TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE BUDGET OF 1853.
THE fate of the propositions submitted to the House of Commons on Monday night by the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be de- cided by a variety of considerations, of which the praetieal,value and scientific correctness of the propositions themselves will only form a fractional portion, to be largely supplemented by the wish- es of constituencies and the exigencies of party connexions. What- ever this fate may be, there can be but one genuine, opinion through the House and the country of the knowledge and industry displayed by Mr. GladstAine's scheme, and of the singular power and ability with which he conducted his exposition. Be was bound by all the motives that can influence an ambitious man a patriotic statesman, and a leading minister upon whose effort hang the hopes of an Administration, to produce a Budget not only free from the glaring faults of that which he had mainly con- tributed to bring to nought, but one which should really do what that had. professed to do-carry on the triumph of an expanding revenue with decreasing duties, and equalize the burdens of dif- ferent classes of the community. He was bound to be striking without being either rash or fallacious, broad and comprehensive without neglect of detail. He could not possibly surpass his pre- decessor in lucidity or neatness of arrangement; but those who heard or those who have perused his long speech will acknowledge that lucidity has nowhere been attained by specious generalities ; that precision of detail has nowhere been sacrificed to breadth of effect ; and that while the conciliatory temper and quick sympa- thies of a popular statesman are everywhere visible, these are never allowed to degenerate into concessions to sectional clamour, or into special pleading for class interests, but that a fine spirit of justice pervades and tempers the whole scheme, which rests upon a grand comprehension of the true interests of the nation as felt by an exact reasoner, in honest politician, a warm-hearted patriot. .
For anything like a parallel to the display of Monday night, we must go back to 1842, when Sir Robert Peel rose Aims his party,, above even his own highest previous evidences of statesman- ship and by the oonibmation of large views with a perfect
mastery the details 44_ Pianos laid the foundation of a new a3ra in English taxation and in, English prosperity. If it is not granted to Mr. Gladatione.to achieve a triumph as great as that of his teacher and leader, his apeechmhows that it is only because so much has been done already; and he is not the man to ascend the "heaven of invention" amid a shower of rhetorical rockets for the amusement of a gaping audience, but a man who having a
i practical business n hand thinks mainly of how to do it. , His business was either to reconcile the country to the con- tinuance of the Income-tax as it is, to devise a plan by which it might be levied without the objections now popularly entertained .
against it, or to find ways and means -without Admitting as a practical statesman that it is an unpopular tax, and equally dis- missing as a practical statesman the elaborate and complicated schemes which have been devised on paper for putting an end to its supposed inequalities, he declares his conviction that it cannot be retained as a permanent item in our system of taxation, but that its proper use is as a reserve for great occasions, when the presence of overwhelming danger or the prospect of overbalancing advantage induces those persons upon whom such a tax presses heavily to bear the temporary infliction with patriotic resignation. The Income-tax, therefore, originally proposed. by Mr. Pitt to meet. the unparalleled expenses of the French war, and revived by Sir Robert Peel to supply the fulcrum needed for reforming the whole financial system of the country, is only to be retained provisionally to enable Peel's great work to be completed: The elaborate analysis of the sources of this tax as paid at present is a triumphant answer to such speculators as have been seeking its reconstruc- tion on the ground of the injustice done by it to those classes and persons whose incomes are derived from trade; and while the im- possibility of any reconstruction which would meet the current ob- jections-or rather, which would not manifestly enhance them-is most clearly demonstrated, it is shown with equal clearness, that the largest concessions ever claimed by practical politicians for the commercial incomes, and proposed by less careful financiers to be effected by a reconstruction of the tax, are in reality already in operation under the existing system. That whole class of assess- ments to whioh we alluded last week, as requiring alteration if the Income-tax were to be made permanent and to be what it professes to be, does really effect precisely the gra- duation desired by the party of whom we took Mr. Mill for a type. Had the Income-tax been made a permanent source of revenue, we should have .persisted in condemning this principle of graduation, as iniquitous in itself, and as not intended by the act, which only contemplated the taxation of net income. But we are perfectly convinced that it would have been impossible to carry any change favourable to realized property in the present temper of the public mind, and we do not place much importance on the rectification of the wrong in prospect of an entire remission of the tax at a specified period. Nor do we conceive it other than a statesmanlike concession on Mr. Gladstone's part, however little we approve of the principle involved, that he allows a seventh of the income to be devoted to life-insurance without paying in- come-tax. The ' The loss to the revenue will not be great, and a very plausible objection to the tax will be at least miti- gated. We need scarcely remark, that our qualified approval
of this concession is solely dependent on the fact that it applies equally to all incomes, though in all probability the complaining
class will be the only class largely to avail themselves of it. This
is the right way of giving relief—not to create fresh exemptions, but to put it in the power of such persons as are sufferers to pro- tect themselves without increasing the compulsory payments of others. Considering, too, that persons with incomes between 1001. and 1501. are for the first time brought under taxa- tion, and that the tax is not to be permanent, a skilful mixture of prudence and boldness must be recognized in as- sessing their payment at once at fivepence in the pound. We regard it not simply as a question of finance, but most important in its influence on public morality, and not without a direct and very palpable bearing on the future destinies of this country, that the poorer and vastly more numerous class should not learn that perilous lesson of exemption from contribution to the expenses of the government. It is extremely to be regretted that Mr. Disraeli damaged so excellent a proposition as that for carrying the House- tax down to ten-pound houses, by blending it inseparably with other propositions not for a moment to be entertained : probably, in the absence of that proposal from the present Budget, we are
