The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-30 00:00:00

PAILLIAMEIVTAMY.

The Royal Assent was given to the Corn Importation Bill,
Spirit Duties ( I reland) Bill, and some private Bills.
The Marquis of Normanby drew the attention of the Lords
to the case of Mr. Bidduli h, a Magistrate of Ireland ; but as
Earl de Grey said he had written to Irelind for information on
the subject, the Noble Marquis did not press the matter.
A petition from Gateshead, complaining of the appointment
of Tory Magistrates, gave rise to a good deal of crimination
and recrimination amongst Noble Lords relative to appoint-
ing justices for party purposes. For some time the House
was quite agitated with the subject, Both' parties seem
on this point to have acted un the same principle,
and the crimination and recrimination of each is the condem-
nation of both. The Marquis of Normanby, the Lord
Gliancelbr, the• Marquis of Londonderry, Earl Radnor, and
the Earl of Warwick, were the principal speakers.
The Earl of Winchilsea made a statement on behalf of the
Kentish fruit growers, and against the alterations in the tariff,
ishich wi I limit their so- called protection. The Noble Earl
said, it is not just to take away protection from the production
of a particular commodity; but is it just thin to take away the
property of other men to give that protection ? The Legis-
lature can give nothing of its own; it merely takes from one
portion of its subjects to give to another, which, if it be pro.
tection for some, is spoliation for others. The Earl of Radnor
showed that protection had injured the apple growers.
Lord Brougham drew the attention of their Lordships to
the Bribery Act, passed last Session, which prescribes that
Members accused of bribery should be reported, and expressed
his astonishment that this part of the Act had not been com-
plied with. Their Lordships adjourned at Seven o'Clock.
A new writ was moved for Brighton in the room Mr. Wigney.
In reply to Mr. Thesiger, Mr. Redington said he was not
prepared to move for Mr.lllabson's discharge.
Sir J. Yarde Buller, however moved for the discharge of
Mr. Gibbons, which was agreed to.
In reply to Mr. Milner Gibson, Sir R. Peel said that the
question when the treaty with Brazil expires was still the sub-
ject of dispute.
Mr. Wynn, like Lord Brougham in the other House, called
attention to the Bribery Act, and to the fact that it was not
carried into execution by the Committees.
The House was occupied the greater pact of the evening
in Committee on the Income-tax. Mr. Roebuck moved an

