The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-18 00:00:00

o§lta.

LONDON •
FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 18, 1842.

We grieve very much ,to announce that Lord
BROUGHAM, last night, declared his firm conviction that
it was now necessary to impose an income tax, in order
to provide for the wants of the State and preserve public
credit. The Noble Lord came, it is true, to this con-
clusion with painful reluctance, but still, the conclu-
sion was more than once avowed, and was not dissented
from, as far as we could hear; by any one Peer. We are
much disappointed, we admit, in our hopes of finding in
Lord BROUGHAM a leader who, on this occasion, would
place himself at the head of the suffering people, battling
for economy and freedom of trade.- He gave up our
cause, and, if the bulk of the people be of his opinion,
nothing remains for them but to submit with the best
grace they can, to the burdensome yoke which the land-
lords haVe prepared for their necks. But, notwithstand-
ing our high respect • for Lord fßaoticHAN, we cannot
adopt his conclusion, nor can we feel any despair of the
ultimate success of our principles, though we are not at
present to be guided in our struggles by his great talents.
It is admitted on all hands that the income tax is the
most unequal, unjust, vexatious, and inquisitorial tax
that was ever devised. To assert that it is necessary
implies that no less obnoxious tax can be had recourse
to which will yield sufficient to supply the wants of the
State. We positively. and emphatically deny this. To
quote but one example, the house tax, which involves
nothing inquisitorial or vexatious, might be renewed
without those partialities which made it deservedly un-
popular. The old
,house tax was essentially unjust,
because it spared the mansions of the opulent, and fell
with a heavy hand on the habitation of the humble.
But a house tax could be framed so as to be just, and
to yield a sum which would give the State all that it
requires. While a tax in no wise inquisitorial and so
much less objectionable than an income tax can easily be
had recourse to, it is an abuse of terms to say that the
income tax is necessary.
We object to Lord BROUGHAM'S doctrine in toto. The
only necessity for an income tax grows out of the deter-
mination of the monopolists to resist all attempts to give
commercial freedom to the nation, and preserve the
Corn-laws at all hazards. Sir ROBERT PEEL justified
his proposition on the assumed fact, that diminishing
the rate of taxation had failed, and will fail, to augment
the revenue. Lord BROUGHAM took the same view last
night, and used nearly the same illustrations as Sir R.
PEEL. The examples selected by both seem to us not
conclusive, because wine, rum, and tobacco are to a con-
siderable extent luxuries; the consumption of which is
more dependent on opinion and fashion than on those

everlasting wants and appetites which, existing in each
individual, increase with' the population. Moreover,
they were drawn from a period when Corn-laws were
in existence, which prevented both the increase of po-
pulation and the increase of the means of consumption,
on which the increase of revenue from a low duty on
luxuries must arise.

The duty on wine, to deal with only one case, was re-
duced in 1825, but the pride alter the reduction was still
so high that none below the more opulent of the middle
classes could consume wine, and their number, and con.
sequently the consumption of wine, could not be very
rapidly augmented. At the same time the account
which Sir RonEwr PEEL gave of the reduction of the
duty on wine does not correspond with that stated by
Mr. M'Cum.ocH, and we must leave these gentlemen—
the one great as a party leader, and the other a great sta-
tistician—to settle the difflmence betwixt them. In the
Times, Sir lt. PEEL is reported to have said on this day
week—
" In 1825 the revenue derived from wine was 2,153,0001.
The duty was reduce] from 9i. lid. to -Is. 2id. per gallon,
and in the next year after the reduction of the duty there was
a falling off the euty from 2,100,00 W. to 1,400,000/. In the
next year the duty amounted to 1,6C0,000/., in the subsequent
years to 1,700,00 W., 1,400,0901., 1,560,0001., and the duty has
never realized its former amount.
Mr. M`CuLLocit's statement is this—

" Mr. Robinson took, in 1825, nearly 50 per cert. from the
previously existing duties, and, notwithstanding the spirit duties
were at the same time reduced in a still greater degree, the
consumption of wine in Great Britain has been increased from
little more than 5,000,000 gallons to 6,000,500 gallons, while
the loss to the revenue has bi en considerable. We are, time.
fore, justified in affirming that the measure has been signally
successful, and that it is a most valuable example of the inferior
productiveness of low duties. The duties as reduced by
Mr. Robinson were front 1 Is. sid. to is. 3d. per imperial
gallon on French wines, 4s. 10d. per gallon on all other foreign
wines, and 23. sd. on those of the Cape of Good Hope. They
continued on this footing till the late equalization Act (1 and 2
Will. IV., c. 30), which imposes a duty of ss. 6d. per imperial
gallon on all foreign wines, and 2s. 9d. on those of the Cape of
Good Hope."

Now, although this statement confirms Sir It PEEL'S
assertion, that the whole loss to the revenue by reducing
the duty 50 percent. has not been made up by the increased

consumption, still that increase warrants the inference that
on articles, regarded as necessaries of life, the increased
consumption would have fully made up the alteration in
the diuy. It is observed, however, by Mr. M'emocu