The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-31 00:00:00

THE SUE, LONDO

shame, and sometimes achieve a guilty triumph.
No person doubts, or can doubt, that an income
tax, therefore, will cause a great number of moral
offences, a vast amount of discomfort, and will
strengthen a great number of bad passions.
With all deference to Sir ROBERT PEEL, we
must assert that this is a most serious considera-
tion. Though no man may be able, either be-
fore or after the enactment, to state in a tabular
form, with as much accuracy as he can state the
annual number of births and deaths, the exact
amount of crime caused by the income tax, yet
the awful certainty that it will cause a great
many crimes should make any man, not callous
to all the better feelings of mankind, pause long
before he inflicts it on the community.
It would be a curious inquiry, could it be ac-
curately followed out, to ascertain in what pro-
portions the crimes which now infest society
grow from the natural evil disposition 'of the
ruled, or from the unwise restrictions of the
rulers. One thing is quite certain, that in
proportion as Government has gone on making
restrictions, and so enlarging the number
of offences•—making actions crimes by law,
which nature never forbade—so the number
of offences and of criminals has increased. It
is, in fact, a disgrace to this country that,
abounding as it does with all the natural ele-
ments of social happiness, and endowed, as our
people are, far beyond the average, with wealth-
creating skill, poverty and crime have rapidly
increased, and are still increasing. This must be
the fault of the governing bodies, because they
undertake to prevent and limit crimes, and be-
cause they make those restrictions which are the
parents of numerous offences. Although we
cannot ascertain the exact proportion in which
crimes grow from the natural disposition of the
ruled, or the increased restrictions of rulers, still
we are thoroughly convinced that these do pro-
' yoke a great many offences, and consequently
they ought to be enacted as sparingly as possible.
How many villages on the sea coast have been
demoralised by smuggling cannot be told. How
many families will be corrupted by familiarising
their cheats with the practice of making false
statements under the income tax cannot be
guessed at. How many sad crimes have, witkin
our own recollection, had theirsource in the game
laws cannot by any skill be ascertained. They
have equally provoked criminality in the game
preservers, though the laws do not punish as in
the poachers. It is enough for us to know that
such laws, and the laws which the smuggler
corrects, have caused greatcriminality, to induce
us to call on religious men, on all men interested
in promoting the morality of the people, to re-
sist Sir ROBERT PEEL in now passing a law that
will cause as many, if not as odious crimes as the
duties on foreign spirits and the game-laws.
Every evasion of the income tax, every false re-
turn which may be made under it, every moral
offence which it may indirectly cause, will all be
due to Sir ROBERT PEEL, and may all be
most assuredly prevented—stifling more crimes
than the police and the courts of law—by not al-
lowing Sir ROBERT PEEL to carry his scheme
into effect.

He says he must have money ? Must the Go-
vernment then demoralize society ? It is consti-
tuted to promote the moral, as well as the phy-
sical well-being of society, and when its plans
for raising a revenue become incentives to crime,
we are entitled to conclude that the Government
itself is in error, if it be not a complete failure. It
must not have money at the cost of many crimes.
The income tax will be inquisitorial, unequal,
unjust, a perpetual blister on the people, but, over
and above all these, it will be the parent of much
criminality, and will thwart the efforts of educa-
tionists and philanthropists for the improvement
of the people. There is, we apprehend, another
and a strong ground for resisting it, on which all
the clergy, all the members of the Society of
Friends, and all those who have struggled to
ameliorate the condition of society ought to take
their stand. Its pecuniary evils, and its physical
evils are great, but they dty Hot, in our judgment,
equal its moral evils. A crime-engendering law
is a dreadful pestilence.

What the Tories want in wisdom they supply
by impudence. Because their opponents ob-
jected to their impenetrable silence on their pro.
jects, those opponents are now taunted with
opposing the Tory measures. As the opposition
required, in the interest of the country, to know
the Premier's intentions, they are accused of
faction, because now that they do know them
and disapprove of them, they do not hasten to
pass his measures. If this be good logic, it will
only be necessary for a Prime Minister to with-
hold his measures till the last week of the ses-
sion, to procure their passing by acclamation.
The longer be delays his measures, and the more
clamorous his opponents become, the more cer-
tain will he be of success, let him propose what
he will.

