Notwithstanding the suspense usually allowed at this season to public
activity, the agitation against the Income-tax continues, and maintains its signs of importance. The most, promising fact 'for Ministerial quietists is the extent of disagreement among the inhabitants of different places. At one they go for reduction, at another for amendment with the reduction, at a third for " total and immediate" repeal : but these differences do riot appear to affect Vie unanimity and earnestness of the feeling that the In- come-tax as it is ought not to be maintained beyond April next. Strong testimony indeed is brought against the working of any such impost. The Mayor of Rochester, an Income-tax Com- missioner, gave evidence against it, as a premium to 'perjury and an unequal burden to the truthteller ; of which there can be no doubt. The obvious and overruling difficulty lies in the mani- fest productivity of the tax—its fifteen millions of tangible revenue. But, however the Chancellor of the Exchequer may wish to retain it, the popular dislike may defeat his wishes ; all the more since Members cannot blindfold their eyes to the contin- gencies of a dissolution ; and in the present temper of the towns, a vote for the Income-tax would be very detrimental to a candi- date for reelection.
We do not attach much weight to the report that the Chancel- lor of the Exchequer is already preparing to relinquish a part to keep the rest—that he will relinquish ed. to keep 10d., with a promise to descend yet lower next year. Chancellors of the Ex- chequer seldom give up a productive tax till they are compelled. But one truth Sir George Lewis might have learned from the past history of this very tax. The people bore it patiently while they were asked to contribute for a positive and sufficient purpose, such as the war, or the reform of our tariff. If, on the cessation of the war, an intelligent .programme of further reform in the tariff had been laid before Parliament and the public, " for con- sideration during the recess," and prosecution " next session," it is probable that we should have heard little of this agitation against the Income-tax.
