IMAGE EVALUATION ^EST TARGET (MT-3) V ^ A,., w' {A 1.0 I.I 1.25 If li^ IIIIM ^ 1^ III 2.2 I^ 1^ lllllio 1.8 1.4 u V] <^ /a / m y. 'W '/ Photographic Sciences Corporation "^S WES'i MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. M580 (716) 872-4503 ^ r<\^ V :\ >v \ 4 % v ci^ ^ > ,.* ,^i)Ns, 14, dliarin? Cinss. TO HIS COUNTRY, V u \^ L I iJ s "THOUGHTS ON FINANCE AND COLONIES.'' 31480 TO THE COUllTEOUS llEADEK. The substance of the following Chapters was written antecedently to recent jtolitical eventsi. These, how- ever, have been treated with the consideration and res|)ect which their great importance appeared to require. PUBLIUS. PART I— FINANCE. CllAPTKU I. THE SYNOPSIS. In examining a pioco of complex and delicate meclianisni,— suppose it to be the liighest triumph of modern genius, tlio chronometer with the Arnold escapement, — iik; first thing that impresses the eye i& the exquisite finish and beauty of the workmanship, and the wonderful regularity and smoothness of the movement; while the conviction is undoubted, that there is, iuid nmst be, not merely a relation, but a fitness of the parts, which are thereby bound together as a whole, in a character of unity, harmony, consistency, and strength. Few, however, are aware, and perhaps no one but the inventor perfectly under- stands, how peculiarly sensitive and nice has been the adjustment requisite to give it its true value as a measurer of time. If from this beautiful model of perfection in the field of dead matter, we turn our contemplation to the Government of a country, which may be truly described as the living instrument of God's providence over the ways of His people, and study it with a care proportionate to its vast importance, wo find a variety in the parts, so endless that we can hardly discern their number, combined with a concatenation so complex and subtle that the most skilful analysis can hardly bring their mutual and dependent relations to the light of the eye, and the com- prehension of the mind. And thus far the beautiful invention, which we introduced in the beginning to the attention of the reader, resembles, though faintly and at a distance, the Govern- ment of a country. But there the resemblance ends. In the B . 1 'J 2 THE SYNOPSIS. latter there is a sonietliiiig still, infinitely beyond and higher. h\ the case now belbre us, both that which governs and that which is governed, is endowed with the mystery oi" life — life, not merely as regar ;^ the present world, but as regards the world to come — lil'e, not in one part, but in all, not in unconnected parts, but in parts most intimately connected and united, and ultimately perceived to be vitally bound together as a whole — as a body; as a living national body, in a state of oneness: and so bound up into a form and being of unit}', that in the sublime language of the Apostle, from whom, writing of the unity of the living Cluu-ch of Christ, the illustration is derived, " if one part suffer, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part be honoured, all the parts rejoice with it." This presumes the national body, like the Clnn-ch, to be throughout in a condition of unity and fellow feeling. We mean not to pursue this illustration further : we have employed it as enabling us to express the more emphatically our ulter dissent from, and disapprobation of, the narrow, circumscribed, and party view, promulgated in a recent manifesto from Edinburgh — which is justly regarded as tlie new nucleus of a party warfare — that the question of the Corn Laws, whose abolition is now called for, is one exclusively between the aristocracy on the one side, and the people on the other. Notwithstanding a few honeyed sentences which followed that declaration, in respect to the hereditary glories and achievements of \\\q. Peers of tlie realm, the effect of the manifesto has Vieen, to direct the eyes of the nation to a k\w hundreds ol" high and mighty lords, as dissociated from the body of the people, and standing between them and the bread that keeps them alive. Tiuit the aristocracy are involved in the question is undoubted : but they are involved not apiu-t and alone, but as component ts of the whole : their interests are so ii parts lately and essen- tially bound up with those of the nation at large, that wliat is good or evil for the nation as a whole, must be good or evil for the aristocracy also; a part, a most important and vital part of the body of the nation. Neither they, however, nor the agricultural interest generally, of which they are the more prominent parts, I -■s THK SYNOPSIS. :-* ■1 will he those most affected by the aboHtion of protective duties. The landed proprietors of the kingdom have only to give their tenanti-y leases of twenty or twenty-one years, with rents partly in corn, partly in money, and they will have nothing to fear from loss of protection. The agriculture of Britain is about to start into the foreground of competition with that of the world at large ; and when freed from the protective duties of manu- factures, it will have the same success in exportation, that some fifty years ago first dawned on our manufacturing interest — a success which, in spite of higher prices and taxation at home, Ihey have since maintained through their enei'getic application and never-halting career of improvement. It was the dis- coveries in mechanics, in machinery generally, and the successful application of steam power particularly, that enabled them to do so : and now, at the distance of fifty years, agriculture, by what we humbly deem a providential impulse to meet in- creasing numbers, with increased and increasing supplies, is about to enter on the same onward course with her more advanced though younger and far less interesting sister. Che- mistry, in which however the foreign manufacturer excels the British, is the great help and handmaid to both; but in agriculture, chemistry is concerned witli the unrevealable mysteries of life in the animal and vegetable kingdom : while in manufactures, she has for companion the wonders, but hardly to be termed the mysteries of mechanical philosophy, excitin*»- motion, but not life, over dead materials and fabrics. But neither agriculture nor manufactures will be most affected by the removal of protection. It is our " manualists," for so wo choose to name them, who have most to fear, — those who make up articles for wearing on the person, and articles of vertu — in the making of which, great manual dexterity is required, and in which, generally speaking, they are surpassed by foreign ingeniaty and taste— hats, caps, bonnets, boots, shoes, gloves, gown., coats, millinery generally, watches, jewellery, &c. &c. : and it is more for their sakes, that they may have time to study and improve, than for the sake of agriculture and manufactures — both of which it is well known receive far less protection from i^2 Tlin SYNOPSIS. 1 \ the tariff, than those we havo called the " mamialists" — that we earnestly hope the nation will allow hreathing time in its work of abolition. AVithout it, that which would be a national good, would prove to be a national evil. Now it is in this view, this true and catholic view of even-handed justice and strict integrity in dealing with vast and intricately involved national interests, that the question in the manifesto from Edinburgh should have been ushered into public attention and urgod on public consider- ation : and tlie appeal should have been made, not to the easily roused intolerance of plebeian passion, but to the sedate intelli- gence of a free and just people — not with invective, utterly unjust, and apparently envious, against the possessor of power, but with the generous testimony, always the more appreciated when coming from a conscientious opponent, to the services already rendered by the Minister, in the course he was recom- mending — services better and far greater than had been rendt.'ed by any or all of his predecessors — services which had removed from prohibition its most repulsive features and most painful privations — -and services naturally encouraging the cheering hope, that he who voluntarily and without consultation with the writer of the manifesto, had begun the good work of relaxing the fetters of industry, and scattering plenty over the body of the nation, would, as soon as time (a necessary element in all change) permitted, carry the work which he had so successfully begun, to a glorious and triumphant issue. But this by the way. " England," said an illustrious warrior, " cannot have a little war;" and in like manner, the leader of the opposi- tion in the Common,; will find that his war against the Corn Laws will not be a little war, — that the Corn Laws form part of a system, called the Protective, which has existed in all our past history, over every branch of industry of what- ever kind followed in the nation, and that his war airainst the part is a war against the whole; that all the parts of the pro- tective system must stand together or fall together, — and that the question which he has mooted is not a purely domestic one, vast as it is, and complex even in that character, but colonial also and international ;— that it extends its range to our most THE SYNOPSIS. 5 distant colonial dependencies, and brings under momentous consideration, tiie present and future condition of our foreign relatione. " Protection to all," or " protection to none," is the basis of all just legislation: and along with the abolillou of protection to agriculture must come, y;a/i passu, the aboli tion of protection to the manufacturer and tlie manualist; the abolition of those parts of the existing monetary charters which convey the privilege of issue ; the circulation of a paper jiurely national, guaranteed by the nation as a whole, and managed by a rigidly controlled Parliamentary Commission : the adoption of an entirely new and permanent system of finance ; and the abolition of differential duties in favour of our colonies. Along with this last will have to be considered the question of colonial independence, and the influence thereby exercised on our inter- national relations. These last we shall endeavour to treat of ir. the second division of our subject ; at present merely adding, as a general example, that it is evident that the measures of the Minister of Finance have their bearing directly on the poli- tical department conducted by the Foreign Minister, and on the relations subsisting between the mother countiy and the colonial dependencies ; and on the other hand, that the politi- cal measures of the Foreign Minister, and the greater or less affinity preserved between the parent state and the colonies, by influencing the commercial proceedings of the people at larse, influence the financial measures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is as a question having the wide and varied range assififned to it above, that we have endeavoured to treat the subject of the abolition of the protective system; — actuated by one only motive, the desire of doing good. We have endea- voured to point out the manner in which, gradually but simul- taneously, protection may be removed from each and every part of the commercial interests (using "commercial" in its most cxtensi'e sense, as comprehending all the numdane rela- tions and engagements of the people) ; and our firm persua- sion is, that the only thing required to give it that consummation which every true friend to his coimtry mttst desire, is a little patience from the nation, and a little time for the removal of pro- 6 Tin; SYNOPSIS. tection. We suppose the time to commence in tlie jMChont year, and propose it to continue for fifteen years j we propose a slight re-casting oCtlie Corn Laws and of a few items of the Tariff, for 1846; we then separate the remaining protective covering into five folds of equal thickness, one of which we snp- pose removed every three years, till the fifth and last disap- pearance in 18G1, (There are strong financial and political reasons for fixing on the year 1861 as the limit of protection.) The act of changing we call the "transit of the commercial system over the nation ;" and, in connexion with colonies, we have presumed to introduce the name of the Prince Alfred, Her Majesty's second son — the namcson of the illustrious founder of the English monarchy, who is prominently brought forward m the second part of the subject, and of whom, the PoUio of our theme, we will only now say — ' Magnus all intpgro sici'loruiii iiascitur Ordo. * * * * lucipe, parvc imcr, risu cogiiosccrc Matrcm.' It will form part of the task we have undertaken, calmly and dispassionately to point out to the landed interest, the great evils of Corn Laws on the general condition of the country — their own necessarily included. On the other hand, we assert fearlessly, and after a most careful and disinterested analysis of the whole case in all its bearings, proximate and remote, that unconditional and immediate abolition of the Corn Laws is entirely out of the question ; that the latter would entail most severe suffering on most important and meritorious departments of industry, long used to protection as a sort of second nature — and that the former woi ' J be a violation of the first principles of political rights and duties : that abolition, in order to be a blessing and not a curse, miist be gradually carried out with submissive deference to that law of population and its adjuncts which we have developed in the Second Chapter, and must be general over the whole system, not partial over a class. Let the agriculturists lake confidence, and be assured that their THE SYNOPSIS. interests arc in safe hands — hands that will hold the scales of justice evenly, and not yield to dictation from a party, come from what quarter it may. The manufacturers would do well on their parts to cease attacking so unfairly their friends and supporters, the agriculturists, and to mind their own business, and study to improve their manufactures to the uttermost. They may depend on it, that when the hour comes for throwing off the protective covering under which the nation in all its branches of industry has hitherto gone on, they themselves will need all their skill, energy, and capital, to enable them to meet successfully some of the manufacturers of Europe, when these are admitted, as in the commercially free era they will be admitted, into our home markets, with their bales of cottons, linens, silks, woollens, gloves, boots, hats, coats, bonnets, and all their elegant finery, entirely free of duty. These things will assuredly happen — let them take hoed to their own ways — on that very day when the Corn Laws are finally abohshed. The protective system must be preserved as a whole ; and dimi- nished gradually, equally, and impartially over all, without exception. We are enemies to agitation, having seen in our (lays how greatly it impedes the progress of good government ; but the agriculturists, by adopting as their motto, " Protection to all, cr protection to none," will easily prove that the weapon with which they are attacked is not merely sharp, but two- edged — a weapon of defence and a weapon of attack. Legislation must never be partial or one-sided : and it accords with the first principles of fair dealing, that, if the agriculturist be compelled to sell — we do not say in the cheapest market, for that would be absurd but — in a mart open alike to all the world, he should likewise be enabled to buy for himself all the means and appliances of his business, in the cheapest market that he can find : that the bricks, tiles, and slates employed in his buildings and drains, be free from excise duty : that the timber, iron, and leather, of which his ploughs, waorofons,and harness are composed, be free from customs' duties levied on the foreign : that the tax on malt, which cramps the sale of his barley, and interferes with the good management of ^ 8 TIIK SYNOrSIS. his land, be entirely repealed : that ho be allowed to liave his coffee and sugar from abroad, uherever they are 1o be had clieapest and best : that he be at liberty to furnish his house, and clothe himself and his household with woollen, cotton, and linen goods, with hats, shoes, and wearing apparel generally, wherever they may be had cheapest, and made up cheapest : and the landowner is entitled to ask, in return for his peculiar concessions, that his wine, which is to him wliat ale is to the farmer and beer to the laboiirer, should bo had at home as cheaply as it can be procured abroad ; also, that not merely his own finer apparel, but that the silks, dresses, gloves, bonnets, shoes, and jewellery of all kinds, which are indispensable portions of his lady's wardrobe and toilette, shoidd in like manner be had as cheaply in London as in Pi.ris, Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna. And further, wiule all are particularly interested in the state of the monetary circulation, with respect both to safety and to regularity, the agriculturist is especially justified in asking, that, as his sales are chiefly in the home market, his prices — on which mainly depend his profits — shall not bo exposed to those capricious fluctuations in the value of money which are pro- duced by the gambling speculations of the manufacturers, combined with the countenance and suj)port they now receive from banks that issue paper for mercantile profit, and thereby unnaturally influence the state of the foreign and domestic exchanges by alternate rise and fall : that all banks of issue be converted into banks simply of deposit and discount ; and that one bank of issue bo established by Government, under the management of a closely guarded Parliamentary Commission. Without such mutual concessions, the abolition of the Corn Laws as a single solitary act, would be the height of injustice, oppression, and crime : the balance of taxation hitherto main- tained between agriculture and manufactures would be de- stroyed, and the former would of necessity succumb to the latter. If the manufacturer cry out, Give us corn as cheaply as we can have it on the continent, we can then manufacture for you and all the world, — the agriculturist is equally entitled to say. Gives us manufactures as cheaply as we can have them on TIIK SYNOPSn 9 the continent, and we can raise corn sufficient to supply every want at home as clieaply as on the continent, and even to export for abroad. Neither of the two would be right in their positions, since both are mutually dependent : we merely shew in what way the agriculturist may meet the current staple of manufacturing harangue by the 'argumentum ad hominem,' and the • tu quoque,' But on the other hand, if all the other vested and protected interests of the nation consent to the settlement we have named, — and no other would be consonant with justice, — we ask the agriculturists, whether landowners, farmers, or labourers, what they have to apprehend from the loss of protection. Let them rest assured that the sooner an arrangement on such an equitable basis is entered on, the better for them. We suspect, however, that it will not be they who will be the first to retreat from the proposition as now ad- vanced. It is almost unnecessary to premise, with reference to what follows, that along with the above arrangements is involved not the question of fidelity to national engagements, — (for, thank God, all parties in the State concur in regard to that ; ours is no ' punica fides,' no system of repudiation,) — but the question of the mode of maintaining such a balance between revenue and expenditure, as may enable us to meet with punctilious and scrupulous integrity, every engagement, however improvident and injudicious, that the nation may in past years have entered into. The maintenance of national faith is the first considera- tion with us as with every honest people, and with every honest man — the consideration, to which, as paramount, every other must be subordinated. But while all among us acknow- ledge the end, as the point of honour and the goal of duty the question of the ways and means to that end is open to full, if it be fair, consideration ; and we shall have to discuss the subject of an income tax, not merely on the comparatively narrow and low basis of a means of revenue, but as a condition in finance, indispensable to the impartial distribution of justice between two classes — one of them till the accession of the present Government but little thought of for many previous years — the 10 THE SYNOPSIS. rich on the one hand, and the poor on the other. The two classes no doubt run almost inperceptibly into each other, from the two opposite extremes of superabundant wealth, and fright- fully sunk poverty ; and the difllculty for tlie Minister lies in diaw'nc the line of demarcation between them. And one writer of some note on political economy, has lately come forward, and on the simple ground of the difficulty of drawing that line of demarcation, and of subsequently adjusting between the subdivisions of rich on the same side of the line, has boldly proposed, that the attempt of setting up a landmark in taxation, — which the present righteous administration intro- duced as a means of meeting temporary defalcations of revenue, and as a subject of subsequent consideration for the nation, after experiencing the effocts of its weight and position, — should be utterly and for ever set aside, as not merely inexpedient, but unjust. We shall have occasion, in the progress of our subject, to comment fully, and to some it may appear severely, on the dogmas and positions of that writer. At present we will merely observe, that he appears to us to have been frighted from his propriety by a spirit of his own creation, by a difficulty that would make a schoolboy smile, by a puzzle that would be as amu ing and instructive, were not the consequences of his theories, if carried oiit, so fearful, as that of the juvenile problem of" the swift-footed Achilles and tlie tortoise," involving, as every one knows, the impossibility of the former, who could overtake the war chariot of Hector, coming up with the latter. The assertion may appear somewhat bold, but we believe it to be true, and hope to demonstrate its truth in the sequel, that it is the operation and treatment on the part of the Minister of Finance which ultimately (we do not say immediately, but, sooner or later, ultimately) determine the relati\e conditions of the various classes and grades of society. It is the motion of his handover the surface of the body politic which determines — not indeed the aggregate of national wealtii, for that is essen- tially distinct, and depends mainly on the nature of the country and the character and conduct of the people — but the mode of its arrangement, subdivision, distribution, and circulation among TMK SYNOPSIS. 11 Ihe mass. Wc have before stated, that the balance of taxation between agriculture and manufactures has been hitherto tolerably well preserved — perhaps slightly inclining so as to fiivour the former, but far less than is generally supposed ; but we proceed to observe, and we invito particular attention to the statement, that there is a balance to be maintained in taxation infinitely more inii)ortant to the nation than that between agriculture and manufactures — a balance thrown aside from the termination of the war (at least fron» 1816) till that which we hail devoutly as the commencement of a new era — as the 'annus mirabilis' of the nation — the year 1842. The due maintenance of that balance, which was destroyed by the Whig opposition and the misnamed " Independent Party," in 1816, is the first and highest of all the duties, and the greatest of all the merits, of a Minister of Finance ; and we need hardly add, therefore, that we mean the balance of taxation between high and low, between rich and poor. The balance between agriculture and manufacttn-es may be tolerably well preserved ; while, at the same time, the balance between rich and poor is subverted — for the two balances are entirely distinct in character and in result, originating in elements essentially different. The balance between agriculture and manufactures is maintained by two reciprocal sets oi protective duties, while the balance between rich and poor, the equipoise of apportionment between these, — which, we repeat, is the first and highest of all the luties, and the great est of all the merits, of aMinister of Finance, — can only he maintained by a due balance between direct taxation and indirect (the last without being protective) : in other words, by the means of an income tax on the one side (which we wish 1o include every direct tax), and a moderate proportion of indirect taxation, common to all, on articles of general con- sumption, every part of which pays duty, (as cocoa,* coffee and tea, sugar and molasses, spirits and wine, tobacco). We shall hereafter shew, that indirect taxation, though common to all, yet bears so unequally on the side of poverty, thnt unless it * Wo immc these, because wc subsequently set them apart as the articles Irom which alone we jiropose indirect taxation to beraised. *■YNOr»l>. V>e me: bv a countervaiiins tax subgradua'ed in the manner we shall pob.: out; . le^-ied dirwtly on the idde of property, and in the form of an income tax. the former are gradually, but inevitably, morv and mr-re de] resied. and ul'iraatc-ly merge into the condition of serf*: and we »hail aUo ]-n:>ve, that the protectir-:' dutie* are only peculiar items in the £-eneral indirect taxation. — 'hat they are merely put on to balance agriculture and manufact\jre« a£-airi«t each other, — tliat their tendency i« to weaken bo:h. and that they yield a mi>erably small sum to the revenue, •which vrculd bt- l;»enefited greatly by the expansion of it> legitimate source?, were *hese two «e when the ETcater part of the revenue is derived from tlie indirect taxes. — we shall find the upper classes of 5<;>c-iety immensely rich, atjd the lower classes frigliTfullv poor: and not onlv so. but. bv the continuance of the system, the upper classes becoming richer and richer, and the lower c. asses p>c>o.-er and poorer. — the former t-ecomin^ richer as the laner become poorer. — the former made richer at the expense of the latter made poorer: the distance between the Two g.'-adually widening till a liid-ous jTulph yawn between them, the sure forerunner of revolutionary chaos : and all tiiis throuoh the maladministration of 'he Financial Department of the State. On the other hand, we readilv g"raii*. that taxation mav desciend too heavllv on the higher orders of sc>cie*v. in which c-a«e they would assuredly crumble a^ay under the con-uming influetTce of the unequal apportionment. And this woiild hapf>en, first, if taxation \xere wholly direct, and the direct tax. invead of desicendinz downwards through the lower classies, were to stop on arriving at them : or. secoixlly. if proceeding from the lower classes, the diro-ct ta.x were to ascend to the upper clas*** in a ratio increasing with the increase cf prop-ery. Direcn tax?.tion. o»f which we shall treat more paric-ularly hereafter, would be the most equitable of all. could it be carried out on a just principle through evr-ry grad-.-. from the highest to the Tin: SYNOPSIS. 13 lowest ; but it is utterly imiiracticable anioiii,' the lower ortlors, both on account of tho great expense of the collection, of their improvitlence and disaflection, and of the power which numhers always possess to resist a direct tax by concert and combination. But over-taxation of tho upper classes only happens in seasons of revolutionary violence ; for the power of the State rests permanently with them. The two inequalities were most im- pressively exhibited in the times prior to, and immediately consequent on, the French Revolution. Prior to that event, the hic^her orders were almost entirely untaxed, and nearly the whole burden rested on the lower : but a terrible retribution was exacted during the revolutionary period, when, by con- fiscation, the cTuillotine, and the issue of assignats, the higher classes almost disappeared, the order sinking boneath the surface, and becoming lost in the general confused mass.