his apparent income, and yet no deduction is allowed on this account. He must pay for burdens not his own, and for ministerial folly in which he was no participator, an amount equal to that which is levied from the fundholder or the man of acres, in the full knowledge that, when he dies, his capital is buried with him, whilst that of the other class remains tangible and available by inheritance. This is another ground upon which we decidedly object to the continuance and augmentation of the income-tax.

the two, to be taxed on the same scale with England; but we cannot, and must not, be silent sufferers under this crowning act of oppression. Ireland must not be permitted any longer to benefit by our patience and our thrift. On this part of the subject, Lord John Russell is peculiarly weak. He feels, and by implication admits, the impropriety of the Irish exemption; and he took refuge from the derisive cheering of the House in some general, but useless axioms, to the effect that the prosperity of Ireland involved the prosperity of the United Kingdom. All we can say upon that topic is, that if the well-being of Britain depends upon the exertions and tranquillity of Ireland, our existence as a great empire at the present day may be counted as the most stupendous of modern miracles. But this, even in the most favourable point of view, affords no argument at all. We presume it is admitted, that the prosperity of Scotland has something to do with the welfare of the United Kingdom; but are we on that account entitled to demand that the people of England shall bear at least one half of our proper fiscal burdens? The pretext is so flimsy, that we wonder how any prime minister could find courage to state it in his place. This is avowedly not a tax which is to affect the working or pauper population: it does not wring the pence from the hands of the peasant. It spares all incomes under £150; and are we now to be deliberately told, when this impost is sought to be made permanent, that the lawyers, physicians, and tradesmen of Dublin are to be exempted from an assessment, occasioned by a general defalcation of the revenue, to the gross injury of their professional brethren who have the misfortune to reside in Edinburgh? But we go a great deal further than this. We say, that if exemption is to be given to the Irish landlords, a stronger case for the same immunity may be preferred in behalf of the landowners throughout the greater part of Scotland. The cruel suppression of the kelp manufacture has long ago reduced a vast portion of the population located in the Western Highlands and Islands to a state of pauperism. Poor-rates have been enormously increased; and

But the worst and most intolerable feature of the whole remains behind. Unjustly apportioned as this tax undoubtedly is among ourselves, the total exemption of Ireland from its operation is a matter which cannot fail to excite throughout Great Britain a feeling of universal and bitter indignation. Ireland, as we all know, is already exempted from several of our heaviest burdens: she is by far the greatest pensioner of the public purse; and the charities and bounties which have been so indiscriminately lavished upon her, are beyond all bounds disproportionate either to her wants or her gratitude. But when it is seriously proposed to make this tax-which is a class one-permanent, and to exempt from its operation all persons of property and income in Ireland, it is full time that we should speak out boldly, and declare, that at all hazards we shall not submit to so gross and flagrant an injustice. This is no time for puerile remonstrance. We have already borne and suffered more than we are able to endure; and we must not permit ourselves to be sacrificed, in order that Lord John Russell may command the Irish votes; we must not be impoverished, in order to give a new impetus to the cause of turbulence and sedition. In particular, let us impress upon our representatives, that this is a matter in which Scotland is vitally concerned. We have submitted very tamely and quietly to much neglect, and to a good deal of palpable injustice; we have abstained from making that outcry which the notorious neglect, by each succeeding government, of our institutions and foundations rendered almost a national duty. We have allowed ourselves, though the poorer country of

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the failure of the potato-crop was felt in those districts at least as severely as in Ireland. Very scanty indeed was the relief doled out by government here, at the time when large supplies were forced into the turbulent island; the burden of maintaining the poor was thrown upon our proprietors; and their reward is to be an augmented income-tax of five per cent, whilst the Irish, as usual, are to go free! Really, when we consider this matter in its broad and open bearing, the injustice appears so enormous, that we can hardly bring ourselves to believe that it is seriously intended to perpetrate it. At all events our course is clear. There can be no party distinctions in such a matter as this. Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the policy of continuing the income-tax, there can be none as to the propriety of its just and equal distribution throughout the empire. The voice of Scotland must be heard upon this point, and loudly too, else our fragmentary representation is nothing more than a shadow and a dream. We trust that both the counties and the towns will bestir themselves to oppose this meditated act of spoliation; and by a ready and united resistance, compel the ministry to remember that higher and weightier considerations than the command of some Irish votes are involved in a question so momentous and so vital to the whole community.

