The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-18 00:00:00

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LONDON
IWEDNESDAI MOUNTING, ISEAY is, 1842.

The proposed duty on exported coals, to which we
adverted on Friday, is a specimen of the instability
of our aristocratic legislation. In 1834, a similar
tax was repealed to encourage trade ; and now, when
that negation of law has succeeded, when the trade
has flourished from the absence of a tax, as was an-

ticipated, the Legislature proposes, in 1842, to undo
all that its predecessordid only eight years ago. Can
any legislation be more unstable ? Every alteration
riertrly of the tariff plays fast and loose in like manner
with some portion of the people's property, and leaves

us with the conviction that similar changes must
again be made. The distinguibhing and disgusting
• feature of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S measures is.
that they offer something to every class, to make i t
acquiesce in some species of spoliation, of which, by

those very measures, it is made the victim.

Such a

general attack on property, bribing men, as it were.
ith their own stolen goods to be instrumental in
plundering other men, when made by an aristocratic
assembly, is what Mr. MACAULAY understands, pro-
bably, by security and stability of property, which an
infusion of democracy into the Legislature would an-
nihilate for ever. •

The change in property, however, caused by Sir
PnEL's numerous proposed changes in the Cus•
toms duties, instead of first abrogating the giant mo-
nopolies; is not, in our apprehension, the worst effect
of his measures. The worst effect is their tendency
to create and perpetuate division. To the farther
ho -offers a pretended boon of paying half as much
income-te: as other people pay, and to those who
pay, the .full taxes, he offers, as a. reward for their•
ohmiasion, cheaper living, by cutting off a slice ,
f -mu the farmer's profits, ,To the bulk of the people
he offers an exemption frorn the income-tax, and
obtains their support, to throW. it o:elusively on
liree or
_four hundred thousand persons. It
i frequently said . of society that the in-
terest of all its members is identical. Sir
11. PEEL has .the great . merit of disproving that
dogma, and of 'showing all classes how they can prey
upon one another, by means of laws artfully -con-
trived. In the present eircinntanees of society, a
v.i,4e Minister would have been especially careful how
he 'added to the sources; of discord between the classes.
Sir ROBERT PEEL seems to be desirous to show
how skilfully he can augment our dissension. If our
lot has all been -cast in the same boat, it cannot be
denied that our present helmsman has directed all the
crew to pull different ways. Hence the labourers and
others rejoice at the Income-tax, and the landowners
reoiee that they shall still be allowed to plunder all
Ilse eonumers of bread, including the labourers.
: Sir It. PEEL will not be allowed, however, even by
lii':rown friends, to have everything his own way, He
11-,s encouraged rap'tcity, and he cannot escape its
r, iumistrmices. lie has fostered those monopolies
••••lach prey upon the people, and they do not choose
quietly to relax their gripe of the national industry at
h:s s6iAti.Con.
'`lt is U. great agttravation' " (says a " Memoir on the
Aonial Timber Trade,") "of the evil now impending
,oer the Colonial and shimii interests, to ftrnl that
the iqiiction is announced ii;'at' (theft; and the efideret pre-
dicted as a bench—(lloW wellf
—and, perhaps a; a girue,:toe,rigai,;,.i.ltryLdwuantiouns, be
)
added that the calamity from the quarter
th.o.least suspected, and will now', athleaasl-etl accomplished
by the very hand to which they hitherto looked
gratitude for having protected them so long.',
His old friends; therefore, those whomhe has
,up to political depredation, do not like his
siferues: .They have no objection to his bamboozling.
labottirs, the farmers, and shopkeepers, but
the-
tt4:"N•viarm 'him. hot to stop.,tlie supplies cf his own
protegees. It certainry appears by the pamphlet that

