taken up the old'Act of 1806, and merely
introducing into it such alterations as were necessary t°
carry his peculiar objects into effect, has adopted it
bodily. Certain it. is that his Income- tax Bill contain'
none of the modern improvements in drawing Bills, and
does no credit to him as a man of business.
We noticed something similar as to the Tariff
No • sooner was that made public, than he 05
made ashamed of the work he had brought ft°.
ward as his own. Ho gave up the whole sane'
of new discriminating duties which he had intr°'
duced in favour of the colonies. He was obliged t°
admit that his legislation about asses was contemptible,
and he has silica begin compelled to introduce, ey°
before any discussion has taken place in the House c
Comrhow, on the subject, several alterations into his
deliberated and perfect tariff. Ho can neither do ail the
.
duties of his office correctly nor has he the capacity:
one of the marks of great genius—to ensure excelleP"
service in his subordinates. The Bill which they We
drawn for him—like the tariff; to which he lent his nant
ofe
--is an incomprehensible - jumble which the House 3
Commons cannot pass, nor the people submit
to without disgrace. Even the Tory Journals
are ashamed of it, and obliged to admit that it is NM*
plicated, perplexed, and confused. Independently of the
nature of the enacting clauses, they are put together i.tt
such an unthinking, slovenly manner, and each clausels
.
so uncouthly worded, that the .Bill ought to be rejected
as unworthy to be- submitted to any Legislature.

i '4
SIR RoBE Irr 'PEEL'S REDUCTION OF RENT.— •rr -T.
eircron3tance excites so much alarm among the agTiell
wrists, that Mr. Brainston, one of the Ess x Meinir
wrote to ask Sir Robert Peel if it were true. Sir Ibti.
hurt immediately and emphatically replied, that tiers
was not one word of truth in it. The story originated .s
in the Ten Towns' Me.s.senger, a Tory paper, which.tts
hound to explain to the public how the report found
way into the pages of that Journal. We call on'tti