The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-13 00:00:00

titg IV( •

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY MORNING, JULY 13, 1842.

Sir ROBERT PEEL'S proposal last night to bring in a
Bill for the better security of her MAJESTY, met with
the unanimous and hearty approbation of the House of
Commons, and will meet with the hearty approbation of
the country. The Right Hon. Gentleman proposes to
create no new treason, but to divest such mischievous
attacks as have lately been made of the character and
dignity of treason—to degrade them to the filth of petty
larceny, and inflict on the offenders whipping and im-
prisonment. This Bill will subject such offenders to more
speedy as well as simple justice, and it brings all
possible attempts on her MAJESTY within the meshes of
the law. That such a measure will be a more effectual
protection for her MAJESTY than the present law of
treason, is, we believe, the universal opinion; and it is
generally thought that if any law can discourage such
monomaniac attempts, it will be one which degrades the
crime and the criminal. Sir R. PEEL'S Bill completely
corresponds to the public sentiment, and may almost be
said to be a law before it is passed.
In the course of his speech, the Right Hon. Baronet
informed the house that the Judges, the law officers of the
Crown, and the members of the Cabinet, were unani-
mously of opinion that FRANCIS should not suffer the
penalty of death. It is certainly satisfactory to them
and the public to know that their merciful decision, in
that case, had no influence in exciting the mind of the
present miscreant to commit the outrage on her MA-
JESTY. He purchased his pistol, absented himself rom
home, wrote his letter, and laid his plans, before the
decision, we believe, was taken, and certainly before it
was pro:nulgated. The hasty assumption that mercy
was the parent of a fresh crime, which, in the first in-
stance, was generally adopted, is known to be an error ;
and the Ministers have not to reproach themselves with
any evil effects from misplaced lenity.

Sir ROBERT PEEL quoted on Monday evening some
specimens of the falling off and of the increase in the
Customs' duties during the last quarter, to show the ef-
fects of changes in the tariff. Thus wine had fallen
off 108,0001., timber, 113,000/., and coffee, 31,0001. On
brandy and rum, also, there was a large loss. There
was an increase of 113,000/. on sugar, of 34,0001. on
molasses, on cotton wool 26,9801., on tea 16,718/. The
Right Hon. Baronet attributed the falling off of the re-
venue to changes in the tariff, while the increase took
place in articles which have not been meddled with.
Such may be the case ; but there are some facts con-
nected with these several articles which warrant a dif-
ferent view.

The tariff makes no change whatever in the wine ,
duties, none in the duties on rum, and none in the
duties on brandy, and en all these articles of luxury
there has been a great falling off. It is erroneous to at-
tribute that to the tariff. A more probable and a more
alarming cause is that the middle classes—the master-
manufacturers and tip-top shopkeepers—finding their
incomes running away from them, have ceased to indulge
in wines and other spirituous liquors. Economy and
morality recommend the giving up of that indulgence as
one of the first curtailments of expense. That recom-
mendation has been acted on to a great extent, and the
result is that the revenue on the luxury of wine and
spirits has fallen off during the last quarter nearly one-
fourth. This is a pretty sure indication of much in-
creasing frur,,ality in the middle classes.
The red,iction in the coffee duties is justly ascribed by
Sir It. PEEL to his proposed change, for there is good
rr,ason to believe, from the increased consumption of
sugar, and the substitution of coffee for other drinks and
for food, that more of it has been used. As to sugar, Sir
R. PEEL knows that the increasedduty is the result of an
increase in the supply. Mr. GOULBURN stated last year,
in the debates on Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S proposal to re-
duce the sugar duties, that an increased revenue would
be obtained from sugar without making the proposed
reduction, because there was a greater quantity to come
to market. On two or three subsequent debates the
Tories, including Sir R. PEEL, plumed themselves on their
sagacity, and disproved beforehand Sir R. PEEL'S Mon-
day statement as to sugar.
Of the increase of duty on cotton wool, and on tea,
we know nothing ; but it is to be rather attributed, we
apprehend, to the peculiar state of the New Orleans and
Canton markets, than to the tariff not having disturbed
those duties. As to timber, Sir R. PEEL has on that
point supplied beforehand some materials for doubting
his accuracy. During a debate on the tariff, when he
was asked to give the timber merchants time to clear off
their stocks, &c., he taunted them with having last year,
in expectation of a change, and of catching a large draw-
back, imported an unusual quantity of timber. There
was, over-production then and collapse now, which
accounts, as well as his change in the duties, for some of
the reduction of the revenue from timber. We hardly
know what Sir R. PEEL meant to infer from the figures
he quoted, but the unaltered duties on wine and spirits,
and the falling off in the revenue on them, is a proof,
we are afraid, that another and a more baneful cause is
at work to reduce the Custom-house revenue than the
temporary disturbance caused by altering the tariff.
Sir ROBERT, too, has frequently dwelt with com-
placency on the increase of exports. Did he include
in his congratulations the thousands of ingenious
emigrants and the property they take with them, for
which no equivalent will ever be gained ? " Over 3,000
people," says a recent number of the New York Herald,
" landed in the city of New York in the last two days,

