The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-25 00:00:00

%nn,

LONDON!
FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 25, 1842.

It is evident, from Sir ROBERT PEEL'S speech, on
Wednesday, and from the proceedings of the House of
Commons, that he derives much countenance and support
from the indiscreet friends of free trade and reduced
taxation. When he wanted a witness to the excellence
of his tariff, he called forward. Dr. BowalNo—when he
required a certificate of honesty and boldness, he referred
to Mr. ROEBUCK. If he wished to heap coals of fire on
the heads of our spirited friends, Mr. COBDEN and Mr.
T. DUNCOMBE, he had only to quote the words and the
example of Mr. VERNON SMITH and Lord HowlcK. In
justice to the cause we espouse, and to the honest men
by whom it was defended, we feel bound ter animadvert
on the conduct of those who seem to us, undesignedly
we hope, to have betrayed it.
We have in general a great respect for Lord HOWICK,
because we believe him to be honest, and we know him
to be industrious. It is notorious, however, that the
Noble Lord is self-willed and narrow-minded, and both
these unamiable characteristics were exhibited in his con-
demnation of the noble minority for the determination to
resist Sir ROBERT PEEL'S scheme to the utmost. If a
minority is not to exert its power to stop a noxious pro-
ject why was it bestowed on them ? That a more un-
called tor and mischievous scheme than the income tax
was ever submitted to Parliament, or ever attempted to
be carried through by more unwarrantable means we do
not believe. It is precisely such a case as justifies those
who object to it in using the forms of the House to
delay and defeat it. If Lord ‘Howtex did not take
this view of it he might have been contented to vote
with the Tories, but he denounced those who did, and
threatened them with the confiscation of the privilege
of the House, because they were abusing it. His Lord-
ship thinks more of men in office than of the public
liberties, and is ready to sacrifice the bulwarks of the
Constitution to the eonvenierke of statesmen. Let us
reply to Lord Ho vvxcx.'s threat that the House of Com-
mons would find it necessary to take away the privilege
of a minority, as it had put an end to :peaking on
petitions, by saying that whenever the House of Com-
mons shall carry it into execution, it will become a mere
tax-imposing tool of a despicable oligarchy, and will
soon thereafter be laid aside by the people as a public
nuisance. The electors of Sunderland, who are not
favourable to an income tax, and to a tax on coals,
should give Lord HOWICK a hint of their opinions:
As to Mr. VERNON SMITH, though he held some
subordinate office in the Whig Administration, his
words never carried any weight, and we shall not make
his folly of importance, by deeming it worthy of a corn-
mont. If the electors of Northampton wish for a hol-
low and insincere opposition to the income tax, they
should praise Mr. V. SMITH for censuring the minority.
Mr. ROEBUCK takes, we have no doubt sincerely,
a very different view from ours, when he describes
Sir ROBERT PEEL'S scheme as straightforward and
honest. Sir ROBERT showed how much he needed
such a commendation by the frequency and em-
phasis with which he quoted it. The tariff is a
part of Sir R. PEEL'S scheme, and that is so straight-
forward and honest that the Right Hon. Baronet him-
self gives different accounts on different dais of its pro-
bable effects. As a whole the scheme is a despotic at
tempt to enable a large Tory majority, to whom Sir It
PEEL is a necessity, to fix a new and onerous tax on the
people. Its honesty is something like that of a bold
bandit, who can plunder in safety. It is about on a par
with the honesty of BONAPARTE, when, from a love of
power, he incorporated Holland with France, or placed
his brother on the throne of Spain. As we conceive Mr.
ROEBUCK'S praise to be unjust, we must insist, that for
the interest of the free trade party, it was very ill timed.

We agree in the main with him, that direct taxation
is right in principle, and if Sir R. PEEL had proposed to
substitute a comprehensive and equitable direct tax, foe
other taxes, setting trade free, he would have expe-
rienced no opposition from us ; but he proposes to in-
flict an income tax on us, in addition to all the other taxes
which now crush the people. As Mr. T. DUNCOMBE
justly said, he meant to console the working classes,
whom he would not relieve, by reducing the middle
classes to their level. That design, cunningly carried
out, has charms for Mr. ROEBUCK.

