NEWS OF THE WEEK.
.Alzgo.upit .settled last week as to its fate, the Income-tax was npt. abandoned...as a matter of talk; for it has had another week's discussion in the Commons, and will yet run the gauntlet of ani- madversion in the Lords. Mr. Charles Buller reopened the sub- ject, with a sharp attack on the tax, strengthened by some striking. hints of 'a better policy in the way of remodelling, by favour of the surplas, the country's indirect taxation. :Mr. Buller's speech was excellent—most apposite : its very appositeness is provoking ; for he put the grievance in the distinctest light and yet proposed no remedy._ It is as when Don Quijrote tells the beaten and groaning Sancho that he felt the lnirts all across his back because the P611 with which he beaten stretched all across : " Gada- mercy, as if I did not know. that !" Others were less comprehen- sive in their assault, but more precise, and suggested practical amendments. Some would modify the tax ; whereof Sir Robert. Inglis 'still: proposed the most feasible change. Instead of ex," -efnpting .e./I incomes under 150/: and making all above pay on the whole of that amount, (as if a man with 1501. were not 11. but 1501. richer than a man with 149/. !) he would let every man -whose income is under 500/. strike off 150/. and pay only on the excess over that amount—the man of 2001. a year pay only on 501., of 300/. on 150/. - But Sir Robert Peel was inexorable, and his faithful Commons were tractable. Other Members proposed entire substitutes : Lord Howick was .the most ingenious, ad- vising a tax not upon income but upon expenditure ; wliCh would virtually be a tax upon consumption, only not so easily collected as a well-arranged scheme of indirect taxation. Sir Ro- bert Peel readily persuaded the HoUsOkiitto enter upon the " cliffi- cidt " question of modification, but to take the tax just as he offered it ; the offspring of his brain no doubt having a perfect, Minerva- like, and immutable maturity. Indeed, no one of his opponents had taken the pains to put a rival plan into such a tangible shape as to compete with his in the legislative market. Lord Howick had got no -further than an idea : he might as well put in a shop-window the specifiCation of a patent for weaving, to compete with the readyAnede dress in .hfi neighbour's window. The Income-tax, then, is there, on the statute-book : when it will be removed no- body. knows, fewer care than once did so. Mr. Buller's exposure and I.;ord Howick's lagging hints came too late : the other parts of the financial scheme—the remission of duties—will be pre- sently, hi operation. ; there is no time this session even " to be just' . and _the tax remains to be improved. By whom ! Alas I who knows ?—" the man" to do it, with other desired works, may be !‘ coming," but Certainly he has. not yet come: None seems to haVe earnestness'enotighto take the surest way of command- ingsuCcess, by so maturing a scheme as to deserve it : all dread the ,trouble. The task stands for a future session—the workman is unpropliesied..
A branch of.the Free-trade question has been raised, apropos to agrioultUral: " digress "; Mr. Cobden moving for a Committee of inquiry into that distress, and the effects' of the "protective sys- tem ' on agriculturists. He established the facts, that the distress is generally 'asserted and that none agree as to its Causes : where- fore he demanded an investigation ; his speech making out a strong
ima.facie case against the "protective "system as the main cause.
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Mr. obden'e Proposition seems to have created more dismay than when lie made it last : the Agricultural Members, once so greedy of. Committees to inquire into, their own distress, now repudiate inquiry, at leait by any but " a Farmer's Committee." In the agony of his despair; Mr. Wodehouse grew quite rude, called Lord Howick ;" a rantee. because he quoted Scripture, and declared the _Viscount's speech "worthy of the days of Cromivell"! Mr. Stafford O'Brien was the least cowed : he was not afraid of in- quiry, and he would have agreed to it ; but he was checked by Mi. Sidney Herbert, -the' only- Minister who' spoke: Mr. Her-
bert's main pleas for assent to the motion were, that it
would alarm those nervous beings the agriculturists, and that Select Committees are useless. Committees have not always been thus regarded. And here arises the' question, when are they of real utility!—When their aim is definite, and points to action. It is pretty obvious that a Committee of inquiry on " the state of the nation," or any such wide and vague question, never can lead to practical results. A number of witnesses will be ex- amined, a number of documents called for and produced ; the Committee will find itself unable to condense the huge motley and contradictory mass into a report ; and the only fruit of its investigations will be an aimless, lumbering, and unreadable " blue book." Even when the inquiry regards a precise limited question, upon which immediate action is contemplated, a Com- mittee is a mockery if its report be left lying unnoticed on the table of the House, while Ministers (as in the case of the last New Zealand Committee) coolly issue instructions to their sub- ordinates utterly to disregard its recommendations. The. House of Commons has much need to be enlightened on "the use and . abuse of Committees."
