The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-16 00:00:00

*troullEbitton

SUN OFFICE Three o'Clech

A Correspondent yesterday called our atten-
tion to the system of extortion adopted by the
Income-tax Cotnmissioners in some of the Lon-.
don districts; and another complains with equal
justice against the loss which be and many others
sustain from the amount of light gold still in cir-
culation. It appears that in turning over 5001. a
week, there is a loss of nearly twenty shillings,
making a loss of 501. a year. It may be said,
why take light gold ? and in reply we say, why
allow it to continue in circulation? It is well
known that, in these hard times, many trades-
men are glad to receive payment in any
shape, and will sacrifice their usual profits
rather than refuse a-customer ; but does this fur-
nish any excuse for the bungling policy of Mr.
GOULBURN ? When distress was at its height,
without any previous notice, he issued a pro-
clamation, somewhat in the ELLENBOROUGH
style, which created a panic throughout the
country, and robbed thousands of poor people
of considerable sums. Thus, while the hard-
working 'classes 'pay enormous duties on every
article of life for the benefit of the State and
class interests—while they pay a tax on sugar
to the -West India planters, another on corn and
malt to the landowners, and a third on tea
amounting to a hundred per cent., :and
iti purchasing all these- 'articles are robbed

to an unknown extent by false weights
and measures, by adulteration, and a hundred
other nefarious practices, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer comes in among the other plun-
derers, and makes the victims pay for the wear
and tear of the QUEEN'S coin during the last
twenty years. Justice and common sense, which
unfortunately have little share in financial regu-
lations, would throw the loss on the Treasury or
the community at large, and not on the lower and
middle classes. When it was ascertained that
nearly one-half of the gold in circulation was
light, and it had been the practice of former
Governments to call that in at the public ex-
pense, equally levied on all, there is no justifica-
tion whatever for this sudden and harsh mode
of proceeding, or allowing a great portion of it
yet to circulate. A humane Government would
say, Whoever may suffer, let us take care that the
suffering shall not fall on one class, and least of
all on those who have barely the means of sub-
sistence. But i❑ everything relating to the cur-
rency, the present Prime Minister has been sin-
gularly unfortunate. By the Bill of 1819 he
created a complete revolution in the value of pro-
perly, and caused the ruin of thousands ; and he
cannot propose a plan even for renovating the
coin without exciting complaints of partiality
and gross injustice. With the long experience
he has had in such matters, and honourable and
merciful as he is allowed to be in private life, it
is really surprising that in public life he should
commit such wanton injury on those least able
to bear it.

The great Whig party—or rather what was
once the great Whig party, for we fear the
Troja fait, or past tense, must be applied to the
power and influence of the Whigs, who appear
well nigh broken up and scattered to the four
winds of Heaven—this once dominant party, after
remaining for some months in a state of sus-
pended animation, is at length beginning to ex•
hibit symptoms of vitality. On Wednesday last,
at a grand public dinner given to him by his po-
litical friends at Chester, Mr. W - ILBRA HAM;
a staunch,. Whig, spoke out boldly and in
detail, on .•the subject of the present
Administration, exposing 'their flagrant
inconsistencies with infinite acuteness, and doing
justice to such good qualities as they possess, in
a commendable spirit of liberality. We hope
the example of this gentleman will be followed
by others of his party, and that the Tories will
not be permitted longer to boast that they have
silenced the voice of opposition by their saga-
cious and liberal measures, and that the country
is generally favourable to their policy. Mr. WIL..
BRAHAM distinctly showed that for almost every
thing that was good in their remedial propositions
Ministers were indebted to their predecessors ;
that their free trade tendencies were decidedly
borrowed from the Whigs; and that even in
their foreign policy,--with the single exception
of the ASHBURTON affair—they were little better
than servile plagiarists from the men whom they
had so long denounced for that very policy !
With equal force and adroitness, the speaker
pointed out the fallacy of the assertion that
the Tories had been more successful than the
Whigs in tranquillising the country. During the
MELBOURNE Administration, he justly remarked,
a riot took place at Birmingham which lasted
four hours; but one of the first fruits of the
PEEL system of Government wasan insurrection
in the North of England, when the manufac-
turing districts were in the occupation of the
mob, not for four hours, but fur four-
teen days; and nothing but the modera-
tion of the misguided rioters themselves
prevented a convulsion that would have shaken
the fabric of social order to its foundations, and
deluged the country with blood. Reverting to
the question of his own political principles, Mr.
WILBRAHAM generously observed that he was
not so much of a party man as to reject good
measures, merely because they happened to be
proposed by a Tory Government. He would
take them, and cheerfully too, no matter who
might propound them. As respects the franchise,
he was decidedly favourable to a " material " ex-
tension of it, convinced, as he now was, that the
ReforM Bill had failed, in more tran one signal
instance, to answer public expectation. We
wish that other influential Whigs would act as
Mr. WILBRAHAM has done, and speak out
boldly on this importaut question of the franchise.
'They cannot have a better opportunity than
the present, when there are no longer foreign
broils to diStract the public attention. Besides,
it is but just that they should not lose a moment
in dispelling the notion—a delusive one, we be-
lieve, butnevertheless very generally entertained
among the people—that, as .a body, they are
far too much wedded to the " Finality " doctrine.
This was the fatal rock on which the Whig vessel
split, and went to pieces. Had it not been for
this, the MELBOURNE Ministry would have been
in office at the present moment, and Chartism—
which is nothing more than a type of popular
despair—would never have gained the strength
which it now unquestionably possesses.
In reference to the momentous question
of the Corn-laws, Mr. WILBRAHAM empha-
tically stated :—" These laws will be re-
pealed in all their obnoxious principles, and by
Sir ROBERT PEEL; and he, as on other occa-
sions, will have the support of the Liberals, who
have always shown, with respect to great prin-
ciples, that theydo not mind the tnan, so thatthey
can get the measures. And Sir R. PEEL, in re-

pealing the Corn-laws, will have the support
of the great body of those country gentle-

men, who swore on the hustings never to allow

any Minister to touch these laws,
.whether
Whig or Tory." We believe that Mr. WIL-
BRAHAM is perfectly correct in his prediction,
and that the Tories, notwithstanding the declara-
tions they have made a thousand times on the

huFtings and in Parliament, will of their own
accord assist their chostn Premier to repeal the