including agriculturists and all kinds of mechanics." We
have no doubt that the bulk. of those persons went from
Great Britain, whence a number little short of 100,000
will go this year. Persons of skill and property are
running away from the wreck which awaits them here.
Every one of them carries something with him, many
of them carry a good deal ; what they carry or send
swell the exports ; while, as the Custom-house returns
show, the imports an. hninishing. But the imports,
not the exports, enrich a country ; and Sir ROBERT
PEEL is in the singular position for a Prime Minister of
rejoicing over the double evidence of the nation's decay.

Mr. FEBRAND presented a petition on Monday from
workmen: in Queenshead, praying for a law to regulate
wages accordin to the price of wheat. Earl STANgOrE,

in the House of Lords, on the same evening, stated that
an old Tory manufacturer of Yorkshire had assured him
that unless the Parliament protected the wages of labour
the consequences might be serious ; and Mr. COBDEN
pointedly and emphatically assured the House of Com-
mons that as the Legislature had taken on itself to re-
gulate the price of food, so it was bound to ensure profit
to the manufacturer and good wages to the labourer.
Now, all these different authorities, two of them being
at opposite political poles, point to the same conclusion
as the necessary consequence of the Legislature under-
taking to regulate the price of wheat—the establishment,
namely, of a maximum and a minimum price for all
things, for which the first French Revolution ifs its pro-
gress was so fiercely condemned.
What a task does the Legislature thus impose on
itself. It must not only adjust the wages of the common
manual labourer to the price of food, as that varies with
the seasons, but it must adjust the rewards of skilled
labourers in proportion to the time and education re-
quired to learn an art. It must also establish the
rewards of new arts as they arise, and must equally
apportion, in all cases, the profits of any new ma-
chine, between the capitalist who merely owns it,
and the labourer who makes and uses it. To every man
willing to work, to every man able to work, it will be
bound to secure a fitting reward, as well as to the owner
of rent and the owner of tithes. In truth, the practical
establishment of St. Simonism, of which the main prin-
ciple is that the State should reward every man accord-
ing to kis works, is the necessary and inevitable conse-
quence of making a law to regulate the price of corn.
Theprinciple of the maximum and the minimum has been ,
adopted for the landowners, and the starving labourers
now justly demand its equal application to them.
Such a system may be very benevolent, for the bene-
volence of our legislators, at least to themselves, is great;
it may be wise, for the wisdom of our landowners is to
us quite inscrutable; but though wise and benevolent, it
is impossible. No human power can by design and will
accomplish any such equal and just distribution of wages,
profit, and rent amongst the different classes of the com-
munity. No Government that we are aware of has
ever attempted it, unless it was that of the Jesuits in
Paraguay ; and no Government can accomplish it for a
society which is more enlarged and more complicated
than that of a monastery. This impossible system, dis-
guised under the name of protection, is the system of our
landlords. We must warn them, from the three examples
we have quoted, that the plan of protecting native agri-
culture by securing a certain price for corn, involves for
the State the impossible duty of securing an adequate
and just remuneration for every labourer in the empire,
and ensures, by making the Government itself on that
principle an impossibility, the destruction of the Govern-
ment.