amendment on Schedule D, to tax professional incomes one-
half, but it was lost by 258 to 112. After such a decision and
division, we n,ay safely conclude that the Bill will undergo no
important alteration.
Mr. Sharman Crawford subsequently divided the Committee
on his amendment, to exempt all industrial incomes from tax,
which was lost by 50 to 259.
The Committee also divided en Sir C. Napier's motion, to
exempt all naval and army officers, who have no incomes but
from their profession, anti are below the rank of a General or
Flag- officer, which was also lost by 205 to 32.
The House then resumed. Mr. Gilsbons was brought to
the bar, reprimanded by the Speaker, and discharged.
At a Quarter to Three o'Clock, the Commons adjourned,
but met at Two o'Clock this day, to allow Sir. Thesiger to
move for the discharge of Sir. Mabson, on the ground that the
Speaker's warrant Cr his attendance on the Southampton
Election Committee is invalid.
.Trunlrac OPINION.
In reference to Sir. Roebuck's amendment on Schedule D
of the Incorne-tax Bill, the Morniny Herald observes:—" We
think, indeed, that professional income of any kind, but especi •
ally where it is of fluctuating amount, ought to be exempt
altogether from such a tax. This total exemption, it should
seem, there is little chance of realising-, under the present un-
toward aspect of the public revenue. -The next thing, in point
of desirableness, is such a modification as that which is com-
prised in Sir. Roebuck's amendment. his ought to have
been carried. It is impossible to deny the general but striking
argument upon which it is founded: that it is cruel and absurd
to the last degree, to impose on industrial income the same
amount of tax as you levy on (what we should consider for the
purposes of argument, were distinctly and emphatically termed)
fixed property ;—on landed property,' is the terms of Sir.
Roebuck's amendment. There is, we must say, a principle of
moderation about the proposition which at once increases our
respect for the mover and our favour to the amendment."
The following is from the Chronicle:—" The Election
Committees are going on in a very useful course. Day after
day they are unravelling the rays:cries of our representative
system, and exposing to public obloquy the enormities of those
practices by which tilt House of Commons is brought together.
They are bringing the present constitution of Parliament into
universal and merited ohloquN: and Tories, as well as Whigs
and Radicals, are all labouring, not certainly for the purpose,
but still effectually for the end, of proving that the Chartists are
right so far as they complain of the present system. The con-
clusion that that system is full of dangerous and disgraceful
defects, is one which Chartist declamation has not been able to
establish; but which is now being, day after day, impressed on
the public mind by evidence upon evidence, delivered upon
oath, and restricted by the rules of law."
The Post says :—" It is very well known by those who are
familiar with our High Courts of Justice, presided over by
men of learning in the law, and impressed with a conscious-
ness of their great responsibility—it is very well known, we
say, with what reluctance they use the blower of commitment
for contempt, with which they are vested. The Judge never
exercises the power but in the very last resort, and atter hav-
ing done all that patient explanation can do, to subdue the ob-
stinacy, or clear up the misunderstanding, which has led to a
neglect of the authority of the Court. But it mould appear
that Committees of the House of Commons, and in a late case
the gentleman who presides over a Committee, has no such
careful sense of the rights of personal liberty. A gentleman
who calls himself a Liberal' in politics, the Chairman of the
Southampton Committee, seems to be possessed with a rage
for committal to Newgate, which forms a strange illustration
of that devotedness to the liberties of the people for which he
seeks credit as a public man. He is a great admirer of liberty
in the abstract, but when his admiration comes to be tried by
an individual example, he would exemplify it by the method of
committal to her Majesty's gaol of Newga'e !"
The Advertiser has the following observations :—" Mr. Roe-
buck's amendment in Committee on the Income-tax—' That
for nal in respect of the annual profits or gains from any pro-
fession, trade, or vocation, there shall be levied annually, for
every twenty shillings, threepence-halfpenny'—was last night
lost in the House of Commons by a majority of 258 against 112.
Lord John Russell, as if in verification of our opinion that the
Whigs are desirous that the Income-tax Bill should pass in the
unmitigated enormity cf its injustice, in order to make the
Tories more odious to the country, actually opposed the amend-
ment, on the grounds that it was inadequate to remedy all the
unjust operations of the Bill, and that if the House, having
agreed to the necessity of an Income-tax, once commenced
making distinctions between the sources of income, it would
only involve itself in ineatricable labyrinths. We confess our
incompetency to discover the force of t his reasoning,Even though
the Houseof lower oligarchse--it would be mockery to call it the
House of the People—has decreed the imposition of an oppres-
sive and inquisitorial tax, this is no reason why. as Lord John
Russell contends, the tax should be levied with all its monstrous
inequalities. Neither do we see why Lord John Bussed
should be ao solicitous to guard the House from getting into
any labyrinth on this subject, that House being no longer under
his leadership, but, on the contrary, approving a tax to which
he pledged his utmost opposition—it is not his business to clear
away the difficulties and impediments which crowd upon the
path of his opponents. The truth is, his Lordship's tendencies
have far a long time evinced themselves far more in favour of
the class to which he belongs than of the people. *
When the Reform Bill was passed, there was but one
party in this country who considered it a final measure, of
whom he aims to be the leaner. That party consisted of
the men who framed it—forsooth, the Russells, and those pre-
tenders to popular confidence who, on so recent an . occasion
as that of Sir. Sharman Crawford's proposition for extension
of the electoral franchise, absented themselves, heroically
and honourably, from the House of Commons. Than these
the Tories were not more blind, nor more selfishly deter-
mined to uphold aristocratic usurpations. The Tories confessed
that the Reform Bill would be looked upon by the people as a
c° leading cnly to further concession ; while, on the
other hand, the democratic body regarded it not even as a con-
cession. but merely as something leading to a future reality.
The Whigs, and the Whigs only, regarded it as a teimination
to organic change—as a first and final balance between the pre-
teusious of the aristocracy and the rights of the people. Titus,
in the opinion of those pseudo-statesmen, the first step in par
liamentary reforM wa• also to include the last;—the little more
than fact of sweeping away the rotten boroughs was to stand
for that gradually progressive tnlargentent of political privilege
among the people, which their increasing intelligence and
wealth so imperatively call for. It is to be owl ed tlat this
may be Whig statesmanship, but it is certainly tit the view
which will answer in the nineteenth century for England.
England, to be at her natural stage in the political principle—
to be where, if Sir. Pitt's policy of reform had nsued,• she
must now have essentially been, would now see the franchise
extended to ail those classes among whom intelligence and in-
dustry are found to predominate."