they have been admirably protected for a very long j
time by the hand which now proposes to take some-
thing from them. The consumption of timber in the
kingdom is now 1,500,000 loads annually, and the
discriminating duty is set down in the pamphlet
at 2/. ss. a load, which makes a good round
sum of 3,375,0001., which the country pays
per annum to encourage our North American
timber trade. Having expended such a vast sum of
money, year after year, for many years, we cannot
be surprised that our exports to our North American
provinces have risen to 3,000,0001. a year, and the
tonnage employed in our imports thence exceeds
800,000 tons. Nor can we be surprised at this pic-
ture of prosperity, owing, as the pamphlet we have
quoted from says, to the timber trade t—
" This last New'Briinswick Province may fairly cites'
as an example of the effects of the protective and colo-
nial system, and, particularly, of its application to the
Timber Duties ; having, in consequence, advanced froze,
a handful of Loyalists, by whom the colony was first plant
ed in 1783 to its present very flourishing state of population:
and trade. The formssr have increased since 1924, front
74,176 persons to 137.562, in 1840 ; and the latter, durimt
ten years, from the valve of 483.5451. (of impoM) ii
1829, to 1,435,4471. in 1839. Of the seventeen
of acres which New Brunswick contains less than five
hundred thousand have vet been reclaimed from the
native forest, which covers the whole country beside.
The number of mills there built for the manufacture 0
deals is 574, the value of which is estimated at 500,000/,
and the ealut, of other property there invested in th.
timber trade is considered to be of a far greater amount.
01' that colony's exports, the value of all native articles,
not of wood, amounts only to about 75,00 a. The ship-
pine-, owned there exceeds 90,000 tons. And the exports
thence give yearly employment to 2,605 ships of 381,577
tons, and 17,313 men. Almost the whole of which trash
and navigation is
.purely British, and with the Britisl,
dominions, and, principally, with the United Kingdom.
And as there is scarcely any part of the world where se
small a population could by their industry, under its ex-
fisting protection, be more profitable to the manufactures,
trade, and navigation of the United Kingdom ; so also is
there no position where to plant and foster an enterpris-
ing, loyal, and powerful colony seems more useful to the
security and prosperity of the B:itish Empire."
Neither can we be surprised when such is the sum
annually distributed amongst rotten-ship owners.
laud-jobbers, lumberers, merchants, &c. &c., and such
its results, that the recipients of the 3,375,000/. a
year, should raise an .earnest outcry against the
statesman, who has stated. " that above all things we
should avoid doingany injury to the Canadas," and that
our relations with Canada were such as to require
the utmost caution. That is much too large a sum
to give up quietly ; and we must admit that the mono-
polists are ill-treated by their friends. Only on Friday
last, Lord STKNLEY was expatiating, with quite as
much unction, and quite as little reason, as the author
of the pamphlet, on the advantage of an exclusively
British trade, " which is all in our own hands ;" and
he and Sir ROBERT PEEL will both find, when they
come to carry their tariff through the House, that
the monopolies they have nourished, and the
prejudices they have strengthened, will be
brought to bear against themselves. They will
not easily extract the money from the grasp of those
whose monopoly they have long upheld as extremely
beneficial to the public. Without saying one word
in favour of the North American timber monopolists,
whose plain objectis to continue a heavy tax on the na-
tion for their own advantage, we mus t express our un-
feigned satisfaction at seeing the Premier badgered by
the corrupt interests he has nourished ; and, much as
we desire to see the timber trade set free, we shall not
regret if Sir RouEnr PEEL be defeated on the point
by his own dearly beloved friends. Their political
dishonesty is a match for his, and they bid fair to
overcome him by his own weapons.

The Times of yesterday says, in reference to parish
apprentices doomed to the mines

That one case came before the Sub-Commissioner, of
a child so apprenticed to a collier working in a thin pit
at Thornhill =before he was quite fire years old.' Nor
would this poor creature, by name Thomas Townsend,
have been brought back to the workhouse, had not its
grandfather interfered, and its friends threatened an in-
formation to the Poor-law Commissioners."
From that passage it follows that these Commis-
sioners have the power, and have sometimes exerted
it, of regulating the age at which pauper children
may be apprenticed out of workhouses. When those
children are orphans, the strong interest which the
Guardians have in lightening the pecuniary burdens
of the Union, may induce them to commit much in-
justice ; and in such cases a central authority like
that of the Poor-law Commissioners, may be advanta-
geously exercised for the protection of the
chil-
dren. We infer from this instance that it has
been so exercised, and' undoubtedly it ought
to be, unless. their authority have been given
them never to protect but only to curb the
poor. • For all - the orphans • bound apprentice out
of -workhouses at- the age• of six or seven, since the
Commissioners have had the bontrol of them, the
public will hold them to be responsible, and we
trust that they will consider it to be their duty to
take those orphans under their especial protection.
Parish apprentices are bound only by the authority
of the Poor-law, and for the mode in which that is
administered, the Commissioners at Somerset HouSe,
and the Home Secretary, have to answer. In such
cases, the cruelty is not parental, it is legal.

