"Bravo," said K——; "we start with a row, we shall be all right presently."
And now stoop well your head and keep your eyes open as you turn the corner into the Armenian quarter. These houses that make such beautiful streets, are ticklish things to ride by. They all project forward, having the upper story supported by a kind of flying buttress. These are at no great height from the ground, so that an unbending horseman passing under, would infallibly knock his head against the corner of one of their first floors. But chiefly on donkeys is this risk noticeable—the stubborn brutes which it is much the fashion to ride, and whom none but the drivers can guide. On entering Smyrna by night—those dull streets where gas is not—your only plan is to keep well in the middle of the street, right in the hollow. It is a beautiful quarter of the town; in itself picturesque and variegated in colour, and beset with the fairest embellishments. Look up at that lattice for a moment only, and then prick your way again. Did you see those lustrous eyes and graceful head-dress? The sun is now high, and these stars twinkle but from lattices. Pass this way at even, and you shall see them congregated in brilliancy. They are not of the retiring nature that shuns observation. They sit congregated round every door wooing the breeze. Supper is spread in the spacious halls, beyond which the open doors give to view a perspective of garden. Nay, you may stop and stare—the men are occupied with their pipes, and the women are not offended at admiration.
Right interesting are these Armenians, of whom the men have all the riches, and the women all the beauty(at least unveiled and cognisable) of Turkey. They have lost all trace of the active spirit that in an age of iron kept them busy in themeléeof nations. Their gravest senior would stare unintelligent were you to speak to him of Tiridates, or the Romans: and with their thoughts of Persia no ideas of tyranny are mixed; no stirring of the ancient spirit that kept them faithful in an ocean of foes, and rendered their land a continued battle-field. They give no signs of intelligence if you challenge them on the subject of Eutychus, by whose arch heresy they suffered severance from Catholicity, and in whose dogmas they live. They are a quiet, matter-of-fact, business-like people—the bankers and capitalists of the kingdom. Their mode of existence under the shadow of the Sultan's mercy, but without national representation or protection, has subdued them to a condition of patient endurance, and killed the energy of their nature. They are quiet, fat, and lethargic, reserving their anxieties for money-getting.
There might be to fiery spirits something humiliating in the dress to which they are so anxious to acquire the right: the huge and ugly cap which bespeaks them to be under some particular foreign protection, as the case may be, which is their only safeguard against all sorts of oppression. But where nationality is a mere idea without embodiment, it soon becomes as a dream. The Armenian is content to be endured and protected. Meanwhile he is not without a sort of national ambition; but it is of a new kind for him. They believe themselves to be the most ancient of people, retaining the original language that was spoken before the dispersion of Babel, and by consequence the identical language that was spoken by Adam. An interesting excursion might be made on this subject, seemingly so far at variance with the conclusions of learned ethnographers. Their deductions are from undoubted facts, and tend to their conclusion with a force that some philologists at least have considered irresistible.
Through the Armenian quarter our road lay onward for a short distance by the banks of Miles. It is but an insignificant stream, of scarcely sufficient tide to turn a mill; but in no better case are Ilissus and Cephissus found to be in the present day. The shade of Socrates still seems to linger over the Attic streamlet, swelling its puny tide to the capacity of the loftiest musings of the humanized; and the memory of Homer is wedded to these waters of Meles. The critics who would disprove the existence of the bard, and assign the different members of his compositions to numerous anonymous authors, or to indefinite traditions, would find this no vantage ground. The influences of the place would abash their contumacy. There is something poetical even now about the locality. The stream flows through the Armenian quarter, passing by a short course to the well-known Caravan-bridge, and thence into the open country. At pretty well all hours of the day, groups of nymphs may be seen washing clothes in the waters, exhibitingtableaux vivansof Nausicaa and her maidens. No vulgar washerwomen are these with corrugated hands at reeking tubs, but such as painters and poets might celebrate. Washing is with them a pastime, and an elegance: their laundry a studio of art. They go right into the water, and splash about their things like naiads sporting; and anon returning to the bank, put forth their little strength in beating out the clothes. It would be rash to say that the process is so effectual as our more homely method; but it is at least pretty to look at. At evening the banks of the stream assume another appearance. Gay crowds promenade, and cavalcades linger; people of many nations congregate to unbend the brow laden with the cares of the day. Fathers muse, maidens gambol, and matrons chide.