The other great subject of debate has been the newest chapter i of disasters in Colonial misgovernment—Go'verhor Fitzroy's last acts in New Zealand. Mr. Soines moved for papers, the docu- mentary proofs of faith broken by the Government in its dealings with the colonizing Company, and of Captain Fitiroy's out- rageous incompetency — his favouritism tower& murderous savages—his taxation on the import of live stock into a young grazing colony—his partial abandonment of the customs-revenue , to please a band of savages, in consequence of their invading a British settlement--his deluging the colony with five-ski" and two-shilling assignats. Mr. Buller seized this cataldgue o • offieial outrages on British subjects, to illustrate the. manner in which our Colonies are governed : and, assuredly, the utter in- ' competency of the Colonial adininiatration was never before ex- ' posed in a way so damaging _to the Ministry that abets it. The ' Colonial Office never before cutso bad a figure, .not only in the un- answered charges against it andrits acknowledged servant, but in the effrontery of its defence. While accused, *eapart of the Office, of bringing ruin on an entire col any and'on thousands of a most re- spectable community, Mr. Hope, the messenger of Lord Stanley to the Commons, did not blush to catch at quibbling, pettifogging, verbal advantages—to avow offizial ignorance of what has been going on—and to intimate that Government is.not bound by its promises : a footman defying his master's creditor could not have done his mission with a more nonchalant unconsciousness of the discredit. Sir Robert Peel seemed to labour under a graver sense ' of the emergency, and spoke with more decorum ; but still he was bent solely upon bringing off Lord Stanley on his trial,— for he has committed himself to act as counsel. Yet he ' extenuated rather than .justified. The pith of his defence that perhaps when all is known, Captain Fitzroy may not be so bad as he seems ; and that if he is, Lord Stanley , was not bound to know his incompetency. But was the responsible Secretary for the Colonies not bound to know the com- petency of a man whom he was sending thousands of miles off, to govern, in difficult times, thousands of British subjects ! The only thought of the officials is to bring off their colleague—their servant as well, if they can, but their colleague at all events. The interests and perils of the numerous community at the mercy of their blunders they do not so much as speak of. Captain Fitz- roy has his defenders—warm friends, who start up under a natu- ral impulse to shield him from reproach. Their tegis is held over him in a manner that is remarkable. It is not his acts that are vindicated. Mr. Buller happened to utter a colloquial expression, commonly used to characterize unaccountably extravagant acts— that Captain Fitzroy needed " a keeper " : that random word was vehemently resented ; Sir Robert Peel said that it was " un- justifiable." This exhibition of feeling makes charity scarcely know whether to hope or fear a solution of the Governor's con- duct. Be his excuses what they may, what are those of the Mi- nister, who not only appointed, but retains him ? But even should Sir Robert Peel's special-pleading win a vote for his colleague on that narrow issue, what—and that is the dreaded, inextricable, and inevitable question—what is to be done with New Zea- land ?
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The Lords have been engaged in a modest but useful piece of practical legislation—a bill to remove some remaining civil dis- abilities froni the Jews ; Lord Chancfglor Lyndhurst being the • active Minister of this more than toleration. As the careless litician bit kindly man grows older, his acts confute his once in- discreet language, such as talking of alienage in blood, language, and religion. •The disabilities indeed disgrace our statute-book more than the Hebrew race : but it was not always thought so ;
and Lyndhurst is taking a lead in helping Peel to balance the account between opinion and practice. Soigne few disabilities, however, are left; perhaps. because we have not yet grown en- lightened enough to deserve to abolish them; perhaps. because Ministers will not monopolize good deeds, but' leave a. morsel for the Whigs to do when next they: take a spell at the.helves-or. if not to do, at least to talk about.
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