* Divided as society is by the dispensations of Providence into two classes of rich and poor, whose natural and relative positions it is the duty of the Minister of Finance not to interfere with bv unfair apportionment and unequal pressure; and, impossible as it is, from the reason we have stated, to reach the lower orders bv direct taxation, it is utterly impossible, on the one hand, to dispense with indirect taxation — which is the poor man's tax and the rich man's safeguard, — and on the other hand, to di-pense altogether with direct taxation, which is the rich man's tax and the poor man's charter of life and libertv. It matters not whether the aggregate of taxation be light, or whether it be heavy, — whether the country be in prosperity, or whether in adversity,— whether in peace, or whether in war; these two, the part direct, and the part indirect, must ever co-exist together, if we would maintain, in due haru.ony and health, the providential arrangements of society. In acas? of proportional equipoise of taxation, the whole, like the relative parts of the natural body, in health and in sickness, will be in health together, when peace and plenty are on the earth, and on tiie other * Al jireseiit, however, owinj; ro the t-reatcr proj ortiuii of (hrect lo iii(liri.ct taxation, ''which are as one to two. nearly, in forty-tive millions sterling;, tax- ation is more e!. liaiid, will sufl'or and sympathise together, as still in unity and fellowship, when Providence permits the scom'gcs of war or famine to afflict them. In the case of peaee, taxation will be made lighter by a proportionately equal reduction of direct and indirect taxation ; in the case of war, it will be made heavier by a proportionately equal addition to both. We shall now glance slightly at the financial condition of the coiiiitry during and since the late nieniorable war. We are not going to comment at present (as we shall hereafter touch on the subject) on the unpatriotic system of loans, even in war, and the ruinous practice of funding in stock at a low rate ol interest. The evils of these things are now well understood ; and wo would merely observe, in passing, that had the ten per cent. Property Tax as introduced in 1800 by the Fox and Grenville Administration (who patriotically doubled Mr. Addington's of 1803)* been in existence from the begiiming of the war in 1793, there appears no reason to doubt that the supplies would have been raised within the year, that the previous small amount of debt would, since the war, have been cancelled, and that we should at this moment be without a national debt! Notwithstanding this it was the case, that during the progress of the war, the balance of taxation between rich and poor, which, as we have before said, uUimately determines their relative conditions, was tolerably perscrvcd — arise in indirect taxation being accompanied with a corre- sponding rise in direct taxation, and as a consequence, all bore alike, prospered alike, or suffered alike. But we had not, during the war — indeed we couKl not have had — that most sail of all conditions and most revolting to every humane and proper feeling, which followed the war, that of the rich prospering while the poor were suffering, and riches swelling outwards and upwards, as poverty contracted and descended in the scale. It was the total repeal, instead of the partial reduction of the Property Tax, in 181G, which completely destroyed that balance of taxation, of which we have been speaking, between rich and poor. That repeal left an enormous '* Tlic (ax hail bcoii iireviously raised to Ci^ por cent. Tin: SYNOPSIS. 15 and most disproportloiuito loml of ituliroct taxation boliiiul (the proof of wlioHo uiKHpial bearing and depressing inlluenco on tlio lower classes wo shall hereafter enter on) ; and by so doing, and by its effect in tying up the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who coidd not, consistently with the mainte- nance of national faith, make a single move of any moment for years afterwards in the way of relief from indirect taxation, was the cause of that wide-spread and deeply-seated distress which immediately afterwards descended like a thunderbolt on the great mass of the nation, paralysing the sinews of the State, cramping and fettering industry, and destroying happiness at their hitrhost and inmost sources. Under the inlluenco of that most baleful and blighting measure — the balance of taxation between rich and poor no longer existing, wages necessarily ftdlen, (they fell thirty per cent), and the means of life kept necessarily high — the nation staggered and reeled like a drunken man, like a vessel suddenly deprived of rudder, wlien the wind has ceased to blow, (for there was peace abroad,) but the sea is still swollen and agitated. It was not the 'J'ory administration of that time, but the Parliament, or rather the majority in Parliament, consisting of the Whig opposition led by Mr. Brougham, and backed in that instance by the Inde- pendent Party, w ho, instead of merely reducing in corresponding proportions the aggregate of taxation, both direct and indirect, destroyed the direct entirely, or almost entirely, by the total abolition of the Property Tax, shifted the burden of taxation almost entirely from their own slioulders, able, but impatient, and left nearly the whole load resting on those of the poor, unable to bear the weight yet unskilled in detecting the fallacy of the principle, and the injustice and cruelty of the proceeding. So violent was the deviation from the first princi- ples of what an Englishman loves above all things in the world — fair play, fair play to all, — that the only apology which can be offered for the step is, that the nation, from the long continuance of the war, was in danger of a collapse from the sudden suspension of previously overstrained exertion, and reflected not on what it was doing, and what the consequence would be ; knew not that the necessary result of the new 16 THK SYNOPSIS. inequality of the pressure of taxation would be an impoverish- ment of the lower extremities of the body, and a violent deteriKination of the life-blood to the head and higher portions of the national system. These things, likeotlier portions of philosophy, become, first of all, subjects of a posleriori investigation ; but it i> not too much to say, looking back on the past from our present position and condition, and reasoning forward to the future, — it is not too much to predicate with perfect coiifidence and almost mathe- matical, certainty a priori, as regards time to come, that such will be the invariable and inevitable consequence of so wide a departure from the principles of equitable apportionment and adjustment, in the fincincial administration of national affairs. The proceedings of Parliament were significantly characterised by a distinguished statesman of that period, as " exhibiting an ignorant impatience of taxation " — as " shifting the burden from their C'\n shoulders and leaving it on tlie poor;" but they might lu've been described yet more graphically and justly, as "a direct robbery of the poor by the rich" — terms nearly similar to those in which they were denounced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It would of course be alike absvu'd and unjust to impute evil purpose or factious opposition to those who ad- vocated and carried that repeal. It was hailed as a godsend by a great part of those affected by the tax (when was the repeal of a tax othenvise than agrei'able?) : for the nation — perplexed and suffering in the novel, and, strniige to say, the almost irksome state in which it suddenly found itself, (so hard(Mu>d had war rendered it,) tlie state of j)eace — in its desire for relief, combined with its ignorance of what would give it ri'lief, (for permanent relief can never come from injustice,) gladly took, believing it to be a healing and composing dranglit, that which was and proved to be, a rank and noxious poison. But that forbearance which is proper in our interpretation of the pro. ceedings of the opposition, cannot possibly be extended to the conduct of Lord Liverpool, whoso tame acquiescence on that and other matters (which it would be out of our province to notice here) was the real cause of all the exhaustinsr struo-i^les and sad evils that came ,.ver tlie country inunedialely after his I TUK SYNOI'SIS. 17 doalli, and which have only bogmi lo find llioir termination ^,ilu■e the accession of fho present Govornniont. IJis lordship, on being bearded by the miserable section ol" the Independents, in a measure which the Administration, declared to be so import ant, necessary, and vital,* ought instantly and peremptorily to havt; resigned. He owed this to the Administration, which imme- diately lost character and power from his want of firmness and dignity ; Ik? owed it to the country, he owetl it to himself. He was guilty of a dereliction of duty to the State. Tlie con- sequences that would have ensued from the adoption of a manly and proper course are obvious at a glance. Unsupported by the Prince Regent, and abandoned by the Independents, the opposiiion would have been altogether unable to form an administration : the Independents must have yielded ; the Government would have been reinstated within a week, and their Property Tax of five per cent, must have passr-d through tlie Commons in spite of all opposition . If all this had been done,— if the Property Tax, instead of lK>ing repealed, had been reduced from ten to five per cent., and a corresponding reduction been ai the same time made in the taxes on the necessaries of lile, all would have gone well with the nation; — the sound of the hammer would have been as rife as ever on the anvil; the rattle of the shuttle in the loom been as continuous as before ; and not only peace and prosperity, but plenty also, would have been in the land and among the people ; for agriculture, enlivened by 'ho action of the others, would have prospered with a \ery moderate scale of duty. — And we beg particular attention to what we notv state: the termination of (he irar wax the proper period for abandoning the protective .syatan in tolo. Not a country in Europe, Britain alone excepted, that had not been trodden down by the desolating footsteps of war. Or. the continent , agriculture disturbed and uneasy, manufactures weak and back- ward, and almost unthouglu of as a regular national pursuit, England should have taken advantage of the hapjiy mometit to throw oflf all protective coverings, atul open her ports anil Jun' I? li! •'' Sci: Apiieiulix A. 18 THE SYNOPSIS. ■ markets foiirlessly to tho sliipping and the produce of all the world. We might llien, with the utmost ease and safety, have accomplished within five years that removal, which cannot, we conceive, be now dispensed with in less than twice or thrice that period, — for the inevitable effect of the absence of the Income Tax, w s to impede our own progress (not of course entirely) and to foster that of continental Europe. But inidcr a better system, how different from the period of the war would have been the condition of our commerce with France, with Germany, with tlie whole of Europe, with America, with the world ! Nothing could luive stood against the unshackled energy of our people, their then unrivalled power in capital and skill. It is needless, however, to speculate on what might have been : but it is easy, though very painful, to tell the tale of that which did happen under the system that was to be. Our commerce was sentenced to the fetters of protection, and the nation to a pro- digious weiglit of indirect taxation : the hands of the poor man were destined to be cramjjed and frozen, and his energies consumed in an unequal struggle lor the necessaries of life, sud- denly, by the fall in wages, placed beyond his reach ; his body in consequence became starved, and his spirit broken, and he was gradually changed from the character of an honest, hard-working, independent labourer, to that of a miserable mendicant, receiv- ing work from the farmer as an act of charity, and paid for his labour out of the poor rates.* A prosperous and gallant people • " Tliouf);li flipin lias beon a vast iiici'oaso of ]M>pulatioii, and of wealtli and comlbrts, anioTii^ ilia uiijii'v I'lasscs ciifracu'd in I lusiiu'ss during t lie last (wonty or tliirly years, anil a coiisidrraliK' diiniiiiitiun iil' taxatimi, the londiliiin of tlic wiuk. }ii'ii|ilo lias lorlainly not Ix'oii in luiv d('i;rc't' iinprovt'd, liut iias rallior, wo iiulino to lliiiik, liei'n sonsilily dclcrior.itcd.'' — Mdcl'ul/orh's Ta-viilian, |i. 110, " Unfavouralilo inrorriu'os have lii'in soiiiclii os drawn in rilatioiito ilio slalt- (if tho country, from tho dooliniiiir or slowly progrossivo oonsumption of sonio loading artiolcs suhjooted to taxation. Tho little iiioroase in the demand for sujrar for several years past, the stationary state of the wine trade, and the decreased lu'oductivciiess of the duties on foreign spirits have boon appealed to in proof of these inferences; and it is further aflirmed that the increase in the con- sumjition of malt is not such as might 1)0 expected, * * * 'ii\x\, however accounted for, the statioiuiry consumption of tho aliove and .ilher articles deserves the most serious cOMsiileratiiin. !t is doulitnil, porlia|is, whotlior the conditiiin of tho lalmitriii),' ]iart of llir pi)|)ulalion has not licon deteriorated during tho last (ivi -.ind-lwenly years ; and ul all events, il is 1ml too certain that THE SYNOPSIS. 19 vvoro by that, blow struck down to the oarthj like a noble war- horse, which, after bearin^r the brunt of the battle, and retiring proudly and in triumph from the well- fought field, is suddenly hamstrung by an accidental blow from behind, and with all his other energies still vivid and unbroken, is converted, by that untimely visitation, into a crippled and downcast cumberer of the ground. The mournful history of England's labouring classes since the repeal of the Property Tax — the poor man's charter of life — is best learned in her hospitals, her poor-houses, her abodes of wretchedness and disease, and in the early reports of the Poor Law Commissioners.* These all, in language not to be mistaken, echo back the truth which we enunciated at the commencement of our passage on Finance, — that " it is the operation and treatment on tlie part of the Minister of Finance wliich ultimately (not immediately, but, sooner or later, idti- mately) determine the mode of the arrangement of the national wealth, of its subdivision, distribution, and circulation among the mass." If the five per ct>nt. Property Tax, and a reduction of equal amount in indirect taxes had existed from the war till now, it is hardly possible to conceive the misery wc should have avoided, the progress we should have made, the comfort we should have secured to ourselves, the happiness we should have diffused among the people as a nation. England, instead of being the dearest co\nitry in Europe, would have been, in all respects, the cheapest and most desirable. Moreover, her families of independent property, instead of evading their fair contribution to the national reveinie and wealth, by absenteeism from home, and colonization of Europe, would, when unable to escape direct taxation, \u\vo. found that their interest combined their comforts and ciijoyiiicnls Imvc not licen iuorciised in anything liko the same proportion as tliose oftlio chisses all\Ts, and tlio proper nursory and pcliool for llio training and rducation ol" I'lngiand'Hi fair daughters and manly sons; and if, along with this, the political action of tho then Head of the G()\ernnient had been worthy of a British statesman, we should have been spared, in great part, our intestine struggles and oxluuistions on physical, political, and moral questions. We should have been (llteen years — (the period of Lord Liverpool's Administration) — fifteen yea is in advance of what we are; — we should have been, in 1846, — what, under Providence and tho present system of government, we believe we shall be in 1801, — the happiest, most flourishing, most powerful, and most united people that the world has ever behold since nations arose upon the earth. That England did not entirely sink in the iniequal struggle — (for we must remeni1)er that the dilVercnco between five millions for, and five millions against, is ten millions for, or ten millions against, and tint this, continued for five-and-twenty years, amounts to two hundred and fifty millions for, or two hundn>d and fiifty millions against : we are not pretending to actual lacts in our figures, but simply explaining our meaning by a general example in numbers) — that England, we say, did not entirely sink in the unequal pressure on the poor as comparetl with the rich, is mainly, undt-r Providence, to be attributed to the indomitable energy iu laboiu" of her industrial population considered as a whole, and to the elasticity and vigour of their moral temperament, "A noble peasantry, their country's pride." These together enabled th(>m to bear uyt tolerably imdcr such a cruelly unijqiuil load as, with a nation of less manly characteristics, nnist have utterly crushed it to the earth, never perhaps to rise again: — for we have only to look at Greece as she once was, and at Gi-eece as she now is, — 'quantum mutata ab iliaGra^cift, quantum lapsa !' — to be convinced that it is the moral characteristics which mainly determine a nation's title to the attribute of greatness — that the way to destroy a nation is to destroy its moral independence, and the way to restore it, is to restore moral independence. THK SYNOPSIS. 21 But we write with assured confidence of tlie future, for the signs of the times come to us in characters h«gible by all. Our people, there can be no doubt, are about to receive the reward of all their trials, sutterings, sorrows, and patience. Under the fostering hands which now direct their affairs, ihey have already received an emancipation, which four years ago would have been deemed impossible — a vain chinia;ra — a Utopian fancy: the right path has been not only seen by the JNIinistor, but chosen by him under circumstances that must for ever command the sympatliy of every right-judging individual ; the right path has been chosen and is about to be entered upon, and henceforth, the national industry, in steady progress to perfect freedom, will advance wirh giant strides, that will not equal but greatly surpass, the most sang\iine expectations. The Minister, in return, will receive the reward which he looks Ibr and ri>gards, the enduring gratitude of a liberated people — of a people who both know what is right, and, like the Lacedemonians of old, practise it too — of a people, who in defiance of evei-y art to mislead them in their judgment, will know and henceforth declare, that other Ministers added to their toils and tasks, but that he removed the burden too heavy to be borne. And here we might have paused, but for the events of the [)assing day. For ourselves individually it might be as well that we did so. We are fully awarci that our expression of o^ratitude for blessin'^s bestowed and to be bestowed on a leal right-hearted people, is of poor amount and value : but feeling deeply with respect to th<' approaching develoj nient of our in- tended domestic policy, and its elVeet on the body of the people, and not bein'.!i i * K«Ko;— a Daemon. .'•■■'I •J-1 THK SYNOPSIS. also iiuwoai'iodly imiployinl in poring over tlu' TM^gos of llie criminal sliitute books — a work in itsolt' most laborious anil disheartening, yet instructive in solemn and momentous truths, wliidi will never be lost on him. The laws on this subject he Ibund, from thoir obscure, contradictory, and frequently imprac- ticable decrees, to be not so much the repressors as tlie encou- ragers of crime, — and many of them, moreover, had become obsolete from time. The reforms which he introtluced in this department of govi'rnment wcvc acknowledged by all parties to be of the highest merit, and in perfect keeping and con- sistency with the spirit and the institutions of the times; and tliat must b.> a well-earneil tribute which party, far from hesitating, pays with acclamation. But further, in his short- lived tenure of office in 1S35, he sot on foot the Ecclesiastical Commission for the reform ol' the Episcopal and Cathetlral Corporations — for pruning otT superfluities, supplying defi- ciencies, and applying the surplus funds to raising the smaller stijjends of the working parochial clergy. The abuses of the Diocesan Courts have also undergone revision, with a view to rectification, — which we may soon hope to see carried into effect : and the time cannot be far ofT, when a vast improvement in the condition and status of the parochial clergy may be looked for at his hands — for he has not unobscuroly indicated such purpose in his rejoinders to the Member for Oxford. And after doing so ni'ich tor the reform of criminal and ecclesiastical law, we may fairly entertain the expectation lliat our Courts of Equity and Civil Law will not be allowed to continue much longer as they are; and that ere many years pass over our heads, I'jigland will have her Code Victoria — a monument of lejiisla- live wisdom, for regulating the decisions and practices of the Courts of Law in civil, criminal, ecclesiastical. ai id causes, by the remov al of equity anomalies, a uid a vast reduction to both plaiiililVs and ' l.au will Ik; his LerneanS'rpeut.-— In these varied walk'' and iiiu^l iii>liutli\i' i-Hhools of pdlilical wisdom and THE SYNOPSIS. ^ fraiiiiiifr, ho passed the first years of his ministerial existence; and the mode in which he did pass them, is surely the best evidence a country could desire, that now, in the maturity of age and in the plenitude of power, with every faculty as vigorous as ever, he will not be lumiindful of the fruits of his early applica- tion, but will render them available to the future happiness and the glory of the people. To him, as to every other statesman of that period, it was assuredly a great misfortune to be connected in public life and office with Lord Liverpool, as die Head of the Administration ; and that such is now his own opinion can hardly be matter of provide a ruinedyV Is it a di'tic-it'iicy I'or tlio inusi'iit year oti account of extiaotdiiiaiy ciicunistaiiccs? U it a dcliciiiicy for tlio last two years? Sir, ■! is i.ot. Tliis dtliciciicy lias existed I'or the last seven or eii,'ht years. It is mi a casual tlcliiieiicy. In the year ending the 5tli April, lb3:i, tiie deliciency was .C1,1'2S,U(). In the year ending the Tith Ajiril, 1839, the detieiency was £430,000. In 1840, it was £1,457,000. In 1841, tliu deliciency was £1,851,000: in 184'2, 1 estimate the deliciency will be £2,334,030. The deliciency in these live years amounts to £7,50:^,000 : and to that actual deliciency 1 mast add the estimated delicienciy for the }ear ending the 5th April, 1843, making an ag;; regale deliciency in six years of CH),07I,m)i)." — {HaiiiMi U—S/wtJch i>/ Hn JioUrl I'cel on Financial 'statement, Mai<:\\ 11th, 181J.) THE SYNOPSIS. 2U yoaiN iho revenue, wmv su(Tts of Her Maji sty's suhjeets, fora limited period, to a tax of three [ki- cent. — Her Ma)e>'ty, ])roii:j)ted by those feelings of deep ami atrei;tionato interest in the welfare ol her pe()])le, which fhe had ever manifested, stated to him, that — if the tinaneial eoiidilion of the country was such, that in time i f jieaie rarliament should thini< it necessary to subject all incomes to a ce: tain cliarge, it was her determinaliuii th:it hi'r own income should be subject to a similar burden.'' — {Hansard — Sjieech of Sir Robert Pid on Income Tux, March Ifith, 18 12.) t- See A).]ieudix (.'. THE SYNOPSIS. 31 iho opjiiossetl go free;" wliilo CoiniTiorce hailing his approach, aroso and shook hor wings, as if called into a new existence, and grateful for the kindness shewn hor, spread her sails to the winds, and brought back her ample contributions to enrich an 'mpoverished exchequer. Through him and the high-minded able and accomplished Foreign Secretary, acting in friendly con- cert, the mightiest Sovereigns of Europe hav^ , one after another, bt^en attracted to the Court of our Queen, to assure her of their regard and their desire for the continuance of friendship and peace; our children of the colonies have been comforted with the announcement, that in the parent state they would find a friend who would never forsake t'rcm — a protector at once prompt and powerful to shield and to save them ; and slav».-!y has boon rebuked in her fastnesses with stern legislation, and pursued into her hiding-places with the now united fleets of England and France. He has begun a great, a glorious, an enduring work — a ' monumentum aire perennius ;' and \\\: humbly hope that not only will he live to see it accomplished, but that he will himself cai-ry it out to perfection, and witness it in full fruition; and when, in (he course of years, l?e has ful- filled the hii'ii mission wliich a fjracious Providence has en- trusted to him, both prince and peasant — looking at tne country as he received it, and the coujitry as he gave it back, (may the latter period be far otT!) — will unite with one voice in exclaim- ing of him — ' Non Sibi sed Patriie vixit ; Si Monumentum requiris circumspifj.'* ^In the galitxy of England's resplend- ent greatness, tiie future night-star of Sir Robert Peel will l)e contcmplat'"a by our children and our children's children of many a generation as one of the first order magnitude and excellence — lofty, brilliiint, genial, and piu'e. Of those that may arise hereafter, nothing can now be saiil : but of what has been and is, we express, in all sincerity and cordiality, our perfect belief — our testimony may be poor, but it is impartial and disinterested, and w(; heecl not party spirit or evil imputation — that in the annals of nyi '•i 1 ♦ Wull-kiiowii jiass.if^os, witli resiicct to wul..!: "■<• iieeil l)ut allude to the nanu's of Pitt and Sir Cluisloiilu'r ^Vl•oIl. f; : IB I, )i: jMd If; ■iiifrlfT'Tfffl 32 THE SYNOPSIS, England, when the question in after ages shall be asketl, whicli of all her Prime Ministers up to the middle of the nineteentli century was her greatest benefactor? history, which has no interests, or objects, but those of telling the truth and of pointing out examples to copy — history, which delights to emblazcn lier pages with the characters and the actions of the great and good, long after " the wicked have ceased from troubling them, and the weary are at rest," will at once and without hesitation, with gratitude with pride and with joy, point to the name of Sir Robert Peel. k Chapter II. POPULATION— PROPERTY— RP:VEN UE. ;nI m i We proceed to dovolop the laws, as they exist in this countiy, of population, property, and revenue, taken in connection. The non-perception of this ccinectiot) — unless in a very remote degree — appears to us to be the origin of the vague and unsatisfactory nature of the reasoning that hangs, as a drag, on the specula- tions of political economists — wearying and perplexing the reader. Whereas, had the almost mathematically close relation between these been properly seen and appreciated, the science of political economy should by this time have been reduced to those fixed and determinate principles which are the essence of its character, and to those synthetically arranged propositions which are the criterion of its truth and the test of its value, as an instrument of most certain utility — indeed, ihu only safe instrument to be at all times depended on by the Minister of Finance in regulating his decisions and arrangements foi- rais- ing the national revenue and establishing thr scale of taxation. Amid all the passing fluctuations of commerce tliat inciden- tally arise from superabundant or deficient harvests, — from political excitement, — from the dread of war, — from the c'leninc of new, or the closing of old channels of commerce, he will here, we presume to think, find the clue that alone will carry him through the labyrinths of perplexity— the beacon light that alone will guide him in any financial experiment, be it great or mall, to the establishment of practical measures of finance. I'hough we may not speak with absolute confidence and certainty »f a'ly one given year, yet, for a course and series of years, the financial condition of a nation, — if the principles acted on be sound, — is by no means one of a fluctuating or indeterminate chara< I r. On the contrary, we feel assured, — sjxjaking submis- sively to the ways of Providence, — that the financial and com- mercial — aye, we might almost say, looking at the vast influence of commerce and finance — the general horoscope of a nation, uiay £ !