We perceive, if we are no...
The Times, 1824-02-26T00:00:00

*iVe perceive, if we arc not mistaken, that stun of sur- risC in the nation at the late exposition of Mr. RoBIN- so 's most astonishing plan of finance, which imposes si- lencc at first, but will shortly break forth into indignation and exertion. " So," people are now beginrning to mur- rnur, " we are to have no fuither rectdLion of taxes." " No," we reply, " you are to lhave no farther reduction of " taxes ; retrenchmeot is at an end. The Govern- " ment has taken one or two classes of your fellow- - subjects, as the qouth Sea whale fishers and herrinig - fishers, and exporters of Iri.h linens, and sconced them for the rest of you. But it intends to allow you nothing of what it has itself: and, whicl is worse, the money that was corning in to you from foreign sources,-money of your advancing, and but ill repaid,--it stops in its tvanisit to you, and squanders upoi the most uselessob- jects." Such is the disappointment of the people, and such is the only real tnode of replying to it. It is wortlh the while to observe most particularly, that the money really due from the Emperor of AusrRIA, amounting at this time to the sum of upwaTdls of tweenty inillions, would have just yielded an interest (on the terms on which it was lent) capable of removing the window. tax; or the capital might have bought up the whole tax, and no one but the debtor hare been the poorer: and now, even the triflirg sum of two millions and a half, rendered yet more trifling by theedeNiuction of the discount, is not to be allowed to go wholly to.the alleyiation of our burdens, but to be applied to building churches, and to repairing Windsor Castle! The inference, therefore, is dear, that the repeal of taxes is now meant to be at an end. Government is, as it were, upon the plain: it has descended as low as it intends, and therefore expatiates at its ease in playful speculations upon the wool-trade and the silk-trade, and dispenses its unexpected ' God-sends" aroundl it with all the graceful prodigality of inconsiderate ,Base: for if atny farther reduction had been contemplated as neces:arv, the p]an of finance would have consisted of the removal of the real and substantial burdlen of the window- tax, or of the assessed taxes altogether. instead of a parcel of frivolous speculations, meant only to deceive, and inca- pable of diffusing any good. It is further to be remarked also, that the CI{ANCELLOR of the ExFcnaQUER devises this his petty plan for peace only : fGr " if," says he, " a war sbould occur, some al- teration would undoubtedly be necessaiy in the arrange- "ments which he was contemplating; and Parliament would in all probabilily be compelled to make what it had never made in vain-an appeal to the public spirit of the l - nation, in support of its honoxur, and in vindication of its " dig4nity." In peace, therefore, we are not to be relieved beyond the preselnt point ; and the moment a war takes place, the trade of fresh taxation is to com- mence. But we are happy to observe, that the nation has at this rnoment (what it may soon lose) the means of de- fending itself in its owvn hands. The present Parliament is drawing to a conclusion ; we believe it is in its fifth ses- sion ; and a Parliament never sits beyond the sixth. If the repeal of the war-taxes be now allowed to be sus- pended, as is attemptetd, till a new Parliament shall have been chosen, farewell to even the very hope of all farther reduction of our expenses. We stand at present at a semi-war establishment, and there we shall stand till a war breaks out, when we shall Yery soon be mounted up to a wvar-establishment and a half; the present being then a,s,mmed as the peace-establishment. What we shouild recommend, therefore, is, that public meetings be called to scout this frivolous substitttte for retrenchment, and to call for the real repeal or taxes, to the present load of which the nation should not continueto be subjected duringa period of full peace, and wvven Ministers also have shown that they are not too easily to be provoked to draw the sword. This is indeed an appeal which Mr. RoBINsoN but little contemplated; but which, to use his words, is an appeal " becoming the public spirit of the nation, in sup- port of its honour, and in vindication of its dignity :" and what time so proper for the constituents to meet their re- presentatives, in order that their respective feelimgs may be appreciated, and the pretensions of rival candidates can. vassed, as within a year of a general election ?