paying the inevitable penalty for then allowing our affairs to be intrusted to improper hands. But we should still more have regret- ted any proposition to continue the Income-tax even for a term of years only, if unaccompanied by some step towards removing the ex- emption of any incomes above those necessary for mere maintenance. We recognize in the concessions which Mr. Gladstone has made the prudence of a statesman, who is bound to make true principles of taxation as popular as he can; while in his pronounced refusal to be a party to the reconstruction of the tax and his careful expo- sure of the insuperable difficulties that attend any such recon- struction, as well as his candid statement of the objections to the tax itself, he has rendered a valuable assistance to the diffusion of sound and enlightened views. And should a renewal of an in- come-tax be desirable at any future time, this speech of his will ha-te helped to mould a public opinion of a very different tone, and far more accurately informed than that which has hitherto pre- vailed, on the functions, limits, and general character of such a tax. While thus, on the one hand, Mr. Gladstone by his masterly, ex- position of the existing system clears away popular misapprehen- sion, and on the other, by a mixture of concession and extension, really renders the tax more equitable to all and less burdensome to particular classes, he shows himself prepared to render the jus- tice demanded for industry and skill, by removing an inequality which popular instinct has long condemned, and for which finan- cial equity has not one word to say. The extension of the Legacy- duty, with a most just limitation, to real- property, and without reserve to settlements, will not only still a long vexed question, but permanently open a rich source of revenue. A tax on enema- dons is a vastly different thing from an annual property-tax, and as not only free from the objections that lie against the latter on the score of its repeatedly mulcting the same capital in the same hands, but also from the equally serious objection that such a tax, being essentially partial and oppressive in its operation, could not be constantly levied without exciting a war of classes. The state can make no fairer claim than that of participating in the inherit,- mice to which her laws lend a principal sanction' ; and no possible reason in the present state of society can be maintained for con- fining such a tax to what the law artificially designates as person-
ty.
al The other additions which are proposed to our taxation—such as the inclusion of Ireland in the Income-tax assessment, and the step towards the equalization Of the duties on English, Scotch, and Irish spirits—are conceived in a spirit of fairness and pru- dence which we trust for the honour of Ireland and Scotland will be reciprocated. The application of the revenue thus raised to the abolition of the duties on such prime necessaries of life as soap and tea, to the reduction of the advertisement-duty, of the duty on attornies' certificates and articles, and on hackney-carriages, can excite no opposition, and is for the most part only the execution of demands of the House of Commons or the nation at large. The reduction and abolition of customs-duties on between two and three hundred articles of import remind one again of Peel in 1842, and are in perfect harmony with the successful experiences of the last ten years. Most of these reductions affect principally the ex- penditure of the poorer classes and a calculation of the relative savings likely to be effected through them gives a much larger percentage on incomes below than on those above 150/. The abo- lition of the progressive principle in the Assessed Taxes will, on the other hand, benefit principally the rich; but the principle of progression is opposed to fair equality, and the revenue may hazard the chance.
We think the country can hardly hesitate between the boons now offered and the repeal of half the Malt-tax, which was the distinguishing relief of the late Budget, both alike dealing with the Tea-duties,—especially as in the defunct scheme the boon was given mainly to one class, and the price to be paid for it exacted from another.
But, after all, the really most important relief given by Mr. Gladstone is the gradual reduction of the Income-tax and its entire cessation in 1860. In the calculations upon which the possibility of this is based there appears to us no element of chance, beyond the assumption that the experience of the last ten years as to the effect of reducing duties on articles of general consumption is now likely to be confuted : and this applies to only the smaller portion of the revenue requisite to supply the place of the Income-tax. The greater portion is placed beyond all doubt by certain reduc- tions in the interest of the National Debt, by the cessation of Long Annuities, and by the operation of the new Legacy-duties. It is not too much to expect from a House of Commons which has solemnly declared its conviction that Free-trade increases the pro- ductive and consuming powers of the country that it will not stultify itself by refusing to act out this conviction, with perfect confidence in the result.
We said that party considerations would influence the decision of the House. Of course we expect factious opposition, animated by personal resentment, from the late Chancellor of the Ex- 'chequer, and the select band which followed him into the lobby the other night on the advertisement-duties, in the teeth of their vote under precisely similar circumstances last year, and which would follow him again on the opposite tack next week without a blush. But it was not of them that we thought. Our apprehen- sions have, we must confess, been excited by the puerile wilfulness —if we are not to charge it to personal pique—with which certain gentlemen, who are flaming patriots and declainaers about progress, have from the commencement of the session shown themselves per- fectly indifferent, if not absolutely hostile, to the present Govern- ment. That Government stands between us and Lord Derby— which is something, in our opinion ; but more, it has al- ready given ample proof of an honest desire to carry on the administration of this great empire in a spirit of practical enlighten- ment for the interests of the governed ; and we have no wish to see substituted for this spontaneous action and genuine progress the dishonest and ineffective administration of affairs which is the result of a Ministry taking office with either no principles or prin- ciples they dare not carry out, and dependent for support on the forbearance of the Opposition, or on a monstrous and factious alli- ance between themselves and those whose opinions differ most widely from their own. It is no fitting ambition of any men pro- fessing themselves Democrats and friends of popular progress to do their best to render representative government ludicrous and im- possible.
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