The fire at Hamburgh has shown how powerful is
the sympathy by which all the family of man is natu-
rally united, and that it requires a kind of political
drilling into national and exclusive habits and preju-
dices to become inimical to one another. Fortu-
nately for the result, Hamburgh, as far as politics are
concerned, is neutral ground. It is a cosmopolitic
city. It 'is inhabited by men of all nations and all
creeds. With no hesitation, therefore—nay, with an
alacrity which convinces us that Sovereigns can act
from generous impulses, and adopt a wise policy from
very common motives—assistance and succour have
been poured into Hamburgh from all the surrounding
States. The subscriptions, too, spontaneously begun
in France, in England, in Belgium, demonstrate that
the people feel like their rulers, and, now that one
branch of the great family is overtaken by a misfor-
tune, that all are brethren. Such a lesson will not be
thrown away, and an appeal, in after times,
to this common feeling of brotherhood, may
stay the devastation of war. Why should those inflict
calamities who think it is virtue to sooth and relieve
them ? The general subscription for Hamburgh is an
epoch in the moral history of mankind.

The Railways Bill is to be further considered in
Committee on Friday next, when we expect some ma-
terial alterations will bemade. The Bill in its present
shape is little calculated- either to protect passengers
against the recurrence of fatal accidents, or to place on
an equal footing Companies using lines with a common
terminus. In reference to the latter point, Lord Ro-
BERT GROS VESOR will• propose a clause to the effect
that, where more than two-Railway Companies have a
common terminus, they shall all have the same accom-
modation in regard to the booking of passengers, the
running of carriages, and the removal of luggage. 1.
Some clause of this sort is required, in order to put
an end to that partiality shown on some lines to
particular parties to the prejudice of others. • Be-
sides this, there are two other clauses of more import-
ance to the public to be brought forward by Mr.
O'BRIEN and Mr. HUME. The first is to move the
insertion of a clause to prevent the locking of the
door of any carriage on the side next the stations,
and the second is to move that instead of Mr. PLUMP.'
ntE's crotchet for shutting the lines on Sunday, that
in all cases in which the Postmaster-General
shall require that the mails or post-letter
lags shall be conveyed on any railway-, the
Company shall forward the same on every
day of the week on which the conveyance of
such mails and letters shall be required, without
making any difference either in the rate of speed, or in
the cost and charge for conveyance, and that the
same accoMmodation shall be fUrnished whenever any
special train shall be required. It is but fair that
some regulations of this kind be adopted, in
order that the Post-office authorities should,
as under the former system, be able to
transmit letters and despatches whenever the Govern-
ment or other parties may require this mode of eon-
veyance. The Companies cannot, on any reasonable
grounds, object to such a clause. They will be paid
all reasonable expenses, and, as they generally profess
the utmost readiness to oblige the public, we have
DO doubt they will agree to the arrangement. But
independent of the benefit to be derived by the
public, the Companies themselves would be saved
all that annoyance, injury to property, and
Malignant calumnies which for months were inflicted
upon the Directors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow
Railway. No man should be suffered to injure the
property of-another, to gratify either his religious or
political prejudices; and it is the duty, therefor* of

he Legislature to put a stop to such persecution. The
clauses proposed by Mr. Hums would fully effect the
object in view.
Mail trains, at stated times, would pass along almost
every line on Sunday; persons would thus be allowed
to visit their friends as they did when the mails were
.!arried by coaches on the highway ; and all pretence
would be removed for calumniating the innocent
Shareholders mid Directors.

