HAIrFAx. ox THE INCOME-TAX.
MR. Obunmy has let the cat out of the bagtheidentical old Tom that is such a well-known nuisance to the whole neighbourhood. He has disclosed a notorious secret on the subject of taxation, and Halifax has the merit of eliciting the discovery for the hundredth time.
In the simplicity of their hearts, the people of Halifax address a memorial to their representatives, calling for a morejust distri- bution of the Income-tax. Mr. Edwards• receives• the demand with the most candid and engaging alacrity ; he felicitates himself on having been able to vote with the Opposition against Sir Charles Wood; and altogether, from Mr.. Edwards's- manner; an unini- tiated person might imagine that some question of rendering the Income-tax lbss odious and. inconvenient to those who pay it had really been before the House of Commons. We are not sufficiently informed on the subject of Mr.Edwards to know whether he is the unconscious victim or the conscious promoter of that delusion ; for we do not possess any rule by which. to discriminate between those' specimens of the Member genus who are among the deluders or the deluded, or both. But in either ease, the entertaining of the Halifax memorial is a capital example of Parliamentary sham.
Sir Charles Wood's reply is not less characteristie in another way. He treats, the 'Halifax suggestion as impracticable, but speaks of the Income-tax as if it were &thing not certain. to'be con- tamed, or continued against his will : " if we are to have this tax," he says—the man who has virtually rendered. it permanent ! The countenance with which he speaks of a continuation act as a transi- tory measurer and the pretext which is thus got. up for evading the
responsibilities of a permanent act, are highly characteristic. _
But- it is Mr. Cobden who lets out the secret : the " real-pree partied" class, he says, is se far paramount in the House, that justice for other interests is hopeless. So the murder is out We all knew this before : the murder is out as it is in Russia, where the assassins of an Emperor for a generation or two may be point- ed; out to you in mixed company. But we go. on, talking, and what is- more, acting, as if it were otherwise—as if there did remain a secret to be discloaed for our enlightenment.. It is as conspiracy in which everybody has a hand, not excepting the. victims. As a mutter of information• therefore, Mr. Cobden 's avowal is less a piece of news than a breach of etiquette; so that it oannot be intended to tell us anything. Interpreted into the rough vernacular, it might mean. that Parliament will do nothing until it be frightened..
Previous page
