The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-16 00:00:00

THE TORY INCOME TAX.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TIMES-7 We confess we do not 820 much to find fault with
in the generality of Lord Brougham's propositions. We agree
most cordially with him as to the inquisitorial,
and therefore
odious character of the tax. What we said in 1816 of the privateinconvenience and exposure which are its necessary
consequence, we should be equally ready to repeat at the pre
sent moment. The ransacking of settlements, wills, mortgages,
and ledgers—the exhibition of all the private pensions granted
by charity, natural duty, or perhaps sense of injury, are in-
conveniences to which the major part of us are as yet happily
blind; and we shall be surprised if they are, on turther ac-
quaintance, endured as patiently as they have been easily re-
ceived. We hope they may be so; yet, while submitting to the
necessity, we cannot resist recalling to our readers' attention the
fact, that the first act of Lord Sidmouth, then. Chancellor of
the Exchequer, on the ratification of the peace of Amiens, on
I the very day when the news of that. peace arrived, was to come
down to the House if Commons with the following announce-
ment : —" It is my intention to propose a repeal of the tax upon
income. lam desirous that the sentiments I entertain respect-
ing that measure should be perfectly undei stood. As a war
tax, I am persuaded that It was a legitimate smiree of revenue ;
but I have ever considered it in no other light than as a war tax,
ioapplioable to a time of peace." It may be true—we believe
it is true—that an emergency has arisen during peace which
calls for the re-imposition of that tax, then so unequivocally
confined to times of war; but these words of the then Minister
show that it is no easy or trivial inconvenience which this
country is now adopting, and therefore that it is acquiring
no ordinary claim on its rulers for a system of rigid
care and economy. '1 hese are our own sentiments; they are
also Lord Brougham's ; nor is it probable that Sir Robert Peel
would materially dissent from them. And having got so far,
all that remains is matter of detail. In regard to these details,
we are ready to confess that much may be said fur several of
the proposed emendations of Lord Brougham. As hinted in
our yesterday's paper, we do nut think it just or wise that the
produce of mere labour—the hard-earned fruit of the sweat of
the brow--or the fatigue of the mind, should be subjected to
the same heavy deductions as the rental or dividend—which
fall without effort or thought into the hands of their
owners. Those who by their exertions are still engaged in
augmenting the resources, or ministering to the convenience,
of their country and their countrytnen—.he merchant or the
manufacturer, the lawyer or the clergyman, the soldier or
the public employee—base all a claim to some relaxation in
their favour beyond what is possessed by those who are merely
enjoying the wealth which has been accumulated for them by
their predecessors—who are reposing on the labours of their
ancestors—enforcing on the public the claims villith those la-
bours (justly inched) acquired for them. And again, we are
disposed to allow, that not the anietart only of a man's annual
income, but the eurtadity and length of its duration, should be
taken into account in fixing the rate of impost which is to tee
levied upon it. It is necessary for England to make
an unusual exertion, and for all according to their means
to contribute to it. Is it conti ibuting according
to those means, if a physician or lawyer, who per-
hips by a peculiar run of luck, and for the first
time in his life, makes his 3,0001. during those three
years, out of which, if he is tolerably prudent, he has to pro-
vide, as tar as he can, for the future prospects of himself and
his family, and who, it. may be, immediately afterwards, from
loss of health or change or frshion, or mere ill fortune, finds
his means of support tail under him, shall yet have been com-
pelled to pay towards this exigency of his country the same
sum that is fairly den anded of a gentleman at case, who for all
past, present, and future time has had, and will have, nothing
to do but to walk to his hankers and receive unfailingly his
hall-)early dividend of 500/. ?Is nut the meaning of the pre-
sent tax under the present circumstances this—that men are
charged with it according to their wealth ? And are these two
men equally wealthy ?
HERALD.—Sir Robert Peel's budget is the poor man's
budget; but though it excludes poverty and mere labour from
taxation, it has the rare merit of compensating the wealthier
for the demand which it makes on their greater abundance.
If it be somewhat inquisitorial, its inquiries are not into the
cottages, the garrets, or the cellars, or into the pockets of the
poor, but into the shops, the counting-houses, and the banking
accounts of the richer. We by no means assert that the pro-
posal is perfect ; ..n the contrary, we have indicated what we
believe to be a substantial and most important defect, and one
which, if Government would yet remedy by the intoduetion
of a graduated scale of duties, according to the amount of
income, w. old remove all opposition to it by lessening the
amount of contribution to be paid by those whose incomes are
small, and to whom the very payment of the tax is most incon-
venient, however amply it be repaid by the diminished cost of
living.

