NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE debates in the House of Commons on the Government measures of finance closed for the Easter recess on Wednesday, with a greater brilliancy than they had yet shown. The dis- cussion on the Income-tax, with glances at collateral subjects, was continued in Committee of Ways and Means on Monday, with remarkable dulness; until a smart sally by Sir GEORGE 'GREY,112 his new line—a good round hustings-speech attack by a partisan on an opposing party—infused some animation into the wordy contest. Colonel SIBTHORP was "poked up" by Sir GEORGE, to dispense a few of his delicate sarcasms against the Whigs : and then began a strange scene, something between a debate, a conversation, and a personal quarrel; the interest of which was kept alive by repeated motions for adjournment on the part of the more violent Whigs and Radicals. The dull talk had been carried on in a House of some fifty Members : the drop- pers-in after dinner swelled the numbers for the fight on the first division of adjournment to 379. On Wednesday, the debate totally changed its character. Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR began with a few temperate remarks on his own disappointment, because at first he thought Sir ROBERT PEEL was going to make a thorough reform in the system of taxation : and he was followed by Mr. CHARLES BELLER, with some clever strictures—lively, ingenious, close, and effective—on Sir ROBERT'S Income-tax ; diversified with praise.of indirect taxation, as keeping people in happy ignorance of how much they are made to pay ! The oratory which occu- pied the remainder of the evening was properly a debate. Usually the discussions of the House consist of set speeches, developing, one after another, the stock arguments on one side ; alternated with the opposite speeches, each containing all the stock arguments on the other side ; while here and there is an abortion of a speech that would not germinate, or a little digression to show the paces of some talker who is clever at interludes of the kind. The regular harangues are like that importation of gloves to defraud the cus- tomhouse by being forfeited and secretly bought in, where all the right hands were sent to one port and all the left hands to another. On Wednesday there was less of this display of stock-wares in the rival establishments : the question at issue was really debated : parties were more or less broken up, and the views of speakers varied—now broad, now special, first theoretical and then practical : each speaker had his particular purpose, and urged it, not as per- forming a given duty to provide so many columns for next day's Times or Chronicle, but as having something on his mind of which he truly desired to possess his hearers in order to a practical modi- fication of the measure. Thus, while Mr. MATTHIAS ATTWOOTI brought some very cogent illustrations of the difficult working of the Income-tax in respect of short annuities, Mr. ROEBUCK fol- lowed up with telling rebukes to the House for its abetting either party, Whig or Tory, in lavish expenditure without holding the check of a reckoning, and some spirited praise of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S direct taxation as one means of bringing the conduct of the House more distinctly before the country in its consequences. Sir ROBERT PEEL professed to answer objections : and be enumerated several, and answered some, especially the most easy ; but others he left unanswered, or placed a set-off against them. Thus, to meet the charge of inequality against the Income-tax, he said that other taxes are unequal. So they are ; but the Income-tax pro- fesses to fall with unusual equality according to the proportion of the means to bear it, whereas it is peculiarly stringent in, its me- quality. Nominally, it is apportioned to income ; but the immedi- ate amount of income at a given time is a very rude index of the benefit which it brings. Other taxes are unequal in the proportion they take from a man's whole means ; but, to some extent, a man may avoid payment of them, or, by regulating his use of the taxed article, may regulate the amount to be paid ; the check for the re- venue being the discomfort attending abstinence. From the Pro- crustean bed of the Income-tax there is no escape—except by fraud. Sir ROBERT professes to think that Englishmen will not
commit perjury for 2/. 18s. 4d. per cent : how often, and for what amounts, has the Excise-office been the scene of perjury respecting the quantity or nature of stock in tradesmen's warehouses—a per- jury considered to be merely formal and technical, and to "do no harm to any one "? Oaths, in fact, are so common in England, i
that n many cases they arc habitually broken ; and where is the point of honour between a tax-payer and a tax-collector ? Sir ROBERT PEEL was more happy in the enumeration of the effects which he anticipates from his alteration of the Tariff; which he was provoked to defend by the slighting taunts of antagonists. It was inviting and cheering, lie denounced the prohibitory duties, as a sort of protective duties for the smuggler ; asked for mutual interchange of benefits between nations ; and, altogether, showed himself an apt disciple of PARNELL and PORTER. The great Con- servative leader came out more strongly than ever as a thorough- bred political economist. There let him rest his fame : let him rest, too, on the character to which he aspires for candour and moderation, and revise the blot which disfigures his scheme and may endanger its working. It was his cue to push forward his measure ; and to that end his people withheld from the debate as much as possible, and cultivated the soul of wit in their speeches. The other side sought delay : they wished to carry the project, in its early stages, home for the holydays, for " agitation " perchance. The force of obstruction prevailed, as it always can in such cases ; and a ten-days reflection has been forced upon Sir ROBERT. Could he not use it ? Let him by all means raise a round sum from the wealthy—from each according to his means : but let him ask him- self if precarious profits, salaries, and earnings, are really so good an index of means ? whether other tests might not be better—as rent ? Could he come to the conclusion that he ought not to insist upon the precise mode of his grand tax—could he dare to avow his change of purpose, and, braving sneers and the ridicule of selfish partisans professing patriotism, look to the honest con- struction of his countrymen at large—he would gain a victory such as few Ministers, if any, ever gained.
