The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-03 00:00:00

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LONDON
TUESDAY MORNING. MAY 3, 1842.

We consider that nearly every clause of the In-
come-tax Bill requires to be revised to make it in-
telligible; and that the whole Bill ought to be re-cast
to enable the people to understand it. Our represen-
tatives
.take a different view, and they hurried through
half the Bill last night, as if it had been a common
Turnpike Act, instead of an Act depriving us of our
property and our freedom. One of the great reasons
for this hasty proceeding is the impatience of the
people to have the tariff. Sir R. PEEL has most cun-
ningly announced, certain alterations in the Customs
duties, which have paralyzed trade till they are carried
into effect. Hence the trading community are extremely
anxious to have the tariff settled, and they are even
willing to purchase its speedy settlement by submit-
ting to the Income-tax. By the most paltry
bribe that ever was offered to a people --- the
bribe of cattle, which will never be brought in, and
of trade, which will never accrue from the measure,
Sir R. PEEL has obtained a cheerful acquiescence in
one of the most gross and bungling pieces of in-
justice•that ever a Minister perpetrated. That the
nation has purchased PEEL's tariff by an Income-tax
will be a reproach to it in all time to come.

Both Mr. LABOUCIIERE and Lord Jour' RUSSELL
voted against Mr. ROEBUCK'S proposition to reduce
the rate of the Income-tax on industrial incomes, be-
cause they would not impair that tax when it may be
required for war. Sir ROBERT PEEL has on several
occasions made remarks in a similar spirit. He will
exempt no class now, because no class should be
exempted during war. Motives of that kind ought
to dictate to all these statesmen, who impose this tax
in peace—when no great pressure urges them forward,
and they have ample time to delibarate—to frame it
throughout as equitably as possible, so that it may be
easily extended or applied. during war to raise any
necessary sum with the least injury or injustice to
the people. That is equally the duty of Lord JOHN
RUSSELL and Mr. LABOUCHERE as of Sir ROBERT
PEEL ; and looking at their conduct, not as popular
leaders—a character they seem inclined to reject with
disdain—but as candidates for the Ministry here-
after, we cannot comprehend their votes against Mr.
ROEBUCK'S motion. They were of opinion that his
motion would lessen the deformities of the tax, making
it, therefore, more proper during war, and yet they
voted against it. Speaking 'of them as statesmen—
not as popular leaders—we do not understand their
conduct.

Prudent and provident politicians, aware how much
our revenue depends on commerce, and how exten-
sively our commerce may be interrupted in war
—for they cannot expect, with the growing mari-
time power of the United States, to have the same
command of the' sea hereafter, as during the great
French war—might take calm and wise measures
during peace to provide for the exigencies of war, and
one of those measures might be a complete revision of
our system of taxation, including a well-devised In-
come-tax, against which neither classes nor Vivi-
duals should have any reason to complain. Unques-

tionably, such a tax must be the main resource intime
of war, and, consequently, Sir R. PEEL should not, in
peace; propose it, unless it be made as just as
possible. " No other . statesman should suffer such
a tax to pass he. would not wholly resist it—
without suggesting and enforcing every improvement
in it of which it was Susceptible. Upon that tax the
national credit, and even the national independence,
may be ultimately based, and therefore prudent and
provident statesmen of all parties, imposing it in a
time of peace, should labour zealously to make it
perfect.
Considering Mr. ROEBUCK s suggestion as an im-
provement in the tax, we therefore cannot approve of
the conduct of the Ministers ; but, looking at the
tax under this large aspect, it is a complete disgrace to,
Sir ROBERT PEEL'S Ministry. Instead of framing
an almost perfect measure, he has taken Mr. Pirrrs
plan, and Lord LANSDOWNE'S plan, which those states-
men adopted in great haste, and under great pressure,
when all the faculties. of the, people were absorbed in
a great contest ; and, adopting its absurd schedules,
he has introduced that measure into the present Par-
liament. He and his colleagues seem, therefore, to
disdain the light of knowledge, and tobe content with
acting in the dark ignorance which always prevails in
a time of tumult. •
According to Sir ROBERT PEEL'S 13i11, he makes
no distinction between incomes which last for life, or
for a term of years, and those which are perpetual ;
none between the incomes which are the result of
property already realised, and, therefore, as stable as
property itself, and those which depend on daily indi-
vidual exertion, and,are as uncertain as health ; none
between the incomes which the State confers or
guarantees—such as the income of the landlords,
kept up by a Corn-law, or those it gives the Bank of
England by its charter, and those which it neither con-
fers nor guarantees; but only taxes, such as those of the
merchant, and farmer, and 'fishermen, who gain their
annual income by the daily sweat of their own brow, in-
dependent of any protection from the State. It makes
no distinction ,between casual incomes and those
which are definite and constant ; but, with a broad and
a rude hand, condemns all income, without reference
to its source or its, nature, to pay the same rate to
the State. This is rough injustice. In order to
make such a tax available in war, all these points
ought now to be. considered ; and not to consider
them is to be short-sighted. It is a mere living from
hand-to-mouth statesmanship, worthy of GOULBURN,
but unworthy of the reputation which PEEL has gained.
It is neither within the compass of our Journal,
nor our information, to draw up an, outline of a per-
fect income-tax, settling the payment of every class in
proportion to its means—to the permanency of those
means, and to their source—in realized and guaran-
teed property, or, in, unprotected industry ; but we
can, without any hesitation or doubt, say that a
thoughtful statesman would not have abruptly re-
jected Mr. Rol:uncles amendment without applying
some more equitable principle to Schedule D than is
proposed by,Sir R. PEEL. He leaves it unaltered in
all its original rudeness and deformity ; ard its injus-
tice is so glaring that both the Times and the Herald
condemn it in strong terms., A party feeling might
have prevented-Sir R. PEEL from re-considering that
clause : a statesman-like view of it would have dic-
tated, we think, some observations to the following
effect
I admit that this clause includes incomes of va-
rious kinds, sub;ect to various differences. There
are, -a
my Right Hon. Friend the CRANctr.Loa of
s
the EXCHEOUER says, the incomes of an -old- esta-
blished banking-house, like that of the Messrs.

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