For all these reasons, then, we counsel a determined opposition to any attempt which may be made to renew the Income-Tax, even for the shortest period. Ministers have no right to claim it as part of the ordinary revenue. It was levied originally for a specific purpose, on a distinct assurance that it was not to be permanent: that purpose, it matters not whether the results have been satisfactory or the reverse, has been accomplished, and we now demand the fulfilment of the other part of the agreement. Moreover, if the Income-Tax is renewed, we must relinquish for the present, and it may be for a long time, all hopes of that most desirable object, a complete revision of the national taxation. It is desirable for all of us, whatever may be our political or economical bias: because we take it for granted that no man can wish to impose upon his neighbour any portion of a burden which it is his own duty to bear; or to exalt the class to which he belongs by the undue depression of another. The present complicated and entangled mode of taxation prevents us from seeing clearly who is liable and who is not. It is like a great net, twisted at one place, torn at a second, and clumsily patched at a third; and it is no wonder, therefore, if large fishes sometimes escape, while the fry is swept to destruction. What we wish to see is the recognition of a plain principle. There is a school of political economists existing in this country, who confound two distinct and separate things--principle and method. They profess themselves to be the advocates of direct, in opposition to indirect taxation; and they think that, in propounding this, they are enunciating some great principle. This is a most absurd delusion. In reality, it matters nothing in what way taxes are levied, provided they are levied justly--whether they are drawn from produce before it leaves the hands of the producer, as in the case of the excise, or charged on foreign goods at the ports from the merchant--or directly taken from the consumer in the altered form of assessed taxes. All that has reference merely to the method and machinery of taxation. Undoubtedly there are most important questions involved in the choice of a proper machinery. Hitherto the leaning of statesmen has been in favour of indirect taxation, as by far the least costly method, and as the only practicable one with regard to many branches of the revenue. In that opinion we entirely concur, never having yet seen any scheme for the merging of indirect into direct taxation which had even the merit of plausibility; nor do we suppose that, by any stretch of ingenuity, a method to this effect could be devised, not open to the gravest political objections in this or in any other old community. But these considerations do not affect the principle at all. Men cannot be taxed simply as men by poll-tax, for their means are notoriously unequal; property cannot be taxed solely as property, because that would cause