■! D mmmmm 34 POPULATION — PHOPKKTY — H KVI'.NUE. be cast with almost mfithematical certainty for a sequence of years, — not by flimsy vague generalities, which partake of the folly of the astrologer, predicting human cKisiiny from tlie stars. but by viewing the past, the present, and the future of that nation through the media of its population, commerce, pro- perty, and general character and habits, all taken in connection. By contemplating these in their mutual, dependent, and even necessary relations, — by a careful observation of causes in the past and consequences in the present time, we may determine with sufficient precision, for all practical purposes, the national future, whether in its moral and religious conditions, or in its politics, commerce, and finance. It is to the two last more especially, that our Inquiries are confined in the first part of our subject, and to the political, in a limited range, in the second part. Oi 'elicate and now painfully sensitive subject of morals au igion, we presume not at present to touch; and we would only add, that if the above positions are capable of proof, political economy ceases to mystify with its dreamy generalities ; and financial legislation, following a visible course and determinate bent, becomes invested with the fixed and accredited dignities of a science. Without entering into the ' vexata> questiones' between Malthus and Sadler, we assume, as a well-known and established fact, that popuhition tends to increase according to a geometric law; that is, to add to itself jjiM-iodically certain aliquot parts of itself. In some countries the rate of increase is very different from that of others; and oven in the same country, the ratio, when compared at different periods, is seen to have been affected by ex- ternal circumstances — as war, famine, pv'slilence, emigration, &c. Still this occasional retardation of the increase does not affect the essential character of tlie ratio; however it may occasionally he modified, its character is still that of a geometric, not of an arithmetical ratio. In an arithmetical S(>ries (as 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, &c.), the increments are equal; in a geometric increasing scries (as 1, '2, 4, 8, 10, &c.) the increments are successively greater. In ]811,tlie population of the United Kingdom was, in round numbers, twenty-seven uuUioiii; and in 1831, 24-4 POPULATION — PROPEUTY — HEVENUi:. 35 millions. Tlio first half oi' the pei-iod iVoin '31 to '41 Wiis maikod by political iii^itation ; the socond hall" by commercial distress. Hence, duriiig these ten years, emigration, as shewn by the censns tables, took place to an unusual extent; and t'l!' population apparently increased less rapidly than before. But these temporary affections of the ratio having ceased, po))u- latiou s once more increasing at its usual i-ate. From '31 to '41, the decennial ratio of increase for England and Wales was 13-2 per cent; and this, without entering into a detail of the calculations of the Commissioners of the Census, we shall assume as the decennial ratio for the United Kintrdom. Now a decenninl ratio of 13*2 per cent., (',",;;-;) is equal to an annual ratio of one-eightieth (j,'„) ; and in commencing with these data we may add, th:.t we are rather under than al)ove the amoimt stated by Sir James Graham last session, on Mr. Bankes's motion — namely, that the population was at present increasing at the rate of three hundred and eighty thousand annually. Assuming then t,V (or -0125) as the annual ratio of increase — that is, assuming that the population of any year is greater than that of the year before by an eightieth part of the whole popula- tion of that previous yeai- — the population will double itself in fifty-five years and four-fifths: so that in the first year of the next (twentietli) century, the population of the United Kingdom, now twenty-eight millions and a half, will amount to fifty-seven millions. Thus much for population. Again, in respect of property, commerce, and revenue, — if we suppose the condition of the population to keep pace with the increase of the numbers — (and if the financial legislation be sound, no one who considers tlie character of man, can doubt that such at least will be the case) — in other words, if we sup- pose the relative positions of rich and poor in iheir various grades to continui; the saun', or each division and subdivision to be increased annually by one-eightietii part of itself {^\), and their circumstances to be relatively the same, then the amount of properly, and the consumption of the various articles u( commerce — corn, wine, oil, cattle of various kinds, houses, car- riages, clothes, (Sw'c. — will each infiva'^e annually in the sanu; D 2 ■;| n ■I' .i' ill t Ml m 36 rorur.AT'oN -rROPKRTV — ufvknue. proportion ; that is, by one-eightieth part of the previous year's^ quantity, and double in fifty-five years and four-fifths. Further, If we suppose the present system of taxation to continue the same, then, along with the increase of population, projjerty, and conmierce, a corresponding increase of revenue must necessarily arise ; that is, thi; revenue will also increase annually by its eightieth part (Vo). and double itself in fifty-five years and four-fifths: so that the national revenue, which last year vvas about fifty millions and a half, would, at the end of the century, amount to one hundred millions p.n- anmmi. In this way do population, property, commerce, and revenue, food, clothing, habitation of every kind, go fr-.vard linked together by the arrangements of Providence, and one and all, as they increase, alike obedient to \\w geo?nelric law! We speak not, of course, of the actual revenue that will be raised, but of the national ability to bear a double weight of taxation with a double population, property, and commerce; and this revenue would be really produced, if the amount of taxation on each individual at the end of the present century were the same as it is now. In regard to the actual value of the aggregate of property in the kingdom, opinions vary greatly ; but as regards its annual increase, we believe, from a careful examination of documents, that those who estimate it at sixty millions, are within the limits of truth : and, moreover, that an income tax of the amount we shall afterwards state, would be ibund to increase annually, rising from £100,000 as the natural result of the increase of pro})erty and population ; and that in fifteen years hence, the yearly revenue from that source would be, at the lowest estimate, one million and a half greater than that which it would yield at the present moment. In a subsequent chapter we suppose this to be the case. We shall now give, in a tabular Ibrm,* and in round num- b;'rs, the probable amount of the population and the revenue (the system of taxation being supposed to continue as it is) * The mode of c,il(!ulafion for Ixitli jioimlaiiou and revenue is (lie same as that for caleulatiiig compound interest : the i)rincii)al, in eaeli case increasing Iieriodically by propurtional p.irts. I i; .43 POPULATION — PROPERTY — REVENUE. 37 for every third and fifth year, from 1840 to 1861 : after which, for every fifth year to the end of the century : the population of 1841 being assumed to be twenty-seven millions, and the revenue of 1845 to be fifty millions. Year. 1840 1849 1851 1852 1855 185(3 1858 1861 ropulation [ Ui'vcmiu ill ill Milliuus. I KliUiiiii:*. 28-73 50-025 2!)- 82 52-55 30-57 53-87 30 -OS 51-55 32-12 50-02 32-53 57-32 33-35 58*77 31-61 61- Year. 1800 1871 1870 ISSl ISSO 1891 1890 1001 I'opiilatioii ill Millions. 30-83 30' 19 41-7 41-37 47 21 50-21 53-10 50-89 Uovi'ime ill Alilliuiis. 64 '9 09-1 73-5 7S-2 83-2 88-5 91-2 100-2 ■I ■-;l ■'I Thus, if P = poiiulation in any year. A = its aiiiuuut in / years. r = aiiiiiiiil increase of llio unit (1). 1 + »■ = Unit's amount in 1 year, then A =» P X l-f/v In the above statement, in 1841, P = 27 millions (pojiulation) .-. in 1840, / = 5: also ?• = Jj^ == -0125 : l + r=lsV= 1-0125. Hence population in 1840, A = 27 mill"*- x 10125* = '27 mill"'- X I'UOI = 28-73 niill""- Log. ' bles faoililale the calculations. Thus because A = 27 rnilj""- X 1-0125^. . • . Log. A = log. 27 niill'"^- -f 5 x log- 1'01'25 = 7-431304 + 5 X -005395 = 7-431301+ •0-20975 = 7 -45 '^339 = log. 28-73 mill"'- ,-. A ='28-73 mill"s=])0|iulation in 1840. And similarly t'or other years, as rej,'ar(ls both population anil rpvenne. Again (o tiiul lliu liiiio (/) in which the pojiulatiun doubles* itself. Because in the expression A = P X 1 + ''"> ^ will then ccjual 2 V, 2 P = P X 1+?, 2=T+7l'--- 1.0125 t Log. 2^/ X log. 1-01-25 Log. 2 •30103 ,, „ __ =55 '8 years. -005395 •' Log. l-o:<:5 -- Lastly, an annual ratio of ^'- or -0125 is equal a decennial ratio of 13»2 per cent. =- |^' = ' 123, because 1 •Or25'o = 1 - 132. • If llic lime ol its liminiiiia tliioi'I'iild, foiirl'old, &c., be rofiuircil, use ,iV, -iV, &c , iistvuilolA, ami |itoeeed us in llie ease of the iloiilile. i\- m 'f'4 ;U'-: as POI'l'LATlON — PKOl'IiUTY — KKVIlNUI;. The preceding table is both curious iuul intevcstincf, and comnioiuls itself to our attention by this — that there is notlung i'anciful or speculative iu either the principles or the results : the case is indeed understated, rather than otherwise. With respect to population, tor exainple, the increase follows from laws established in human nature by God himself; and the results, as now exhibited, are fixed and certain, and almost as superior to legislative interfer<>nce on the nart of man, as the law of gravitation itself Man cannot stop the increasing cur- rent of his sjjccies, either at hojne or abroad: " Multiply and replenish the earth" is the law, and even war and pestilence alVect that law but slightly. We may, by wise and timely . j>islation, modify itsettecls ; — we may not only jjrevent it be- coming a curse, but convert into a blessing ; — we may render it vastly conducive to swelling the amoimt of public and private happiness (woe to us if we neglect to do so, — for in the same degree we disregard the great end of our Creator — that of mul- ti[)lying happiness, — and "surely at our hands will lie require it !") : but we mav as wull try to stem the ocean's tide, and say to it, "Thus far shalt thou come, and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." as attempt to check the con- tiiiuous annual increase and swell of the population of this mighty kingdom. Again, as regards property, conmierce, and revenue, — wc have merely supposed them to increase relatively to the in- crease of population, omitting from the estimate those new mechanical inventions and scientific discoveries, to be introduced before the end of the century, corresponding to those of which the introduction and the application have shed so bright a lustre on the genius of discovery, and wrought so beneficial an improvement on the condition of man in the last half century. That sucli will come to light in the next fifty years, and that tlk'ir I'lVect will be to avid greatly to the power and the happi- ness of our species, and to increase in the same proportion our ability to meet the demands of the national exchequer, — not merely the native character of man, but the things that daily pass before our eyes, declare to vis in language whose force and whose truth ari- alike irresistible by the ingenuous mind. POPULATION — PrtOPKRTV — IIKVENUE. 30 Moreover, amonor the people of England of the middle and educated classes, there is a principle incessantly in operation, having a miglity and intense force, and whose direct tendency is to swell out and nniltiply the huge heaps on the side of ])ro- perty. We allude to the struggle after independence. In no country in the world do we behold this struggle so continuous in its action, so undivided in its purpose, so concentrated on its object, and, it is almost neeiUess to add, so successful in attain- ing the end of its ambition. In most other nations a moderate; competency of the means of life is all that men aim at. But the desire of the educated Knglishman is not so limited : his aim is to rise above the position in which his start in life took place; the darling, the honourable ambition of his soul is, to attain to independence. When, lastly, in conjunction with these, but infinitely above them, we bring forward the healing, sublimating, and elevating inlluciices of Christian faith, let us no longer think of n^an retrograding, or of man stationary, but of man advancin<:, and of man ascending. And to us as Britons it is tn;iy heart-consoling to believe, tliat amid all our temporary fliictuations and embarrassments, tlie course marked out by Providence for our country is one of continuous rise — • that she will go onwards, elevating her heail among the nations yet higher and higher, but not haughtily and threateningly — •hat she is the chief pioneer whom the Most High has selected out of all nations and tongues for carrying forwartl His gracious designs towards the ransomed posterity of Adam. n i \' - :'. ^ 1 •' ST it! 1 I M Ml ClJAPTKR III. ON TAXATION— GENERAL PRINCIPLES. A TAX may be defined to bo a portion of property, paid by the various members of a State, to enable the State to protect their hves and properties, and to discharge national obligations. A tax is " direct " when levied immediately on property or person, and "indirect " when levied on articles of consumption — corn, wine, tea, sugar, malt, spirits, &c. Taxation is direct when composed of direct taxes ; indirect when composed of in- direct taxes ; and " mixed. "" when composed of taxes partly direct and partly indirect, i.i every State, many members have little or no property, but each has his lil'e to be protected ; henca one and all should contribute their portion to the national require- ments in taxes — direct, indirect, or mixed. Also, the extent of each man's contribution should be measured by the extent of the [)rotectlon required, or, which is nearly the same thing, by the extent of the benefit cqnferred on him ; a'ld the extent of the jjrotection is properly measured by the value of life and property in combination belonging to the indiviilual : and hence the extent of the contribution will be measured by the value of life and property taken in combination. To one member the value of life may ba greatly enhanced by the possession of rank, reputa- tion, knowledge, &c., and diminished to another by the absence oi" these things; but, in a financial view, the State ( in take no cognizance of such abstract qualitications. In a financial view, life is deemed eqiially dear to each meiaber : the State treats life equally throughout — treats its value as a constant quantity ; and the charge for its protection should therefore be a cc istant q janfity. It is the proper tij which is the variable, and whose variation leads to corresponding differences in the amounts of individual contribution. It follows from this, that taxation bas,ed on property exclusively, without estimating the value of ON TAXATION — OKNERAL PIUNllPLES. 41 life as u fixed niid constant quantity, for whosu protection a fixed fhargi! should bo made, \/ould l)e unjust to property. We shall ilhistrate this as follows : — A, B, C, D, E, &c. have properties proportional to 1, 2, 3, 4, T), &c. Let / be llie constant sum charged to each for the protection of life, and let ]j be the contribution for property paid by A (1); then for property B (2) would pay '2 p, C (3) would pay 3 p, &c. Hence, ibr life and property together — A would pay / + p B „ 1+ 2p C „ I + 3p D „ l+4p E „ I + 5p, and so on. ;. .v. i If the rate of contribution bad been based on property ex- clusively, E would have paid 5(/-|-^) = 5/ + 5;?; whereas he does not and should not pay so much as 4 / + 5 /?, nor 31+ 5 p, nor 21 + 5 p; but only I + 5 p. Since I is common 10 rich and poor, I must evidently be of small amount : but, whatever be the values assigned to I and to p, the above mode of estimating the magnitude is rigidly accurate and just. Yet in the face of this incontrovertible truth, M. Say and odiers have advocated, on grounds of justice, a graduated property tax, where the ratio should increase in some proportion as the pro- perty incrv'ases. Suppose the ratio of contribution for the lowest were^jJj.; this, with the increase of property, would gradually become ^\j, iV. 4-. t> t. 1 ; ''^^^^ when the property became suffi- ciently great, the whole would be absorbed by the tax. Inde- pendently of tlie danger of such a theory, the injustice lands in an absurdity ; and we have in fact seen, in the case of A, B, C, &c., that tile ratio, owing to the presence of the constant for life, should rather diminish than increase with the increase of property. We beg that this case be rigidly scrutinised and tested by truth, and further, that it be remembered that the taxation is supj)osed to be purely direct. We are the more anxious that this be done, and that there be no misapprehen- ■t '/ m iH- 42 ON TAXATION — (;|:NI;K.\I, I'HINCIIM.KS. sioii of tlio coiulitions of the case; bt'caiisc, in treiUing ol" mixed taxation, when; parily direct and partly indirect taxos arc paid by the side of property, we shall have to shew that a .sxihfrrtt- dudtcd scale — that is, a ratio slightly diniiiiishiiig downwards from the fixed point for a few terms, as property approachos the demarcating line — is indispensable to justice, to the removal of the inequalities of indirect taxation, which presses inversely as j)roperly, and directly as poverty. Wo undertake to shew this hereaftir. In estimating the value of life and property, there are two parties to the decision — first, the individual who pays the lax, and who maybe s\ipj)osed desirous of j)aying the minimum; and secondly, the State, represented by the lixccutive, who may bo suppo.-ed desirous of obtaining the maximuiii. The necessity of raising taxes is evident ; but they should be aj)portioned equitably, and levied considerately, and should not exceed the rt^quired an'.<^unt. Taxes are determined in character by the Legislature, levied in amount by the Executive, and paid by all in the State. The State is composed, not merely of ricli and poor, but of manied and single, or of those who have establishments ^nid families, and of those who have not. The problem of eq\iitable apportionment of taxation — equitable as regards both individuals and classes — is complex, but deserves tlie highest consideration. Ev(>ry oni; knows Irom experience (a homely simile, but just) that a well-made coat, which no- where pinches nor hangs loose, but lakes equal hold of the per- son throughout, feels lighter to the wearer than one that is badly made: and, in like manner, the same weight of taxation will be borne nuich more easily by tlie nation as a whole, if equally and impartially laid on. It is the duty of the Legislature to apportion taxation equit- ably, as regards cla,s\ses. Moreover, in the existing stati> of the representation, — where the poor, the great mass of the nation have no voice in elections, 'vhcre the voters arc comparatively few, and the representative? are electe'l e\clusi\ely and legally from the side of property — it is especially the duly of the Members of I' ON TAXATION -firiNFH A r, PKIN(IPI,i;s. 43 Li'gislatum to wiiU'li ovtM' tlnnnsi^lvcs willi jciilousy, that tlio poor do not. suH'or in \\mr incomes and ]«'rsons from tlio want of representation, — and that llicy thcntsolves be not smitten with sneh an " impatience of taxation,'' as to shift the main burden from themselves and those of their own chiss, and let it rest on tlic backs of those who are least able to bear it, and whoso poverty is the bar to their voice being heard in elections. For exanii)le, indirect taxes are very easily levied, yet in pro})ortion to that very facility, should l)t; the jealousy with which they are eyed. 'I'l»ey may j)rove, in their idtituate etVect, like insidious poisons, whicii slowly l)utsur.>ly sap the foundation of life : they may *'oy>f/7y, wlnMiever taxed as such, should be taxed as ^;o.yiT.y.v6'(/, not as expended ; should be taxed in the mass, at the fountain head, not in separate and dispersed items — by which many are passed over entirely : the full con- tribution required should be obtained by one and only one direct tax : and the amount once paid, the remainder should be deemed the exclusive projierty of the individual, which he should be at full liberty, as far as State interference is concerned, to do with, in the mode and extent of the expenditure, as he considers most advantageous or most agriJeable. A variety of direct (axes is necessarily annoying ; far more so than one whose one amount is equal -he aggregc.o of all: each specified tax as it aijjjears in the schedule is deemed an additional and uncalled for interference with liberty ; and as such, and not on account of the amount either of the particular tax or of the whole schedule of taxation, it creates annoyance and impatience in the payer. It follows that faxes on windows, rarriages, 111 hi ■0 bfv Wl:. •'I w 4A ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. servants, and horses, heavy duties on silks and wines, and all ad valorem duties, are extremely unjust and partial in their opera- lion. Though levied professedly on property, tliey fall on those only of the class of property, who expend of tiieir income on ihose articles ; and the other portiou, who do not expend, yet who, as jjossessors of property, ought to pay the same propor- tional amount of taxation as tlie others, entirely escape. Among the class who escape in tills manner are all those whose pro- pery is in tlie country, but who themselves live out of it — the absentees from home, the colonisers of Europe — who, by living abroad, evade at once our heavy indirect and oiu- light direct taxation — when it should be the especial duty of the Legisla- lature to make examples of by direct taxation, such as they cannot escape. The pariial good of assessed taxes is counter- balanced by much evil ; they act as sumptuary taxes : and in so populous a country as ours, sumptuary taxes should, with one or two exceptions, be oniirely abolished. They interfere greatly wiili the engage^.^nt of thw- poor. Many are the parties among the middle classes, who v^uld, with great com- fort anel advantage to themselves, employ the labouring man at a time wl'.en tie is out of work, but wiio are deterred from doing so by apprehensions of the assessor. Besides, we should bear in mind, that in taxing property directly, it is with a view to do justice to the rioor for their excess of contribution to the in- direct taxes — ;hat it is not then a question b^^tween I'ich and rich, nor between poor and poor, but between rich and poor ; between a vas* number of poor on one side with little property or income, and a vast amount of property and income on the other side in the poi^session of con)paratively few ; and that the injustice of exeruptinjT or.e or more rich men by the operation of a tax that leaves it to their choice whether they will contribute to it or not, falls partly indeed on the other rich on the same side, but really an(' chiefly on the great body of the poor on the other. Besides, when as:^e8sed taxes co-exist simultaneously with a property tax, those of the rich who pay both sets, look on themselves as twice taxed. And further, of the t wo part les who both possess the means to do so, lie who maintains a ON TAXATION — GKNERAL PRINCIPI.KS. 45 » it corresponding establishment is a more valuable member of society than he who docs not ; yet, for the very benefits which the for- mer by his appropriate expenditure confers on society, the Stalo steps forward and taxes that expenditure as if it were n demerit ; while the latter for his selfish j)arsimony and his disregard of the interests of society as displayed by his inadequate expend- iture, obtains an immunity from the State, as if he did it good service, in the form of a remission of the tax, which as a man of property, he, like his compeers, ought to pay for possessiou and protection of property, whether his exjwnditurc be great or whether it be small. Taxes thus levied punish good desert and reward the want of it, and injustice thus inflicted is doubly galling. The point to which we desire to conduct our argu- ment is this — that, with the exception of the taxes on armorial bearings — which serve as a guard to hereditary honours, — and the taxes which may be considered sumptuary, on dogs kept for field sports, (even taxes on these we should, in our desire to preserve the old manly amusements of the people, not un- willingly cancel, * the assessed taxes should be entirely repealed ; — ard tha', a sum of equal amount should be raised by an equivalent addition to the present Income Tax. Estimating the assessed taxes to be repealed at 3-3 millions, and the amount of Income Tax now raised at S-'i millions, our object would be to merge the former in the latter, by a new Inconso Tax calculateil to produce 8"5 millions. We are most anxious to see this experiment faiily and speodily made ; being firndy persuaded that the greater amount of freedom which this arrangement would give to [jroperty to enjoy itself without being called to account in a multiplicity of different ways, would cause the Income Tax to be paid in its increased form, we will not say with much additional cheerfulness, but with greatly diminished reluctance. We assume, for the present, that which it is our subsequent aim to prove, the absolute justice, independently of any question of peace or of war, of a tax levied directly on income or on property. We have here to meet an objection, and one far from unim- portant, in regard 'u the justice of the assessed taxes. It may I »■ I i " If 46 ON TAXATION — GENKUAL PRINCIPLES. be said, tliat of two persons of equal property, A and B — one, A, married; the other, B, single, — it is just and only in conso- nance with the very principles enunciated in the commencement of our subject, that A, married, and with an establishment, having a greater amount of life to be protected, be required to con- tribute more largely to the revenue than B, who though he have the same amount of income, has perhaps only his own life to be protected, being single, and without an establishment : and that this greater amount of contribution, on the part of A, is fitly and justly obtained through the medium of the assessed taxes. We at once allow the justice of A's greater amount of contribution, proportionate to his greater amount of life for pro- tection ; but we reply, that in a system of mixed taxation, where the taxes are partly direct, and partly indirect, it is really and necessarily the case, that A, by his greater consumption of articles indirectly taxed, does pay a greater amount of taxation to the State. Nay further, notwithstanding our opinion (which we subsequently endeavour to enforce by argument) of the great inequality in pressure of indirect taxation, we maintain, that that portion of taxation raised for the protection of life (as distinct from property) is not unreasonably levied on those articles of consumption wliicli enter into the sustenance and enjoyment of hfe; and that, in our view of indirect taxation, the question is one, not of kind, but of legrec and extent. But we add also, that, owing