The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-13 00:00:00

APRIL 13, 1842

PRICE 5d

years, to petition against a tax intended to forms a par
of the supplies for the year.
Sir ROBERT PEEL's conduct on this question iv as, as
usual. equally cunning and contradictory. He sub mits
an income tax to the House, for which he can only find
one precedent in the whole course of our history, .and
the tax was then adopted under circumstances wlrick
are now totally wanting. The only precedent he.
can find fails him, and he boldly throws it aside„
and denies that an income tax is exclusively a war tax..
He appeals to the circumstances of the country, the de-
ficiency of the revenue, the impossibility to levy more
taxes on articles of consumption, the loss of an army in
Caubul, and war with China, to justify his proposition.
In one case he is all for reason, and casts precedent to
the wind. In the other he is all for precedent and treat
reason as a charmer, against whom he is bound to shit

his ears. Ife should stick either to reason or to prece-
dent ; but, to make sure of his victory, he introduces his
tax as a proposition of reasop, and forbids it to be ques-
tioned by appealing to precedent. His cunning is now
undoubted, but such crooked courses do not pass on the
world for wisdom.

We .I:ave more than once had occasion to complain
that the Liberal cause has been much injured by its
friends. On Monday night Mr. LABOUCHERE, with the

best intentions, no doubt, but with a great want of judg,-
inept, followed Dr. BOWRING in praising Sir ItonEat
PEEL'S tariff. As we said yesterday, it is to be consi
dered as part of a system, of which the income tax is
another part, aril it is impossible to approve of Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S tariff without giving approbation
to the income tax. He stated expressly, on
March 11th, that he meant to devote the sur-

plus revenue he expected to obtain, by his inquisitorial
income tax, to relieve the metal trade and the timber
trade. What Mr. LABOUCHERE and Dr. ROWBING
praise, therefBre, is Sir ROBERT PEEL'S determination
to tax professional men and shopkeepers, to enrich those
who use much timber. We regard the whole principle
as erroneous; we treat such a dealing with the property
of individuals by discriminating taxation as most dati7
gerous ; we say it is levelling and revolutionary ; de-
grading the people beneath the Legislature as a despotism,
eithout being just ; and we conclude, that the whole
vicious scheme ought to be condemned and resisted.
We will take the first case, as to cattle, of which Mr.
LABOUCIIEHE said he approved, and stated, that had he
remained in office, he meant to have proposed something
of the same kind. But the Ministry of which he was a
member properly repudiated, by the mouths of Lord
l'slatErtsToN and Lord Joing RUSSELL, the principle
of protection by discriminating duties, and only justified
duties such as those of which he approves when pro-
posed by Sir R. PEEL, who maintains the principle of
protection, as a sort of compromise and a step towards
free trade. To approve of Sir R. PEEL'S tariff as to
cattle, which is based like his Corn-law on the prin-
ciple of protection, we must see it proved that his pro-
posed tax is in due and just pioportion to the protecting
duties on, wheat, oats, and barley, so that the production
of no cane of these useful commodities shall re-
ceive more or less encouragement than another.
At the same time we are quite aware that

this cannot be proved—that it is utterly impossi-
ble fur any mortal man, though his head contained
the brains of twenty PEELS and twenty GLADSTONES,
correctly to adjust any scale whatever of discriminating
duties on all commodities. The attempt is an arrogant
absurdity ; and therefore to approve of Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S little bit of adjustment as to cattle, adopted
under the false system of protection, is to encourage him
and his party in their dangerous errors and ruinous
absurdities.

Does any man know on what grounds Sir R. PEEL has
conceded this little matter about meat ? Has he con-
sulted the graziers and the cattle breeders ? Has he
asked the butchers or the consumers ? We believe not.

He has gathered, he says, some startling information of
a wonderful scarcity of cattle, of a rise in the price, and
of a falling off in the consumption. All very natural
circumstances, we are sorry to say, and easily explicable,
notwithstanding the protection afforded by the prohibi-
tion to import cattle, enacted by former wiseacres like
himself, to which he now attributes this falling off, and
therefore proposes to remove it..
People must have bread, and they Rill have it, before
beef. He has made bread dear and scarce ; the agricul-
turists have been tempted, and obliged, by his protecting
Corn•laws, to grow more corn than they otherwise
%%ould, and breed and feed less cattle. Hence the scar•
city and comparative dearness of cattle as well as bread.

The derangement is plainly the consequence of men at-
tempting to adjust what they can neither measure nor
comprehend. The scarcity of cattle is the result of an
unrighteous Corn-law ; and, instead of abolishing the
iniquity, Sir ROBERT PEEL proposes to add to it an
income tax. This is grievous, and it is more
grievous to have Mr. LABOUCHERE, Dr. BOWDING,
and that class of politicians bribe' by a little lip
homage to free trade principles, which is no homage at
at all, for it is part and parcel of a 'system of protection,
bestowing praise on a tariff which is the result of the
Corn-law and an income tax.