A little farther on, and we come to Caravan-bridge,—of all Smyrna's objects, perhaps the one best known by reputation. It has its name from the number of caravans that, entering Smyrna from the interior, have to pass over it. And see, there is at this moment a string of camels in the way, so that we may as well halt in this convenient shade till they be gone by. That little Ethiopian will look after our horses, and Ali will bring us coffee and chibouques in a twinkling. See how pleasantly these trees overshadowour resting-place, and how the gliding of the water, here a broader and more rapid stream, seems to cool our very thoughts. This is the great picnic place for the citizens—a sort of Turkish Vauxhall. Yet what a difference between the orderly composure of these holiday makers, and the noisy mirth of our own compatriots. These folks take theirkef, as they do every thing else, quietly. Here you may see hundreds of revellers, and not a drunkard among them. Perhaps the repose of the scene draws some of its influence from those sombre burying grounds, of which two are just opposite. No where is such truth of funereal effect preserved as in this country. Père la Chaise, and all European cemeteries are puerile in comparison. The stately evergreen which they have consecrated to the overshadowing of the dead fulfils the idea of solemnity and awe. There is effect in the manner in which the simple head-stones are planted together, with no separation of rails, no interspersion of pretending sarcophagi. All have returned to their dust, and have put off the ephemeral distinctions of life; they have returned to the bosom of their mother, where there is no aristocracy, and slumber as brethren till they shall be awakened to new distinctions.
This is a place where at odd times many a pleasant hour may be passed. It is such a thoroughfare, (at least the bridge, though you are in the shade by its side, well out of the bustle,) that there is always something passing worthy of notice. It is also a capital place to practise the language, if you have any of it to expend. You see the strangest figures entering from the interior with their merchandise, which is all diligently examined by the officer of the customs here posted. It is a singular thing that the long trains of camels are invariably headed by a donkey; who takes the lead as coolly as if it were quite in order that such an insignificant brute should drag after him some five hundred animals, each big enough to eat him. The Caravandgis might be supposed to come all from one locality, so strong is the family likeness subsisting between them. Perhaps they actually do, for this hereditary disposition of employments is quite according to the genius of the nation. They are short, stout, little men, with round smooth faces, especially stolid in expression. They dress in the old style, never wearing the fez; and sure we ought to take the portrait of one of them, were it only for the sake of their boots. Such buckets are not often worn, and to pedestrians would be impracticable. But these men do not walk: seated on their donkeys, they jog on at the head of the caravan, bearing the merchandise of Asia through wildernesses where the foot of man is strange. With man they have little communion, and with nature they have little sympathy, or their soulless visages belie them. Life to them must be a blended experience of tobacco and camel's bells. I have marked them at night, when arrived at their journey's end, and bivouacking in the midst of their animals. The brutes formed a circular rampart, in the centre of which reclined the men. It was a desolate spot, such as generally disposes men to sociability with the stray fellow-creature or two who may happen to have been led to the same point; and here were two or three fellow-countrymen of the drivers. But they took no notice of their neighbours; they performed their prostrations, they disposed of their supper, and coiled themselves up to rest. If they rose for a moment, it was to look after some restless camel; and early in the morning, long before the sun, when I turned out, they were departed to a more remote solitude. But now the road is clear, and we make a start of it, leaving the town fairly behind.
"Stop, my men," said J——; "look at your horses' feet."
"What's that for?"