to the very severe pressure of indirect taxation, from the degree and the extent to which it is carried, on those who have establishments, and the all but total exemption from taxation of those wiio have not, it is the case in England, Ix'yontl any other country in Europe, tliat marriage among the u})i)er classes of society is rendered a matter of such anxious consider- ation from the consequent expense of the establishment, that vast numbers of both sexes among them, sentence themselves to celibacy for life, and others contract marriages for purely worldly objects; while among the poorer classes, marriage drags them down to the very de})tlis of wretchedness and despair, from which there is then for them no way of escaj)e. The village maiden, but now so comely, so smiling, and so g;iy. is by the m ON TAXATION — GRNKKAL PRINCIPI.KS. 47 step into matrimony, transformed fii.it ol' all into the sober and chastened matron, which is well ; but soon her face becomes sicklied and fluslied alternately, with cares and sorrows about the means of life for her growing circle of youUiful antl helpless claimants ; and down and still more down with time she sinks in poverty's deep and dark abysses, till death relieve her of herself, or of some of her starvelings. There is no discolouring of truth in this ; the lesson is read in every other village and cottage that benevolence visits ; and grievous is the debt due by those who, thirty years ago, prevented that relief, which the poor can in no other way obtain but by reduction of indirect taxation. Thus much at present with respect to the nature of a direct tax ; its justice is a subject of future consideration. It is the duty of the Executive to exact from individuals what is due, neither more nor less ; and especially to employ exactors worthy of confidence ; persons, who like the Deacons of old (the financiers of the early Clmrch), shall be " men of honest re])ort, full of faith and of wisdom." We express this the more anxiouslj', b(!cause on the character and conduct of the exiictors, depends greatly the success of that direct taxation, which we desire, in justice to the side of poverty, should be made perma- nent by the Legislature. When the Legislature has finally decided on the mode and amount of taxation, the conduct of the people is no longer free in regard to paying or not paying the ' i\ ; it is a religious duty on their parts, to "render unto ai, .iw.v dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom : fear to whom fear; honour to whom honor.r." While, therefon. every ])lea advanced should receive from the exactors a patient a ad con- siderate hearing, the people are on their parts religiously bound to [.ly the sum determined on as their portion, " not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake; resistance to the power being resistance to the orchnanco of (jod." It is at this stage of our discussion that we have to notice an objection which is regularly brought to boar against an inconi or property tax. originating in the inquisitorial proceedings that accomi)any the levying of the tax. We premise that it is ■.y< il i ^ ,■ !.,■: It-; ft'ti m 48 ON TAXATION — GKNKRAL PKINCIPLliS. peculiarly necessary, with a view to the elucidation ol' truth, to have a proper understanding of the real meaning and correct application of words which are the embwlinients of ideas. Mis- understandings about words have in every age of philosophy led to unsound principles, illogical discussions, and false conclusions ; and we need hardly add, with respect to the word " inquisitorial," so unsparingly flung by a certain class of objectors as a reproach against the Income tax, that between legitimate inquiry and inquisitorial proceedings, there is a fup'lamental and irrecon- cilable diffcTence in meaning, ** What right," asks the most ardent and furious of all the objectors that we liave ever read or heard of — " what right has the public to know the means or resources of those who make no claim on it for support? Why compel those who strive by rigid economy to make a decent appearance to declare their condition ? to expose themselves to the * magnum pauperies opprobi turn ? ' Such inquiries and disclosures must necessarily always be hateful to the parties, and cannot fail to excite their disgust."* We admit at once that thepublic have no right to know — that is, in our interpreta- tion, have no right claim or title to make inquiries into — the means or resources of any one ; but we add, that if the means and resources do become known to the public in any way what- ever, the fault is either with tlie party taxed, or with the exactors. If the publication be his own act, he has only to blame hiniself, — if it be the fault of the latter, he has his remedy by a representation to the Executive, whose agents the exactors are; and who ought to bind down the exactors in heavy penal- ties as a preliminary stop, and to exact the penalties in the event of dereliction of duty being proved. I'he question then narrows itself to this. Are the Executive Government, who in the first place have beiMi entrusted with the defence of the nation's lionour and honesty, entitled to make such inquiries (necessarily evolving disclosures), as some con.^^ider " lialefiil and disijusting,'" as we consider legitimate and just ? If we can prove, and we undertake to c'o so, that without an income or property tax, an cquitiible apportionment of taxation (which the * MaoCuilucli, Princij)lc» of Taxation, p. 13 J. IJI ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 49 clamourers against the tax in question treat as purely secondary, — which we consider the only proper basis of a financial scheme,) be a thing utterly impossible ; and if, in consequence, an income tax be resorted to by the Legislature as an indisjwnsable item in the national revenue, we assert that, as the knowledge of each individual's aifairs is the prime element in equitable apportion- ment by the Government, and as this knowledge is entirely un- attainable without inquiry into the reality of the circumstances, whose determination can never in any instance be left to the uncontrolled and unchallenged decision of either the one side or the other, — we assert, that a case has been clearly established for the necessity of a preliminary inouiry by a confidential tri^»nTial ; and all the furor of those who try to write down the Income Tax by a torrent of loud but unmeaning invective, will never be able to convince the disinterested searcher after truth, that such inquiry should not be made by Commissioners acting confidentially in behalf of the Government. The confidence imparted, and the secresy maintained, are out of consideration for the individual alone ; and neither the State, nor the Govern- ment acting in its behalf, can have any desire to act unfairly towards a particular individual, or any other object than that of doing justice to all, by shewing partiality to none. These are the grounds — and they are impregnable — on which we rest the exist- ence as indispensable of the confidential board, with its inquiries terminating in disclosures. As to the ' magnum pauperies op- probrium,' it is the utterance of a sickly and demoralising sentimentalism ; and were the tax-payers as a whole afflicted with such a horror of imputed pauperies, we should tremble for their honesty, — it would indicate a diseased condition of society an overweening importance not merely to tlie possession, but to the reputation of riches, whicli the sooner cured, the better for the nation at large. That wealth is over-estimated in England above any European country is undeniable; but the disease is fostered, not cured, by the effeminate application of ' magnum pauperies opprobrium.* No! if poverty be inquired after, her dwelling- place is to be found in the nation — but in homes far different from those which are \ isited by the Commissioners of the Income Tax ! J i il ■ I ■ Mi (I'i m i ■J r il-! ii I so ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Taking leave of the question of " inquiries and disclosures, we pass to a second, not entirely unconnected with it, and bring forward once more, in limine, our original position — that "each member of the State should contribute to the revenue, according to the extent of the protection he receives." Now this primary maxim is in our view so deeply important in character, and so completely antecedent to every other in finance — it stands so entirely alone in its solidity, justice, and integrity, and in the magnitude and extent of its influences, that on no account whatever can we submit to have it lowered in its proper estima- tion and native grandeur, by the undue elevation of opposing, but utterly minor and subordinate considerations. With respect to these last, — if we are not utterly mistaken in our estimate of their intrinsic value, dignity, and excellence, — they will be found, on a nearer examination of them, to possess the firmness, strength, and solidity of the spider's webs ; and we subjoin a remark of great importance at all times, and worthy especially to be remembered as a caution by every one who presumes to treat of lofty and vital general principles, — that we should earnestly beware of the quicksands of special pleading and quibbling about details. Taking then as granted, first, that in the event of an income tax the State is entitled to know, by confidential inquiry, what each individual member possesses : we add — Secondly, That the onus rests not with the State to prove that any individual is worth so and so, but with the individual to prove that he is worth so much, and that he is not worth so much more. Thirdly, That an income or property tax, if it be fairly and considerately levied, accords with our primary principle in finance ; indeed it is evident that it must do so. Fourthly, That those who defend a series of indirect taxes are bound to prove that the aggregate of the taxes which they impose on each individual accords fully and completely with our primary maxim — otherwise, their advocacy of indirect taxation, being unsupported by argument, must be abandoned as utterly nugatory and void. ON TAXATION — GENEKAr, PRINCIPLES. 51 It is at this point that we feel bound — uii the one hand on account of the celebrity of the autlior, and the influence of liis opinions ; on the other, from regard for the public welfare and interests — which we believe to have been deeply and permanently injured by the long continued action of the principles which he advocates, — to declare distinctly, and in all honesty, that Mr. MacCuiloch, in his recent work on taxation, not only has entirely failed to prove this last condition, but has not even attempted to do so; — that, as if conscious of the certain failure of every attempt of the kind, he has, in his support of indirect taxation, directly avoided this first and most important in- quiry — in his view a matter of secondary importance ; — that he contents himself with common places about the propriety, which no one disputes, of moderate, rather than of heavy duties ; — that his peculiar positions are constantly asserted, but never proved ; — and that he puts forth every ingenuity which words, not argu- ments, can supply, to persuade the reader that the difficuhies of just apportionment between two parties visited with the Income Tax are so great, insuperable, and inherent in >he tiii»)g itself, that the tax should be abandoned, as in the k,. degree inex- pedient and offensive. It would not appear to have ever once occurred to him, that the question of an income tax is not one of degree, but one of kind — is one not of selfish and variable human disaffection, but of stem even-handed, immu- table justice ; — that the exact pound iii income where the tax should begin, though not unworthy of consideration, is yet one of petty detail ; and the exact portion of a pound which any one individual should contribute is one of an importance still more subordinate. Yet on these entirely foreign and miserably low grounds, — where too he deploys with specialities endless in number and worthy of the pettiest of petty juries, — he treats the vast question before us from the beginning to the end of his writing ; and, persuaded that the Income Tax has broken down under the force of his attack, he walks out of court as if he had been the successi'ul appellant in a cause which all parties must confess to bo of unspeakable importance. For example, A having £1000 per annum from real property, and E 2 'i ■ ; ft ih i ll urn 17 'i l:,[c 52 ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. B £800 per annum of income terminating with his death, — the relative injustice between these would be so terrible if A paid a something too little;, and B a something too much, (the former perhaps expiring from joy, and the latter from grief,) that the only possible mode of getting rid of the insuperable diffic.'lties of the case, is to permit botli of them to escape scot free from the charge, and to decree the unconditional imme- diate and final abolition of all taxes on income. Now the pro- position to swamp the Income Tax from mere deference to the feelings and clashing interests of any parties circumstanced like those we have named, has something in it so daring, so abhorrent to first notions of fairness, honour, and decency, that no one when it is calmly brought before him, can for a moment hesitate to say, that the question ought not to be disposed of on any such ground ; and Mr. MacCuUoch himself would not have hesitated to say so too, if he had not been under that same hallucination of mind which led him, in former days, to publish to the world, that absenteeism was not an evil to Ireland, nor residence on the continent an evil to the mother country. Yet tantamount in genera and species to the above, is the whole of his budget of difficulties with respect to the Income Tax ; and we take our leave of him with the firm persuasion on our minds, that he has now damaged his reputation as a sound and just financier* as effectually, as formerly, in his lucubrations on Ireland, he forfeited the character of a man of >. .nmon sense. * We give the reader the following specimen of soand reaHouing, correct style, and delicate phraseology. *' If the former criterion be adopted, (namely, a declaration on oath,) everytliing is made to depend on the honour of the parties, 80 that the 'tax will then fall with its full weight upon men of integrity, while the millionav-e of " easy virtue " may well nigh escape it altogether. Hence it may be truly said to be a tax on honesty, and a bounty on perjury and fraud." — p. 126. (The italics and double inverted commas are in the original.) We leave the "tax on honesty, and the liounty on perjury and fraud,'' to speak for itself: but we feel bound, in justice, to add, that notwithstanding the unhappy ambiguity of the language, we cannot suppose the author tomeanthat the no-millioiiaircs axe men of integrity, and the milliunaires such as a K»tt reading might lead us to think them. The eminent banker in Lothbury may yet take comfort. Of the "Commercial Dictionary," we are happy to add. that it is a very valuable <(>llection of com- mercial facts : but truth compel? us to say with respect to the " Principles of Taxation," that it is a 'congeries disjectorum niembrorum,' whose fit receptacle would be " the tomb of all the Capulels." ON TAXATION — CKNERAL PRINCIPLES. 53 His opinions on absenteeism are said to have changed; and we trust he may hve to retract all that he has vvritto'.i on the subject of direct taxation. God knows the distinctions between poverty ard riches are sufficiently trying in themselves, without being artificially in- creased by unjust legislation ; and in no country in the \ orld are these distinctions so palpable and marked as in our " twn, our native land:" considering the quantity of labour exacted from them, our poor are (not absolutely perhaps, but rela- tively) poorer than in any other country of civilised Europe, — while our rich are the richest on the face of the earth, to whom the rich of other lands must one and all give way. But, on the one hand — to see the " poor man going forth to his work and to his labour until the evening," while the rich man disposes of his day — of his days his weeks his years — as he will ; and to see the poor man, with sweating brow and toiling his weary way, bringing home to his wife and children in the evening, as the produce of the hardly-earned wages of the day, his heavily-taxed bread, and his heavily-taxed beer, — while, according to the economist, the hoarded accumulations of the rich man's treasures are to be passed by altogether untaxed, as if labelled " Touch not, taste not, handle not;" — as if too sacred to be disturbed by the profane hand of man — too holy to be gazed on or inquired into by the eye or the search of mortality ; — is not this, we ask, to rivet yet more painfully the bonds of the poor man's servitude — to bend almost to breaking the already stooping back — to break the bruised reed — to quench the smoking flax? But wages, it is said, accommodate themselves to this condition of things by a corresponding rise; and therefore it is no tax, This misht be an alleviation of the burden, if it were true; but we shall afterwards shew, in a very few words, that it is not true : and we deny, in the meantime, both the premises and the conclusion. But even if this were true, — Are the indirect taxes, we ask, confined in their visits to the regions of wages? Are those who receive wages the only poor ? Are there not, in addition to them, hundreds and thousands of persons, with painfully ' " 111 M 11 it .!:: 1 >■ . te M>;l ■»'■. ■ il ftl 54 ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. large families and niisorably small incomes having no relation to wages — widows of ch^rgymon, widows of officers of the army and navy, widows of clerks in public offices and merchants' counting-houses, widows of authors, families of orphans, — are there not tliousands of those scattered over the surface of the country, hiding thoir faces from the place that once knew them — faces, once happy and bright in the days when they were not widows, and the children were not fatherless, — are there not, we say, thousands of such with incomes of fifty and sixty pounds per annum, — who, in character very diffisrent from the steward, may in a very different spirit exclaim, " We cannot dig, to beg we are ashamed ;" and who are ground down to the very small dust of the earth by the millstone of indirect taxation ? It is even so ? We proceed at once to shew how unequally indirect taxation operates, — shew that the principle on which it is levied is, per se, but inevitably, most hard, — shew that it is a tax of equal amount on incomes most unequal, — shew, by dividing the price of the taxed article into two parts, entirely distinct, and on no account to be confounded — the one the commercial price, the other the Government tax, — shew that while the commercial price is and should properly be the same to all alike, rich or poor, the Covernmant tax should be levied entirely and solely ad valorem ; but ad valorem — not as regards the quality of the article, wliich has nothing to do with the tax, but — as regards the abilify of the purchaser, — which is the only criterion of vahie to be at all times had in view by the Government tax. If we accomplish the proof of these things, then it will be admitted at once : — First, That an indirect tax, in the form in which it is levied (the only form in which it can be levied) presses heavily in proportion to the poverty, and lightly in proportion to the property. Secondly, That this inequality on poverty can only be com- pensated by a corresponding direct tax on property. Thirdly, That, therefore, the articles subjected to indirect taxation should be very few indeed, and such, that no portion ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 55 of the things taxed should escape, but the whole should pay the tax ; — that the things selected for taxation should be only the poor man's luxuries (cocoa ; coffee and tea ; sugar and molasses ; wine and spirits ; tobacco : these, alone, we in another chapter propose for indirect taxation) ; — that in no case whatever should the tax be so heavy as, by the mere magnitude of the tax on an article in itself cheap, to put that article beyond the poor man's reach ; and, lastly, that the poor man's necessaries of life— his bread, first and foremost, and by far the chiefest ; his meat, his beer and ale, his clothing, his house and houseiiold goods — should be, one and all, collectively and severally, untaxed and untaxable. I Indirect Taxation. We begin with the taxes on necessaries, and pass at once to the subject of Corn Laws. Before, however, entering on the main argument, we shall mention a few objections against them, which occur to every one the moment the subject is named. We put protective duties and fixed duties, and sliding scales, out of consideration at present. 1. Corn is like air — an element of life: it is the Englishman's clement, as rice is the Hindoo's. 2. Common humanity declares, that the first means of life should be made as accessible as possible to every one ; and com- mon sense declares, that in proportion to the facility of obtaining them will be the absence of poverty, — in proportion to the ditficulty of obtaining them will be the presence and extent of poverty. It follows, therefore, that a State must have some very imperious ground, to justify itself to the law of God, for imposing any tax on the first necessary of life ; since in proportion to the magnitude of the tax must be the extent of the poverty. 3. If it be said that wages accommodate themselves to the price of this first necessary, we reply, that this is only the case in a very limited and unequal degree (the limits of this acconmiodation we shall afterwards assign) : and we add, that the ri V li^:! mil fill m ■i'\ !'')l 56 ON TAXATION — OF.NKRAL PRINCIPLKS. principle onunciattul in ('2) is entirely antecedent to the case of wages. Wages are a siibject not for State interference anj rcguKation, bit for determination between man and man pri- vately : and the consideration of wages can therefore be no justification for the State imposing a tax on the j)rinie necessary of life. The principle for the guidance of the State is, — let the first element of lil'e be made as free and accessible as possible to all; and let the scale of wages (a matter for private consideration, not for State legislation) follow as a secondary, not enter as j n antecedent to that accessibility. 4. Corn laws are advocated as a means of rendering us inde- pendent of foreigners for supplies of grain in the event of war. We reply, that this is to treat war as the business of life, — to treat war as tlie rule, and peace as the exception ; and in this view we have been acting on war principles during a peace of thirty years' continuance. 5. If it be said that agriculture must be protected because other interests are so, we reply, that this is just ; but we add that, if protection be simultaneously removed from other interests, agriculture ought not to rest on the protective, for the first and second reasons. Also for this relative reason, — agriculture, by producing supplies for the stomach, is more connected with the seat of life than manufactures. These accommodate their prices more readily to the means of the poor man ; and the peasant, clad in serge and jerkin, is as warm and comfortable as the gentle- man in superfine cloth. But food is different ; that food is the most nutritious and wholesome in quality which is also the dearest in price. Every means, therefore, should be used by the State to make the most nutritious food that of our people at large ; and the most nutritious being the most expensive, the price ought not to be raised to the poor man by the imposition of a Govern- ment tax. But — 6. There are interests connected with indirect taxation generally, and Coi n Laws particularly, of yet higher importance than those which involve the supplies to the body. There are the interests of man's soul as a moral ar.d accountable being — !i ON TAXATION — OENERAL PRINCIPLKS. 57 'i > the interests of the nation in its moral and religious aspect and bearing. We have before said, that poverty is inevitably con- nected as an effect with a higli price of the necessaries of hfe as a cause. But jjoverty is invariably associated with pauperism, want, idleness, misery and crime ; and while poverty exists with those ne- cessary associates, the voice of the magistrate and the exho' iations of the minister of religion fall on the ear alike as unheeded as the sound of the wind that " bloweth where it listeth." The gaol itself is courted as a place of refuge 1' oni want, and the house of God is forsaken for the dens of misery, and vice, and blasphemy. The terrors of the law are madly braved by frantic desperadoes, while they who talk of hungering and thirstmg after righteous- ness, are derided and even hated for the utterance, by those who have not wherewithal to lull the gnawings of a famisiied appe- tite. In this view we are to regard the Minister of State who lowers the prices of the prime necessaries of life, — so as to render them more accessible to the main body of the people, — as becom- ing in that one act the greatest of the Moral Regenerators of his country. Commerce, betbre torpid and lethargic, — and in- dustry, before cramped and frozen, — start into a new life, and the voice of complaining and execration is no longer heard in the streets ; the laws, before dared to the utmost, become willingly and cordially obeyed ; and religion's softening and soothing voice then reaches the heart in tones which affect it with thoughts of j)eace, joy, hope, and kindly charity to all. We have truly gratifying official proof presented to us of the truth of these reasonings, and of the moral influences of the Tariff of 1842, in the official tables for 1844, prepared by Mr. Redgrave of the Home Office. In the seven years preceding 1842, an almost unbroken increase of the numbers of offenders had added no less than 50 per cent, to the numbers annually committed ; and in the last year alone (1842) of ♦hat period, the increase was nearly 13 po cent. But in 184C; — when the effects of the Tariff of 1842 began to be felt — not an Increase, but a diminution in the number of committals appeared, announting to 5*5 per cent, while the additional diminution for 1844 was 10*3 per cent. — making, in two years, a reduction of crime in England and mm I'm m m 58 ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Wales to the extent of 15*8 per cent. ; the circumstance of a di- minution for two consecutive years being altogether unexampled in die criminal returns for England and Wales for upwards of the preceding twenty years. That this diminution will go on progressively as the prices of the necessaries of life are lowered, — and, as a consecjuence, employment to the population is in- creased, — every observer of human nature, as it is, will recidily and joyfully admit And this we shall immediately see is equivalent to saying, that when taxation iseq»iitably apportioned between property and poverty — when the poor are no lunger ground down, as they have been, by an utterly preponderating load of indirect taxation, they will then exhibit their gratitude to the nation and the nation's benefactor, by cheerful " submission io every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." Of the truth and vast importanc.:! of these conditions to the moral and reli- gious regeneration of our country, we have long entertained a deep and most solemn conviction, and with a corresponding gratitude we hailed the coming of the healing and purifying measures of 1842. 