The Ministers carried their object last night of con-
tinuing the Poor-law Commission for five years; never-
theless, it is again stated that they mean to give up the
larger portion of the Bill, fearing that to pass the whole
would prolong the session beyond endurance.

RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR
COLLECTING the INCOME-TAX.

The following is a copy of the official regulations
which will be issued to every person for the purpose
of assessments of profits in trade, professions, :
" County of
• " Parish of

" In pursuance of an Act passed in the sixth year
of the reign of her present Majesty, for granting to
her Majesty duties on profits arising from property,
professions, trades, and occupations, you are hereby
required to fill up such statements as are applicable to
your particular case, and deliver the same, under cover
and seal, at my dwelling-house, situate at or
at the office of the Commissioners, at , within
21 days from the date hereof, under a penalty of 201.,
and treble duty.

" RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR INCOME.

" The tax under this schedule extends to all trades,
professions, employments, or vocations, carried on or
exercise .1 in Great Britain or elsewhere, by persons
residing in Great Britain, or carried on or exercised
in Great Britain by any persons, whether subjects of
her Majesty or not, although not resident in Great
Britain, and to every art, mystery, &c., carried on by
them respectively other than quarries of stone, lime-
stone, slate, or Chalk, coal mines and other mines,
iron works, gas works, salt works, water works, canals,
docks, &c., right of markets, fairs, tolls, railways, and
other concerns of a like nature.

" The balance of profits of trade of manufacture is
to be returned at the place where it is carried on, on
an average of three years preceding ; or if set up
within three years, on an average, from the pe-
riod of commencing the same, either ending
on the day of the year when the annual ac-
counts of the trade have been usually made
up, or on the sth April, 184 ; or, if commenced
within the year of assessment, according to such fair
computation, on average, as to the best of your know-
ledge and belief, you shall state, and shall be directed
by the Commissioners.
" In estimating the profits and gains in trade,
"DEDUCTIONS ARE ALLOWED

" For repairs of premises, or supply or repairs of
implements, utensils, or articles employed, not exceed-
ing the sum usually expended for such purposes,
according to an average of three years.
"For bad debts only, or such part thereof as shall
be proved to the satisfaction of the Commissioner to
be such.

" For any average loss not exceeding the actual
amount of loss or adjustment.
" And for the rent or value of any dwelling-house,
or domestic offices, used for the purpose of trade, a sum
not exceeding two-thirds part of such rent.

