The French intervention of 1823 in Spain produced several results which might be considered favourable to the principles then contended for in France by the Government of the Restoration. It flattered the army, which displayed consummate discipline, and took the field, for the first time since the Revolution, under the white cockade. It satisfied the Royalist majority in the Chamber of Deputies, which seldom found King Louis XVII. as royalist as itself; and it established close and confidential relations between France and the three great Continental Powers, leaving this country entirely isolated in Europe. I knew how 'it would end,' said the Duke of Wellington to M. de Marcellus. They have followed their notions of resentment; and 'what is the result? Everything is done without us, or in 'spite of us. We are separated from the Continent. Penitus 'toto divisos orbe;' for even the old Duke quoted Latin on the occasion. Well, we deserved to be left out; for our part in all 'this has not been what it ought to have been.' The Duke spoke truly, not because Mr. Canning had professed a different principle to France, but because he had asserted it with pique, and carried it to the length of resentment.

"They say," said Mr. Canning, the other day, "that I have been mistaken on this affair of Spain. It is better to be mistaken once than twice, and better to be mistaken twice than to confess oneself mistaken at all."

'In these enigmatical subtleties the great interests of nations are lost. Mr. Canning persists in considering the triumph of France as his defeat, and everything which may lessen our success is a relief to his bitterness.' (P. 359.)

Yet, in writing these lines just before he had quitted London, on the arrival of Prince Polignac as ambassador, M. de Marcellus pointed out the possibility of healing even these wounds, by skilful concessions to the vanity of the great English Minister. To this overture Chateaubriand replied, in a tone implying that he was not the man to undertake that task, and that all confidential relations between himself and Mr. Canning were at an end for ever

'I do not believe in the fall of Mr. Canning, and I think, with you, that he must be flattered to be brought over: but wounded amour-propre never repents, never returns, never forgives, when it is not controlled in the mind by lofty sentiments, and a generous inclination to make sacrifices. Mr. Canning has nothing of this. He is a man of talent, of learning, and of wit, but he has nothing about him great or sincere, and his ambition will always prevail over his principles.' (P. 361.)

These are harsh words, and they convey the judgment of an

embittered antagonist, though a successful one. They were pronounced by a Minister intoxicated with the triumph of his policy and convinced of the stability of his power. Who would have said, when they were written, that in a few weeks from that time this brilliant statesman would be overthrown by his colleague M. de Villèle, and suddenly abandoned by the Court to the ignominy of a peremptory dismissal? M. de Chateaubriand himself was to give the world a memorable example of that wounded amour propre which never repents and never 'forgives,' and the discarded Minister of the Restoration became its most formidable assailant. More fortunate than his rival, Mr. Canning retained power long enough to efface, by the increasing lustre of his career, the recollections of his failure on the Spanish question, until he, too, perished under the fierce and systematic hostility of his former colleagues, who, even in Lord Liverpool's Cabinet, had not concealed their dissent from many of his opinions. We can place no implicit reliance on the fidelity of M. de Marcellus's narrative, for he has evidently embellished his youthful reminiscences, and exaggerated the importance of the part he played. It is unfortunate that, with so strong a desire to show off M. de Chateaubriand, Mr. Canning, and himself, he should leave on our minds so low an impression of the wisdom, the dignity, and the good faith of the personages who figure most conspicuously in these curious pages.

ART. IX. — 1. An Act for granting Duties on Profits arising from Property, Professions, Trades, and Offices. 5 & 6 Vict. c. 35. Passed the 22nd June, 1842.

2. A Treatise on the Principles and Practical Influence of Tar ation and the Funding System. By J. R. M'CULLOCH, Esq. 2nd edition: 1842.

3. Principles of Political Economy. By JOHN STUART MILL.

1848.

4. Remarks on some Popular Objections to the present Income Tax. By JOHN MACPHERSON MACLEOD. 1849.

5. Property and Income Tax. Schedule A. and Schedule D. By J. G. MAITLAND, M. A., F.R.S. 2nd edition: 1853. 6. First Report from the Select Committee on the Income and Property Tax. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 17th May, 1852.

7. Second Report from the Select Committee on the Income and Property Tax. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 22nd June, 1852.

8. Property and Income Tax the Present State of the Question. By J. G. MAITLAND, M.A., F.R.S. 1853.

9. A Just Income Tax, how possible, being a Review of the Evidence reported by the Income Tax Committee, and an Inquiry into the True Principle of Taxation. By G. W. HEMMING of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. 1842.

IT

T would be an ungrateful neglect of our prime national right of self-taxation, if we allowed any impost, however just in its origin and purpose, beneficial in its operation, equal in its incidence, and easy in its collection or administration, to pass through any long interval unchallenged. Even if a perfect tax, such as its impugners generally require that the Income Tax shall be- and some of them pretend to make it,-should ever be devised, it is still to be feared that it must be unpleasant to the majority of those who would have to pay it, and that its operation upon individuals and upon whole classes of persons would differ for better and for worse, not because of its own inequalities, but because of the different circumstances in which the payers found or placed themselves. A difference for the worse in any man's condition, however it arises, is at its first perception instinctively a cause of complaint; and a cause of complaint multiplied in many identical or similar cases, looks so like a common grievance that it is sure to find sympathy, to make itself a cause so long as writers and speakers, and even the majority of readers and hearers, have keener sensibilities and more lively sympathies for partial cases of apparent and eloquent suffering, than for the quiet, orderly, and diffused enjoyment of any universal benefit.

