NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Income-tax is law : the bill was read by the Lords a third time, and passed, on Tuesday ; and on Wednesday it received the Royal assent. The two debates on it in the Upper House, on Friday and Monday, fell short of what might have been expected of that assembly : the speeches were, generally speaking, either remarkably trite or wandering and irrelevant. The Earl of RiroN and the• defenders of the measure, the Marquis of LANSDOWNE, the Marquis'Of CLANRICARDE, 'and its other assailants, repeated arguments which had been " worn to a thread-paper" in the House of Commons : Lord CLANRICARDE said it was not the office of the Peers to "register the edicts," but he seems to have thought it their province to echo all the stale talk, of the Commons. Other Peers took licence to rove, as if the subject were not worth stick- ing to. Lord BROUGHAM sallied forth in an attack on the Whigs for their unsubstantial pretences, on the Tories through their Income-tax, and on both sides for not entertaining his resolutions On the kind of tax. Lord MELBOURNE indulged in his careless, ingenuous sircasma; allowing that the financial policy of Lord 'GREY'S Government and his own was not the best in the world— that Sir ROBERT PEEL'S is not the worst—though he still had an eye of preference for the notorious Budget. Earl STANHOPE ran amuck at Whig mismanagement, new Corn-law, Income-tax, and all PEEL'S measures, including the old Currency Bill of 1819, and favoured the House with a dilettante Budget of his own. Lord MONTEAGLE made some sharp hits at the unequal bearing of the Income-tax, and expatiated on the merits of Mr. SPRING RICE'S financial administration. But throm,ohout the debates in the Lords, as well as in the Commons, there was very little of the manner of a national council discussing a practical proposition to retrieve the disordered exchequer of a great country. Henceforth, the Income-tax is not to be debated in Parliament, but to be paid by the People : to be collected—grumbled at—pos- sibly, if prospects brighten, allowed to expire with the three years— more likely, to be remodelled, augmented, and-fitted for larger use in our system of taxes. The object of the measure, be it remem- bered, is not merely to give Sir ROBERT PEEL so many millions towards the deficiency, existing, or `created by the repeal of taxes in the Tariff, but to secure to him a surplus revenue. That sur- plus admits of a double application : first and best, in further ame- liorations of the commercial tariff; second, and though not best yet perhaps a necessity,"in preparing for any storm from the lower- ing horizon abroad. While the revenue was making lee-way, half our energies, under assault, would have been expended in putting our own state in trim, with but little to bestow on defence; so that we must have borne some of the first blows without return : now— not forgetting that sore,distress and Chartism are among us—we have again the weather-guage of the world, with all hands ready to rebuff attack or to improve the opportunities of peaceful progress. Another Government measure has advanced to a critical stage in the Houie of Commons—the Poor-liw, which has plunged into the preliminary discussion on going into Committee. The mere Anti-Poor-law wrangle possesses no novelty ; for Mr. FERRAND S absurdities are not sufficiently marked, nor so different from the sallies of the Anti-Poor-law gentlemen generally, as to relieve the tiresomeness of, the subject. If there are hardships to allege in the practical application of the sound principle on which the law is based, those who undertake to set forth the case mix it up with so much cant about humanity, so Much blundering about what it is to which paupers have a "right," and so much sheer nonsense about the "tyranny and " cruelty " of the three very worthy gentlemen at the head of the department, as to obtain neither attention nor credit. The self-constituted Tribunes 'of the Paupers are the penny-a-liners of the Legislature, ever on the hunt for "shocking occurrences" and documents to swell out their descriptions. The oohs practical result of the talk was, to bring forth the Conser- vative Premier and the Home Secretary so strongly in vindication
of the law and the Commissioners, as for ever to deprive of their manmuvre the Tory equivocators who disowned the Poor-law on the hustings but support its adopted fathers in the House.
WARD has assumed the mantle of GROTE, and has restored the Ballot to a place in the debates : with no advance of the question, however. Before the eventful night of Tuesday, the leading Whig organ, in piping to the muster, boasted of the increased number of friends of the Ballot in the present Parliament : after Tuesday, reasons were sought why its friends should be fewer; the most obvious one being that the gross number of Liberals in the House is less. The Ballot attained its acme of ratiocinative demonstration in debate, and its maximum of numbers at the division, under the auspices of Mr. GROTE, in 1839; when the array of its supporters was 215. In the division of Tuesday last, they mustered only 157—an apparent decrease of 58. So that, although the opponents in 1839 numbered 333, and on Tuesday last only 290, the majority against the Ballot had risen from 118 to 133. The cause loses much, unquestionably, from the absence of its greatest and most respected advocate, but still more from the want of present interest in the class of measures to which it belongs. It is essentially a detail : it was a splinter struck off the Reform Bill ; it properly belonged to that measure; and there was a growing interest in the Ballot so long as there was any hope of making the Reform Act more perfect : that has passed, and there is as yet no measure of constitutional change to which, as to the scheme of a whole, the detail of the Ballot can be attached.
A long debate on the Afghan war was raised by Mr. BAILLIK, with a motion for papers. It was entirely retrospective, and so far unpractical; because, while very few defend the origin of the war, that cannot now be mended; and however the war originated, our purpose for the future is not to undo it, which were impossible, but to carry it through. The striking feature in the discussion was the general want of original information : the most forcible arguments or authoritative opinions were quoted at second-band, with a " Mr. ELLIS says "—" Lord AUCKLAND says " —" Sir ALEXANDER BURNES says." -Indeed, although, there was some disposition to disclaim it, the late Ministers seemed to think that they had made out a de- fence because " Sir ALEX ANDER BuaNgs says " 'something which they interpret in their favour ; although their opponents say that the balance of his opinions was the other way, and that un- garbled cOpiei of his letters would prove it. But the discussion is out of date : in 1839 it might have been of sonic Iuse_rin 1842 it only exasperates the sense of annoyance in prosecuting a war from which there is no escape, but which should never have been begun. The savage nature of the Afghan country made it a fine
natural fence for our territory—its terrible mountains, fierc
' e cli- mate and predatory tribes: Lord AUCKLAND would' maie it a sta- tion for British troops; for which it is not suited. British troops have been repulsed and slaughtered, and we must make good our hold, for the " national honour." That has very likely :been done already. But what then ? what is to be done after- wards ? Are we to retain an almost untenable . conntry, at a huge expense ; or what is the plan for letting it go with honour and safety ? That is the question for 1842 and probably, as the question of 1839 was answered in 1842, this one'of-184'Z will be answered in 1845, after all the mischief is done and some new embarrassment has arisen. ;For it is the system of our Government, in all its external relations, to . do things secretly; neither submitting itself to the salutary checks of public opinion; nor deriving assistance from public discussion. That was the system which made this country find itself one day.at war in India and Syiia, and on the point of war with France and America; and now we .ge asking why I The system may 'answer for despotic countries like Russia, for instance—that owe. no allegiance to public opinion, and can disavow or acknowledge.what they please; and whose professed emissaries, if of high rank, are discreetly submissive to censure, if of low rank, conveniently commit suicide : but the power of England, in every part of the world, rests on her real physical, moneyed, and moral strength, and not upon tricks of diplomatists, who are only clogged by realities. Our strength is usually employed, in foreign affairs,' to repair the errors that have been committed in secret some two or three years before it is called forth.