Should, however, Sir Robert Peel feel that the Parliament-
ary obstacles to such an amendment of the scheme are insu-
perable, then we would suggest that the wide margin of sur-
plus-500,000/. a }ear—which the anticipated provecds of his
fiscal propositions will leave at the disposal of the executive,
should induce him to raise the maximum of income derived
front trade and prof& ssii,n to the same amount as that derived
from the profits of tarming—via., 3001. a year—or to reduce
the tax levied on that description of income from id. to 31,id.
in the pound.

PORT.— Here the unanimity ends. The objections are no
less extensive than loud against the taxation of mere income,
which is acquired as the remuneration of industry, even
though it exceed Kin/. a year. We du not deny that much
may very plausioly b. urged against this taxation, and we know
it would be very easy to bring forward cases in which the opera-
tion of such a tax must b, a considerable hardship. What we
have to suggest, however, is, that considerate persons will not
be ready to reject ilie plan on account of those instances of
severity of operation, until they have taken into account
the exigencies of the State, and whether it be pos-
sible to frame any practicable scheme of taxation which
will not be liable to the same or a similar objection. It be-
longs to the very nutore of an income tax that, while it is fairer
than any other in taking a proportionate part of the revenue of
each individual to make up the revenue of the State, it exhibits
snore palpably than any other the hardships which arise from
taxing mere competency as much (in proportion) as affiuence.
It is because this is so obvious that the outcry is made.
It is, in fact, a gi tumor hardship that the man of 3001. a
year has to pay pt•thaps 101. a year in tax upou his gro-
ceries, whi e the man of 3,0001. a sear very probably pays
no more, than it is that an income tax of less than
9/. a year shoula be demanded of him, while the man
of 3,00/. a year has to pay between 80/. and 901.
CHRONICL E.—The announcement of an income tax has
already created quite a ferment. Our table is literally loaded
1 with communications from Correspondents, deprecating, in the
most energetic terms, the imposition, in time of peace, of a tax
intolerable from its inequality, and from the inquisitorial.pro-
yeas to which it subjects all who do nut live on rents, annuities.;
or th, interest of monvy. The income tax has been known to
the people of this country only as a war tax. In tune of war
it was first imposed by Mr. Pitt ; at the peace of Amien,it
ceased ; on the i enelA al of hostilities it was reimposed by Mr.
Addington; in the first year of peace a strong. Ministry was
reluctantly compelled to abandon it. The oppressive character
of the machinery required for assessing and collecting it could
only be tolerated by the people in the excitement of war; and,
with the exception of Mr. Vansittart's blunder in 1816, no Minis-
ter has ever at tempted to force the country to submit to it in peace.
The landlords' Minister is driven to an income-tax by nothing
but the hard commands of those who made him Minister, and
can unmake him. It is to keep up the Corn-laws and the
sugar monopoly—to minister to the rapacity of country gentle-
men and West India planters, that Sir Robert Peel now pro-
poses to send his inquisition through the land, prying into
every man's affairs, and setting neighbour against neighbour ;
to make bankrupt every trader whose temporary embarrass-
ments cannot hear exposure ; and to wring from industry and
enterprise their hard-earned, precarious, and scanty gains.

SUDDEN DEATH OF MR. GEORGE
CLARK, THE SCULPTOR.
(Filo:sr A CORRESPONDENT.
The death of Mr. Clark, who was eminent in his profession,
took place at Birmingham, in a very sudden manner, on
Saturday morning last. From the Inquest held before Dr.
Birt Davies, on the Monday following, James Newbould, the
first witness examined, stated, that about half-past nine on the
morning in question, while in the shop of Mr. Burdett,
who is a surgeon in New Hall-street, the deceased staggered
down the steps of the surgery, and appeared very ill ; he sunk
into an arm-chair; his head reclining on one side and his face
ghastly. Witness called for a surgeon's assistance opposite,
who proceeded to b'eed him, but life was extinct.
Mr. Burdett, surgeon, spoke to having seen him on the pre-
ceding Thursday, when he laboured under dyspepsia, and com-
plained of pain in the region of the stomach. He considered
death to have been occasioned by the rupture of one of the
large blood-vessels of the heart.
The Jury returned a verdict assigning this as the cause of
death, as also that the deceased "Died by the visitation of God."
Mr. Claik resided in Tower-street, Birmingham, and was in
his 47th year. He has, we rep et to say, left behind a family
of nine children who arc now unprovided for. At the time of his
death he was engaged in casting the leaves that were to form
the foliage of the capital for the Nelson monument, in Trafal-
gar-square, and had finished the two first. He is best known
by his statue of Major Cartwright in Burton-creseent.