NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE week has been one of tribulation for Ministers ; probably the hardest they have yet had to encounter. It opened in Parliament with the Budget—the Chancellor of the Exchequer's report on the actual results of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S financial schemes. On the face of it, this report is gloomy enough ; and it utterly puts to rout those ideas of peculiar official accuracy and technical skill which were attributed to the Conservative party : no Finance Minister was ever more egregiously out in his calculations. Mr. Goommax admits that there is a deficiency of two millions in the receipts of the year : but he takes credit for the Chinese ransom- money, though he does not debit himself with the cost of the war ; he puts the debit in a separate account with the East India Com- pany, the credit in his own account ! It is recorded that an Irishman turned his stocking inside out because there was a hole " on the other side," as a recipe for superseding a job of darning : Chancellors of the Exchequer seem one and all to think that the ostrich's method of hiding—his own eyes—is a wise model of concealment : they must suppose that because they choose, in the face of the House of Commons and a vigilant Opposition, to shut their eyes to a deficiency, everybody else will, and that a little transposition of figures can make the people believe a deficiency to be a surplus. Sir ROBERT PEEL took what he considered the most moderate estimate of the revenue for the year 1842: he estimated the Customs to produce 21,500,0001.— they have yielded only 20,750,0001., a deficiency of 750,000/. ; he reckoned the Excise at 13,700,000/.—the actual produce has been 12,500,0001., a deficiency of 1,200,000/. ; he took the whole revenue under the ordinary heads at 47,640,0001.—Mr. Gomm:ran reports it at 45,600,000/., a deficiency of about 2,000,000/. But from the gross receipts should be deducted the " godsend " of the Chinese ransom, 725,0001., and the other godsend of the corn-revenue, about .650,000/4 which would swell the deficiency to 3,375,0001. Mr. BARING proposes to add the surplus which Sir ROBERT PEEL ex- pected to have after satisfying all demands : but that would be to reckon it twice over, for it was already included in the estimated reve- nue. More than three millions of deficiency on the estimate might content the ousted Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer for a taunt to his once taunting rival. The comparison of revenue and expendi- ture is not so bad. The Income-tax has proved far more productive than the estimate: 2,450,0001. has been collected ; more than two millions and a half is outstanding : the actual deficiency of income on the year compared with the outlay was also about two millions ; but the uncollected Income-tax is obviously a reserved fund that covers that. The upshot, however, is, that after all the ridicule of the Whig annual deficiency, and all the effort to reverse the balance, the first year of the new finance measures closes with the old deficit. A further scrutiny of the elements of the general statement throws an interesting light on the result. We ventured to anticipate success for the Premier's relaxation of our restrictive policy, and for his bold resort to direct taxation ; his new taxes on consumption were obviously more questionable : what does experience show ? Without the direct tax, the deficiency would have been truly alarming. Some say, in- deed, that the Income-tax itself has caused the deficiency in other branches of the revenue ; but there is not a shadow of proof that it has done so—though no new tax should ever be counted on as all gain. The additional taxes on consumption have been positive failures : the coal-tax, estimated to produce 140,000/., barely yields 100,0001., if nearly so much; the Irish spirit-tax, reckoned at 250,000/., produces 50,0001.! On the other hand, the reductions on articles of large consumption occasion little loss, and that appa- rently of the most temporary kind : the loss on coffee, for instance, exceeds the estimate only by a trifle, which is rapidly diminishing. These facts seem to point in the direction of Mr. ScaoLarlemis motion for augmenting the Property-tax, in order to relieve burdens upon trade and consumption, like the taxes on eatables—pot for-
getting corn. The revenue still makes lee-way ; but the Income- tax appears to be the anchor on which to rely in clubhauling the state vessel.
It is now no lying complaint of Irish grievance-mongers, but a debate in the House of Lords, which represents the probability of utter failure in the attempt to give Ireland a Poor-law. Even the Archbishop of DUBLIN, the head of the original Commission which recommended a Poor-law for Ireland, joins in condemning the pre- sent law, on the score of unpopularity, mischievousness, and im- practicability. The Archbishop of 1843 is not inconsistent with him of 1836. The Report of the first Irish Poor-law Commission proposed, indeed, that the Poor-law of England should be extended to Ireland, but most emphatically stated the difficulty of the task. This warning may be said to have been practical; for it consisted of the suggestion of measures of preparation on a great scale. An indispensable preliminary step, according to the Report, was to make Ireland fit for receiving the English Poor-law. Nothing of the sort has been attempted. The extensive public works, and systematic emi- gration, by means of which it was proposed to qualify mendicant and barbarous Ireland for the English Poor-law, have not proceeded beyond suggestion in the Report. The English Poor-law has been applied to the country in the world to which it was the most in- applicable ; and without a single precaution for counteracting that obvious unsuitableness. Who can wonder at the result ?
At the same time, it is not to be regretted that the attempt has been made. Ireland cannot be civilized by any brief process. The great blunder that has been committed will at least serve as a lesson. We have made an attempt that was sure to fail: let the failure teach us how to repeat the attempt with proper precautions for success. Before the English Poor-law can work well in Ire- land, perhaps before it can be viewed there as any thing but an injury and an absurdity, some such measures of preparation as those which were proposed by the first Irish Poor-law Commission must be set about in earnest. , Meanwhile, all the good that can be said of the present law is, that its impracticability will compel our statesmen, if we have any, to attend to the subject. Ministers have been spurred, in both Houses, by Lord Roma and his son, to declare against repeal of the Union : and they have avowed themselves prepared to act in the sense of the declarations made by the Whig Ministers, through the Crown and both Houses of Parliament, in 1834—that is, to maintain the Union, vi et armis if necessary. Of course, as British Ministers, they could declare nothing less ; but the declaration, and the manner of its reception in both Houses, may remind the more discreet in Ire- land, of the mischief which they do their excitable country in goad- ing it to danger for unattainable objects. Luckily, the answers 'of Ministers, though firm and emphatic, were made in the least threatening form possible. Ireland, therefore, while admonished, has no reason to be offended.
Ministers have also made another last declaration about the Church of Scotland : Lord ABERDEEN hints that they will make concessions if the Church will drop its threatening attitude. It is probably too late for the leaders of the Nonintrusion party to allow themselves to be saved by the offer of a locus pcenitentie.
Four nights have been devoted by the Commons to discuss the total and immediate repeal of the Corn-laws, on the annual motion of Mr. VILLIERS. Of course nothing new could be said upon the
principles of a question so repeatedly discussed of late years: the real progress of the cause is to be seen in the spread of conviction out of doors—the maturing of the judgment of the people. Even
the old arguments are new as stated in Hertfordshire and Bucking-
hamshire to willing agricultural listeners. The reflex of the ad- vance there is seen in the various emotions displayed in the House:
Mr. BrAcKsrowe and his class are in despair, and almost disposed to give up the struggle ; other agriculturists, like Mr. CAMPBELL, boldly embrace Peel Free-trade,—with the sound of which
Ministers continue to familiarize their followers, as if in prepara- tion for future contingencies ; Mr. GLADSTONE being the eloquent asserter of their principles, and the adroit special-pleader for not
applying them yet : Lord Howrcx is prepared to support total and immediate repeal, if he cannot establish a fixed duty of four or five shillings ; Lord JOHN Minium., less in advance, adheres
to his fixed duty with a manner that says he will be obstinate as long as he can. The doom of the Corn-laws is to be learned in these indications, from the mouths of agricultural Members and of tenant-farmers, and not from the formal division on Mr. Va. .ussa's motion.