We are sure that these gentlemen cannot have exa-
mined the tariff, and we will take one of its parts as a
specimen of the whole. Sir ROBERT PEEL took much
praise to himself for lowering and altering the coffee
duties. Now, we shall show that by so doing, he has
given a much greater boon to the monopolist planters of
our own colonies, already revelling in the annual plunder
of the people to the amount of several millions, han to
the consumers.

The tariff shows that the bulk of the coffee imported

in 1840 was colonial, which, at 6d. per lb. duty, yielded
373,579/. to the revenue ; and foreign, imported frees
places within the charter of the East India Company,
not the produce of its possessions, at 9d. duty. which
yielded 544,6531. to the revenue. Now Sir ROBERT
PEEL proposes to reduce the duty on the former to 4d.,
or one-third, which, supposing no alteration in con-
sumption, will lessen that part of the revenue 124,5261.
At the same time he proposes to reduce the 9d.
duty to Bd., which will lessen the second portion of duty
mentioned 60,5171. _ _ _

It is perfectly clear that the colonial coffee,

a proportion to its quality, will always command

in the, market a price equal to the foreign coffee.
Now, because our own Colonies cannot supply us with
a sufficient quantity of Coffee, and we consume a great
quantity of the coffee which pays the higher duty, it is
equally clear that the colonial proprietor will put
into his pocket the whole difference of duty
betwixt the colonial and the foreign coffee. The result,
then; is, that Sir ROBERT PEEL and Mr. GLADSTONE,
in their adjustment of the coffee duties, remit
of the . taxation on coffee 60,5171. to the con-
sumers,. and bestow—(let the public mark this as
it is done partly by Mr. GLADSTONE, a connexion
of West India merchants)-124,5261; of the 170,0001.
Sir ROBERT PEEL expects to lose by the alteration of
the coffee duties, on the wealth-swollen and wealth-
gorged West India planters. Such is the tariff, which
our Liberal politicians praise. That is the tariff too. the
people are to buy by an income tax. If they purchase
such legislation at such a price, they will be' the most
besotted and befooled people that was ever struck blind
by much success and most overweening vanity.

LET THE LANDHOLDERS IMITATE SIR R. PEEL.—
"Sir Robert is known to be a considerable landowner ;
and we have been informed by a gentleman residing in
Staffordshire that the Right Hon. Baronet, in order to
become the sufferer himself, rather than his Staffordshire
tenantry should maintain any loss or injury in the event
of his reduced scale of import duties proving temporarily
prejudicial to the interests of acrriculture, has ;liven in-
structions for their rents to be reduced' twenty per cent."—
Ten Towns' Messenger.—[A very proper hint to the land-
lords. Sir Robert Peel s practice is superior to his
preaching. In the House of Commons he has told the
country gentlemen they have nothing to fear from re-
ducing the duty on meat, and allowing the importation
of cattle. In Staffordshire he tells them, reduce your
rents, my Lords and Gentlemen,2o per cent., in order to
meet the alterations which I propose. For our parts we
have no faith either in his words or what is. reported of
his conduct, both are intended to servo a purpose, and
keep alive that system of deceit which in him, from
custom,. has become a second nature.—ED. San.]

INCOME TAX—LANDLORDS OCCUPYING THEIR OWN
LANDS.—A Correspondent asks how they are to be
rated to the income tax? We answer that we do not
know. We suppose that in certain cases, such as the
great parks that surround the mansions of the nobility,
and such as Lord Althorp, oempyin; perhaps 700 or
1,000 acres, the rent of such land will Ego calculated by
some officer of the Government, according to some rule.
and le pay accordingly.
aepordingly. We take it for
granted, who occupy land, being
thattpersons known to possess incomes far above 150/. a year,
twill b e m
theade landowners,op
will be compelled to pay an income tax on all lamb in their
own occupation of whatever description, in proportion to
the value, as well as on the rent they receive from
tenants. Our doubt and difficulty arises from persons of
an income varying between 15C/. and 3001. a year de-
rived from land in their own occupation. Will they be
assessed on the same principle as mere farmers, and oil'
their incomes be estimated at half the amount of the
rent the land they oecupy would let for? If that be the
rule; the consequence will be, that all huidowners end
occupiers, who with due and ordinary diligence have in-
comes of 2991. a year and less, which they may
leave to their families for ever, will wholly escape the in-
come tax, while the surgeon—the next door neighbour of
some such farmer—will have to pay Si. 18s. Gd. on a
hard-earned professional income of 200/. a year, which
is totally extinguished the instant he ceases to labour.
This is oaly. one of the many hard inequalities and
gross acts of injustice which will be perpetrated by the
income tax. We do noi-. envy the landowner and occu-
pier who escapes, but we do say that a/1 other men
ought to escape as be escapes,

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