" /.i0 DEDUCTIONS ARE ALLOWED

" On account of loss not connected with or arising
out of trade, &c.
" Nor for any sums employed or intended to be
employed as capital therein.
"Nor on account of capital withdrawn therefrom.
" Nor for any capital employed in improvement of
premises not occupied for purposes of trade.
" Nor on account or pretence of any interest which
might have been made on capital if laid out at interest.
" Nor on account of any annual interest, or any
annuity, or other annual payment, payable out of such
profits or gains.
"Nor for any sum recoverable under an insur-
ance or contract of indemnity.
" Nor for any disbursements or expenses which
shall not be money wholly and exclusively laid out
for trade, &c.
" Nor for any disbursements or expense of main-
tenance of the parties, their families, or establishments.
" Nor for any sum expended in any other domestic
or private purposes distinct from the purposes of trade.
" The 't rofits on professions, &c., are to be returned
on the amount of the preceding year, ending as be-
fore ; subject to the like provision with respect to
those profits as to profits on trade, or the setting up
within the year of assessment.
" The profits on all securities bearing interest pay-
able out of the public revenue (except annuities, divi-
dends, and shares payable out of any public revenue,
or the interest o'z" East India Bonds otherwise
charged), and all discounts and interest of money, not
being annual interest, payable or paid by any person
whatever, are to be returned on the full amount of
profits and gains arising therefrom within the pre-
ceding year.
" The profit from foreign possessions and secu-
rities, or in the British plantations, or in any other of
her Majesty's dominions, may be stated to and
assessed by the Commissioners of London, Bristol,
Liverpool, and Glasgow, or nearest to such place
where the property shall have been imported, or the
persons receiving the remittances or value thereof re.
side ; or, if imported or received in different parts, or
in two or more of the outports above-mentioned, the
whole profits are to be returned at each port ; but
they are to be assessed upon the aggregate amount
at each port only where the major part of the value
has been imported or received.

" The returns of profits arising in any other manner
than as above described, comprehending every possi-
ble source of profit, of whatever nature or kind (not
particularly described in the other parts of the Act),
may either be formed on an average of years, if in
their nature these profits are uncertain in their annual
amounts, on the profits of the preceding year.
" The Act imposes the obligation of making returns
not only on individuals for whose benefits the profits
are received, but also on trustees, &c., receiving the
properties of others; and state in what capacity you
make the return, whether on your account, or as
trustee of any description for another, or as officer of
any corporation or company ; and, acting in that ca-
pacity, you are liable to the same penalty for not
making a due return of the profits you are accountable
for as for your own profits.
" You are not required to make any return of an-
nuities, &c., payable in Great Britain out of any
public revenues, or of the interest on East India
bonds, the duties of, which are to be retained by the
respective Corporations or Companies trusted with
the payment of the same, unless the half-yearly pay-
ment of dividend does not amount to fifty shillings ;
nor are you required to make any return of rents, an-
nuities, or interests of money, and other annual pay-
ments payable to you by others residing in this
kingdom (unless such payments are derived from pro-
perty out of Great Britain), they being chargeable
on the party by whom the payment is to be made,
and will ultimately fall on you by
from the amount at the time the payment is made
without a particular assessment." way of deduction
GENERAL DECLARATION.

" I—, do hereby declare, that all the particulars
required in this notice, to he returned as appertaining
to me in relation to the duties on profits of property,
trade, or profession contained in schedule —, are in
every respect fully and truly stated, according to the

best of my judgment and belief, and according to the
rules and regulations of the Act of Parliament in that
lielief made.—Dated this day of 184—.
(Signed) 01

