NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE four nights' debate on Lord Joust 111588ELI:8 resolutions against the Income-tax, which closed on Wednesday, formed a sort of summing-up of the dispute between "the two great parties of the state." The Whig Budget and Sir ROBERT PEEL'S financial scheme
were discussed in their integrity and compared. The Whig case, on the showing of the judicious Mr. LABOUCHERE, appears to have come down to this : had the Corn, Sugar, and Timber propositions been carried, the revenue accruing from them would have made the deficiency less; but still there would have been some deficit to make good, either by addition to the debt or by new taxation. Lord Joan RUSSELL is copious in hints as to what that taxation should have been ; and, so vastly has the Liberalism of the Whigs revived in the genial soil of Opposition, he now points distinctly at
a tax on the succession to real property. It is at length admitted, then, on all sides that there is a deficiency. Sir ROBERT PEEL, and the well-disciplined followers who furnishelspeeches after the pat- terns which he has set for the occasion, may have exaggerated its amount, or rather its importance ; but more or less of deficiency is denied by none, nor is it denied that direct taxes are the only certain mode of meeting it. The country is so pressed by bad trade and excessive duties, that taxes which can be evaded be- cause they are indirect are not to be trusted, since they would be generally evaded. Attachment issues therefore against every man's income. Lord JOHN indeed says in one of his resolutions, that 26,000,000/. of taxes have been repealed since the war —implying that this would be an available fund to draw upon : but which of those repealed taxes would Lord JOHN reimpose ? Mr. WILLIAM WILLIAMS reminded the House, that there is a currency question as well as a finance question—that the taxation of 1842 is a greater burden upon the country, because of its absolutely higher money value, than that of 1813. The progress of the nation towards diminished taxation has been like that of the felon on the tread- wheel : she has made an upward advance, but the ground gave way under her. So that, instead of there having been twenty-six millions withdrawn from the amount of taxation, two or three millions have been added. If taxes on beer or leather or salt be imposed, they will not be surely restored ; the vacancy which they left has been filled up. Direct taxes, then, are the only safe mode of raising more money. It would have been advisable to make the appeal in the least re- pulsive shape ; but the Premier has thought it advisable to put it in the most repulsive shape. Instead of striving to amend that de- termination, the Opposition have endeavoured to burn it in, by taunts and threats of future taunts should it be abandoned ; and Sir ROBERT PEEL iS to stand or fall by it. So far the purpose is answered ; for, in default of beating Sir ROBERT at the moment, the next object of his opponents is to damage his future position ; and it were a great stretch of charity to suppose that they regret a tax having all the evil tendencies which they ascribe to the Income- tax, since throughout the many nights' debate their object has been to fasten him, whom they cannot displace, to the unpopular impost : they help to lay on a tax which they say will work nothing but mischief and misery, because the annoyance of the people may some day place Sir ROBERT PEEL in their own power. So the prelimi- nary resolutions have been affirmed, with no combined effort on their part at a practical improvement of the measure. Should any of them be so romantically patriotic as to see the error of their ways, and more to desire the welfare of the people than the defeat of the Premier, they might do something towards reshaping the measure when it comes before them as a bill: but Lord JOHN Rim- SELL only promises to "take the sense of the House" on the mea- sure generally ; and, having no alternative but the whole bill or no bill, the "sense of the House" will be in favour of the bill as it stands. Nor does it appear that the Opposition gain in strength
and compactness : the majority of 106, at the division on Wednes- day, proves that the Minister retains his forces under sufficient
command ; but, with all that the Opposition have at stake, with all their zeal to save the nation from the " calamity " of the Income.. tax, 83 of their number were absent-43 with "pairs," 40 without.