7. If it be Stiid, — as an apology for Corn Laws, — that vast numbers of acres would be thrown out of cultivation by the free admission of foreign grain, we rejoin, that v;'e propose to pass gradually and considerately to the commercially free era, aiid to arrive at it in tlieyear 1861, when, according to the law of popu- lation (developed in Chapter IL) about six millions of souls will gradually have been added to the present population of the kingdom : that, by the end of this century, twenty-eight millions will have been added ; and in a century from the prusent time, the population will exceed a hundred millions of souls : that by the end of the century, London will be a huge land leviathan, containing tour millions of human beings, and extending over twice the area of ground on which it at present lies : that Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast, Liverpool, Bristol, and other towns will be similarly circumstanced : that new towns and villages will have sprung into existence, which have now neither " a locid habitation nor a name :" that the whole land, turn which way we will, will be doubly instinct with life — ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 59 life both of human beings and of quadrupeds — a double number of the former requiring double supplies of the latter — and of houses, ships, and commerce : that, while our species go on doubling, doubling the double, doubling the quadruple, the land and the water of our country — (wonderful and mysterious is the contrast !) — continue the same in size ; our acres are not quadrupled, or doubled, or midtiplied, and our rivers — the great ducts of commerce — are neither larger nor more numerous : that a house and a ship will continue of the same value, •because other hoiises and ships will be built in rivalry to meet the in- creasing demand ; but the broad acres of our country — ' O ! for- tunati nimium agricolse !' — have no rivalry from neighbourhood; for oar ships which plough the main, neither convert it into 'terra firma,' nor bring other acres from afar and set them down beside those which our agricolse now possess: that Old Time — whose cankering tooth eats into our houses and ships — but adds to the value of the acres of agricola, if he till them with due care and skill : that not one acre will be out of cultivation which erst has borne a single stalk of corn, but instead of that, two blades of grass will be growing where one grew before. Acres out of cultivation ! — where are they to be found, for we see them not ? Our glass is upon Old England, dear, good, kind Old England — but Young England we will call her at the end of the nineteenth century, — and if our glass be not a tell-tale we see, in addition to all we have at present, a vast expanse of country — now bleak moors, mosses and bogs — then radiant with flocks and herds of various kinds and breeds, with cosy homesteads and crowded farm-yards ; for the whole country is gradiially becoming a friable garden soil like tliat which now surrounds her lordly capital : tier children, vastly muhiplied. look younger, less careworn, happiev, better fed, better housed, better dressed, more intelligent, more free, with step more elastic, and cheeks glowing with ruder and ruddier health. But we forget the present in the bright future: England is not yet Yoimg England ; and our chapter is and must continue to be of dry and hard taxation. We proceed at once to our task in con- nection with — . .1 Ml i III I hl\^ 60 ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Corn Laws. Supposing a tax imposed on corn, we propose to shew its incidence — first, as it should be ; secondly, as it is : and let not the reader be startled by the mere novelty of our views and positions : they are far from being visionary or baseless, and will bear the most rigid test that can in any case be applied — the test of justice and truth. First, As it should be. To simplify the case, we suppose that, like Joipph in the time of Pharaoh's years of fulness and dearth, the Government first of all buy up all the corn, and then sell it to the people ; acting for a time the twofold part of corn merchants and corn taxers, as a means of more easily levying the tax. Also, in order to estimate the exact incidence of this tax, we must of necessity suppose that all other taxes are put aside ; in other words, that no other tax is levied, and this exists alone. Furtlier, as Jacob was obliged to send to Egypt to buy corn, so our people must come and purchase of the Government : corn is their means of life ; they cannot get it elsewhere; they cannot therefore escape the tax in the same way as the man of property may escape the tax on carriage horses and servants : all eat alike of bread, and if there be a difference, the labouring classes eat more of it than the rich. We employ numbers to make the subject plainer. Let the Government selling price (the commercial or market price) be 40*. a quarter without the tax ; let that portion of the tax which we have before shewn should oe levied on each individual equally for the protection of hfe, be 2j. a quarter {I = 2*.), then every one would pay first of all (40 -j- 2 =•) 42^. Let pur- chasers come forward : let A, B, C, D, four labourers, be purchasers, whose wages are as 1, 2, 3, 4 : let W, X, Y, Z, four men of property, whose incomes are as 10, 20, 30, 40, be purchasers also. Let A (1) pay an additional shilling per quarter on account of the protection to his property: then on the same grounds, B, C, D would pay additions of 2s., 3*., 4*. respectively, and W, X, Y, Z would pay additions of lOv., 20«., 30s., 40.y. respectively. Then the whole price paid by each per quarter would be as follows: — ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 61 A (1) would pay (42 + 1) = 43 BC2) C (3) D(4) W(10) X (20) Y(30) Z(40) (42 + 2) = 44 (42 + 3) = 45 (42 + 4) = 46 (42 + 10) = 52 (42 + 20) = 62 (42 + 30) = 72 ^12 + 40) =82 Such would be the mode of levying and paying the tax, if levied and paid on principles of justice : — the market price 40 is common to all ; and of the tax, the part 2^. for protection of life is also common and equal ; and the remaining part is variable from 1*. to 4*. and from 10.y. to 40*., varying accord- ing to property. That we may not be misunderstood, and be thought to bear unfairly on property, we add, that the servants of men of property are supposed by us to be on board wages, (they would then pay lax in the class A, B, &c.,) and reduc- tions of tax for families (wife and children) would have to be made to married persons in both classes A (1), &c., W (10), &c.) : — moreover, we are not advocating a practice, but illus- trating a principle ; and the theory is perfectly sound and just, coinciding in every re.^pectwith that which we introduced in the beginning of the chapter, with the letters I &c p. In the former case A, B, C, D paid in taxes I + p, I + 2 p, I + S p, 1 + 4i p; and in the present case they pay 2 + 1, 2 -|- 2, 2 + 3, 2-1- 4 = 3, 4, 5, 6 ; while W, X, Y, Z, here introduced, pay 2 -H 10, 2 + 20, 2 -h 30, 2 -f- 40 = 12, 22, 32, 42. The circumstances in both examples are exactly the same ; and we add, that this is the case of the incidence, as the inci- dence should be. We pass, secondly, to the incidence as it is; where the tax, paid indirectly (and in this indirectness lie the deception, the injustice and the evil) is tied up with the com- mercial price, and made, like it, equal to aii, whatever be the wages or the incomes. Let the common tax be 10s. a quarter. Tlien of course A (1) pays (40 -f 10=) 50s. a quarter ; and so do B, C, D, with wages as 2, 3, 4 ; so also do W, X, Y. Z, with incomes as 10, 20, 30, 40 respectively. I I :i^ '■i If 1 62 ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. There is no difference made in the tax between poverty and property, — the tax on the very poor man is the same as the tax on the moderately poor man ; the same as the tax on the moderately rich man ; the same as the tax on the very rich man, — the tax on the poorest is the same ac: the tax on the richest. The equal and fixed tax is hardest of all of A (1); on him it falls more hardly than on B (2) ; still more iiardly than on C (3) ; still more hardly than on D (4) ; — vastly more hardly than on W (10), X (20), &c.; the ratio of comparative hardness continually increasing in magnitude with the increasing magnitude of income. Or again coming down, I'he common equal tax is lightest of all on Z (40) : on him i» falls more lightly than on Y (30); still .uv..e lightly than on X (20); still more lightly than on W (10) ; — vastly more lightly thai on D (4) ; than on C (3^ ; than on B (2) ; t!ian on A (1) : the ratio of comparative lightness regularly increasing in magnitude with the increasing diminution of income. Between the weight of the pressure on the lowest A (I), and the lightness of the pressure on the highest Z (40), tlie difference is so great, wehn we take the cases, af they exist in our own country, of super- abundant wealth and fearfully depressed poverty, that the estimate is beyond our power; but we have proved, beyond dispute, the general principle which we asserted, in the opening, on indirect taxation — that the equal indirect tax presses heavily in proportion to the poverty, and lightly in proportion to the property. We have also seen that the tax should be ad valorem as regards the ability of the purchaser ; and we proceed to shew, that it should not be ad valorem as regards the quality or com- mercial price of the article. We allow that the attempt to levy such an ad valorem tax is to a certain extent creditable; — it is indicative of a desire to press lightly on poverty, and it is un- doubtedly a concession, though indirect, of the innate justice of our own theory ; but the ad valorem system, based on quality, is notwithstanding indefensible in principle, and it leads to a pernicious system of finance ; — it is also injurious in its operation, for it interferes improi)erly with the freedom of commerce. ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 63 Suppose Government to have two, three, or four different quali- ties of corn, and of course corresponding differences in the commercial or market prices ; — these varieties in quality and cost should in nowise affect the magnitude of the tax paid by the purchasers. Suppose the qiialities and prices to be as 36^,, 40*., and 44*. ; each individual being left to select at his dis- cretion ; — if A (1), though poor, choose, for reasons known to himself, the highest quality, 44*., the tax levied on him for protection to his property should continue unaffected by his choice; — if Z (40), very rich, choose the lowest quality, 36*., the tax paid by him for protection to hi? property should still be the same as before : it would be improper on the part of Government to tax A more heavily, or Z more lightly, on account of their respective selections ; for the magnitude of the tax should be determined by the amount of property — an amount ascertained not by their selections, but by a proper tribunal of inquiry. It is evident, therefore, that ad valorem duties based on quality, are entirely indefensible in principle, and interfere with the freedom of commerce. They should also be abandoned, as leading to a pernicious finance : — we shall hereafter illustrate this perniciousness by the case of wine ; at present, our object is to prove sound principles in the abstract, and to disprove those which are unsound. For, since the ad valorem as regards the ability of the purchaser is correct in theory, but cannot be carried into practice, and the ad valorem based on quality, though to a certain extent reducible to practice, is entirely erro- neous in principle, and restrictive on commerce, — it follows that a uniform equal tax should be imposed of a very low magnitude, to suit the condition of the humblest purchaser, at least so that the tax shall not, per se, interfere to prevent him from making the purchase. It is further evident, tliat in proportion as the number of articles of general consumption subjected to the equal indirect tax multiplies, in exactly the same degree does the amount of the inequality in pressure multiply between the sides of poverty and of property — the amount of weight relatively increasing on the side of poverty as it descends, the degree of '»1 64 ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. lightness relatively increasing on the side of property as it ascends, — and that the only possible way to prevent the aggregate of pressure from crushing the incomes, and thereby the persons of the poor — the very poor — is by making the number of the articles indirectly taxed very few, and the magnitude of the indirect tax on each very small. Thus wo have established another of our positions. We pass to the case of wages, with a view to shew that the law of their increase or diminution does not correspond in character with a rise or fall in indirect taxation. Whenever wages rise or fall, the rise or the fall is invariably by per cent- ages — that is, by proportional parts, not by equal magnitudes. Thus in the case of A (1), &c. for every shilling per week or per month that the wages of A (1) would rise or fall, in the same time those of B (2) would rise or fall 2*,, those of C (3) would rise or fall 3*., of D (4) 4s., and so on. This is in entire consonance with the laws of commercial intercourse ; and the position is indisputable, — for the principle is in constant operation, as regards both individuals and classes of opera- tives. The relative magnitudes of wages are in the first instance determined by the relative values of the work, in respect of quantity and quality, of supply and demand ; and it is the fluctuations in the magnitudes of these four elements which produce those fluctuations in the magnitudes of wages — of which we have stated the law. By those who view commerce in her natural and proper grandeur, — as not merely uniting the provinces of the same kingdom, but establishing relations of intercourse with the various kingdoms of the earth, and ultimately binding the dispersed families of Adam into one unbroken whole, in both their physical and their moral circumstances, — it will be at once admitted, that the law as enunciated above, is the true, the proper, tlie natural, the legi- timate, the actual, the existent law of wages — the law, both as regards their original relative magnitud*"^, and as regards their temporary relative fluctuations. It uuld not in fact be otherwise with a nation and a people, unless they were sur- rounded by Berkeley's wall of brass, and stood aloof and ON TAXATION — GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 65 alone in their position on the earth. And surh being the case, nothing can be more evident, than that when the scale of the prices of the necessaries of life in a kingdom is kept by the mere influence of indirect taxation at a very high point, the mass of the people enter into competition with the world at large, under circumstances most disadvantageous and de- pressing, that their progress is checked in a most astonishing degree, and that the difficulties and disadvantages originating in the high range of the prices of the necessaries of life, can only be overcome by a taxation of the physical and moral energies, that ultimately drains dry the current of life, depresses their^ national condition, and poisons their private happiness. It follows as a legitimate deduction from what we have now advanced, that the connection between the magnitude of wages and the magnitude of indirect taxation is very slight, and very distant ; and that a rise or a fall in indirect taxation is followed very slowly, and in a very limited degree, by a rise or a fall in the magnitude of wages. We have also seen that wages when they do rise or fall, fluctuate by a scale of proportional parts, not by equal magnitudes. Let us now suppose, in illustration, that the Government, requiring an additional revenue from indirect taxation, raise the duty on corn from 10*. to 15.?. per quarter, and let us see the result, supposing the rise in wages actually to follow. The addition to the tax being by a conmion equal magnitude, and the rise in wages being by proportional parts, it follows that A (1), the lowest in our scale of remunerative labour, is immediately taxed additionally in proportion to his poverty, the additional tax on him being the heaviest of all ; that it is less heavy on B (2), still less on C. (3), &c. ; for the wages of A (1) are increased by one part, while those ol" B (2) are increased by two parts, those of C (3) by tlir<.>e parts, &c. ; whereas, to be relatively as well off* as before, tlie wages of all ought to have been increased by a common equal magnitude, whether 1 or 2, or 3 or 4, &c. But on tht> other hand, let us contemplate the infinitely more cheering opposite, when Government, desirous of relieving the people, lower the scale of indirect taxation— say 1 ■m < \tii m '■'■ "I i hll"^ • 1; 60 ON TAXATION — OF.NKKAI, PRINCTPLKS. of corn from 10a. to ()*., and so of other things, — and lot us assunie that wages descend as a result. The relief in taxation being by a common equal magnitude, and the wages of A (1) falling 1, those of B (2) 2, of C (3) 3, and so on, it follows that the relief given to poverty, is in proportion to its depth and extent. And thus we see how the lowering by Government of indirect taxation, proves so vast a blessing to the very poor : it is not the well-paid journeymen mechanics who feel it so much : it is the poor, the poorer, the poorest: it is these, as we go downwards, whose pittances are continually diminishing, yet who feel most beneficially and gratefully the equal sums deducted by Government from a tax. Poverty raises up its head out of the deep mire, and even puts on a smile. It is from the solitary cottage on the hill side, and the bedside, wherever it may be, of sickness, siifiering sorrow and privation, that the hallelujahs of praise ascend most devoutly and gratefidly, when a merciful Government interposes by lowering the indirect taxation. In summing up, we add, that we have not merely treated of, biit made good, every one of our original positions. We repeat the case. Indirect taxation bears heavily in proportion to poverty, lightly in proportion to property. It subtracts equal quantities from incomes most unequal : the poorest are always the most afflicted by its increase, the most relieved by its re- duction. Indirect taxation being so unequal and so heavy on the poor, the number of ai-tieles indirectly taxed should be very few, and the magnitude of each tax should be accommodated to the lowest income ; for an equal tax is alone practicable, and the tax should be ad valorem as regards not the quality of the article taxed, but the ability of the purchaser with small income. The scale of wages, their rise oi* fall, are almost independent of indirect taxation. The prime necessaries of life should not be taxed, pauperism and vice being the result. The luxuries only of the poor shoidd be taxed — tea, sugar, wine, spirits, tobacco. The difference of revenue is properly supplied by direct taxation of property, which is affected very unequally and slightly, in comparison w ith poverty, by indirect taxation. ON TAXATION — (SKNKKAI, PHINCII'KK.S. fi7 We procecMi to notice the unl'airly attacked, grossly abused, Sliding Scalk ; and shall dispose of the case in a very few words. We have not to treat either of it or of a fixed duty as a means of permanent revenue, being advocates of a gradual abolition ; nor have we to argue the case of gambling specula- tions in the corn markets, which are said by its enemies to originate with it ; — our case is with the poor only ; and we have simply to state, as a corollary to what we have argued before, that when the market price of grain is low, common sense tells us that the poor man can afford to pay a higher tax to the State ; and when the market price is high, common humanity dictates that it is the duty of Government, at such a season, to lower the scale to the poor, on whom a fixed duty would then fall with an aggravated force. In a season of scarcity, the case of a fixed duty breaks down entirely, and its strongest advocates are then obliged to let it fall to the ground. The question of a maximum is entirely distinct (we afterwards propose a maximum for 1846 of 15*., to descend by 3*. every third year) ; but while a tax on grain continues, we trust that, in consideration for the poor, the principle of a sliding scale will be firmly adhered to. :, 9 Protective Duties: or System of Mutual Taxation. The case which now opens on us, is one of singular difficulty and delicacy : so many precious interests are involved, the public mind is so divided, and public feeling so sensitive and quick, that he who proposes to mediate on the •' vexataet vexans quajstio,' whether he be the Prime Minister of England, or oiu- humble selves, has but a very poor chance of being heard by either party with favour, or even ordinary patience. And for ourselves, we very much fear, that after our poor undeavoui's have been exerted, and our ingenuity, such as it is, taxed to the uttermost, to treat the question fairly as regards its merits, considerately in behalf of the public, and with justice to all, we shall be obliged to exclaim with Palaeraon — ' Noil nostrum est taiitos inter vos compoiicTe litcs.' Undismayed however by the difficulties of our task, we shall I- 2 % •%• i: :■. 68 ON TAXATION — OllNKHAr, PHINriPLES. only further add, 'quid tentare noccblt?' And admiring the impersonal, we begin with a case in the abstract. A, S,* M, represent the agriculturists, manulacturers, and manualists. Now, while they buy and sell among themselves without competition from abroad, they would of course charge each other the regular market price ; tiie natural, as opposed tc the artificial, balance of trade would then exist at home ; and C, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would call on each and all to contribute a fair portion of their property or income for State purposes, — the respective payments being estimated by the annual produce or sales ; that is, an income or property tax would then be the natural resource of C. Next «, .v, m, being three foreigners of the same generic orders as A, S, M. First, a enters the harbour with agricultural produce, and offers to sell it to S, M, at a rate rather lower than A. A, alarmed, perhaps somewhat unskilful and lazy, and behind the age, (having only studied the agriculture of Virgil and Hesiod, and being naturally fond of old ways and the olden time,) remon- strates against the invasion of a — declai that he cannot produce, and therefore cannot sell so cheaply as a — protests that he shall be a ruined man, and threatens to return the acres, which he had at so n'-uch ev-^^„se and toil reclaimed from the wilderness merely for tlie sake of S, M, to their native wilds and wastes. S, M, ungrateful, still desire to purchase from a ; but A, powerful and lusty, threatens C, that if he submit to their ingratitude, and to the unchecked invasion of A, he will deprive him altogether of the seals of office, the " delightful task " of taxing. C, desirous to please, compromises — that is, C romoves the tax altogether from A's teams and flour, (A's Income Tax,) and fastens it on a's, wlio, thus taxed, is permitted to sell what he can to S, M. The remitted tax " fructifies in the pocket of A ;" S and M continue to pay old prices, which the tax on a keeps at their former high level ; * S, the initial of "smoke, steam, and HtulT," as W is of" wind, water, and war" — the S's mi^lit fitly bo termed stinimists (not steamers) from the high-pressuro engines whieh they employ in politics as well as in mechanics. The alliteration would then be jierfect and beautiful : " Agriculturists,, ^itcamists, munualists ;" — a • trio nobile fratrum,' ON TAXATION — GENEUAL PRlNCIPLtS. 69 and C, instead of tliii largo and swelling income previously received from A, is obliged to content himself with the miser- able pittance obtained from a's small imports ; that is, C once had A's, he now has a's, when ho might have had (should have had) A's + a's ; but he is consoled by reflecting that A's tax is fructifying in A's pocket. Second, Next comes forward s, with bales of cottons, linens, silks, woollens (alphabetically arranged and displayed), and offers to sell to A, M, at a rale much lower than S. A casts a longing lingering look at the tempting finery of s ; but S, utterly indignant at this, tells A that he had prevented him buying cheaply from a, — and by the ' lex taiionis,' insists that C shall remove the tax altogether from his (S's) bales, and fasten it on s's, just as C had do.;e with the corn of A and a. C, kind soul, (the C's in those days were ' rara5 aves' — fine animals,) yields to S, (who, between ourselves, a first rate steamist, threatened to employ smoke, steam, and stuff, wind, water, and war, against C) C therefore yields ; the tax removed from the bales of S, is placed on those of s, and fructifies in the pockets of S. A similar fight between M and C terminates in a similar result to M and m. And the result of the whole we shall endeavour to sum up, like good financiers, balancing the accounts. C, ' sicut numnios contemplatur in Area,' finds — that he once had A's + S's + M's, that he now has a's -f .y's + m's, and that he would, should (but not might, could) have had A's + a''s + S's + s's + M's + m's. He is comforted with knowing that the taxes he remitted are fructifying in the pockets of A, S, M. But money C must have, — honestly if he can, — but by all means money. A tax, therefore ; C's kingdom for a tax. After balancing the pro's and con's, C lays it on thick and heavy (but more considerately than the Roman Emperor) on windows, (C is afraid A, S, M will be blinded by the sun ; their skies, unlike the Italian, have too much light, and he has himself a cataract on the right eye) ; on sugar, (C is afraid, A, S, M, will be siufeited with treacle, and their children made sick with loUypop) ; on tea, (ho is afraid they will be very nervous, and no longer fi ^ii 70 ON TAXATION — OENKUAC. PR INCI PLfvS. enemy); on w'mio, (he is afniid the young A, S, M's will bo drowned in butts of Malmsey, and the old ones, the real A, S, M's be Philip drunk and drowsy, when they should be Philip sober and awake) ; on spirits, (he is afraid they will be drunk and pugnacious, and he has a mortal aversion to fairs, brickbats, and shillelahs) ; on tobacco, (he can't endiu'e the smell of Raleigh's filthy weed — 'vilior algft ') ; on ' multis aliis simillimisj' — C's tariff, like auctioneers' catalogues, having, as saving clauses, "a variety of articles too numerous to mention." A' the end of the year, the ledgers of A, S, M are submitted to a Parliamentary Committee, and run thus : — A in iicrouni with S, M. A Cr. Tiix rec'civcil from S — 7 '5 iniirioii»>. M^ 7T. „ A Dr. Tux paid to S M = /"f) millioni.. = 7-5 ,, Total rec''- from S, M = 15 millions. Total i)aiil to S, M — 15 milliuns. Ualaiice of gain ami loss =^ total rei-cived, minus total paid. — 15 millions, mimiH 11) million!). = N millions, minus N millions, ~ O, minus O -^ O. A in account with C\ A Cr. To direct Income Tax rmiitted, roireived, rctainod, and Irui'tilying = 7"5 millions. A Dr. To indirect tax on '• artii-lcs too numorous to mention," imposed, paid, gone, non- l'ru('tilyinf» — 7'5 milliung. Ualance of gain and loss = direet taxes re- mitted, minus indirect taxes im|)osed ^7*5 millions, minus 7-5 millions. = N millions, minus N millions. = O, minus O = O. The examination of the letlgers of S and M produces the same remarkable results, O, minus O = O. The select Com- mittee report that the state of the accounts of A, S, M is most satisfactory; for that, contrary to what happens when three gentlemen play at hazard and rouge et noir. A, S M, are, one and all, winners annually to a very large amount in scrip and stock, called nominal, by C's untold, because incalculable, romiitances fructifying in each of their ixjckets. It is sub- f)K' TAXATION — (JKNIUAL I'lUNCirLES. 