The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—It is an old saying, that oae half the
world knows not how the other half lives ; but this
preverb will begin to lose its force if Sir Robert Peel
succeeds in bringing into operation the inquisitorial
machinery for collecting his income tax. It might
appear prima facie a good thing that the real means
cif all men should be known, in order to prevent the
keeping up of false appearances ; but the fact is, the
proposed measure , will vexatiously and needlessly
lay bare the concerns of many who have no im-
proper motive for secresy, while it-will enable those
whose desire it is to deceive the world by the ap-
pearance of ample means, to effect their object with
greater facility than hitherto. A few additional pounds
devoted to the income tax will be soon repaid in the
additional credit to be gained by the reputation of
being rich ; and instead of their being more en-
couragement to straightforwardness under the pro-
posed new order of things, there will be every in-
. ducement held out to the pradtice of trickery. It
does not follow that all who are desirous of keep-
ing the true state of their affairs to themselves have a
'dishonest motive for doing so ; and there is nothing
reprehensible in a disinclination that the world should
be made aware of the contracted means on which many,
by the frequent practice of acts of self-denial, contrive
to preserve an appearance of competence. If the out-
cry against the inquisitorial nature of the income tax
were confined to the sort of persons who desire to profit
at the expense ofothers by seeming richer than they are,
there might be something in the argument that the
public will have an opportunity of learning the real
circumstances of one another; but this is not the case,
and the hardship of the inquisition will be most severely
felt by those whose disinclination to it will arise from a
laudable desire to preserve respect towards themselves,
without doing an injury to any one. The English
people are fioted for their disposition to keep themselves,
as the
.saying is, "to themselves ;" and the same cha-
racteristic that prompts them to repel intrusion on
their society, induces them to dislike inquiry into
their means of living—not because they wish to de-
ceive, but On account of an innate repugnance they
feel to being made the subjects of impertinent
curiosity. An income tax is, therefore, peculiarly
opposed to the national tastes and habits of
Englishmen ; nor will the proposition of the
Premier, to give an appeal to special com-
missioners, at all prevent the evil it professes to
remedy. in the days of the former income tax it
was professed that secresy should be preserved •
but those who remember the obnoxious impost will be
able to say how far that profession was realised. It
is within the knowledge of-. the writer of these re-
marks, that a nobleman, since in the possession of
considerable -wealth, who had come somewhat unex-
pectedly to his title, and had been forced to abandon a
profession of which he had commenced the pursuit, re-
turned five hundred a year as the amount of his in-
come. Being a peer, the assessors conceived that eight
hundred a year could not be too low a sum to rate
him at ; but the nobleman in question had truly
stated the extent of his means, and having proved
the fact to be as he had represented it, the tax was
reduced accordingly. In spite;of the secresy to which
the assessors were bound, this fact was known and
talked about in the volunteer regiment of which his
lordship was the colonel; and should the income tax
come again into operation, such will be the sort of
delicacy that will be observed by the " special commis-
sioners," or some of the numerous' " parties" that they
will be empowered to bring before them.
STANDARD.—A thin meeting, whether a meet-
absolutely or comparatively thin—of the great ward
of Farringdon Without does not testify much in fa-
vour of the whisper ; for a thin meeting held for a
great and populous district must be a thin expression.
of opinion—the whisper " attenuates doubly as its
sphere expands ;" and—certain it is that all the meet-
ings called to oppose the income tax have been
very, very thin. A Manchester correspondent has,
indeed, favoured us with a handbill, from which we see
that " the Leaguers " have at length proceeded to the
dangerous length of taking the affair into their own
hands, as far •as regards the metropolis of mill-
owners. How far they may succeed in helping
" the whisper of a faction " in Lancashire it
would be rash to conjecture ; but beyond the
limits of the factory land, the movement of the
League must have an influence the most favourable
to the Ministerial plan. The agriculturists and
the colonial interest, and all others committed to
our national industry, must see at a glance, what
the Leaguers see already, or they would not act as
they are acting, that there is nothing between an
*come tax and a recourse to free trade in its wildest
and most ruinous form, including, of course, an abo
lition of the Corn-laws, with a substituted fixed
ditty, imposed for the sake of revenue—that is, in
the strict and only true sense of the phrase,
a bread temx. Lord John Russell, indeed, when
he offered his last year's budget, said just the
same thing. We have little fear that the
agriculturists will be led by such seducers as the
Leaguemen to help out " the whisper." There is,
besides, a consideration to which all classes of the
people will be awakened, when they find the Lea-
guers coming forward to oppose an income tax:. Who
have rendered such a tax necessary, or at least who
are they who have rendered necessary this or some
other extraordinary coup de finace Are they
not the late Ministers who have imposed the
necessity—the Ministry supported against the
public opinion of England, first by Mr. O'Con-
nell, next by the League—and which sold itself for
"such support successively to the one and the other ?
This is a consideration' which must not be lost sight
0:* for a moment. Mr. O'Connell and the League are
as fairly responsible for the difficulties inherited by
the present Cabinet, as the poor creatures whom they
retained in office to do their will, and who created ,
those difficulties under such circumstances as no men I
ever before drew like embarrassments upon a nation