As we presume the present Government does not
intend that the exaction of a tax upon income should
be more stringent now than under the LIVERPOOL
and CASTLEREAGn Administration in 1813,14, we

may congratulate authors, and men who derive a sub-
Astence from their literary labours, upon their exemp-
tion from this impost. It is clear from the subjoined
letter from Sir WALTER SCOTT, now first published,
Ind from the opinion of the most learned lawyers in
Scotland and England upon it, as well as from the
ilecision of the Income-tax Commissioners, that un-
less the present Government is resolved to manifest
Less sympathy for literary men than the Government
of 1813, they are entitled to claim an exemption from
he tax. This is not only just towards them, but to-
wards the public, whose instructors and guides they

ire. There is no class of men whose gains are so
)recurious and so hardly earned, and whose labours,
Tenerally speaking, contribute so much to the happi-
.iess of their species as authors. They rarely owe much
o society, whereas society owes everything to them.
they guide its opinion, purify its morality, protect
is property, and supply it with whatever knowledge
t possesses. To tax such men would be to tax the
most efficient moral teachers, the most vigilant police
of society.

The genius which produces good books, and the
.alents which enable a mau to write words of wisdom
:or the guidance of his fellow-men, are not property
ognizable by humair laws. They 'arc the gifts of
GoD, and, instead of burdening, benefit the Govern-
nents under which they most flourish. Their appli-
_mtion to money-getting purposes is so brief, that it

.arely constitutes more than one brief hour in the

lay journey of human life. No, it cannot be possible
hat the Government contemplates taxing such men—
hat the State proposes to fatten by sucking the

mains of those who devote their days and nights to
he diffusion of knowledge.
Gon knows, in this pounds, shillings, and pence
tge, the condition of a mere literary man is sufficiently

73-lug without sending a new tax collector to his

r, to ascertain in what demand the offspring of
tis brain is with the public. He is, generally speak-
ng, a man of superior education, and, from the very
tature of his pursuits, more painfully alive than per-
ions of his rank or station to the privations that sur-
round him. If destined to live long, he is doomed
o look forward to a period when the oil which feeds
the lamp of genius or fancy, will be burned out, and
when, unless he have made some provision against
want, he must cnd his days in a workhouse or a
unatic asylum.
In the present state of things the following letter, by
3ir Walter Scott, written in the autumn 4)1'1813, is

A orthy of notice :----
." TO J. BICHARDEON, ESQ., FLUDTER-STREET, WEST•

MINSTER.

‘‘ My dear Richardson,—l have owed you a letter this
'ong time, but perhaps my debt might not yet be
liseharged, had I not a little matter of business to
rouble you with. I wish you to lay before, either
he king's counsel, or Sir Samuel liomilly, or any
culler you may approve, the point whether a copy-
ight, being sold for the term during which Queen
Anne's Act warranted the property to the author, the
:,rice is liable, in payment of the property-tax. I con-
'end it is not so liable for the following reasons :—First,
tis a patent right expected to produce an annual, or at
east an incidental profit, during the currency of many
,Tars ; and, surely, it was never contended that if a man
old a theatrical patent, or a patent for machinery, pro-
perty-tax should be levied in the first place on the full
)rice as paid to the seller, and then on the profits as
airchased by the buyer. I am not very expert in
:figures, but I think it clear that a double taxation takes
place. 2. It should be considered that a book may be
the work, not of one year, but of a man's whole life ;
And as it has been found in a late case of the Duke
If Gordon that a fall of timber was not subject to
property-tax, because it comprehended the produce of
30 years, it seems at least equally fair that mental exer-
tions should not be subjected to a harder principle of
measurement. 3d. The demand is, as far as I can learn,

totally new and unheard of. 4th. Supposing that I died,
and left my manuscripts to be sold publicly along with
the rest of my library, is there any ground for taxing
what might be received fur the written book any more
than any rare prinied book which any speculative book-
seller might puicliasie with a view of republication ? You
krill know whether any of these things ought to be sug-
gested in the brief. David Hume and every lawyer here,
whom I have spoken to, consider the demand illegal.
"Believe me truly yours,
" WALTER SCOTT."

Mr. Lockhart, who published this letter in the life of
Sir Wter, makes the following observations upon it :
" Mgt Richardson having proposed a case, obtained
upon_it the opinions of Mr. Alexander (afterwards Sir
William Alexander, and Chief Baron of the Exchequer)
And the late Sir Samuel Rouailly. These eminent lawyers
geed in the view of their Scotch brethren, and, after a
tedious correspondence, the Lords of the Treasury atJast
decided that the Income-tax Commissioners should
Abandon their claim upon the produce of literary labour.
I have thought it worth while to preserve some record
of this decision, and of the authorities on which it rested,
in case such a demand should ever be renewed hereafter."