71 Hcquoutly carried, ncm. con,, in a Conimittw of tlio whole House, that the system culled " Protection " be Ibllowed up, as decideiUy ailvantugcous : and a vote of thauks is passed with cheers to C for his generous remissions of direct taxation to A, S, M, and especially fur his enlightentid regard for their morals, so ably exhibited in his indirect taxes (which he is strongly recommended to continue at the same rate) on articles that are invariably found, wiicn taken to excess, to jtroduce, like Pandora's box, blindness, nausea, nervousness, intoxication, vomiting, stupor, quarrelling, expectoration, consumption, dis- ease, and death. But in the end it did not go so well with C — ' transit gloria mundi ! ' — and C's kingdom cannot last for ever. Not to dwell long on a painful and embarrassing topic, C is removed froni place, not by a plethora of the constitution, but by a com- plaint in the chest. His "beloved Area," which he fondly contemplates and sits on, is daily becoming emptier and more empty : his "nummi" are slipping through his fingers day by day — through no fault of his ; and at last, a gentle Parliamentary hint — no longer the whisper of a faction — ' detur digniori,' relieves him of the care of his ill-fated Area, and consigns him for life to the contemplation — not of Ithaca or Elba, that were too bad, Ivut — of " The woods and wildn, whuBc inelaiichuly gloom Uutninds him ol'liis soul's sadness; " where — ' Dulces morions remivisoitur Arciis,' In short, dropping the impersonal, but still without meaning oUcnce, we say to the Ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer — ' Mutato nomine, dc te Fabula narratur.' His Area, then happily alluded to, became empty : and trying to replenish it by adding to the indirect taxation — adding to the burdens of the already over-taxed people — he was rewarded for his pains with the tithe on hope: in lieu of £1,895,000 that he fondly built on, (Hope told a flalieriiig talc!) he received £200,000: in the words of Sir Robert Peel, i.l iU i! m ill: ?3: n ' i.-'S) 72 ON TAXATION— |< — |, Often have we seen a late lamented Professor split the cars of his hearers, and make the welkin ring, by means of his air- pumps of exhaustion and condensation; pumping out in tlu? one case to ilhistrate pressure from without, and in the other pumping in to illustrate pre.sure from within — but crash in both cases went the dcwmed retort. We have seen him also put a distended bladder of air under the pump of exhaustion, and i; s!nnnk at once to the size of an empty purse, but that was a (Mse of " scpieezable," the materials being so natural: we have seen him take the sanie bladder, when you thought it as empty as the said purse, and hold it Ibr a little before the fire, and it was a beautiful illustration of moral inllation and the vanities of humanity; it would gradually swell out to a'monstrum horrendimi ingens informe,' then burst, like the frog in the meadow imitating his neighbour the bull. ■' Oft has it lii'cii our lot to inaik A |ir(iml, cuiii'iMti it. talking' !4|iuik, VVitii eyes lliiil liartlly served at u\t»t T(i u;uaril tli"ir iiiaitter '^.tiiist a |I(ikI ; Vet niiilitl tlie wnrlil tlie lil.ule lias lieiti To see whatever eoiild lie sei'ii. ON I AX ATION— (iKNi;!! \l, I'H INCl T l.l.S. 73 Itt'liirniiijjf I'ir.ni IiIh iiiiisihcd lour, Grown Ion linu-s portiT tliiin bet'orc, Wliati'vor word you fliimrc !o drop, Tin- Iravidli'd Tool your nioutli will. slop — 'Sir, if my judjtnionl you'll allow ; I'vi' wen, iiiid surf I ( iif;lil lo know." Wc have seen ' le incdecin nuilfrre lui ' use plilobototny, cold water, and hygeian pills ; and the speedy result, malaise, exhaustion, atrophy, inanition, starvation, 'irt;mas weekly with her beloved ])Oor : while, in return, th.iir blessings and their ])rayers — the former uneouruid, but tot disesteemed; tho latt«'r earnestly entreated — followed h.r wherever she moved. We have seen also, in our days, a Minister of Slate called to the post of tningled honour and danger in an hour of great financial ditHcully and national distress; and we have heard him open his scheme of national restoration as follows: — " Shall I then, if I must resort to taxation, levy that taxation upon the articles of consumption — \i\Km those articles which may aj)pear to some sujM'rlluities, but which are known to eons'itute almost the necessaries of life? I cannot consent to any proposal for increasing taxation on the great articles of consumption by the labouring classes of society. I say, moreover. I can give you conclusive proof that you have arrived ai tin- limits of taxation on articles t)r I , ; ,1' ' i. ' I /4 ON TAXATION — (J IIN KK A I- PKINCIPI.ES. consumption. * * * i gay, again, notwithstand- ing all thti taunts to which I have been cxposotl during the hisl month, in consequence of my proposal in respect to the Corn Laws, thai no man can feel a more intimate conviction than I do, that whatever be your financial difliculties, you must so adapt and adjust your measures, as not to bear on the coniforts of the labouring classes of society. My conviction further is, that it would not be expedient, with reference to iho narrow interests of property, that that should be done." Where, we ask — where could language be spoken, and language be heard, more worthy of a British statesman to speak — more worthy of a British patriot to hear ? It is language, however strange to our ears to hear, worthy of being written in charac- ters of gold on the page of historic deed — worthy to be printed on the living tablet of the nation's great heart by the finger of living truth and fini-st sensibility. Worthy, did we say ? aye, and sure to be printi'd! — tor, we fear not passijjg clouds which rise from the low-lying morasses of party. If the nation's heart were not sensible to the touch of such wisdom and such feeling, we should say it were callous and rotten to the core ; and if history were silent on the subject of the appeal, we shoidd say that Astrtea, Oi^undod with our ways, had forsaken our land, and that henceforth, in punishment for our national back- slidinss, no mortal name of Britain shouhl be inscribed on the immortal lettered page. But we are sure of the result as regards the Mr.iister himself; and, as regards his predecessors again desirous of l)eing his successors, we l)cg leave to tell them, that whether they think of themselves as a Ministry and a party, or think of the nation as a living whole, whose alVairs they try to govern, they should ever bear in mind this most mighty truth, and most awful and solemn warning — that " the inuige. whose upper parts were gold and silver, and which grailually passed downwards through brass and iron to (he fei>t of clay, — that this great imag>; whose brightnrss was oxcellent, had also the form thereof terrii)le. and that it was smote in pieces by a stone rut out without hands; that tin- iron, the elay, the bra-s, the >ilvei'. and llsi» ijold, were broken in pieces ON TAXATION — (. KNKU A I, Pit INCI l> r, KS. 75 logethor, ami became like the chaff of the summer threshing floois; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them; and the stone that smote the image, became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." With res])ect to the Minister, what has he done ? Let us briefly consider. The balance of taxation, for twenty-five years most oppressively unequal between rich and poor — (these things we have new proved) — restored hy the direct lax on property, and the lightening of the load on poverty's bent back ; — the vast improvement of thv? physica' and moiul condition of the nation at home, introduced by the lowered scale of prices, in which all, but especially the poor participate ; by ttie opening of the closed i)ores of commerce; by destroying Agitation in Ireland, Chartism in England, Rebeccaism in Wales, which were all rife antl rampant on his accession to power ; — an exchequer, for many a long year in a condition ?f humiliating and unrelieved insolvency, suddenly made to overflow, as if Providence, to reward liim for his mercies to the poor, had graciously per- mitted Cornucopia to drop into it ; — the settlement of many ominous questions ol' foreign and colonial policy, which had a most threatening aspect ,it the time, and from which the nation is now permanently relieved, — to understand which we have but to allude to China, to Al'ghanislan, to the Maine Boundary (Question, to the Right of Search (piestion. We should insult the siratilude of the nation were we to detail them at length: we should lower ourselves below the very lowes* of our species, were we actuated in our description by the hope of notice from power ; but we should despise ourseh es beyond every name that is given among nwu. if the mere divad of the easily preferred charge of ])anegyrism should tleter us from the ex])ression of an honest and a free opinion at a national crisis of unusual and even painful interest. Tliese things they who retired from office in 1841 left to him as heavy burdens, mortgages, and charges on the estate which he came to ; these, one and all, he settled in a very brief period of time, iii a manner entirely agreeable to the Foreign IVver, and adding ^reatlv lo the honour of the British name and the sccuritv of '■• ]l I i i| \i 76 ON TAXATION — (illNKRAL PKI NCI PLKS. the British tlirone ; — oii the mountains are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things ! " Commerce is of no party : she rises above it : her spirit is catholic : she breathes peace and plenty ; charity and good- will to the whole brotherhood of man : she cements the bonds * "Art thou tliat jiropliet ?" sliouki liavo liccii rendiTctl "Art IIkiu the Prophet,'' — viz.," Esuias.'" Our viTsioii makes alautoluuy. » ON TAXATION — OFNKKM, PRINCIPLKS. 79 of charity, and multiplies her means of doing good: she points the scope of benevolence, enlarges the fields of sympathy, finds out fit objects of beneficence, promotes the happiness of our race : she rewards industry, prompts genius, ennobles science, elevates humanity, claims kindred with religion : she walks abroad on the earth, fearless and confiding — her thoughts are of peace, her speech is of peace, her embassy is one of universal peace ; when she conies back, she lodges her treasures in tlio palaces of kings and queens, and scatters them profusely in the cottages of the peasants: and wherever she moves, — so closely does she walk by the side of faith, hope, and charity, so unassuming is her attitude, so becoming is her step, so natural her manner, so benevolent her aspect, so engaging her speech — so lively and cheerful her spirit, and so industrious and unwearied her action, that you would call her at once their willing and loving handmaiden, and their loved and adopted sister. And acting in this humble office as the handmaid of religion, not only is her character elevated in turn, but her hands are strengthened and purified by the sacred attachment. To elevate the moral and religious condition of a people, is the sure way to make commerce prosperous. When a nation is faithful to her engagements and duties, the nations of the earth cultivate her acquaintance, and commerce is the humble and first instrument of their introduction to an accjuamtance, that ultimately ripens, having a deeper and firmer root, into the purer and loftier sentiment of regard and friendship. In proportion as they are sober, industrious, righteous, and godly, their numbers multiply at home and spread abroad, — their wordly goods increase, their condition rises, their union is promoted, tlieir strength is increased, their power isacknowleged, their greatness is respected; and peace, regularity, order, contentment, freedom from elevation, freedom from depression, the absence of excitement, the absence of panic — all of wliich follow in the train of the virtues we have namctl — are tlie most solid basis on which commerce can rest, the most powerful ao^ents for raising an imperial structure. When, moreover, these I ' • in 'I m m if It 11 pM.m 80 ON TAXATION — fJKNKIlAL I'KINOI PLFS. attributes of sobriety, iiuluf?try, honesty, integrity, and gotUinoss, are accompanied with energy, enterprise, and skill in worldly vocations — which last to a certain extent flow from the first as an effect from a cause — commerce will establish an empire among them that no man can luisettle. The possession of these moralities on the part of a nation is of infinitely higher importance and influence than the possession of the mines of Golconda and Peru ; and it is the degree and the extent to which we Britons are now justified in asserting our present possession of those irrresistible attributes, which will enable us to declare to what extent, and at what time, we shall be justified in proclaiming to the world, that commerce is hence- forth to have in Britain a free, an unmolested, and a welcome home. A nation is a living whole, intended by Providence to be united, consisting of many parts formed into one. The parts are sympathetic with each other and with the whole ; the whole and the several parts, act and re-act on each other, by a sympa- thy at once physical and spiritual. The whole consists of all its parts, and the interest of the whole of the combined interests of the parts. These interests are mutual and identical. The whole interest does not exist for the interest of the part, but the interest of the part for the interest of the whole. The interest of the whole must not yield to the interest of the part ; but the interest of the part must be accommodated, by legislative inter- position, into an accommodation with, and submission to, the interest of the whole ; and, notwithstanding diversities of opinion and diversities of administrations, it will invariably be found to be a fixed and established truth, that, as the same suj)erhuman influences arc continually at work, that which is the true in- terest of the whole is also the true interest of the part. On the one hand, the whole must not bear unequally on the part ; on the other hand, the part must not take undue nourishment and support from the whole. Both the whole and the parts are injured in condition by irregular action and unequal pressure: the removal of tliat irregularity and inequaliiy will be foinid to be the true course for a Ministry to follow who are entrustod ON TAXATION — OF.NKUAL I'H INCIPLRS. 81 with the care of the national condition. This cause of national disease being ren'oved, the nation ni.iy be left to its own appli- cation, industry, and forethought, to supply itself with the 'pabulum vita;.' The first means to the physical and spiritual improvement of the condition of a nation is cheapness of the necessaries of life, and regular and remunerative employment. These are promoted and attained to by activity of commerce j and activity of commerce by freedom from restraints. In pro- portion as this freedom of commerce increases, so does its activity ; so does cmploynici.t ; so does clieapness ; so does physical and moral improvement : and in proportion as the restraints-of commerce are incrjascd, its acti\ity is impeded and languishes, employment diminishes, dearness follows, and the physical and moral condition degenerates. Activity of com- merce, and prosperity of commerce, are terms almost synonimous, convertible, and identical. The value of a property depenils on its magnitude, natural riches, and position, taken in combination with the number of occupiers and their physical condition. A wilderness, however fertile and extended, is almost valueless to the proprietor, from the absence of population ; and it is still almost valuv^ioss as a commercial possession, if the occupiers, however numerous, be a horde of paupers. An acre of ground in London, and an acre of ground in Tipperary, illustrate the force and truth of these conditions of value. The magnitude of the revenue is, ' ca;teris paribus,' as regards taxation, determined by the number and tlie condition of the contributors. Condition we imvc seen to be ultimately determined by freedom ol' com- merce. An increase of the numbci's, and an improvement of tlieir condition, in other words greater freedom to conuni!rce, will certainly be followed by a greater amount of reveiuie. The above conmiercial maxims are applicable alike to agriculture, manufactures, and trade. Some of them may on a first view have the appearance of [)0stulates, rather than of recognised and established truths; but we feel persuaded that a moderate degree of attention on the part of the reader will save us and hiuj the tedium of a Ions: discussion of the various poshions, and convince him of the truth and consi^tency of each I , h' )■ ■I it i 1. 82 ON TAXATION — (iF.NKKAI. PUINCI IM. MS. and all the parts, and of tlu' gradation and coinuK'.lion of the whole. If practical proof of a most gratifying character woro asked for of the soinidness of the principles thushriefly set fortli, they would bo found in the quarterly financial statcnncnts of the period that has elapsed since the memorable budget of 1845, up to the present time. The restraints of commerce originate, as far as home is concerned, in heavy and partial taxation : the heaviness and the partiality springing from the protective taxes generally, and the Corn Laws especially. Of prohibition and monopoly we say gladly 'stant nominis umbra) :' and sorry should we be to disturb their now coUl ashes. Prohibition is the natural parent of indolence, want of improvement, smuggling, and corruption of morals : but monopoly docs not, like protection, involve the double effect of a very heavy tax on the country and a very small contribution to the exchequer. Under the monopoly of the East India Company, every pound of tea imported paid duty, and tlie whole duty went to the exchequer, being exactly proportional to the amount of the consiimption, which in that case signified the same as the amount of importation — tea not being an article of domestic growth. But in the case of corn, we have this great, vexatious, and absurd anomaly to contend against : a small quantity imported pays a heavy (hity, and the exchequer receives that and that only from the tax ; a vast quantity produced at home yields no revenue to the Government, — and yet the tax is actually paid by the country ; and to whom ? — to the corn grower; whose produce is kept at a high price in the market, proportional to the tax levied on the foreign. If the home pro- duce paid an excise duty of the same amount as the foreign importation pays in customs' duty, the country would have less reason to complain ; because, on the one hand, the general price would not be raised to the consumer by the excise tax, and on the other. Government, requiring only a certain amount of revenue corresponding to th(; expenditure of the year, woidd be able to grant reductions of an equal amount on other articles of general consumption, to the general relief of the community. UN TAXATION — OK.NKHAI, I'K I NCI PLES. 83 But as it is, ii moniitiiiii of tiixation restinjj on flu> country pro- duces u moiiHc ol' rcvciiiio to tlio oxclioqucr : and as we hav(> shewn in a formor part, that the amount of pressure on the poor of the equal indirect tax is exactly jiroportional to the povorty, and that the tax on the prime element of life is particularly severe and objectionable, it follows, taking those three points in conjunction, that the case is so decided and so powerful against the Corn Laws, that every well-wisher to his country must pray, that they may not be allowed to rest on tlie backs of the poor one hour longer than the caution required in so great a iinan* cial revolution may seem to dictate. But justice is the cardinal virtue of national polity ; ' fiat justitia, ruat ccelum' is the maxim which each lisping babo is taught to repeat and treasure up from the cradle ; and happy for our people is it, that the love of " fair play" is so indigenous to their good hearts. Every protected interest must throw pro- tection overboard at one and the same instant ; otherwise that unequal pressure from indirect taxation which we have exhi- bited as falling on the poor in comparison with the rich, would be added to agriculture also, to the unfair advantage of mamifac- tures and trade. That A should be allowed to tax S and M, and in return S and M to tax A, is sufficiently absurd; but the absurdity would be converti^d into a cruel oppression, if A were to be compelled by law to cease taxing S and M : while S and M were still permitted by law to tax A, in any form whatever. A would languish under the unequal weight, and the conse- quence would then be, that S and M would in return suffer from the suffering of A; agreeably to that beautiful law of sympa- thetic action and reaction in the system of every living creature, whose parts uniteil form a necessary union, as an undivided and indivisible whole. Protection ought never to have taken place; for the State alone has the right to tax, and the right to the whole and undivided produce of the tax. And, however impar- tially laid upon the parts — whose reciprocal action then requires balancing also, if there is to be protection at all— protection acts as a heavy de(ul weight on the general energies of the national system, cnliing its elasticity and the free action and natural It I I lit 1 .M IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) i.O I.I 1^ 1 2.8 ^ 1^ IIIIIM 2.5 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 6" ► V] <^ ^ /2 ^l 9 W^^ /A Photographic Sciences Corporation 4 '\ V rv ^ \ \ 1^ VJIj 0^ '9) 23 WEST MAIN STREET WESSTER.N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 84 ON TAXATION— OKNKRAL PRINCIPLES. scope and direction of the parts. But as in a system ofirregular eating and drinking, and excess of clothing, a return to sound practices must be carried out under a well-regulated regimen — so must our abandonment of vicious protection be effected with much tenderness to existing interests. A gradual relaxa- tion of protection carried out simultaneously over the three related parts, will prove a useful tonic and stimulant to them all, and to the national system generally ; emulation and compe- tition being the spirit of commerce, as essential to its health, energy, and progress, as the winds of heaven are to the earth and its productions. We ask this, and no more, in order that the three departments chiefly interested may have time, by study, science, and the adoption of every known means of im- provement, to meet the coming day of commercial freedom, and hail her approach with a right hearty English welcome. We must not allow oin* native producers to be regularly under- sold ; for the workhouse will then be filled with the victims of an innovation too suddenly introduced on the old ways of our fathers. But give time, a little time, and we rely with fearless confidence on the result as regards our native vvor men. The energy and the determination that never failed the British soldier in the Ijottest hour of battle, beyond which he ever looked with imwinking oye and unswerving fortitude to the sure and final hour of victory, will not be wanting to those who are employed in connnercial avocations ; and they will march forth to the peaceful, but not inglorious fields of commerce — not to meet the stranger as a foe, but to welcome him, free of all charges, into their own domestic markets. And, assuredly, the people who will be sufficiently brave to do this at home, will find as their reward that they have no rival abroad : at least on all neutral ground they will have victory, without a contest, walking over the course. It may be, — we deny it not, that in a country raised like this, to so high a pitch of refinement and civilization, some of the more elegant foreign preparations, particularly the costume of ladies, in which France is so eminent, may lor a while receive a preference; but if we are cautious in opening our doors by slow degrees, time will be afforded to our :nitive artists in ea^h ON TAXATION — OENKRAL PKINCIPLKS. 85 department to copy, to imitate, and to equal ; while in all the qualities of cheapness and intrinsic excellence, which depend not so immediately on taste as on capital and productive energy, and which are most looked to by the world at large, we shall meet the foreigner in our own market with more than our accustomed relative aJt^antage, by the union of taste, excellence, and cheapness ; and finally see him retire, leaving us undisputed masters of our own fields. And the battle, whether of war or of commerce, being always hottest and fiercest at one's own doors, if we give battle and pi-evail there, we shall have victory on all neu- tral ground abroad, without the necessity of even striking a blow. And we would here remark, that were we unfriendly in spirit to Germany, which is trying to rival us in manufactures, there is nothing at which we should rejoice more sincerely, than the successive raising of her tariff duties, to which she is having recourse. It is, in the first place, an undoubted testimony to the steady increase of England's productive power, and to her own diminishing ability to cope with England in the es^sential element of cheapness. But it is more than that as regards the future — it is a certain death-blow to her power of conipotintr with us hereafter, in any other market than her own. The price at which she produces at home, must regulate her price for abroad; — the former, we have seen, is kept unnaturally high by protective taxes ; and her periodical additions to the duties on English manufactures, prove incontestably our ui- creasing, and her relatively decreasing power of cheap pro- duction. Hor policy is suicidal as regards both the comfort of her people av home, and their power of competing with us on neutral ground abroad; while to us it holds out thj strongest encouragement to persevere in the course so happily begun, of lowering gradually and considerately the scale of our protective taxes, till the whole disappear as an evanescent quantity. Ger- many, will then, when too late, discover the fatal character of her course; by the wall of her own erection against us, she will be by us excluded from participating in the commerce of the rest of the world, wherever the tariff is conuuon to both: while the commercial flag of England, courting rivalry first of all ak ^t:: 86 ON TAXATION — OKNKKAr, PRINCIPLES. il !-omc, will bo (lying almost alone in every rogion of the world, whore that of Gorniany, but for her narrow and suicidal policy, might have boon unfurled in honourable rivalry. If, indeed, our people were a languid and nerveless race, we might hesitate as to the prude*:ce and fairness of proceeding gradually orvvards tlu'ough reduction to abolition, while the tariffs of all surrounding countries have a concurrent tendency to ascend against us. We regret their proceedings as injurious to us, though still more enfeebling to themselves; but on no account should the tariff of Britain take its tone or its standard from any foreign country. An army cooped up in barracks, likes only to fight from behind the battlements of the fortress ; and the commerce of Britain will then be most flourishing when she has levelled her ramparts even with the ground. Let us go on our own course, rejoicing in every stop of our progress to abolition, resting assured that prohibition is slavery ; protection is weakness ; abolition is riches, freedom, a!id power. The walls of the Zollverein will not fall down at our bidding, as the walls of Jericho fell at the command of Israel's leader the commercial barricatles of Paris may refuse to open their gates to the tempting treasures which our inviting commerce would submit for their approval : the former may be built higher, and the latter be more jealously locked ; and we cannot scale them with the ladders, nor unlock them with the keys of commerce, which loves peace and open- ness in all her ways. We may, however, set them a good example, which they are more likely to imitaie and to profit by, if ih'.