He even became, in his admiration of Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S boldness, the defender. of an inquisition by the
State into every man's private affairs. That between men
who deal one with another—that between bankers and their
clients, between the wholesale and the retail dealer, be-
tween the merchant and the broker—there should be a
correct knowledge ofeach parties' circumstances is highly
desirable ; that no man should assume any false appear-
ance of wealth, to cozen other men is to be wished ; but,
between the vigilantes of individuals watching over the
conduct of one another, which is indispensable in all the
transactions of life, and is the basis of all correct confi-
dence, and the enfcrced prying of tax-path' rers, dragging
into public day all that men seek to conceal,
often making a temporary misfortune an irre-
deemable ruin, there is all the difference which
exists between the inevitable - course of nature, and
a great calamity inflicted on us by the self-will
or the ambitions of our fellow creatures. Men may
be unable to stop or guide the mountain torrent which
desolates their fields, and carries off their grain and
their flocks, but that is a poor reason for breaking down
a dam, and turning such a torrent over their land. For
a Radical, on any pretext of the advantage of publicity,
to defend the prying inquisition of the State into private
concerns, adds to our conviction that no man is to be
trusted to regulate or control the public liberties when •
ever he is the victim of a theory. Mr. ROEBUCK acted
consistently with his speech, and his name is not to be
found in the minority. He is so delighted, apparently,
with Sir ROBERT PEEL's bold plan, that he did not vote
to delay and defeat it.
It must have been highly gratifying to Dr. BOWRING
to hear Sir R. PEEL quote him as " a great authority,"
as Sir ROBERT never, that we recollect, thought the
Doctor's words of any weight before. But we trust he
will have to set off against the tickling delight of Sir
R. PEEL'S flattery the rough expostulation of the men
of Bolton. Dr. BownING, let us say at once, properly
voted against Sir R. PEEL, and in so far served our
cause better than Mr. ROEBUCK ; but he was not called
on to praise the tariff. In one report Dr. BOWRING is
made to say that it was a great. improvement, because it
allowed butter and cheese to come in at reduced duty ;
but in the version of that imperfect and erroneous docu-
ment which we have consulted, the duties on butter and
cheese, except when imported from our own colonies,
remain unaltered. - -

The tariff, considering that Sir ROBERT PEEL esta-
blishes, for the first time, a long string of differential
duties—doing what he can, therefore, to discourage trade

between England and other countries, in order to secure
a colonial trade, which, were he not to meddle with it,
would naturally, like the trade between Ireland and
England, be conducted on the most advantageous terms
possible for both countries—is really a disgrace to
the • statemanship of the age. It runs counter, with
some trifling exceptions, to all principle, and though
we might have pardoned Sir ROBERT PEEL for not
meddling with the tariff we cannot pardon him for
meddling with it to re enact and extend in the
year 1842, a series of restrictions, which all sound
principles condemn. 1)r. BOWRING'S praise of Sir R.
PEEL'S tariff was unwarranted, but that Sir R. PEEL
prised it as a voucher is evident by the emphasis with
which he quoted it.
We make these remarks with no hostility to the gen-
tlemen named, but to show them and the public
how necessary it is to be on our guard against the
plausible and wily man who has undertaken to conduct
the affairs of this great empire on the abominable principle
of making and allowing one class to plunder another by
means of legislation. It is contrary to the manners of the
age to use violence and practise torture. No man need now
be apprehensive in England of being placed on a fire to
be roasted, in order to compel hini to give up his wealth.
The living representatives of the ancient Barons have
fallen on a much more quiet and much less revolting
means to attain a similar end. They make a Corn-law ;
they impose an income tax, and the dread or the love of
the law serves exactly the same purpose as the gridiron
and the fire served RICHARD and his Paladins. They
act by cunning, not violence ; and we complain of Dr.
BOWRING and Mr. ROEBUCK, that they, being appointed
guardians of the people, do not see through this cunning,
and encourage its present prime agent, by praising his
schemes as bold and honest, and their probable results as
of public advantage.