Nor is clamorous complaint, nor over ready sympathy and advocacy, altogether useless. Even while they represent no real or remediable evil, the discussion they excite awakens attention to the order of things, to practical but unobtrusive benefits, and fruitful principles likely to be forgotten when not discussed, but which when once again appreciated may obtain new force and extension.

The agitation against the Income Tax has been intense and widely spread: it has been conducted with great spirit, with zealous pertinacity, with professional, technical, and scientific aids, reinforced by eminent popular talents with daily eloquence, and, above all, it has its nucleus in the most stirring, active, and perhaps on the whole, the most influential portion of our population, the trading, the higher industrial, and the professional classes. It has succeeded too so far as to obtain from the late Chancellor of the Exchequer a concession of the principle of

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the demand most urgently pressed, 'to gratify,' as he most inappropriately said, the working millions,' who are in no way affected by this part of the tax or its remission; and this promised surrender was joyfully proclaimed by the chief advocates of the change as a final recognition of all the principles contended for, which once introduced will render subsequent modifications easy;' and Mr. Cobden has congratulated Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues on being the first to deal in principle, if not going 'to the full extent, fairly with the Income Tax.'

And it is now said, that convictions so strong as theirs, and so disseminated and thus reinforced, must soon prevail; it is common now to treat these convictions as already triumphant, to claim for them the credit of being alone the admitted dictates of 'common sense,' and to characterise the reasonings and the calculations offered in defence of the tax as it is, as refinements and sophistries finally rejected and condemned by the plain sense of the whole people; in spite' as Mr. Cobden has it, of • all that mathematicians and philosophers may say.'

Doubtless, what the whole people requires, in matters of taxation, must be done, if it be within the powers or within the reach of the devices of a Chancellor of the Exchequer - and, as in other services, what one man will not attempt another will be found to do. Still this shout of triumph may be premature. The victory is not yet definitely won; on the contrary, there are clear evidences that the defenders of the Income Tax have, by the very attacks on it, become more fully aware of the nature, grounds, and perils of the contest, have acquired a firmer conviction of the soundness and the advantages of their own positionhave now ascertained exactly the exhibited strength and weakness of their assailants, know to a certainty their false appearances, their really vulnerable points, the generally unsound positions of their antagonists, and therefore are neither without heart, or hope, or good omens of a favourable issue.

It is unquestionably a most weighty matter that is in debate. We raise by the Income Tax nearly six millions sterling, or rather more than one-tenth part of the whole public Income of the United Kingdom; a sum, which if abandoned, it would certainly be impossible to replace without the extension of present taxes, or the reimposition of old taxes, more objectionable, even on the very grounds on which the Income Tax is impugned, than the Income Tax itself, and condemned by the convictions of the country, and by all the results of experience for mischievous action, wholly impossible to the Income Tax.

By means of this tax, an annual deficit of more than 2,000,000%

sterling was at once replaced by a permanent and satisfactory surplus, and by this we have been since enabled with very little ultimate loss to the revenue, to remove an annual amount of customs and excise duties, exceeding the whole of the Income Tax, and very pernicious in their effects on the condition of the greater portion of the community. It still retains its efficiency, and remains available for gradual advances, from time to time, in the same prosperous course. Effectual for its intended purposes thus far, it becomes a question whether by maintaining it we shall preserve the benefit already secured, or by increasing its amount, we shall extend and accelerate our progress in these approved directions; and the determination of this question must wholly depend on our decision of the pending dispute whether the Income Tax itself is sufficiently just in its principle and equal and fair in its incidence, to be still retained as a source of public income.

It is true that in terms the opposition is limited to particular portions of the operation of the tax, and chiefly to the effect of Schedule D., and it may appear at first sight to require no more than a partial abandonment, such as Mr. Disraeli promised, of the revenues obtained under that schedule, the whole of which is less than one-third, less than two-sevenths, of the whole proceeds of the tax. But on a nearer view of the question raised, the objections urged to the operation of Schedule D. apply, if applicable at all, with equal force, and nearly to an equal extent to all the other schedules. It, therefore, these objections are valid, their success as against Schedule D. does not stop there but will justly raise and support the demand for the like treatment of all the other schedules. If it should further appear that the objections being just in their principle, are incapable of practical application to Schedule D. itself, and still more to the other schedules, there would appear to remain no final alternative but to abandon the tax altogether.

The inconvenience, the mischief resulting from such an event, would doubtless be considerable; but there is no reason to fear that they would throw us back into the condition in which the country was in 1842, that we should again resort to the pernicious taxes abolished by the help of the Income Tax, or be under the necessity of submitting to the evils of a deficit. We should perhaps find a way in our present improved condition, and with our decisive experience of the effects of a more enlightened system of finance to do without the Income Tax, and yet avoid the worst of the mischievous imposts that have been abolished; but, at the best, the inconvenience and the danger would be so great, as not to be incurred without a great