The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-29 00:00:00

THE LEVANT MAIL.

TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, MARCH 7.—A note identique has
been addressed to the Porte by the Representatives of
the three Powers, England, France, and Russia, recom-
mending the withdrawal of the Turkish troops from
' Larissa and other places contiguous to the Greek fron-
' tier. In the present critical state of relations of the two
countries, the menacing attitude and warlike muster on
either side might lead to a collision, which would render
abortive the pacific labours of diplomacy at Constanti-
nople. Instructions will be this day transmitted by the
French packet steamer to the Ministers of the three
Powers at Athens, in order that, from similar represen-
tations, the Greek Government may also effect a retro-
grade movement of its troops in the same quarter. As
far as the Porte is concerned, the most satisfactory. as-
surances have been given that the wishes of its allies
will be promptly and scrupulously attended to. The
precautions of the corps diplomatique, which would,
under all circumstances, be entitled to the praise of a
prudent foresight, are the more seasonable, perhaps,
that certain difficulties, which have unexpectedly arisen,
are again said to throw a cloud over the negotiations
on tins question. The basis so discreetly established for
them by Sir Stratfnid' Canning at Athens, was insidi-
ously disturbed,' after his departure from thence, and the
pretensions whit fi ir.is now generally understood M.
Mavrocordato is prepared to put forward here, are but
little in accordance with the conciliatory professions
made to our Ambassador, and on the strength of which
he willingly charged himself with the olive branch to
the Porte. M. Mavrocordato presented his credentials
to the Grand Vizier three days ago, but has not yet been
admitted to an audience with the Sultan. Her Majesty's
steam-packet, the Phoenix, left Constantinople for Bey-
rout yesterday morning. She had been detained here
for some days, probably because Sir Stratford Canning
expected that the Porte would come to some definitive
arrangement with respect to the Government of the Le-
h mon, in which case she would have been at its disposal
for the expediting of the business. Contrary to antici-
pation, however, nothing has to this day been decided,
the affair is still in abeyance, and it would seem that the
Turks are but temporizing, in hopes, perhaps, that the
position of Omar Pacha is not so eesperate as it was re-
presented to be, and that they may still escape the hu-
miliation of deposing him. More than one successor has,
nevertheless, been publicly assigned to him, and the
chances, I believe, are in, favour of Emir Emin, the son
of Emir Beschir.

Rumours have been for some time current with respect
to the instability andapproaching downfall of the Minid-
try here ; but I cannot ascertain they have any fowl-
dation, beyond the growing conviction felt in all.quarters
that their continuance in, power is incompatible with the
preservation of the empire.
The Porte is said to be contemplating a new con-
scription in Asia Minor and Roinelia. The troops al-
ready assembled in various quarters abundantly suffice
for all the purposes of good government, and fresh
levies can only be intended to countenance oppression,
or to assume a menacing attitude towards foreign Powers.
They are, moreover, for the most part, ill-paid and ill-
provided, and great mDrtality prevails among them both
in the capital and the provinces ; more than 500 perished
in the hospitals of Constantinople last month. The com-
plaint of which they mostly die is said to be nostaglia,
and the victims are chiefly Egyptians, to whom their
exile from their more genial climate is altogether insup-
portable.