It is generally said that each person should contribute
to the State in proportion as he derives advantage from
it. The Tories adopt this principle, and conclude,
therefore, that every man who has an income of 150/
a-year should pay a per tentage of his income to the
State. But if an income tax is to be levied on this
principle, it becomes necessary to inquire whether
the incomes of all classes are equally derived
from and equally protected by the State. It is
clearly not just on this -principle to take the same
amount of income from those classes who are en-
riched by the State, and from those who know little
or nothing of the State but through the tax-gatherer.
The State, for example, by that law which, as Lord
STANLEY has avowed, keeps up the price of corn, in.
creases the farmer's receipts and the landlord's rents ;
but it diminishes by so much the income of the merchant
and the manufacturer ; and the Statf, therefore, by
not equally protecting the incomes of these classes
has not a just claim to an equal share of each. Again
the State performs the same office for the tithe-owner as
for the land-owner ; and not only levies for behoof of the
tithe-owner, the whole tax of tithe-on the people, but en-
hances its amount by the Corn-law. Surely it will not
be said that an income of 2001. a year reduced by the
'taxes of the State from 250/, to bestow that 501. on the
tithe•owner should pay an equal tax to an income of
2001. derived exclusively from the action of the State ?
, Mr. ROEBUCK alluded very feelingly on Wednesday
evening to those incomes, professional and others, which
are created, as it were, by a man's talents and mental
energies ; but of these shall the artist, who is indebted
to the State for no species of monopoly, pay the same
amount as the lawyer, who is protected by the State in
the possession of a rigid monopoly of all the busi-
ness of the Courts ? It is not by their own
power, but by that of the State, that Inns of Court
are enabled despotically to exclude a HARVEY and
a WOOLER from their privileges, and that their members
enjoy a monopoly of all the emoluments to be obtained
from practising the law ? Should it be said that artists
have been patronised and fostered by the State ; that
it purchases pictures and establishes galleries for the
cultivation of art, let us ask what benefit the State
confers on newspaper proprietors and editors ? What
portion of their income is derived from the action of
the State ? It takes away their property by a stamp,
and curses them with an incomprehensible libel law,
which places them at the mercy of every rascally at-
torney. It does not give them a single farthing, either
directly or indirectly, as it gives an income to the tithe-
owner, an increase of income to the land-owner, and a
monopoly of a certain aggregate income to the members
of the Inns of Courts.

Some few manufacturers, not many, may derive a por-
tion of their incomes from a protection accorded to their
production, but the bulk of the manufacturers, all the
merchants, and all the shopkeepers, on whom the inqui-
sitorial powers of the income tax will exclusively fall,
create all their incomes by their own labour, and their
own exertions, and derive not one farthing from the
action of the State. The same fact holds good of the bulk
of the working classes ; they contribute largely already
to the taxes ; they maintain the servants of the State ;
they pay the tax levied for behoof of the priest and the
landlord ; but they derive no income whatever from the
acts of the State, and ought pot, therefore, on the prin-
ciple we set out by quoting, to be called upon to pay as
large proportion of their income to the State, as those
Whose inco:nes are wholly or chiefly derived from its
operatiot •

If it be said that the State protects the merchant, the
manufacturer, the shopkeeper, and the newspaper pro-
prietor, in the enjoyment of those incomes they
create by their own industry, let it be noted
that it equally extends that protection to those
incomes which it creates by law as to those which are
created by industry. There are not a few incongruities
about an income tax, but none appear to us more glaring
than those which result from adopting the principle that
each should contribute to the State in proportion to the
advantages it confers on him, and from considering the
sources of the incomes of different classes.