OVERTHROW OF THE INCOME-
TAX IN 1816.
The upsetting of the Income-tax in 1816 was a
measure which was carried by the sturdy, strenuous,
and unflinching conduct of the great towns and bo-
roughs of the United Kingdom, in assailing the
House with their unceasing and numerously-signed
petitions, and by the bold and determined opposition
within its walls. Among those who figure promi-
nently at this period, Mr. (now Lord) Brougham, ex-
erted his most: vehement powers towards the over-
throwal of this obnoxious tax ; he was the earliest in
attacking it with his invincible and peculiar ardour,
nor did he finally abandon the prosecution of it till,
even after its abrogation, he had satisfied himself that
every paper, which was blotted by the disclosure of
men s private affairs and transactions, was either
burned, torn up, or erased. This last interesting trait
in the downfal of the measure we shall adduce, and
glancing
t
then add various extracts from speeches which we
theanv eegf at thhee
Cr eednatmo geentsh, eHr ,
ub
sye f
h e yoeavrer
1816,tlxe
re g s
when-
the debates on the subject were strongest, and the
measure was finally ejected.
The fate of these Property and Income-tax Re-
turns on the final termination of the oppressive Act,
was thus :—On the 30th of May, Mr. Brougham
asked what steps had been taken for collecting the
papers for the purpose of destroying them. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer—" There is no wish to
preserve the returns alluded to, and it was proposed,
to erase the names of individuals from all returns.
The returns would themselves not be entirely re-
turned, as it was necessary to preserve an account of
the sums contributed by different classes." Mr.
Brougham—" I have to express my doubt at this
mode of erasure : I think the burning of the papers
would be much better, and there is a public officer,
not in great estimation, whose assistance for this pur-
pose might be very advantageously called in."
PUBLICATION OF MEN'S PRIVATE AFFAIRS.—A
curious fact occurred while the Act was in force,
showing how subject the petitioners were to have
their concerns laid open to a twain of inspectors and
spies. A very respectable person, a ship-broker, had
occasion to purchase an article at a cheesemongers,
which he received wrapped up in a paper that proved
to be, to his no small astonishment, the return of one
of his friends and neighbours to the Commissioners of
the Income-tax. A call was made by him on the
gentleman to whom he stated the circumstance and
they both called on the cheesemonger. The trades-
man told them he had lately bought a great deal of
waste paper of the same kind, and they found upon
further inquiry that the paper in question had been
exposed to sale by the Commissioners, and consisted
of the whole returns of what was commonly called
their jurisdiction, but which was really their inquisi-
tion. Thus it appeared that the private affairs of all
persons had been exposed, not only to the Commis-
sioners, but to the world, by their returns being ex-
posed to sale as waste paper.
CASE or OPPRESSION.—The following case, one
of frequent occurrence, appeared in that of a poor
widow woman, who had the usual difficulty in ob-
taining the proper deductions, which was at the time
a universal subject of complaint. This poor woman
was proprietor of a house of 121. per annum, which
was the greater part of her income. For this sum
she had been assessed, and though she had made re-
peated applications to the Commissioners to have the
deductions which the Act authorised in cases like
hers, she could obtain no redress . She was obliged
to pay for five years, and had contributed out of this
poor pittance 61. to Government, before her case was
attended to. Cases of such low assessment of course
will not occur under the present scale of the Income-
tax, but similar sufferings will occur plentifully a
grade or two higher.
AN IRISH RETURN TO THE COMILISSIONERS.—The

