Mr. Gladstone is not as firm as we should like
to see him on the subject of the income-tax. A deputation, headed by Mr. S. Morley, waited upon him on Thursday to represent that the present mode of assessing the income-tax is inquisitorial and oppressive ; that many men are charged above their true rate of income ; and that they dare not dispute the surcharge, for fear of injuring their business by explaining publicly how small their income really is. Mr. Alderman Green, of Bristol, for example, said he had been several times charged beyond his own admitted liability, thus being accused of falsehood, "the charge most hateful to an Englishman." Now these are, of course, many serious and very legitimate objections to an income-tax, so far as they go, but are they comparable to the objections which may be raised against any additional tax on necessaries, and is it possible justly to give up wholly a tax which may be made to fall exclusively on those who have a large margin of luxury and who are certainly taxed less in proportion to their means than the really poor ? Yet Mr. Gladstone replied that though the Government were not prepared " to take up the question of the reduction of the income-tax with a view to its repeal," the desires of the Government "went in the same direction as those of the deputation," which is surely very like a request for more pressure.
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