Again, the Tories call Sir ROBERT PEEL'S
Budget the poor man's budget, and ask compla-
cently, would he like to have his coffee and his
sugar taxed instead of seeing the middle classes
taxed? This is marvellous, considering that the
Whigs offered to reduce the tax on sugar, and
the Tories would not let them. The Tories, in
fact, accuse the Whigs of increasing the burdens
of the people, when they were only prevented
from lightening them by the factious conduct of
the Tories. We are at a loss which most to ad-
mire—their love of falsehood or their unabashed
impudence.

The ward of Farringdon Without yesterday
did its duty, and set an excellent example to
every other part of the empire. Why should not
Lambeth, Finsbury, Marylebone, and all the
towns of the empire do as the ward of Farring-
don has done? A little present exertion will
save the people money, time, and comfort here-
after. It is a mark of barbarism not to take
counsel from experience, and avoid evils which
our forefathers have felt, though we have not.
To allow the past and the future to be wholly
swallowed up by the present, is more like a
savage than a civilised man. The income tax
was a curse, and it will be a curse; but because
it is not now felt, men will not take rational
means to prevent it being inflicted on them.

We publish in another part of The Sun, the dig-
nified reply of the Earl of ABERDEEN to the note
of the late American Ambassador, Mr. STEVENSON,
on the Right of Search question. Nothing can be
more forcible, and at the same time more moderate
and conciliatory, than the language of the Noble
Foreign Secretary. The question required the most
delicate handling, after the decided, but unfair and
offensive way in which Mr. STEVENSON placed it be-
fore the public, and we think the Americana them-
selves will admit that it has experienced it at the
hands of Lord ABERDEEN. As the United States
Government persists in a refusal to concede a right of
search, in conjunction with England, France, Aus-
tria, Russia, and Prussia, Lord ABERDEEN is forced
to relinquish any claim to such right for the righteous
purpose of suppressing the inhuman slave traffic. But
he insists upon the visitation of vessels carrying the
United States' flan, by the Commanders of cruizers
employed in suppressing the slave trade, for the pur-
pose of ascertaining that they are bona fide the pro-
perty of the United States. Should the -vessels visited
be really American, they are not to be interfered
with, or detained, although laden with cargoes of
slaves ; as in the words of Lord ABERDEEN, " such
vessels must be permitted, if engaged in it, to enjoy a
monopoly of this unhallowed trade." There will be
no overhauling of the cargo; no examination of pa-
pers beyond what is absolutely necessary to deter-
mine the real nationality of the vessel. Within such
restricted limits we do not see how the American
Government can offer the shadow of an objection to
the proposition of the British Cabinet. iThe right is
one which Lord ABERDEEN states, and which every-
body conversant with the question knows America
herself exercises in the Gulf of :Niexico. Respecting
the right of search being an invasion of national dig-
nity, which the patriotic sensitiveness of Americans
could not brook, the Noble Lord cuttingly remarks
that concessions sanctioned by Great Britain and.
France are not likely to be incompatible with the
dignity of any other State disposed to follow their
, example. This is the only sarcastic stroke in this

THURSDAY MORNING, MARC H 31, 1 {-,42.

