The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-24 00:00:00

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LONDON!
TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 24, 1842.

To hear insincere men unwittingly do homage to
some great principles which they at other times
deny, is a great satisfaction. While it adds to our
contempt for them, it establishes the principles be-
yond the reach of controversy. By what fatality it
was that Mr. GLADSTONE, the son of a Liverpool ship-
owner, got linked up last night with provisioning
ships cheaply, and with the unfairness of clogging
our shipping with heavy duties on their provisions,
because they have to compete with the foreigner—as
the case of the manufacturer
if that were not precisely
who sends his cottons to the Brazils, where they meet
the cotton of the United States and of Germany—
by what secret, but unfortilnate, connection Mr.
GLADSTONE,' one of the great champions of taxes on
the people's food, last night became the advocate of
provisioning ships cheaply, we do not care to inquire,
but we record the fact with infinite satisfaction, and
Can assure the Right Hon. Gentleman that every word
he said in answer to Mr. CALLAGHAN, and in favour
of allowing our bhipping to get cheap beef, was
equally an answer to Mr. GLADSTONE himself, when
he argued against allowing the manufacturers and
consumers to have-cheap bread. Mr. GLADSTONE'S
broad doctrine was that salted beef had become so
dear in Ireland, and the laws for preventing ship-
owners from provisioning their vessels on the plea
of exporting foreign provisions was so inefficacious, that
it was unjust to continue the restrictions, and there-
fore he resisted Mr. CALLAOHAN's motion for levying a
tax on foreign salt beef, equivalent to the tai on
living animals. Mr. COBDEN or Mr. VILLIERS could
not have expounded the principles of free-trade, on
) they ask for a total repeal of the Cora-laws,
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more broadly than did Mr. GLADSTONE, But those

gentlemen, and the manufacturers of Manchester,
will require to know why those principles are not to
be applied to them as well as the more fortunate

Liverpool shipowners.
The inconsistency of our present insincere and
dishonest Ministers is, on many occasions as well as
on this, very remarkable. On the 15th of last month
they strenuously resisted Mr. LABoucuzuz's pro-
posal to remove the duty which they have levied on
flour imported into Canada. 'They stated explicitly
that they did not impose this duty with any view to
our own landed interest, or to impede the entrance of
American flour through Canada into our markets.
It was all to protect the consumers of Newfoundland.
The spokesmen on that occasion were this very Mr.
GLADSTONE, Lord STANLEY, and Sir ROBERT PEEL,
and they said that the markets of Newfoundland were
open to Canadian flour free of duty ; that the flour from
the United States paid a duty ; that the flour from
the United States, being the needed supply, would
regulate the price of flour in Newfoundland ;
and that the consequence of allowing flour
to be imported free of duty into Canada
would be, that the merchants of Canada would
send it to Newfoundland, without allowing the con-
sumer there to have it one farthing cheaper than Ame-
rican flour, and they would put the duty, which
was paid on the American flour, into their pockets.
They rightly denominated this as most unfair, and
most unjust. So it is. It is a monstrous thing to
levy a tax on the American flour consumed in New-
foundland, and allow the Canadians to import United
States flour into Newfoundland free of duty. The
true remedy for the injustice, is to allow flour to he
imported, equally free of duty, into Canada and
Newfoundland.

When Lord Howicx, however, applied the prin-
ciples which the Ministers applied to Newfoundland,
without the smallest difference, to commodities im-
ported from Canada and other colonies into England,
the Ministers resisted him most stoutly. Though
they would on no account give the Canadian 2s. a
barrel on flour imported into Newfoundland, they
will give him 13s. or 155., as the case may be, on
a quarter of wheat, Bs. per cwt. on cheese, 10s. 6d.
per cwt. on bacon, 15s. on butter, 6s. on salted pork,
and soon, imported into England, and levied here on
the price of his articles, that price being raised by
corresponding heavy duties on the produce of Holland.
In the case of the consumers of Newfoundland, the
Tories think honestly and justly, but, as the
consumers in England may be plundered at discre-
tion, they refused to apply to them, on Lord
Ho crimes motion, the principle they had insisted on
applying to the consumers in Newfoundland on Mr.
LABOUCHERE'S motion. That is only one other spe-
cimen of their dishonest inconsistency.
'We are, however, inclined to think that some part
of the tenderness shown by Ministers to consumers
in Newfoundland, and disregard of the consumers in
England, arises from the fact that they look on the
colonists as their protegees, and the people here as
their masters. They favour the former therefore, as
head servants will shower their kindness on a footboy
or a kitchen wench, whilst they think it their duty,
as members of the serving fraternity, to curb and
plunder the latter all in their power. JOHN Bum.,
has borne their exactions so like a careless, good-
natured master, that the habit of plundering him by
laws has grown for them into a second nature ;
and while they will not take a farthing from the
bread-eaters of Newfoundland, they will, on any and
every pretext, take pounds from the bread-eaters at
home. They seem at length, however, to have
come to the end of their tether. Their
pretexts are now stifling one another. Their
cunning devices have become so numerous, that one
puts another to death. GLADSTONE 011 the tariff
slays GLADSTONE on the Corn-laws ; PEEL, the free
trader, puts an end to PEEL the bread taxer ; and we
live in hope that, before the Session is over, we shall
have the satisfaction of seeing the first speeches of
these insincere and dishonest politicians completely
refuted by their last speeches. In common with
many of our Contemporaries, we rejoice at the little
good, though it be but very little, which these men
are constrained, in spite of themselves, to perform ;
but we never can entertain any other sentiment than
the most thorough contempt for such inconsistent,
heartless gamblers with a nation's welfare.