Indeed, if the income-tax is really to become permanent, it must be placed upon an entirely different basis, and undergo a thorough revision. It cannot be suffered to pass in that light and easy manner which Lord John Russell seems to contemplate. His former colleague, Mr Baring, feels this, and does not hesitate to say it. We quote from his remarks upon the subject:-"It might be very well in times of great difficulty, or in time of war, to do that under the pressing necessity of the circumstances, which they were prepared to justify solely on the grounds of such necessity, but which would not be justifiable without it. When, then, they proposed for two or three years to lay on an income-tax in time of war, they might not be very nice in seeing that the tax pressed

equally on all classes; but when they came to raise an income-tax of five per cent, and made it part of the permanent system of taxation, he thought they were bound to make it a more equable and fair tax than it was at present. He alluded to the different manner in which the tax pressed upon incomes derived from property, and from those which depended on the exertions of individuals. He did not think this tax, as it was at present imposed, could long stand the test of fair reasoning." It may be very well for the premier to state, with Whig glibness, that "we propose, therefore, to take the tax exactly as it has been imposed in late yearson the same principles on which it was proposed and defended by Mr Pitt, on the principles on which it was increased by Lord Grenville and Lord Lansdowne." He is utterly wrong, both in his history and in his inference. The present tax is, in its most important features, defencible upon no principle that ever was enunciated before; and he is mistaken if he supposes that the British nation will consider a permanent impost in the same light as one which was merely temporary. We maintain that the measure, as a whole, is in the highest degree dangerous and unconstitutional; but if we are compelled to submit to it as the product of wild and reckless experiment, it is absolutely necessary that it should be reconstructed in accordance to the dictates of justice. The late act was neither so framed nor administered. Upon what principle, we should like to know, is the English landed proprietor assessed upon a rental from which all parochial and other burdens are deducted, whilst in Scotland the landlord is charged upon the gross amount? The Englishman is entitled to deduction of poor, county, highway, church, and police rates; whilst the Scotchman is very coolly handed over to the tender mercies of the commissioners under schedule A, and assessed to the uttermost farthing! This is but one instance of the inequality which pervades the act of 1842; and although it might have been passed over without much notice in a scheme of taxation which was only to last for a limited time, it must not be suffered

to remain unaltered when a permanent burden is to be laid upon our aching shoulders. This country, far more than Ireland, stands in need of a national association to watch over and protect its interests.

We shall not venture to anticipate the reception of this most deplorable financial statement when it is fully brought before parliament. We fully agree with Mr Osborne, who said that, "had there been a regularly organised Opposition, such a statement would never have been made. In such a case, the fact of a minister under present circumstances calling for an increase in taxation, would have signed the deathwarrant of his cabinet. The present ministry, he believed, would be the most unpopular and the most unfortunate who had ever sat within these walls." Hard language this certainly, when addressed to the prophets of unbounded prosperity following in the wake of free-trade, but not more hard than true. Commercial distress, unexampled bankruptcy, money at a minimum rate of eight per cent, ruined colonies, and a wartax made permanent and augmented, have been the first-fruits of that glorious measure which was absolutely to swamp us with an inundation of unexampled riches! How much further, we may ask, is it proposed to carry the experiment? Are the navigation laws to be repealed by a ministry which acknowledges the necessity of increasing our armaments? Which interest is next to suffer?

"Who else must be let blood-who else is rank ?"

What other reductions are to be made -what further filching from the customs effected, in order that, in another year or two, a fresh direct demand may be made upon an isolated class of the community? We have read over every part of Lord John Russell's financial statement with the utmost attention; and, fully satisfied as we are that the deficiency in the balance must be made good, we have arrived at the conclusion that the proposed measures are upon no account whatever justifiable. Are the Whigs sincere in their belief that the free-trade experiment will prosper? If they are, why do they seck

to make this income-tax permanent? -why do they ask for five years as the shortest nominal term? "Give us a fair time for the experiment!" shouts the free-trader whenever he is reminded of the utter failure of his scheme. But what is to be considered as a fair time? Are we to be taxed directly, and exorbitantly, for five years, in the hope that when these are over some ray of our former sunshine may revisit us? or are we to wait in patience, with a revenue yearly dwindling, until reciprocity shall arrive for the benefit of a future generation? The effects of the potato failure are now over, railway speculation has subsided, nothing stands in the way of free-trade to prevent us from participating in all its blessings. If the ministry have confidence in it, as they have over and over again professed to have, why do they seek more than the prolongation of the present tax for another year? They know why. In their hearts they are thoroughly aware, that they have been led astray by a phantom; or rather, that they have fostered a gross delusion for the mean purpose of obtaining power, and the tone which they are now compelled to assume sufficiently proves it. There is no vaunting this timeno gay and golden prophecy. All is black and dreary before them; and they are trembling at the account which they will be forced to render to the country. Weak in purpose, they have not the courage to confess their former folly; to own that they have been misled by the dangerous example of their predecessor; and that, by deserting the older financial system which regulated the affairs of this country, they are plunging the nation into unheard-of difficulties, and preparing for themselves an early, and certainly an inglorious fall.

Unhappy indeed is their position, for even the most discreditable section of their allies is upon the eve of desertion. Mr Cobden of course is frantic at the idea of the smallest addition to our armaments. He wants the country party to join with him in a crusade against the army and navy, and is kind enough to propose a coalition. There is very small chance of the gentlemen of England being found in any such dubious company. Betrayed