In yielding to the determination of the minority in the
House of Commons on Wednesday night, to postpone till
after Easter the resolution upon the income tax, Sir R.
PEEL spoke in a petulant strain of the factious opposition
offered to his new financial scheme. Regarded apart
from every other consideration, there is something amaz-
ingly suspicious in the excessive eagerness of the Right
Hon. Baronet to pledge the country to the adoption of the
principle of. this inquisitorial impost. The concoc-
tion of this nostrum cost him six months' labour, as
evidenced by his draughts for salary upon the Treasury ;
and yet he loses his temper because it is proposed that
the country shall have as many days to choose whether
nr not it would be prudent to swallow it without limita.
tion of quantity.' Now we will tell Sir R. PEEL that the
rules of the house of Commons, which enable an
honest minority to defeat the designs of a tyrant
Ministerial majority, were intended for such cases as
that of the income tax. They were designed to give an
honest minority the power of preventing the country
from being taken by surprise by the perfidy of a ma-
jority ready, at the beck of the Minister of , the
day, to vote away their liberties, or their property,
or both. As the whole weight of the • income
tax must fall upon the middle and industrious
classes out of doors, the minority in the House
of Commons very properly and patriotically resolved
that the tax should not be imposed before time
was allowed for the legitimate expression of public opi-
nion respecting it. This is carrying out the princple of
the representation, and is deserving of the praise of every
party in the country.
We are not, however, surprised at the petulant irrita-
tion of the Right Hon. Baronet. His pet scheme of.
trade taxation is in imminent danger of being altogether
rejected. Short as is the time allowed for the expression
of public opinion against his nostrum, many Members,
who voted in the majority last night, next week will
shrink from assisting him to administer it. Petitions
against the inconie tax are getting up in every
part of the country, and every hour adds to
the public hatred of this measure. In one
of these petitions from the Bankers, Merchants, Traders,
and other inhabitants of the city of Norwich, among
other weighty objections to such an impost, it is truly ob-
served that it would ".inflict the deepest injury on the
industry of those engaged in trade and commerce, and
front the inquisitorial process adopted in levying its
would cause a most injurious exposure of the affairs of
individuals ; destroy that confidence which is so essen-
tial to the prosperity of trade ; and surround our coin-
mercial transactions with an intricate web of espionage,
disgraceful to a Government based on constitutional
principles." The same petitioners, in an Address to the
Queen, whose readiness to share the burden of taxation
with her people endears her to every class of her sub-
jects, humbly submit to her MAJESTY, that an income
tax appears to them only justifiable as a last re-
source in a period of extreme danger and distress,
and that there is nothing in the present state of the nation
which requires its imposition. A series of resolutions,
passed at a meeting of the Reformers of Bradford, to the
same effect, are also now before us. In one of them, it
is resolved, that " before the imposition of an income
tax, every other source of revenue ought to have been
exhausted ; and that so long as the real property of the
country, passing by descent, entail, or by will, has
not yet been called upon to contribute to the exigencies
of the State, and in the absence of a liberal commercial
policy, affecting sugar and timber and corn, it is highly
unjust and impolitic to add to the burdens of a class
already overburdened by the operation of partial and
unjust laws." The, language of the Reformers of Brad-
ford and the Bankers and Merchants (of Norwich forms
the burden of a heap of letters and addresses now before
us from all parts of the country.
The Minority in Parliament has nobly done its duty.
It is now for the country to step forward, and assert the
principles of its handful of honest Representatives.
Remember that PEEL'S pill-box differs materially from
PANDORA'S—there is not even hope at the bottom.

We have received the whole of the Paris Journals of
Tuesday. Their contents are of no political importance.
Some Journals speak this morning of the resignation of the

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY MORNINC-r, MARC!] 25, 842

Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. This news is en-
tirely unfonnded.—Moniteur, March 22.
PARIS, Maacii 22.—The Moniteur of this morning has
no official part.
Intelligence from St: Petersburg of the 15th instant, in the
lirurzburg Gazette, states that the late disturbances in that
city are t4.tally void of truth.
fhe Siecle says—" It is reported that the Ministry, intimi-
dated by the demonstrations of the seaports, and the irritation
which has spread in a considerable portion of the Chamber,
and of the electoral body, will, on Wednesday. next, or at
least in one of the next sittings, bring down a project of law on
the sugar question. It will propose to continue the present state of
things for another year, but the explanatory memorial is to
contain a formal promise that at the opening ref the session for
1843 a new project of law shall be presented, which will finally
decide on the existence of our beet-root manufactures."—
Commerce.