THE CROWNING MERCY OF THE
TORIES.
(From Tait's Magazine for April.)
The Peel pOlicy has reached the climax ! Sir Ro-
bert has taken even his own warmest supporters by
surprise. There were whispers of a properly tax.
To some that seemed a necessary, as it will always
be, a just tax, if fairly levied. But the whole income
of the country suddenly brought within the sweep-
net of the Minister, that was news ! And as surely
as that the landlord's clutch of the bread of the
people will never be unloosed during his reign, it now
is that every man belonging to the generally uneasy
middle classes, every man striving to maintain his
place in society, upon the lessening, or, in many cases,
the almost extinguished profits of a trade or a profes-
sion, must not only be taxed, but rendered liable to
the same ordeal, in the rigid scrutiny of his most sa-
cred and private affairs, as if he were a bankrupt at-
tempting to defraud his creditors.
Well, the existing constituencies sent those Mem-
bers to Parliament who, having first adopted Peel's
sliding scale, which is to mete the people's food, will
next sanction his fixed standard for mulcting every
man's income. A sliding scale for the purposes of
the landlord—a 4 Procrustean bed for those of-the
Minister.
The Newspaper Press, we rejoice to see, is nearly
unanimous in denouncing an income tax on trades
and professions • the country is already ringing frOm
from side to side with indignation ; and no man can
paint the gross injustice and the injurious and tortur-
ing operation of such a tax black enough. Even Sir
Robert Peel himself, though he cares little about its
unequal pressure, admits its inquisitorial character.
That seems, indeed, to be very generally understood,
but not yet to the full extent. The income tax, with
its Local Boards, Tory Commissioners, Tory under-
strappers, prying, espionage, and reckless exposure*
of private affrirs, was, in its day, one of the frost en-
venomed weapons of party spite and political perse-
cution that ever the minions of any Government
wielded. Many men of liberal sentiments still alive
must remember their own sufferings and the tender
mercies of its inquisitorial machinery. And what it
was in the beginning of the century, it will be again ;
for Peel's Budget will be carried, in substance, and
ix every important detail ; and, whatever may be
modified, the tax on the precarious incomes of trades
and professions will assuredly not be spared, if there
shall be a tax on property of any kind. A war tax—
never resorted to but in the last extremity, and the
most grievous and unjurious in operation—will be
imposed upon that class of the community, which,
with the exception of the actually half-starving ma-
nufacturers, are the least able to bear. The country
has been, for nearly thirty years, comparatively at
peace, though the great majority of the class to be
mulcted have been, and that for years, at war,
in warding off poverty or pecuniary difficulty
in the midst of decaying trade, lessening and preca-
rious profits, ruinous competition in all professions,
and no foreign outlet for professional talent. And
after a series of bad seasons, when the increased
expense of living, of buying merely meat and bread,
and common necessaries, has been seriously felt by
every family, save the opulent few, it it proposed to
impose this tax anew ; and that without any
cause satisfactorily shown, save the mere conve-
nience of the Minister. Had this odious measure
followed the total repeal of the taxes on food, there
might have been some reason, or at least, some decent
pretext for the course adopted. But to afford the
mass of the community no redress for their master-
grievance—the bread-tax—to give the manufactures
of the country no substantial relief that can with cer-
tainty be calculated upon, and to impose fresh burdens,
heaviest in amount to those least able to bear them,
and made intolerable in the mode of examinatian, is
the crowning mercy of Sir Robert Peel's vigorous
administration.
His real reason, after all, may have been fear, that
the Corn-law repealers would put their threats into
execution, and force him to surrender, by starving
themselves, in order to cut off his Excise and Customs
resources. We give Sir Robert some credit for his
sagacity. This must be the real reason. " You,
Messrs. Cobden and Co." thinks Sir Robert to him-
self, " threaten me with using no wine ; yiu, Mri.
Brookes, and your ladies, with using no tea, coffee,
and snow : why, I will match you there—l will di-
rectly sugar
your pockets." He almost admits this
view, when he says. "The middle class may save as
much through the reduction of duties by the new
tariff, as they will have to pay in income tax." But,
if so, where was the need of change, or of having re-
course to this new, irritating tax ? And, admitting
that some changes for the better are made by his timid
peddling with the tariff, short is the way that the
cautious; yet meddling minister has ventured in the
right direction ; while with all his trimming and dex-
terity, and his evident anxiety to please those of whom
he holds, while he attempts some small good, he has
laid the foundation of many future difficulties to him-
self and his successors.
If Peel imagines that he will gain the working-
classes by his policy, no mistake can be greater.
Many of them can scrutinize his tariff, with as much
