Had he acted in that noble and upright spirit which has characterised British statesmen of a former age, we should have been spared that distress and difficulty; but he chose to prefer the crooked path to the straight one; he hatched and harboured commercial designs which he did not dare to impart to his colleagues, and he asked the support of a large body of the community on the strength of representations which he never intended to fulfil. It is not surprising that Lord John Russell should adopt without hesitation the legacy of his predecessor, and attempt to profit by the income-tax when he has the machinery ready to his hand. But we warn the people of this country--we warn those who were betrayed into yielding by specious promises, but who now find to their cost that they in reality are to become the bearers of the burden of the state--we warn them that the same game will be continued, and that, if they consent to this augmentation, it will not be by any means the last. If the proposals of the ministry should unfortunately be adopted, and if once more the defalcation in the national revenue should be made good--if trade again revives, and a surplus is exhibited in the balance sheet, more indirect taxes will be repealed, more tampering with our ordinary revenue be resorted to; free-trade will progress as it has begun, crippling our native industry, destroying our means, and sacrificing the British labourer even in the home market to the foreigner, until the defalcation again arises, and another attack is made directly upon property. When that time shall arrive--and unless prompt resistance is now made, we do not think it is far distant--the limits of taxation will have been reached. It will be no longer possible to go on. The lesser confiscation will give way to the greater, and the sponge be propounded as the remedy.