A return of the total amount of taxes levied in some
of the different States of Europe, &c., just published
by the House of Commons, enables us to lay before
our readers a comparison of the taxes levied in Eng-
land and in one or two other countries.

In Denmark the whole amount of taxation, general
and local, is 18,160,000 rix dollars, paid by 2,020,000
people, and, taking the rix dollar at 2s. 2d., it gives
about 19s. per head.

The whole taxation of Sweden is 1,335,5871., its
population, with Norway, is about 4,106,000, giving,
as the rate of taxation, 6s. 6d. per head. This sum,
mirabile dictu, includes all the payments for the
churches and for the clergy.
The taxes in the Netherlands—the most heavily
taxed country of Europe—exclusive of the municipal
taxes of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, amount to
5,368,8741., the population being 2,960,000.
rate per head is 11.165.
_

The whole taxation of France is 46,425,7251., which,
on a population of 33,540,000, gives a rate of 1/. 7s.
per head.
The amount of taxation in Russia is not given in
the returns, but it appears to be very small, and
Prussia is not mentioned. We pas by the smaller
States, as not affording any ground for comparison
with this great empire, and come to England.
The general ordinary taxation of England, ac-
cording to the financial accounts for the year, in-
eluding the cost of collection; amounted for the last
year •to 53,596,2501. The lccal taxation, county
rates, poor rates, &c., amounted last year to
6,351,8281.—[5ee Parliamentary Return, No.
Hay, 1842]—making .a total of 59,948,078/. Tills
is exclusive. of the enormous tax we pay for the
support of the Church (the expense of the Church
in France is included in the taxation); it is also ex-
elusive of Sewers-rates (the expense of keeping up
the dil.:es is included in the Netherlands taxation);
Water-rates, Church-rates, London tax on coals,
Borough-rates, and several other municipal vexatious
imposts ; it is exclusive of the Poor-rate and Police-
rate in Ireland, and exclusive of the sum devoted to
the poor in Scotland, all of which, or corresponding
items, are, we believe, included in the taxes of the
foreign countries we have referred to. But, ex-
cluding all these heavy drains on our incrust. y, and
taking only the public and the' local taxes at
59,948,0781., and assuming that the population is in.
i•ound.nuinhers 28;000,000, than will give 2!. 2s. sd.
per head as the annual rate of taxation,
in England. Of . course we do not include Sir R.
PEEL'S new taxation, which will add pretty nearly
3s. ahead more. As the matter now stands, there-
fore, the English are by far the heaviest taxed people
in Europe. They pay the most, if Government be
good for anything, for the least efficient adminis-
tration of their affairs.

But to these enormous burdens—and most enor-
mous they are—which are all-borne by industry, fcr
every farthing of the annual income of the country
is annually created and annually consumed, and it is
all created •by industry—must be added the
taxes on corn and provisions, and other protecting
duties, as well as the descriminating duties on tim-
ber, coffee, sugar, &c. &c. But excluding these,
our people are seven times as heavily taxed as the
Swedes, three times as heavily taxed as the Danes,
nearly twice as heavily taxed as the French, and one
time and a quarter more heavily taxed than the
heaviest taxed people of Europe. But, as we have
indicated, the comparison is not accurate ; for many
of our local taxes are excluded, and thei:•'s are in-
cluded. Thus England, we repeat, is by far the
hea
viest taxed country in Europe, with a Government
which does the least.

The heavy general taxation has been assigned as a
plea for taxing the people's bread. To this notable
artrument, which is not now for the first time in-
vented, Dr. SMITH, in the "Wealth of Nations," long
ago returned this memorable answer :
Taxes upon the necessaries of life have nearly the same
effect upon the circumstances of the people as a poor soil
and a bad climate. Provisions are thereby rendered
dearer, in the same manner as if it required extraordi-
nary labour and expense to raise them. As in the na-
tural scarcity arising from soil and climate it would be
absurd to direct the people in what manner they ought
to employ their capitals and industry, so it is likewise in
the artificial scarcity arising from such taxes. To be
left to accommodate as well as they could their industry
to their situation, and to find out those employments in
which, notwithstanding their unfavourable circum-