knowledge of its probable operation as himself ; and
then inquire what it promises to them. Increased
employment ? Doubtful. Cheaper food ? Certainly
not. The single alteration on the sugar duties, pro-
posed by the late Government, would have afforded
more actual relief and solace to the countless number
of families in the kingdom, whose income is under
155. a-week, than his proposed alterations of the
tariff. Bread and bread-stuff, which at present swal-
low up two-thirds, and as often three-fourths, of their
incomes, remain precisely as before. In cheese and
butter we hear of no reduction.; and as to the reduc-
tion which may take place in the price of fresh meat,
it little concerns those who rarely see meat, and,
while bread remains at its present exorbitant rate,
cannot obtain.meat in any form. Instead of dividing
the working and the middle classes, Peel's Crowning,
Mercy will force them more rapidly into close al-
liance. They have the selfsame interests, however it
may be with the aristocratic and non-producing
classes. Whatever affects the employer, must soon
and certainly affect the employed. Whatever lessens
the means of the consumer must soon be felt by the
producer. All burthens ultimately press hardest on
the lowest body. This has been very clearly stated
in Parliament by Lord Brougham, and his lessons
will not be lost. The working-men are already ac-
quainted with the operatien of taxation. They may
escape the fiery ordeal of the income inquisition, but
they must bear their share of the loss of money going
to the tax-gatherer, instead of being employed in
giving inpulse to their industry.
And whither have vanished all those visions of the
relief to trade, of the influx of prosperity, which were
to follow in the wake of a Tory Administration ?
Are they to end in a new sliding scale, and an in-
come tax falling on all incomes alike, from whatever
source they may accrue, whether from the most per-
manent and well-secured, or the most uncertain and
fluctuating ? And what a wonderful man he is who
has accomplished this !—what a mighty mind that,
which, after seven months, devised the marvellous'
scheme ! Why, Mehemet Ali would have done the
same thing in seven hours—and better. He could
not have done worse. It is almost ludicrous to hear
of the admiration of the Minister into which the
House of Commons was thrown, when the mighty
scheme was unfolded, and when Sir Robert Peel
spoke his long-concocted pamphlet on Finance. What
was wonderful in the only important part of his
scheme, save the temerity of him that proposed it ?
But since Sir Robert has carried his Landlords'
Monopoly against the people, it is upon the whole,
perhaps, not to be regretted, hat he should also carry
his income tax. It will prove the source of illumi-
nation on questions of Government and Finance to
thousands ; and will speedily recruit the ranks of
the Suffrage Associations with many able and useful
soldiers. It will be the means of immediate amalga-
mation. Time is, we fear, a very slender chance
of the working-class becoming in haste so easy and
comfortable in their circumstances, notwithstanding
the penny a pound reduction on the price of maca-
roni and vermicelli, as to be indifferent to public
affairs. Sir Robert, by his vigorous measure, may
temporarily galvanize the finances ; but by what un-
tried, unheard-of process, is he to give healthful vigour
to those exhausted powers upon which all permanent na-
tional prosperity must ultimately depend ? The subject
remains as dark, as perplexed as ever; and were the
income tax made five or ten per cent. instead of three,
without great retrenchment of the public expenditure,
without immediate relief to trade and manufactures,
the same causes which have been at work for twenty
years, must ultimately undermine the country. Fo-
reign nations already see Ichabod written upon our
walls ; the glory of rich, proud England departed. It
is viewed as a humbled nation, plunged into desperate
circumstances ; and its Government compelled to
have recourse to desperate measures. Thus, the ho-
nour of the nation is tarnished abroad, while at home,
much causeless suffering, mental and pecuniary, is
entailed upon the whole middle class, in addition to
former hardships. There is, at present, little consola-
tion, save in looking to the national movement for
radical reform ; to the intelligent men represented by
such individuals as Lovett, Vincent, and Philips, vo-
luntarily returning to their original confidence in their
true and long-tried friends ;in Brougham and Hume,
and such new and potent auxiliaries as Joseph Sturge.
The means of national salvation are still in our hands ;
and Sir Robert Peel's policy will quicken us to the
use of them, and hasten the crisis.
a In Parliament, the secresy, the delicacy, the honour of
the persons entrusted to examine schedules and appeals, is pa-
raded in answer to every appeal. Now, in Scotland, it is well
known that the statements and appeals of persons surcharged,
were actually sold to the snuff-shops for waste paper. This
might not take place everywhere, but it did take place, and
made some noise at the time.

The newly-raised St. Helena ;egiment will arrive
at Portsmouth, from Winchester, on Monday, and be
conveyed to Cowes, Isle of Wight, in the Volcano
steam-vessel, whence they will march to, and be quar-
tered in, Parkhurst barracks.