following whimsical return was made against the tax;
as stated by Mr. Freemantle, in 1816, in the House,
to an assessor in the county of Cork in this way :
" Take notice, I have cut the throats of all my horses
—I have shot all my dogs—l have burned all my ear-
riages—l have shut up all my windows—l have dis-
missed all my servants, except my wife—and there-
fore I conceive that I cannot be liable to any assess-
ment whatever."
Sir James Mackintosh said in debate—" Petitions •
pouring in from all parts of the country, universally
agreed in describing the tax as the most unequal
imposition ever designed by the ingenuity of man.
An Hon. Gentleman had not considered it an oppres-
sive tax. Sir James would ask, was it nothing like
oppression to drag the tradesman before Commis-
sioners, to whom he was compelled to disclose his
most secret affairs, and having done so, to submit to
the exercise of their inquisitorial authority, however
unjust their decision, from whichthere was no appeal."
Mr. Lushington, who spoke in favour of this
tax, alleged that it would reach affluence in the
hands of avarice, and to make use of an observation
he had seen before, " it reached those who lived like
beggars, and made them pay like gentlemen."
Mr. Lambton said that "he need not himself recom-
mend that to the Government, which they had tried so
long on the people of the country—profuse bleedinf.
Whether the lancet or the leech would do best for this
purpose, he did not know ; but possibly they would
be able to obtain satisfactory information on this
point from many of the commissioners of this very tax."
" I have been informed," said Mr. Newman, in
debate, " that in some parts of the country the prisons
are so much crowded with farmers, confined for in-
ability to pay this tax, that some of the gaolers had
refused to take any more for lack of room.'
" As long," remarked Mr. Brougham, " as the tax
is in existence, and the machine can be screwed up,
we are not safe from its effects, and the country
should know, that if it were not now entirely de-
stroyed, they could not hope for its destruction." "It
was too easy a means," he continued, "of gratifying
the Government passion for expense—by an infini-
tesimal turn of 'the screw, its produce might be
raised or diminished to meet any demand. By it
might be raised 1001., or fourteen millions. It was
an engine which should not be left at the disposal of
extravagant ministers or extravagant princes."
The farmers of Aylesbury had their opposition to
the tax spiritedly advocated by Lord Nugent. "Sir,"
said he, addressing the Speaker, " these petitioners
are a class of men generally who suffer the most
severely from the operation of this tax. The 7 are not
merchants. They are not manufacturers. They are
in general graziers and dairy farmers. They inform
me that at this time they can neither make their
rente nor stock their farms. They hold in their
hands highly valuable old grass lands, at a very high
rent, and are obliged to stock those pastures with a
very expensive sort of stock. This state of things
cannot and will not last. The yeomanry of England
will and must resist this odious and profligate system,
by every legal means in their power. They will not
doom their children to want and beggary, themselves
to bankruptcy and a gaol."
Twenty-six petitions, signed by 700 occupiers and
owners of land in north Devon, stated that " many
of them, in order to meet the payments of the tax,
had been under the necessity of selling their young
cattle to great disadvantage ; and many of them were,
now in confinement for debt, from inability to pay.'
On the 26th February petitions, from at least fbrty
of our leading towns and boroughs, were presented
against the tax. Sir Francis Burdett, in presenting
one from Westminster, said the inhabitants protested
against it as an " intolerable grievance." Sir James
Shaw, also, in presenting a petition against the
income-tax, from the inhabitants of the Ward of
Bread-street, stated, that " though they had sup-
ported his Majesty's Government for the last twenty-
five years, they were uow unanimous in their opposi-
tion to this tax."

Sir Francis Burdett, in the debate of February. 27,

speaking on this tax, said, " It was a proceeding like
this which caused the rebellion in the time of Charles

the First. That Monarch always enforced his exac-
tions under the plea of necessity, and the most in-
tolerable burdens had been imposed on the people,
under the specious cloak of necessity. The land-tax
was one of these ; and the property-tax was nothing
but an extended land-tax."

Mr. Brougham, on the 22d of February, rose with
a petition in the House of Commons, spoken of in
Hansard as "a petition of enormous size in his arms,"
which was from the large body of the inhabitants of
Clerkenwell, against the income-tax. In fourteen
hours, and no more, 3,278 individuals flocked to sign-
this petition.
Mr. Lambton said, on presenting petitions against
the tax, that these would be followed by numerous
others of the same character, " in order to convince
Ministers that the people of England would not,
among their accumulated distresses, endure the pres-
sure of taxation for the express purpose of supporting
tyrants upon their thrones, whether those tyrants were
inde r agonfreeebyco.tinetry
the Bourbons of Spain, or the Bourbons of France."
Sir John Newport resisted it, saying, " his own
objection to the tax was to the principles—that it was
which,
had u
unequal and oppressive in itsdoepescraritbilonng—thethatoiptpgrreasnsit,emsd
power to certain persons,
ed."
expression
wshboAiue should
hd speakert nheevfearr
nmb eetr
farmers
se t
in-
fliction of the tax, used the strong that
" they e
petitionha been
presenteds horn to tfbr
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York-
reached in length from the body of against the tohuesetatxo
Westminster Hall.

The petition from the City of London was signed
by 22,000 of those who had all along before sup-
ported Government measures.
The popular voice, as heard and felt in these peti-
tions, was too mighty to be withstood. Opposition
had now reached its topmost pitch, and was ready to
hurl down the landmarks of the realm, if unattended
t°' Me House was alarmed--the contest within its