Such is the history of this tax; and we apprehend that, even without, reference to the iniquity and inequality of its details, it is so manifestly unjust in point of principle, that no statesman can, consistently with his honour and duty, propose it again for the adoption of the Legislature. Have manufactures benefited by the remission of duties thus purchased for them by the extraordinary sacrifice of so many years? If so, let them contribute to the national revenue according to the amount of that benefit. If not, why, then, the vaunted experiment has totally failed--the money been uselessly squandered; and the sooner that the taxes which have been taken off are reimposed, the better. But to subject the agricultural portion of the community and all professional men to a perpetual extraordinary tax for the purpose of advantaging the manufacturers, is a proposition so monstrous, that, notwithstanding the tenor of recent legislation, we can hardly bring ourselves to believe that it will be seriously entertained. But we must not be too confident as to that. The Whigs are not famous for financial ability; and even if their talent in that line were much greater than it is, they would find it difficult, without seriously compromising that course of policy to which they are committed, and mortally offending some of their slippery supporters, to devise means for raising a revenue at all adequate to the deficiency. Last year an annual sum of nearly £600,000, the average amount of the brick-duty, was remitted, nominally for the benefit of the peasantry, actually for that of the manufacturers: the window-duty may be considered almost as doomed, and there are clamours for other reductions. So that we need not be surprised if, about the time of the opening of the Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be driven nearly to his wits' end, and the Whigs determined, at all hazards, for the fourth time to lay on the Income-Tax. Now, in counselling opposition of the most determined nature to any such attempt, we are actuated by no factious spirit. We are quite aware that money must be raised for the efficiency of the public service and the maintenance of the public credit. We see the difficulty as clearly as Sir Charles Wood can state it; but the existence of a difficulty by no means implies that most of us are to submit to gross injustice, and many to be subjected to positive plunder. In short, we hold _that the period has now arrived when, for the public safety, the general good, and the satisfaction of all classes, the whole of the taxation of Great Britain should be revised, and adjusted on distinct and intelligible principles_, so that each man may be made to bear his own burden--not, as at present, either to carry double weight, or to shift his load to the already cumbered shoulders of his neighbour. Surely this is no extravagant demand, no unreasonable expectation. Heaven knows, we have now been