diplomatic note, and more than one Member of Con- •
gress has already winced under it.
We are not, however, unprepared for an American
opposition to the visitation, under any pretext what-
ever, of .vessels carrying the United States flag. The
Americans want to continue the slave trade, and
they shrink from the odium they would incur in
Europe were their participation in that odious traffic
officially proclaimed to the world, in the manner
it must be in the reports of visiting officers commu-
nicated to the Cabinets of the Five Powers. A sense
of shame is a step towards repentance, and the very
concealment with which the Americans seek to conduct
this unhallowed traffic induces us to hope that the
day is not distant when they will abandon it as we
have done, and detest the memory of it as much as we
do now. But considering the jealousy of this country
which prevails in the United States, it appears that
our Government has not gone the right way, to
work in conducting negotiations which are in-
tended to accelerate the advent of slavery sup-
pression by the Cabinet of Washington. Instead
of being the sole negotiator with the United States
the English Foreign Secretary ought-to have taken
every step in personal conjunction with the Ministers
of the other Great Powers who have consented to the
Right of Search Treaty. Every note should have been
the joint production of the Ministers of , the Five
Powers, who acting thus in concert, could employ lan-
guage more conciliatory, and even make larger con-
cessions to the influence of public opinion in the
United States, than would comport with the dignity of
an individual Power. What in them would be mo-
deration, would in the case of single States be inter-
preted the language of fear. It is a species of bravado
with many public men in the United States to oppose
every measure advocated by England, for no other
cause than that it is so supported. They fancy that
to oppose England manifests an indifference to her
power, and a 'readiness to cope with her in war.
These men, , > therefore, , would regard very dif-
ferently a note signed by the representatives of
the Five Powers, and one dated from the Foreign-
office, bearing only the signature of Lord ABERDEEN.
Nor is it yet too late to adopt such a course. With-
out the co-operation of the United States, the slave
trade can never be entirely suppressed ; and if
Europe be really in earnest in seeking its suppres-
sion, the better feelings of the American people are
only to be worked upon in the way which we have
just pointed out.

Attempts have been made by several English
Journals to turn into ridicule the lively and versatile
dispositions of our neighbours on the other side of
the Channel. They cannot live, it is said, without
some cause of excitement, real or imaginary ; one
topic succeeds another in rapid succession, and
so effectually is the transient passion effaced
by its successor, that the French themselves even
find amusement in laughing at their own folly. If
these writers would look nearer home, they would
find that the French are not the only people
who render themselves ridiculous by these
transitory fits and passions ; and, least of all,
the people of this country. The French
can enjoy themselves at little expense, but
the English cannot have their folly without paying
dear for it. A new topic every season is brought
forward at Exeter-hall, which agitates the public for
a few months, then dies away, and leaves
Jolty BULL'S pockets somewhat more empty than
before. The great rage for the last season has mani-
fested itself, by the cry for more bishops. Ever since
Lord STANLEY reduced the ecclesiastical staff in Ire-
land, the High Church party have been contriv-
ing means to keep up the number, by convert-
ing clergymen into bishops and transporting them to
almost every quarter of the globe, as if the very
existence of new settlements depended on the pre -
sence of these functionaries. Not content with send
ing them to the West and East Indies, to Canada, and
New Zealand, we must dispatch one to Jerusalem,
where there may perhaps be ten Protestants, all
the rest of the population consisting of Mahom-
medans, Jews, or members of the Greek Church.
Did the French ever commit, any act of folly equal
to this ? To send a Bishop to Algiers, where
there is a large French population, and troops
-ready- to protect them, was absolute wisdom
compared with the wild scheme of our eccle-
siastical chiefs in sending a converted Jew to
a foreign country to be the laughing stock,
nay, more to be stoned like STEPHEN (though we
hope not to death) by circumcised unbelievers.
This is, indeed, a heavy blow and great
discouragement to the bishop-makers and were
this the only consequence, we should rather
rejoice at the result. It exposes to ridicule the mania
of the present day, but it may also expose the country
to serious danger, as the Bench of Bishops- will
call on the Government to demand satisfaction
for this outrage on a mitred head. We trust,
however, they will call in vain. England has
sufficient work chalked out for her in other quarters
of the globe, without getting embroiled with Turks
and Greeks by such a contemptible transaction. The
best thing, therefore, Lord AnNRDERx can do
is this. Let him apply to his friend Lord
HADDINGTON for a vessel of war to despatch
her to the coast of Syria, and bring back
the rejected Bishop without a moment's delay. He
may read his sin in his punishment. He entered the
Sacred City like a conqueror, while his divine Mas-
ter entered it " riding upon a colt, the foal of an ass ;"
and the Greek believers therefore determined to take
vengeance for the insult.