^y see that we do it entirely unconditionally. To Athenian who was anxious to be invited to his friend's feast, was advised by Socrates to invite the friend first of all to his own; and similar would be our suggestion to the great and experienced statesmen who now preside over the destinies of England's commercial policy. Should our friends in Europe, accepting our invitation, yet decline to reciprocate in kind, let us not turn away in anger, and punish ourselves by closing our doors against the produce of their vineyards and silk looms ; let us remem- ber that they are injuring — us, indeed in part, but far more — themselves; ihoro is room in the wide world for both us and ON TAXATION — OENKKAL IMUNCIPLES. 87 them : the woiltl contains a thousand nuUions of inhabitants, while the two are but fifty ; and, acting as they do, they are shutting themselves out more and more from the commerce of the world, and leaving England finally to range over it, witliout competition or companionship. Commercial retaliation is among the worst, if not the worst of all retaliations ; it leads to envy, hatred, and war ; and the misery that follows is wide-spread and deep, and nearly equal to both the victors and the vanquished. Time was when retaliatory measures were looked on as the only sure basis of a sound commercial system, and a balance of trade. Experience, the best of all instructoi's, lias proved on the contrary, that commerce herself holds the balance even, independently of all legislative enactments ; and that these, when they hold out what is presumed to be a helping hand, disturb the equilibrium, render her uneasy and unsettled, and weaken her and let her down ; and that she is never so free and so flourishing as when left to her own private energy and enterprise, her inventive genius, and her voyages of discovery. If the world, as a whole, would pursue with respect to com- mtice the enlarged policy which England is now engaged in carrying onward to perfection, — commerce, with her smooth and peaceful forehead, would be seen in every land, diffusing among the people wherever she went the fruits as she gathered them from the grateful earth : the face of nature, as now seen in her fields, so stern and wild, would gradually assume an appearance more worthy of better times to come: the thorn and the thistle would be gradually rooted out : the seeds of a living laith, put into her liands as her most precious and sacred charge, would be scattered by her in all lands as she moved quietly and gently along: the myrtle and the fig tree would begin to spring up, the wilderness and the solitary place to be made glad, and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose : the wolf would be seen preparing to dwell with the lamb, the leopard to lie down with the kid ; the calf, the young lion, and the failing together, with a little child leading them : the cow and the bear prepar- ing to feed, their young ones to lie down together, the lion to eat straw like the ox, the sucking child about to play on the W. !■ M t! 88 ON TAXATION — (i KN i: U A F, IM! INCITLKS. Iiolo of the asp, aiul the weaned cliilil to put his hand on the cockatrice den. 01" the day in which Uiey shall not hurt nor destroy in all His holy mountain^ we might then say that it was coming ; we might say that even nature, forgiven in the primeval curse, was robing herself fitly and gratefully for the glorious and beautiful day when the earth shall be full of the know- ledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea ; that day — when the earth shall be restored, even physically, to something of the condition of an earthly paradise ; and man, its inhabitant, tlu; fallen descendant of the first Adam, and the ransomed co-heir and adopted friend and brother of the second Adam, be em- jiloyed in tilling it as in the day when the Lord God placed Adam in Eden. Having, in the preceding paragraph, discussed the subject of our conmierce with France and Germany, we may here filly allude to the article Wine, as we, in page 63, intimated our purpose of doing. It is not merely that we consider the higher classes of society should be allowed to have wine as reasonably as on the continent, — wine being, for their daily consumption, what beer and ale are for the labourers, — but it is peculiarly desirable that it should be placed as a luxury within the reach of the poor. At present, from the operation of the heavy tax, they are entirely debarred from it : yet who that knows any- thing of the interior economy of the poor man's cottage is not perfectly aware, that in cases of recovery from fever, debilitat- ing ague, and other ailments, the cordial of a little wine would often revive and restore them when other things fail, and that they are obliged to go without it, or stoop to solicit it as a charity from their rich neighbour — a boon too often given grudgingly, and never in such quantity as would be necessary for refreshing the fainting heart, bracing up the relaxed nerve, and reanimating and restoring the enfeebled frame. " A little wine for thy stomach's s^akc and thine often infirmities !" is the affecting language of the kind physician to the poor; and the invariable reply is, " We cannot aftbrd it. Sir :" and then, as a matter of course, the Minister of the Gospel — (the curate pass- ON TAXATION — GKNKKAI, PHINCin.KS, 89 iiig ric'"' with eighty pounds a year — actually doubled sincu tho days of Goldsmith : who knows what he may not be thought worthy of by and bye?J — he has to supply it out of his super- lluous stores. We begrudge not drawbacks to the defender of his country, who braves death ibr her on the battlements of England's wooden walls ; of whom, in the words of the beauti- ful "Lewie Gordon," we might say, "You'd take him for the god o' war !" — but the passing rich curate of the parish, for tho cordial which he constantly supplies out of his superfluous stores, and not grudgingly or of necessity, to the sick and the ilying — his beloved poor, the lambs which he is commanded to feed, his left hand knowing not all the time what his right hand docth, — he gets no drawback ! My brethen, these things ought not so to be ! We do hope, therefore, that a benevolent Government, desirous to improve the condition of the poor, will considerately put a " little wine for their stomach's sake and tiicir often infirmities," within their reach. The market price of au article may often interfere with the purchase of it: but we cannot consider it otherwise than a want of duty to both the Creator and the creature, for the State to make the tax on a commercially very cheap article so high as to place it, by tlie mere amount of the tax, beyond the reach of the humblest of the people. " Wine that maketh glad the heart of man," is the language of Scripture ;" but in this country, the language is altogether inapplicable to tlie poor, to whom it is made a for- bidden fruit. In fact, in the case of wine, the experiment has never yet been fairly made of the effect of a very low duty ; and the consequence is, that while on the continent generally, the humblest peasant can on occasions of ordinary occurrence place a bottle of wine on his table, wine becomes in this country a ground of invidious distinction between the higher and the lower classes ; and the more that there are of those distinctions which mere taxation introduces to the disadvantage of the poor, (for we have proved, in page 62, that an equal indirect tax presses heavily in proportion to the poverty,) the greater will be the disaffection and alienation of the lower classes. Wine might be made as cheap and as common as ii !'l wA 4? Hi.; ranee. * fl 90 ON TAXATION — flKNlCRAL PUiNClI'LES. inagnitudo of tlie tax alone iiiteilering to prevent this ; and were such an arrangeniont to be made, wo fool assured that the taste for ardent spirits would be greatly checked. The making of wine reasonable, by the imposition of a very inoderate tax, would, we are persuaded, prove a most valuable auxiliary to temperance, good order, and good health, in the community at large. Let us look again at the higher classes. Among the inducements for families of moderate independence to live abroad, is the comparative cheapness of provisions generally, but of wine especially. By an alteration, therefore, in the duty that would equalise our prices for wine with those of the continent— by lowering the tax l.y. per gallon annually or biennally, from 5*. 6d. to 1*. 4(1. per gallon, (less than equality would not sufKce — and l,y. 4.d. would produce equality, but a higher duty than l.y. 4(1. would fail to do so,) one of the greatest of the many inducements now so strongly urging to expatriation from home and colonization of Europe would be at once and permanently removed ; vast numbers would be recalled home, (especially also if we raised the Income Tax,) and the large sums now spent by our selfish and unfeeling expatriots in France, Belgium, and Germany, would be spent in their own father- land, and contribute to increase our general wealth, to improve ihe condition of society as a whole, to increase the revenue and lighten the load of taxation. And for all this we get nothing whatever in return i'rom abroad. The foreigner comes to England only Irom what he deems a dire necessity. A foreigner live in England from choice ! Who that knows anything of his keen feelings on the subject would imagine so vain a thing ? " Everything m your country is so very dear!" is his one invariable remark, with a shrug of his shoulders and a countenance indicating the torture of the inner man. Wine, lo which he has been accustomed, as part of his daily sustenance from his youth up, becomes to him in England almost a sealed bottle : and he feels an utter loathincr at the taste, which, nevertheless, a regard to the balance between his revenue and the expenditure of his scanty supplies, (for we do him the justice of saying, that he is in general a faithful S ii ■ ON TAXATION — GENKUAL PIUN(;iPLES. 91 keeper of the privy purse.) compels him to acquire of our thick, heavy, bhick draught porter. In fact, till the expenses of what is called "living" in England be reduced, by a general reduction of the scale of indirect taxation, to an equality with those of continental countries, these will continue to carry on a heavy trade in absenteeism entirely against us, and entirely in their own favour ; and not only so, but the balance against us will yearly become heavier and heavier, as facilities of locomotion are increased by the multiplication of railroads. The only way to divert back to our own shores the outward current of settled and independent property, is by a con- siderably increased direct, and a greatly reduced indirect, taxation. And are there not political considerations of vast importance, both of a permanent character and of immediate most pressing urgency, that point to an instant commencement of reduction of tlie duties on the wines and brandies of France ? Such a reduction would, in our view, be only a measure of reparation for the invidious distinctions of the Methuen treaty, long standing, but now happily abolished. Had these and others of a kindred character not existed, those ' irritamenta bellorum ' * * February 5tli, 1787. — " Mr. Pitt submitted his commercial treaty with France to the consideration of the House. Mr. Fox spoke in strong terms against it. lie said it was a novel system, and a dangerous departure from the established doctrine of our forefatiiers, and from the principles upon which our commerce had hitherto been conducted ; ' that France and England were natural and unalterable enemies : tiiat it was essential to the safety and independence of England to regard France with jealousy and distrust ; and that to maintain friendly intercourse with that kingdom, was equally vain and contrary to sound policy.' Mr. Pitt, in reply, would not admit that there was anything in the situation or character of France and England which made tlieni necessarily hostile to each other : his mind revolted from the idea that any nation could be unalterably the enemy of another ; it had no foundation in experience or history ; it was a libel on the constitution of political societies, and supposed the existence of diabolical malignity in the original frame of mankind : that the quarrels between France and England had not only too long continued to liarass those two great and respectable nations themselves, but had frequently embroiled the peace of Europe, and had even disturbed the tranquillity of the most distant parts of the world : that they had by their past conduct acted as if they were intended for the destruction of each other : but ho hoj)ed the timi was now come, when they would just ifj the order of the universe, and by a wise attention to their own real interests, shew that they are better calculated for the more amiable purposes of friendly and useful connection," &c. &c. — Life if Pitt. 1 k^ \%\i •11; '( '•■ %\ U2 ON T.\X,\Th)N — i;KNKU.\t, I'KINCi I'LKS. ■'\ : 1 " I ■; 1 ^ which liavi; such mi unhappy inlhionce on the Icmpenuiicntsi ol" our susceptible but generous and chivalrous neighbours, would have been in a great measure avoided. Tlie political question, however, will receive further consideration in the second part of our subject. But we again express an ardent desire to see the experiment of a reduction in the tax on wnie, to the extent we have named : and if the duties on foreign spirits were to bo gradually reduced, in the present year to 20s. a gallon, and to fall 2*. a gallon for five successive years, till the duty arrived at lOs. per gallon, smuggling would gradually disappear, and the revenue not suffer as regards spirits. The revenue from wine would probably fall gradually to a million per annum, as the minimum, and from that point gradually ascend, though we confess slowly, as must be the case under a low duty. Ba7ik Charters. We mean not to write an essay on banking : though on no branch of our national system have our opinions for many years been more strong, more deeply rooted, and more fixed, '"he time will come when the nation, looking back on the ^as of the past, will gaze with amazement and horror on a system, as it once existed, so utterly alien to sound commercial principles — so impregnated with every element of evil — so loaded to bursting with the materials of irremediable destruc- tion ; — a system that conceded to particular bodies of men the privilege of trading in the life blood of commerce for their own private profit and personal ends; that gave to their bills, how- ever many in number, and however spurious in character, the stamp of a semi-national currency and credit; that left them, as they might consider most profitable or most pleasant, the free and fatal power of alternately opening and closing the sensitive pores and veins of the commercial body ; that allowed them to add and to subtract, at their own good will and pleasure; to exhaust and to replenish ; to make drunk to-day with a false prosperity ; to make faint and low to-morrow by an unnatural depletion and most wretched exhaustion ; — a system, that made (i; > ON TAXATION — OENKUAI, PRINCIPLES. 93 the dreadful artillery, so forciirn to commerce, strike terribly on the senses, when "crash, crash, crash," conimcncinjf with the banks, broke learfuUy on the ear, from a thousand salient, points of the commercial system, and irretrievable ruin, degradation, and death, was the heart-rending response from thousands and tens of thousands of deluded and undone victims. Of tjiese un- happy victims of the crimes of others, some even now survive to tell their tale of woe unutterable ; and the melancholy history of the past may be read in any of the usual treatises on bank- ing. Of all the reforms of the present Government, there are none to which we responded more fervently in the affirmative, than those connected with the banks of issue of the tlu-ee divi- sions of the empire ; — we hail them, moreover, as the precursors of an approaching settlement that shall be final and most beneficial. There is nothing in the world so indispensable to the success- ful operations of commerce as a serene and unclouded political sky, and a steady regulated amount of monetary circulation. The latter cannot by possibility exist in perfection with a paper circulation, which, however it be controlled in the total amount, may contract and expand within stated limits for the private advantage of the issuing bankers. The limitations in the new charters have vastly checked the evil, since beyond a certain amount the issues are entirely metallic; still, as the commercial fabric will never be sound, but be liable to panics, while a fictitious paper exists, — we most earnestly hope that the termination of the charters in the course of the next ten years, will be the termination for ever of the privilege of issue. The banking interests are no doubt powerfid, chiefly through their connection with the agricultural body ; still the part, however powerful, is but a part, and must be taught to give way to the whole, and to submit its interest to the interests of the whole. And such a concession as we now speak of will be found to be more and more necessary in proportion as commerce progresses to freedom. When the circulation shall be, as we hope it is to be, wholly metallic, or, which is the same thing, and as we shall presently see, — when the paper circulating shall have a metallic li 94 ON TAXATION — <.|'.Nr;» \ I. I'lM NC I I' l,K«. basis (deposit fil in tlu; Mint) ox.ictly equal iti ainoiiut to llif paper circulation, — then every addition to the amount, of tht> circulation, being wholly metallic, (or based on an eq\ial amount, of metallic,) will bo a certain index (tar, wo readily admit, from being the only index) of an increase of real, as distinguished from fictitious property. As few, however, have a clear undtT- standiiig of what is meant by " issues," their fictitious character, and the advantages they bring to the issuers, wo shall illustrate the case by one so sinqjle, that every OJie will understand it as he reads. A, a gentleman, owes B, his tradesman, a sum of money for goods su^jplied ; and being unable to pay it when R presents his account, compromises with B by means of a promissory note payable at the end of six or twelve months. B, first pulling his own name on the back of the note, (endorsing it,) to signify that he too is liable for the amount, circulates it as temporary casii among his commercial connection ; and thus it passes, or may pass, successively through twenty or thirty different hands, each party endorsing in turn before he gives it away to the next. At the end of six or twelve months, the note of hand is brought for payment to A. If A takes up his bill by paying in money, the whole commercial transaction is ended; but if he do not, he has to meet the consequences in another way, on which we need not dwell. The above is a case of continual occurrence. We, however, introduced on the part of A the condition of tem- porary inability to pay B ; and we will now change temporary inability to permanent ability, known and acknowledged, and follow up the process of circulation as before, A, a gentleman of known and acknowledged property, owes B, his tradesman^ a sum of money for goods supplietl. A, when his account is presented by B, instead of paying B \\\ money, gives him his bill for six or twelve months, acting as if he were really unable to pay, (* non solvendo :') B, knowing A to be a gentleman of undoubted means and high respectability, accepts A'sbill with almost the same readiness as he would have received A's money ; and liis mercantile connection are so satisfied that A is, in commercial language, " a good man," that neither B nor ON TAXATION — OKNKUM, Pl< I NCI IM.KS. 95 any suhst^qiu'iit jm.sst'ssor of flic, bill practises ondorsonuMit. Hut. this is liot all : the bill, as loiijj as it circulates with credit, beinrofostson his honour that ho hatliio intonfion ; calls Iloavcn to witness how desirous he was they should bo friends ; and prays from his inmost heart that thoy may be so in future ! The Inaugural Address of Polk in February ! Annual Message of the President, just imported!! Once on a time wo remember hearing a song sung — whose moral appeared somewhat peculiar — of him, " who goes to bed sober " — namely, that he — " FuIIm as thu Icavi-g falU Anil dies in October." Polk was sober last spring, and the consequence is, that he has died in his October. Perhaps, however, it may have been our noted " October good ale" that has been the occasion of the sudden death of poor Polk ! The evidence on this point will of course appear at the inquest ; but one thing is certain, that however the doctors may disagree as to the cause, none of them but will allow that Polk is dead. And Polk being dead, — alas ! ])oor Polk ! — there will be no war ! The President lives : but Polk lives not ; ergo, there will be peace. We hope, therefore, that the gentle and courteous roador, " freed from war's alarms,'' may find time to consider our " Thoughts on Colonies," — which imply and involve our '• Thoughts of Peace." ClIAI'TliK V. COLONIES: GENERAL PRINCIPLES STATED AND APPLIED. There can be no question whatever, that to a parent State ol" some standing among the nations, the possession of one or two colonies is a matter of very considerable convenience and comfort ; as enabling her to settle quietly on their shores those of her own offspring, in whom — either from the exix;rience of misfortune at home, or from the fire of enterprise naturally and properly incident to youth — the desire mpy exist of breaking ground in a foreign soil. The Law of God, with reference to population, has two distinct branches : it is not merely " multi- ply," which is the fi-st ; but " multiply and replenish the earth," which make the two parts in natural order and necessary con- nection. There are some — fools, we call them, for otherwise we should stigmatize them as monsters — who rejoice in checks to population, even by human legislation ! — Nature revolts at the thought: — and without supporting the dogma of the middle-age philosophy, that" Nature abhors; a vacuum," we may say truly, that Nature is more powerful than the laws of restriction attempted to be imposed on her by man. These restrictions. in whatever form they may exist,— for marriage is a divine, not a human institution: "Those whom God (that is, -hom God, not man) hath joined together, let not man put asunder ;" — these restrictions, one and all, form but a cloak for spurious legislation and the maintenance of a pernicious system. The true and only proper course for every nation to pursue, is to render the people as comfortable as possible at home, by in- creasing facilities of obtaining the means of life, which is best done by relaxing the fetters of commerco ;— -but religiously to abstahi from any interference with the two branches of the Divuic 122 OKNKRAL IMUNCII'LI'S Law, which imply increase and tmigrution. IiiterftTciico with oithor is productive of dreadful evils to a State ; and which ol' the two interferences is the cause of greater e\il it might be difficult to say ; — the result being necessarily the same in both cases — a positive deterioration of the physical and moral con- dition of man. Even in a very early age of the world, Abraham emigrated from Ilaran by a direct command from God. "The Lord said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from tliy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee. And I will make of thee a great nation ; and I will bless thee and make thy name great ; and thou shalt be a BLESSING : and I will bless them that bless tliee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thke shall all families of the EARTH BE BLESSED. So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him ; and Lot went with him. And Abram was soventy-aud-five years old when he departed out of Ilaran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, anJ they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came." Here was an instance, the most marked and momentous on record, of a direct and visible call from the Creator to the creature to obey the second branch of his law, '■ Multiply and replenish the earth ;" — an instance only equalled in its sublime niysteriousness by the forcible expatriation of his descendants from the same land which the Lord had given to him and his seed after iiim. The gift of possession to Abraliani was as divine as that of Edin to Adam , iind the expatriation of the Jews from Canaan was as divi?ie a? was the expulsion of Adam from Eden: the latter on account of the original transgression; the former, on account of a transgression kindred in character — " because they killed the Lord of life and glory.'' Still more wonderful was it, that by His death they at the same time fulfdled the Scriptures — for thus it was to be ; since by no other means could the resloration of Adam and his descendants to the heavenly garden of the Lord, to the heavenly Canaan, to STATED AND APPLIKD. 123 tho New Jerusalem, to the Jeruaalom which is above, which is free, which is tho mother of us all ; — by no other means, and in no other way, could these things be accomplished ! The emi- gration of Abraham was indeed in the visible handwriting of God ; - but not less Providential, though they are rendered invisible to the eye of flesh, are those inward movements of the spirit of man, which, prompt him in every age to "got him out of his country and from his kindred and from his father's house into another land" — a land which, when he "strivcth not with the Spirit, God shcweth him." We have spoken of the convenience and comfort accruing to a parent State from the ^wssession of one or two colonies ; and this is true. But it is equally true, that there is a point at which this advantage to the parent State ceases, and beyond which the possession brromes to her both costly and dangerous : and further, that a continued extension in the possession of the same dangerous property would almost lead to a general breaking up of the framework she had constructed, — perhaps cause her own head to sink beneath the waters. It is exactly the same with a parent country and her colonies, as with our own dear mothers and their oti'spring. The having one or two children to nurse, is, perhaps, a source of health even to the mother's physical frame, as it is undoubtedly associated with infinitely greater happine^ss (o her spirit of love ; the pain of the birth being soon forgotten by the devoted mother, " for joy that a man is born into the world." " Unto \is a child is born ; unto us a son is given," is the language of devout joy and gratitude of every father and every mother ; but the joy is known to be especially tho mother's: Scripture, as quoted above, expressly says so, and our Chnrch most fitly eonsecrates the occasion of her rejoicing and her gratitude, by the mother's "churching." But if she be so constituted, as to go on increasing her family to a very great extent, the possession, by engrossing so much of her thoughts and care, produces anxiety more than love, and exhaustion to the frame instead of strength : and even that love for herchihlren, which a mother only knows, becomes chastened and tried by those sutlcrings and privations, many, and various I 124 (iENEKAL PHINCIPLKS ill character, which are necessarily incident to the condition of a too large family. Still, there is no labour which she would think too great to be undergone in providing for their sus- tenance and happiness : the same principle, which at first made her forget her pain in her joy, continues through Hfe to make her '■' remember not " herself, lest she should forget them ; and all this exactly in proportion to their feebleness and their con- sequent dependence, — in proportion as their prospect is little of ever being able, on their part:?, to requite — if to requite were by a child possibhi — her care and her love. Her delicate sense of duty and honour — the sensitively tender, but also the strong point, not of mothers only, but of nations also, and those the strongest and most honourable nations — would be hurt at the idea of her love for her children being in any way let down by the tinge or shade of a particle of this earth ; and hence it is that the most sickly, the least fair, and the least promising of her children, are often, very often, those on whom the mother's heart fastens most fondly, roots its affections most firmly, and pours forth most lavishly the inexhaustible fountains of the mother's love. It is a mysterious principle this, in the human constitution ! As regards a parent nation, it never received a more striking cUid noble illustration than last Sfssion. in the two Houses of Parliament, in the case of Oivgon, — the most distant of our colonial possessions ; with respect to which, even the existence could be to us of no importance for thousands of years to come. The occasion, however, was deliberately taken by Her Majesty's Ministers, of making known to America, in language not to be misunderstood — and still less to be disregarded — that on that little and remote nook of o.irth, the British empire was pre- pared to concentrate tlie whole of he? woll-knowi prowess — the possession being of no value to her, but tiie riglit of possession being hers, and hers alone. The point of honour as regarded herself, of duty as regurded her daughter Oregon, and of right, and justice, and truth between nation and nation, as between man and man, were principles wliich. however .America herself 11- .ly atVeel to disregard tiieiii. concuned one and all in the ca>>c of Hrilain,— whose nuiiu; lor liououi is a watolnvoul among tl/ STATFD ANT) API'f.rFD. 125 nations, and her tower of strorgih, — concurred to brin^ ioriii, in its fullest bearing and significancy, that memorable declaration of which we have spoken. The Depositaries and Guardians of the Nation's interest and honour liad no sooner uttered the deter- mination of the Government, than it was nobly — most nobly — cheered by every mouth and fon;^ e, for not one was mute, on both sides of the two Houses ; and the Nation from that night became bound to the solenm pledge which was then given in her name to Oregon, — that should the dire iiocessiiy arise of proving words by deeds, " she was prepared to march forward to the rescue of her feeble and distant child," to plant the standard of England in the heart of the little Oregon ; and arc-iud it, while scattering dismay and death among the ranks of the aggressor, to spend, if need be, the last farthing of her money, and shed the last drop of her blood ! Thus it has been ; and thus it will be. If Oregoii were not, we should have no war or fear of war ; but because Oregon is ours, and is threatened, we are compelled to go to all the incon- venience and expense of preparation for war., though in the end t!