So many measures have been brought forward for temporary show and ultimate rejection or abandonment, of late years, that the Tariff has excited suspicion on that bead, to which vent has been given from time to time ; and a disposition has been evinced to retard the taxing measures until the Tariff be secured. Mr. LABOUCHERE
gave voice to some such feeling on Wednesday, and drew from Sir ROBERT PEEL the important declaration that he should stand or fall by the Tariff just as much as by the Income-tax. It was hardly con- sistent with ordinary acuteness to suspect otherwise. Ile has com- mitted himself to a bold and comprehensive scheme, which, how- ever it may be obnoxious to just censure in parts, is consistent and laudable as a whole. His proposal is, to overmaster the deficiency by forcing up the revenue; to make that attempt in a way which cannot be evaded, with a direct demand on the comparatively wealthy classes of the community ; and having gained the vantage- ground of an overplus, to use that improved position in repairing the sources of national wealth : defective though it is, the new Tariff is the only tool in the statesman's hand for that last pur- pose: to abandon it, were to damage and frustrate his whole scheme—to convict his Income-tax of futility. Whether he said. so or not, he must have stood or fallen by his Tariff just as much as by the Income-tax : it is his crowning means of success, so pro- posed by himself. That its results are disproportionate to the dis- turbance it has created, time may show : its author himself may concur with his censors in thinking so. It does in fact rather re- semble the unfinished sketch of some grander intention : its pro- moters but faintly disclaim ulterior measures ; and it seems prow bable that the statesman who can take such broad views of the social and commercial workings of fiscal legislation may have further views, that would rather startle even those who reproach him with backwardness. Whether, possessing the vigour, he may ever attain opportunity to realize such views, is another question. A little incident in the House of Lords, on Thursday, is neither unamusing nor without its use. Lord WESTERN, moved by his rural sympathies, repeated the cant complaint that Sir ROBERT PEEL has deceived the agriculturists. The straightforward Duke of WELLINGTON administered a sharp rebuke to the noble grazier : he demanded "the when, the where, the how, and in what words" his colleague had deceived the public ?—finishing with "I say it is not true, and that's the end of it." Lord WESTERN had no re- joinder it, but that the country felt deceived. How can he tell what the country feels ? is he alone in the confidence of the country ? There has been more contest in the House of Commons about the right of petition, raised by Mr. BUNCOMBE on Friday last, by ' the attempt to present a petition against the Income-tax. On Monday, Mr. BUNCOMBE'S motion was negatived, in a well-filled. House, by a majority of one. Next night, Mr. WILLIAM Cowes's renewed the struggle, and only postponed the petition which he had to present in order to make way for resolutions to be moved by Lord FRANCIS EGERTON on Thursday. The Times (which has recently strengthened its influence by putting forth well- digested opinions on subjects of popular interest, in the properest language, and with an independence of party alike rare and use- ful) addressed to Sir ROBERT PEEL a grave rebuke for that bigotry to technicalities of the House which brought him, need- lessly, to the brink of defeat. It must be confessed that he did not manage the matter with his usual adroitness. When the Speaker checked Mr. BUNCOMBE'S encroachment on the practice of the House, the Minister, the "leader of the House of Com- mons," as conservator of the existing law, performed the usual duty of his place in supporting the chair, appealing to the practice of a century and a half and the decision of a previous evening : he was quite right, when he found the general sense of the House against
him, to eschew further opposition, and to leave to the House the decision of its own rules ; and when he recommended a pause, to deliberate and inquire previous to a change of long-sanctioned. custom, he proposed what was calculated to give maturity and. weight to that decision. But he seemed, though as high-handed
as ever in the assertion of privilege, irresolute in action: he con- fessed to defeat, and relinquished the lead to Lord Feasters EGERTON; whose resolutions remove the sole limitation to the presentation of petitions, but convert to the sterner form of a standing order the sessional rule against the discussion of them.
Another motion connected with the practice of the House was Mr. Wagon's, to check a growing evil in the attendance of counsel
before Election Committees. Litigants are anxious to have the best assistance ; money flows ; " eminent counsel" are at the re- ceipt of fees ; it is a licence of their custom of trade to make no scruple in engaging to be in ten places at once, and the tenth ton- darer of a retainer receives no intimation that the great man whose name is worth so much is engaged so many deep that his name is literally almost all that, he can give for the fee ;tared thus +the "eminent counsel" is paid for attending ten Conanittees a day, and (if he does equal Aijustice to all) he gives ate-tenth ,af a day's attendance to each. But each Committee lasts perhaps ten times as long as it should, and the litigants pay ten times as, much. Nobody denied these things, though Mr. WASON'S motion was negatived. It had, in fact, a sort of nugatory character; for the turn of the debate on the broad question of Election Com- mittees manifested the general sense that the evil pointed at was a trifle compared with the gross radical evils arising from the very constitution of the Committees. Let the practices of counsel be ever so much reformed, nobody would expect much less money to be spent or much more justice bought for the money. Sir ROBEIIT PEEL professed to remodel the tribunal to adjudicate on election petitions : he transposed and complicated the old materials so as to disguise the structure, but the stuff of them is just the same ; their legal incapacity is the same; they are obnoxious to the same influences—the very influences that instigate the corruption and unfairness on which they are to judge. The only change is typified in the question now put when a Committee is appointed : it used to be, says Mr. O'ConNELL, "Who has the majority ? " now it is, "Of what party is the Chairman ? " Honourable Members who (to borrow Lord STANLEY'S memorable figure) were so puzzled by Sir Rosser PEEL'S shifting and reshifting of the pea that they could not follow it, begin now to perceive that it is the same pea after all which has juggled them out of so much money so many times.
Lord CAMPBELL has carried his three bills in the House of Lords—for transferring the appellate jurisdiction of the Privy Council to the House, separating the judicial and political functions of the Lord Chancellor, and enabling the House to sit judicially during the recess—to the second reading, and there he last them all ; Lord LYNDHURST pronouncing the trinal measure needless and impracticable, and Lord BROUGHAM concurring in the censure. Lord CAMPBELL promises to try again next session.