Letters and papers from Lisbon of the 21st inst.
have 'arrived, brought by the Liverpool steamer
to Falmouth. Queen DONNA MARIA. had on the
16th given birth to a son, and both mother and child
were doing very well. The Cabinet was still incom-
plete, for now that the Chartists are in the ascen-
dant they do nothing but quarrel for favourite ap-
pointments. It was reported that Lord ABERDEEN
and Prince METTERNICH approved of a revolution
which increased the Power of the Crown, the latter at
the same time expressing surprise that such a trifle
as an oath should interfere with the QUEEN'S
joyful acceptance of the additional prerogatives offered
her by the revolutionists. Such is the morality of
statesmen. In the North of Portugal, the people were
crying out for a trade with England, in order to get
rid of their wine, for 270,000 pipes of which they
could find no purchasers. This is one of the glorious
results of the protective system !

fadrid Journals to the 21st instant have arrived,
but their contents are unimportant, with the excep-
tion of a few paragraphs given in our foreign sum-
mary. There: was one bargain transacted in the
Threes on the Exchange of the 21st at 20k for sixty
days, amounting to 600,000 reals ; 33 in the Fives
for 20,520,000 reals at 27* for cash, 27 13-16, 281
29, 27i, t, 28 9-16, 27i, for various dates, with the
10 coupons and 20i for sixty days ; three bargains
in the Debt without interest for three millions at 6i
6, for various dates.

Of political news there is an absolute dearth in the
few French Journals published in Paris on Easter
Monday. One fact only is worthy of notice—France
is pursuing the system of naval disarmaments.
The King of Prussia, says a letter from Berlin, has
issued a Cabinet order, dated 20th inst., stating that, as
he has learnt that in Denmark Jews are freely allowed
to exercise their industry, without obstacle on account
of their religion, all Danish workmen, of the Jewish reli-
gion wishing to reside in Prussia, are to receive, on ap-
plication for that purpose, authority to work for any
person with whom they can find employment.
A letter from Florence, dated March 18th, says :
" Prince William of Prussia, who travels under the title
of the Count of Glatz, after having passed ten days here,
has just left for Home. During his stay our Grand
Duke gave a concert in honour of the Prince.
Prince Stourclza, formerly Hoopodar of Moldavia, died
lately at Jassy, aged 80.---Galignaurs Meesenyer.
BO UItSE—YI,IIIS, MONDAY, MADCII 28.
First Highest Lowest Last
Price Price. Pric, Pricy.
French 5 per Centi . )17 50 117 50 ... 117 45 ... 117 45
4 per Cents.
per Cent: ............. 35 60 35 35 ... 61,30 ...
6.nk or France ...... .
Latlitte Bank I.lloot. Briar's 1021 i —112,1 ...le2o
5.000 f. Shares 5047 50 ...5047 5C —504%
Belgian 'tank ......... CO ...1064) ...1060
Belgian 5 per Cents. ......... 1,05% ••• 105% .. 110 ii
F. per Cents., 1840... 1C.:1; ••• 106% ... 106%
Spanish Active ........ v 534, 2541, ... 254 ... 2554
Passive .................. 5% 5% ... 5% 5%
Neapolitan «.........«..........• 106 5 156 25 ... int; 5 ... 106 x 5
.... 105 ... 105 ... 105 ... 105
Boman
RAILWAY SHARkts.
St. Germain ..... 840 ••• 840
84° 810
Versailles. R.
............ 345 345 ... 34:1 75 045
216 25 ... 21r1 25 216 25 ... 216 25
.................
Rouen ....... ........... 525 ... 525 ... 925 ... 525
563 75 ... 5
(mean, ....................... 133 75 ... 562 50 562 75
Strasburg to little.. ........ 241 tis ... 241 25 .. 240 240

TH BgNsow.—ller Majesty's ship of the line
Benhow, which sailed from "Malta on the 7th, put
back during the night of the 11th, having lost her
foreyard, and suffered considerable damage in her
sails, in heavy gales, 200 miles to 'the westward of
the Island. She was in port refitting at the depar;
ture of the Levant Mail.