>.cr" may be, there most probably will be, no war at all. The bully, who finds that threats of mighty deeds produce in the rival a proper preparation, but no fear of consequences, in- variably makes oft" from the prepared field with a bow and a scrape : and Mr. President Polk, seeing our Government firm and detcrniined, will retire from the attempt with the best I'ace that he can put on ; while Britain, magnanimous and forgiv- ing, will hang up her mail on the wall, put her men-of-war in harbour, and return to her commerce. We .^re "a nation of shopkeejiers," but we are not Repudiators. If, however, America should declare that " her voice is still for '^ar," we have the means in our power, which it would be folly to pars by, of giving liberty to the captive, by landing in her Southern States, and fighting her with her helot population. We must remember that this is not the first time nor the second, within even the I„3t few years, that the upstart and boastful descendant has flown in the face of her quondam parent, with a view to ascertain !iow far the latter would bear 12G GENERAL PRINCIPLES and forbear, would retire and knock under; and that the consequences of our colonial relationship become every year more serious, whether we look at her, our colonies, or ourselves. If, at any time, America should find us, un- happily, involved in a European war, {quod Deus avertat I) our knowledge of her actual policy in particular, and of the aggressive tendencies inherent in republicanism in the general, justifies our asserting that she would at once rush into the war against us, in the hope of attaching to her the British- provinces that adjoin the Slates. Again, as regards tlitsc provinces, it cannot be denied that they are daily rising m importance and strength ; and that the natural accompaniment of the consciousness of strength, whether we look at the unit man or the masses of men that c<;mpose a political society, is the desire of independence, and of the freedom of self-govern- ment. No man, nor body of men, can resist tho«:e impulses o" their natural conbiitution; and it would be as absurd on ou; part, as it would be disastrous to all, to attempt the main- tenance of our supremacy among them, a single hour after the voice of independence, rushing across the Atlantic, has been conveyed to the foot of die throne, in strong and unequivocal accents. The connection, even now, is more profitable to them than to us : and the convitcion is strong in the nation, that the establishment of theii independence, alike of us and of America, would be a relief to the mother country — a gain to the colonies themselves — -and the final step to that actual condition which they will one day ask and acquire : and we have only to add, that the question of the best mode of effecting this consumma- tion, in a manner honourable and beneficial to the two related ports, is that which we have all along proposed to ourselves as the subject of the present inquiry. A question more important could not at any time be submitted to the attention of a nation like Britain, " great, glorious, and free ;" the present time is, moreover, almost Providentially opportune; and the proposi- tion which we are about to bring forward — the result of a long- jontinued attention to the question of colonial dependencies — contains a plan for the erection of tlie BrHish provinces of North STATF.D AND APPLIED. 127 America into an independent monarchy, after a manner which, we are firmly persuaded, no power of the American States, either now or hereafter, will be able to prevent, to destroy, or to disturb. We mention, first of all, as the general conditions of our plan — first, that the independence which we recommend is not imme- diate, but prospective : we propose it to be at once proclaimed and made known to the colonies and to the world, as an event in futuro, — but to be arrived at, de facto, by progression, by prepara- tion, by education : — and secondly, that the independence which we recommend, contains a condition that shall exist along with independence, of paternal and filial relationship ; — a condition analocous to that which exists between a father and a son ; when the latter, by arriving at man's estate, has set up an establish- ment of his own, independent, in one sense, of his father's, but more closely bound to it than to any other in the world, by the ties of blood and long-standing obligfations. We remark, in the third place, that the system which may be proper for a set of adjacent colonies, when we desire to keep them apart from each other, with a view to their more complete dependence on ourselves, is the worst that could possibly be followed, if inde- pendence is to be properly superinduced in succession to depend- ence. The government of adjacent colonies by means of a set of separate independent Governors keeps then, in a state similar to that of tht broken bone of the living limb; when the parts, though free from inflammatory tendencies, have not yet had time to throw out their feelers, and to form a union by a suture and overlapping of the parts. Hence, in the event of the union of many colonial parts into one independent whole, (according to our scheme, now advancing to development,) the first step indis- pensable to a successful union into one, would be tlie abolition of all the Governorships of the adjacent, but now separate, provinces, whose leanings are naturally to separate and distinct courses, and to the annihilation of sympathies in the general system. The second would, of course, be the creation, as an infermcdiate state, of a Viceroyalty over the whole ; and the appointment of Residents in lieu of the present Governors, Vil %^ 11 » II ri; 128 OKNKHAL I'RINCIPLKS (Rosklents, similar in rank and rnnctionlothoscorilu! F'last huli.i Company,) having a st(tfu\ entirely subordinated to that of tlie Viceroy. It is further evident, that every possible means should be employed to attract the parts towards each otlier by a ijennral fusion of interests, which should be at once amalgamated in one common Parliament, consisting of two Houses, and of Members selected from the respective provinces. We next suppose the Viceroyalty to last for fifteen years from the present time, that is, till 1861 ; and to be succeeded, on August 6th, 1861, by a Regency of three years' continuance; their future King then dwelling among them, but still as a Minor (a Regent being present as the Mentor of the young Telemachus). Lastly, he whom we, with the utmost deference, name as the future Sove- reign o*" this very promising empire — this future king, the Poliio of our th I , as the reader will by this time have imagined, Her Majesij second son, the Prince Alfred (born August Gth, 1844) — shoidd Providence be graciously pleased to raise this nameson of the illustrious Alfred to the kingdom we have sketched out for him. A special training for so high a destiny would of course be carefully followed out in the Prince's ' status pupillaris.' The sentiment of love and loyalty might be inter- mediately implanted among his future people, ' y an occasional visit to them as he approached the years of manhood : while his residence among them, of three years as a Minor, would enable him to acquire that knowledge of the country and the people, and that practical acquaintance with the details of government, which would be necessary to render his reign worthy to be spoken of in connection with that of his Royal House of Britain, and his name worthy to be associated with that of his noble type, " Alfred the Great." Such would be the first great step in our plan of introducing the monarchical principle among our colonies of North America. The second step is one of almost equal importance to the first : and we proceed to explain it synthetically. It is almost unnecessary to mention, that our powerful neighbour, France, had, herself, once on a time, possessions on that continent which she has not now — possessions which she abandoned with deep STATED AND ATPLIED. 129 regret, because slie left bcliind a colony of her chikleu fixed on the soil, of a peculiarly amiable, gentle, and graceful charac- ter — (but simple-minded, and in that simplicity aftbrding a wide field for pettyfogging demagogues to work on) — children, whom she still loves to think of with a parent's tenderness, while they themselves think of her in turn, with a filial devotion, which our possession has done little to weaken — a devotion which has been greatly kept alive by the somewhat unusual privilege accorded to them of speaking in Parliament and in the Courts of Law in their aboriginal tongue. And, again, this last affecting relic of the noble tree from wliich they sprung, has prevented ilmost all sympathy between them and the colonists from our own native forests; for no union between them, more than nominal and purely artificial, has hitherto taken place ; and, in the sublime language of the prophet of Aram, beholding from the tops of the rocks the Israelites encamped on tlie plains of Moab below, " The People dwell alone, and are not reckoned among the Nations!" This is a truly remarkable and interest- ing feature in the case, and a highly important step in the argument wo are pursuing; but it is far from the most important step or the most interesting feature. It is a subject of striking and deeply affecting interest, that of late years between the Royal Houses of England and of France a very strong anil decided attachment has sprung up, entirely private, personal, and individual in its character ; unconnected with, and inde- pendent of, the accidents of politics, and therefore the more likely to be disinterested, lasting, and depended on. The attachnioni had probably its first origin in the marriage of the King of Belgium with the daughter of the King of the French, and several intermarriages that have followed between the Houses of France and Saxe Coburg; but there can be no doubt that its development and strength and fulness have been not only powerfully affected, but chiefly brought about by those visits of lovely courtesy between the Sovereigns themselves — meetings between all that was beautiful and pure and promising in youth, and all that was venerable and tritxl and virtuous in age — visits gradually changing from formal, stately, and appointed inter- K * R i - ,-M 130 OENKRAL PRINCIPF.KS views, to friontlly unceremonious and unannounced calls — and visits ceitain to be continued intlie same holy and sympathising strain, and to terminal e in the acconnilishnient of that most mighty end which botli of them have so greatly at h(*art, and desire by their visits to promote — tlio extirpation ofthc root of all bitterness between the two great and adjacent nations, the esta- blishment of peace between them and thereby of peace in all the kingdoms of the earth (its establishment against all accidents and all machinations), and the permanent advance- ment and elevation of man in his character of a rational, an accountable, and an immortpl being. If we were disposed at this moment to the poetical, and had time to illustrate the image, we sliould say that Atlas, giant of the Eastern Star, Lookiii<; from tbronc of power o'er lialftho world," * and bearing on his shoulders the destinies of man, is visited by and visits his fair daughter, (France gave England a King,) the elder-born and the brightest of the Atlantides, (the Queens of England, Portugal, and Spain,) — her whose home is the true ' Insula; Atlantica;,' which the poets of old delighted to sing of. The two potentates come down to the shores of their re- spective empires to behold each other '' Cor the glail waters of the dark l)liu' sea," from Osborne House and the Chftteaii d'Eu. The proposition wliich we now bring forward as the sequel to our synthesis is this, (we trust the merits of the proposition will not be tested by the mere unimportance of the proposer:) — to submit to the consideration of the two Sovereigns of England and Franco the question of affiance between the Prhice Alfred and one of the granddaughters of the King of the French, — an affiance based on the presupposed creation of the North American Kingdom ; to the throne of which the Prince and Princess should on their marriage be raised, The assent of the Sovereigns would be a settlement of the question. It is deliglitful to believe, that the circumstance of our Queen having been engaged to the Prince * See Cainphell's " P(casurcs of Hopr.' STATKI) AND APPI.IF:!). 131 Albert from her youth, will li-ad her llu- mon" r.-ailily to assonl, to a prospective eng.ngcnient of the character we advocate : and it is highly gratifying to read, in every speech of the King of the French, the evidence of the deep attachment felt by him for his children and his children's children, and to believe, in con- sequence, (hat any question, calculated to promote the happiness of one of the latter will be entertained by him with an earnest ness kindred to the fervour of youth. We may not, indeed, presume to exclaim, "Come up liither, and 1 will shew thee things which must be hereafter." But may we not, speaking submissively to the ways of Providence, presume to attempt to cast the horoscopes of England and Franco and their united (even now united) children in Nortli America? May we not with humility and reverence draw near to touch the veil of futurity; since that futurity, under the sup- posed conditions, appears to our eye so transcendenlly bright !* May we not at least, with the shoes off our feet, go up in spirit to holy ground, and meditate on things which w^; pray may b.^ hereafter? We may ; we repeat, we may ; for there can be little of evil, when the one end sought and prayed for is the good of our kind. Rapt then in visions of the future, we behold — iliiinified overtures from the Court of St. James's to the Couil of the Tuilleries, for an 'Entente Cordiale' between the Iloyal Houses and the two mighty Nations on the basis we have laid down — overtures of peace, friendship, and love, accompanied also with an enlarged and liberal Zollverein ; in order tliiii commerce may not be forgotten in the treaties, of which her future action will be a most valuable cement : The overtures — ' ut ajterna in fcedera mittant";' and let us add, on our parts, 'Nee Trojam x\usonios gremio e.\ce[)iss; pigebit' — the overtures cordially accepted, the two Houses, already united in heart, united prospectively by intemianiagt;, — and the nations, after burying the recollection of the past in obhvion, shaking hands cordially on the common ground of the future : A scene in the far West, — a nuw kingdom rising iq), composLcd of many parts, long dibtinct and disjointed, now k2 ;>i.. 132 CiENFRM, PHlNf'lPt.KS kindly bloncliiig into one trraiul livin<» wlioU- ; --iho iianio " Now England and France;" " Montroal," changed to " New London," — " Quebec " to " New Paris." — names that would be soon as familiar and easy to be pronounced as New York — • and there is much in names; — the cliildren of France and England, that have been long settled in that region, now about to join hearts and hands : for the august parents, linked arm and arm, have landed on heir shores; their first act, to speak kindly to their pleased offspring ; their second, to hold up a common warning finger to the Republic, to beware ! — the Republic glutted, yet greedy as if famished, retiring disap- pointed, like a she-wolf from tlie sheepfold, whose lambs she has long eyed as prey for her cubs, but cannot reach. France and England, returned home, encouraging their over-crowded population, who may desire to migrate, to settle in their now united kingdom ; and O glorious, and tran-^porting sight ! France, like England with Aflghanistan, abandoning the point of honour with resjiect to Africa's arid and bloodthirsty sands, where she has spilt the blood of thousands and tens of thousands of h?r bravest and her best ; France making peace with Africa, as an offering and dowry to her gentle and [)eace- loving daughter ! A young Prince and Princess walking affectionately by the side of each other, brought up in the same Reformed faith, in a state of education for their grand united destiny of reigning. A scene of some fifteen years hence : the yoimg Prince proceeding to his future kingdom as a minor, accompanied by a Regent, who shall instruct him in the art of governing ; the Regent, a statesman of long experience in the government, invited by his Sovereign and the country to crown his labours at home by teaching the young Prince how to govern in his new empire. ' Tu regere iinpeiio populos, Alfredk, menieiito ; Has tibi cruiit artes, pacisque imponore morctn ; Parcere gubjcctis et debellarc superbos.' The Prince, as the termination of his minority approaches, coming back to claim the hand of his bride ; returning with her . STATED AND APPLIED 133 (o llicir future kingdom, uttcndotl by a mighty cortege of the highest in Church and State ; the solemn coronation of the two at New London; the return of the Regent to his native country, where he receives from grateful parents and relatives — from a grateful Queen and a grateful country, a Civil crown, in the light of whose eflfulgent brightness the laurels of the greatest of warriors, necessarily tinged with the crimson hues of war, will look pale and dull and dead ! Our chief object in writing on Colonies was, to submit the proposition now brought forward, of erecting our North Ame- rican Provinces into an independent monarchy. In regard to the West India Islands, it will be readily allowed that they are quite unsuited for colonists; and that if Britain were free from the possession of them, justice being rendered to the proprietors, she woukl be rid of a disagreeable burden. Concerning our otiier Colonies, we refrain from sug- gostio'iis. 1'he possessions of the East India Company are not colonies. They were obtained incidentally, in prosecuting commerce. We have stated, in the concluding part of the Chapter on Taxation, that the Company might be charged with the n-hole support of the Queen's contingent of troops in India. Tliis appears only fair; — and the relief would be great to the finances of Britain. Beyond this we presume not to suggest. Conclusion. — Looking at the course of Providence as it presents itself to our view, we should consider the purpose to be that England, as she floats off one set of colonies into a condition of independence, should lake up anolh(M', for a system of similiar preparation. It will be her manifest tluty not to refuse the charge, but to accept it ; to receive it, not with selfish purposes, but with a lowly sjnrit ; and to study to fuKil it, not for conquest, triunipli, subjugation — but for commerce, civilisa- tion, happiness ; to acccj)t it, ai <\ to fulfil il in the same spirit, and for the same end, and with the same dei'i) sense of respon- sibility to (Jod, as a father and molhor accept ;ind fiillil the i;h ( ONf.t.HSION, rliar«jt> of tin; rlnld ulumi God Iihs jrivoii tlioni. And as the piuvnfs — when ihoy huvt; I'uKillcd ihoir part, uccordiiig 1o their abdity, by oducatin^j tlieir cliild, not oidy for the thui<;fs whicli arc soi'U aud temporal, but also Inr the things whicli are not s.ien, and an; eternal, — j^iibsequenlly send him into the world with the rosponsibilitips of self-governuient and conduct thrown on hin»self ; such is the analogous duty devolving on a nation like Britain, fearing God and loving righteousnot;s, that con- sents to be invest(>d with the responsibilities of colonies; — and ever to bear in nnnd that She is an "Ambassador of Recon- ciiation " among) the nations, exactly as a parish priest is a missionary among the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made him overseer. Society is continually changing, not merely its phases, but its condition. And this change of condition is not confined to a locality, Oi lo a nation : the whole world is turning, without intennission, on an axis of revolution, whose poles are in the heaven of heavens ; and tlie direction of whose movement is steadily towards that Kingdom of Righteousness which is to occupy the whole earth in tlie " last days.'' His moral revison must indeed be heeedlessly or incurably dark, who does not almost without the finger of Revjlation, "discern" this in "the signs of the times;" and who is unable, "amid all the changes and chances of this mortal life," to say with the same assured confidence of our days, as the fathers of old did of theirs — "The Lord reigneth: let the tarth rejoice: let the multitude of the isles be glad. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling- place in all generations.'" A IMVEN 1)1 X. A. Extrads frow DilHtlrn on I'ropnty Tar. March 18///, ISlfl.— Mr. Kosic, (Trcasiircr .)f the Niivy.) amic character of his departed friend, Mr. Piit, from the attack that liad just been made upon it by the honourable gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. W. Smith). That honourable gentleman had denied Mr. Pitt's financial abilities, and, describing a test by which t&lents were to be tried, denied that by that test his honourable friend could be considered a great financier. (Here an evident impatience was testified by the House, and cries of "Question" were redoubled.) Mr. Rose con- tinued — "Shall an attack be jjerniitjcd on the character of an individual, and shall it not be permitted to his friends to offer any defence ? He was willing to adopt the test of the honourable gentleman, and he was persuaded that Mr. Pitt's character would bo established by the application of it, beyond the reach of question or dispute. The honourable gentleman had said, that great al)ilities were proved by the accomplishment of great undertakings, through great difficulties with small means. Let the House look at the first period of Mr. Pitt's Administration, and considering the circumstances in which it commenced, compare it with the state of the country after two years of his cautious services, and there could not remain a shadow of doubt as to the greatness of his financial character. Wiien he entered into office at the end of the American War, he found public credit exceedingly depressed; the national resources in a state of groat exhaustion ; and the revenue of the country insufficient to defray the peace establishment, with the interest of the debt con- tracted in a long, extensive, and unfortunate struggle. He fouml it necessary to impose £950,000 of new taxes ; but by this addition, by economy, and by an improved collection of the revenue, he not only Iirought the annual income of the nation to meet the annual expend- iture, but provided a million for the Sinking Fund, which he esta- blished in llbO. Before he canu' into office, the war expenditure 136 .\im'i;ni)ix. cxccciUmI the war iTveiuic l)y three millioiiH !i year. In 1797, tlif fuiula hiii'i raUcii, under the pressure of repented loans, to 47 und a fraction. It was then lliut Mr. Pitt resorted to the Property Tax to relieve them, and in January, 1798, it was proposed. Its cflfects had answered his cxpcctntioiiH, and the funds liad recovered. Wliat the honourahle gentleman had stated concerning Mr. Pitt's opinion of the Property Tax, was founded in error, or at least was without authority. He (Mr. Pitt) had never called it a war tax, or declared tluit it could not be continued in pt-ace. So much was liis conduct opposed to such a supposition, that he had mortgaged it for fifty-six millions. Had the interest of this great sum not been provided tor from another source by Mr. Addington, who succeeded Mr. Pit* in 1802, it was calculated that the Property Tax could not have been disengaged or removed for nine years of peace. Loiu) Castlkkeagh. — If they (the people of England) shrank from the present edbrt, they would unquestionably renounce that profound and salutary policy to which alone they were indebted for tiie means of so gloriously continuing the late struggle to its final and memorable issue. His late honourable friend, now no more, (Mr. Pitt) had actually mortgaged the Property Tax during p. time of ])cnce for nine years. To argue the (juestion (of renewal) as a jjosilivc breach of faith on the part of the Legislature, was an attempt at delusion unexampled in the history of the coui\try. » » ♦ He was prepared to aflirm, that it was the deliberate finance plar of Lord Henry Petty (in 1806) to mortgage the tax in time of peace * * * He did most solemnly entreat and conjure the House, that before they resolved to give relief to the country they would recollect the great principles of finance upon which the greatness and prosperity of the empire rested ; und that they would not press the adoption of a system which, however specious and delusive at the moment, was one for which the country itself, he was sure, would not thank them hereafter. It was ui;on that ground that he felt himself called upon, by every sense of duty which he owed to himself, to Parliament, and to the nation, to press the present measure, not merely as expedient, but as absolutely necessary for the safety and well-being of the State. * * * He would put to the good sense of the country, to the truly British spirit which animated the people, W'hether they would now shrink from the exertion which was necessary for their own preservation ; whether they would, in fact, l)e 80 infatuated as to turn their backs on themselves ? — (Hear, hear.) He trusted their ultimate decision would be favourable to those great principles of financial calculation to which he had adverted ; and though an impression might prevail, at the moment, unfavourable APPENDIX. 137 t