The subjoined extract from the Philadelphia corre-
spondence of a contemporary dated the 30th of April,
shows the immense advantages which the people of
this country would derive from the abolition of the
Corn-laws, and a real, instead of a mock modification
of the tariff. In the pacific prayer of the writer we
most heartily join. Those who desire to see other
than the most amicable relations existing between
England and the United States are the enemies of
civilisation and of both countries. Nations so en-
lightened, and whose mutual interests can only be
promoted by peace, can never have any just ground
for a barbarian appeal to arms. It is high time that
wars should cease throughout the civilised world.
The spring is this year at least three weeks more in
advance than usual, and, as far as a judgment may be
tbrined at so early a period, there is every probability of
immensely abundant grain crops. The quantity of land
devoted to agriculture is this year much increased, and
the ,4.,eneral ,opinion is that flour will be from $l. to $2
per barrel lower than at present, before the end of the
year. In such a: case the exports to Europe will be
enormous, especially as the tariff on corn and flour in
England is about to be reduced, although not to a
sufficient extent, perhaps, to ensure the fullest advan-
tages of cheap bread to the people. Salt pork in Ohio
has been produced to a greater extent than has been
wanted, and at some places the price has been less than a
penny (English) per pound! Conceive, then, the quantity
that might be sent to England if the duty should be low.
Beef, too, is lower than I ever remember it ; wholesale,
tt 2-h-d. English, per lb., and sometimes salted at lid. in
large quantities. Even in Philadelphia, fine salted beef
sells retail in the market at 3d. and 3i'!d. ; and by way of
• giving you the results of practical experience in this
city, it will not be out of place to add, that on Saturday
last, my wife bought in the market a loin of veal at 3d.
per pound, and yesterday, ribs of beef at 4d.; in both in•
stances the meat was as fine as in England—indeed, the
cattle are all descended from imported English stock.
Let us hope, then, that the smile of a bounteous Provi •
deuce will be continued, not only on the teeming earth,
bat also on the dispositions of the people of both coun-
tries, that they may become more than ever bound in
friendly and pacific relations, and that thus each may
enjoy iu abundance the blessings of peace and plenty !

The French Journals of Sunday dwell at some
length upon the judgment of the Court of Correc-
tional Police in the case of the Temps newspaper.
This journal was tried on Saturday, not for a politi-
cal offence, but. for an infringement of the regula-
tions for .its publication, and sentenced to a fine
of 102,300 frailest and suppression within twelve
months. The Press is becoming troublesome to
the Government, and the Government has taken
the first step to get rid of it. There is an
old proverb, which says " that eaten bread is soon
forgotten," the truth of which is verified by the sup-
pression of the Temps. It was by this journal that
the first • resistance was offered to the celebrated
ordonnances of CHARLES X., which brought about the
revolution of July, and placed the reigning Sovereign
on the throne. Yet under the very Government
which it was first to assist in establishing it is now
suppressed.
-The Journal des Debals announces that immediately
after the close of the Session the import duties on hempen
threads Would be raised to 20 per cent.
Baron Billing, the French Consul-General in Egypt,
who fell ill on his arrival at Alexandria, and was com-
pelled to leave for Malta before he had entered on his
functions, has been recalled and replaced by M. Gautier
D'Are, who was for a long time French Consul at Va-
lencia and at Barcelona. He was in the latter town when
queen Clnistina was there. M. Gautier D'Arc will
leave Paris in a week for Egypt, accompanied by an at-
tache, M. Latour :Marbourg, as the Consul-General is
equivalent to the post or Minister Plenipotentiary.
The :Ifoniteur Parisien has the following article :
" A letter from Port-au-Ptinco says that a proclamation
of President Boyer, published on the 24th of March,
announces his intention to dissolve the new National He-
ixesentation, if it does not coincide with his views.. The
Opposition, strengthened by a certain number of Mem-.
bers of the new Chamber who have been re-elected in
spite of their exclusion in 1839, are preparing to role.