"We shall pass never another smithy this livelong day; and should a screw be loose in any of their shoes, it would be rather a bring up for us." Sage and sound advice for those who have a long ride before them; which yet at this time of our need we rejected; and for which I afterwards suffered. Awakening to a sense of my error, I did afterwards make a divergence to a village by the way; but there found no artist, and in the course of the day I learned fully to appreciate the importance of a nailin time. By the way, the shoes hereabout are of a peculiar kind, composed of a plate that entirely covers the hoof. They are at least effective in preventing the infraction of pebbles.
Our road was in the line that leads to the pretty village of Bonabat, leaving the no less pretty village of Boujah on the right, but far away, and hidden among the hills. These are two pleasant suburban retreats that the merchants of Smyrna, have established as aricoverofrom the toils of the city. Bonabat is more especially inhabited by the French, and Boujah by the English. There is a third village somewhat farther off in the direction of Ephesus called Sittagui. A few years ago, when the Turkey trade was in its palmy days, the merchants used to do their business in most agreeable style. It was during certain months only that they went every day to their offices, the rest of the year being permitted to enjoyment. At present, though perhaps somewhat less magnificent in their style, they are eminently comfortable in their ways. During the summer months, their families are removed to these pretty country places; and at sundown each evening the ways are covered with the returning fathers and brothers. For us Englishmen, Boujah was naturally the accustomed haunt. Here is to be found the charming mixture of nationalities, which is the feature of Smyrneot society. Their ways are manly, without constraint, and in many respects patriarchal. The young ladies never wear bonnets, and are generally to be seen of a fine evening sitting in the open air before their own gates. The whole community having been pretty well all brought up together from childhood are on the happiest terms of intimacy: surnames are almost obsolete. Ungrateful must the heart be that can remember without pleasure days past in their society; where every house is open, and every face has a smile for the guest. There is one particular spot here, called the Three Wells, where my evening's walk has ever brought before me images fraught with recollection of Rebecca's introduction to Isaac, or of Jacob wooing Rachel. We now passed into the open country, where the road, leading over a low ridge of hills, becomes of less definite track. And the last village was passed, and thenceforward we were to meet stations only as rare landmarks. Hereabouts sugar, as a general luxury, disappears; the caffedgis supplying the mere coffee, unless some more luxurious stranger demand the drug. It is then dealt out from a small private store, and notified by a separate charge in the bill. The homely old Turks are ignorant of the uses of sugar; and it would seem that their language does not supply a descriptive term, as their "shuk-kar" is evidently a mispronunciation of our word. One could not, without romancing, say much of the beauty of the country through which we were passing at this early stage of our journey. It is even flat, and tame; and appears to be so more decidedly by contrast with most that lies in this region. Almost every where else the prospect is bounded by beautiful hills, here and there aspiring to the character of mountains, whose sides vary constantly in tint as they rangingly receive the rays of the rising or the setting sun. Or sometimes one has to pass through vast plains, where neglect and desolation have, in the exuberance of nature, assumed the appearance of luxuriant cultivation. Few artificial pastures could equal the natural beds of oleander that are sometimes found here stretching far away till lost behind the crags of a ravine; and which, in their unconstrained vegetation, show colours that the hothouse might envy. And particularly are the wildernesses of myrtle remarkable, which for miles grow in thick jungle, through which it is difficult to preserve the narrow track kept for passage. It is curious to pass through these odorous thickets, where you can never see around you, and seldom many feet before you, on account of the windings of the way. Long are heard the tinklings of the camel's bells, and the heavy plod of their feet, before the train comes into sight, and many are the manœuvrings to effect a passage in peace. The camels, however many, are all linked together, and to the preceding donkey; and as they cannot be always persuaded to observe due distance, so as to keepthe linetaught, nor to follow each other on the same side of the road, it may be conceived that to pass them is sometimes a work of difficulty. It is a comfort that they never bite—at least never in ordinary cases; but still, till one is used to their near contact, it does seem formidable to be involved and hampered among these as one constantly must be. But this particular road of ours was, for some way, diversified by neither beauty nor incident; and, as things go, perhaps it is well that so it was; for therefore have I the less scruple at passing over observations topographical, and making haste to tell of what things befel us in the city of the unbelievers. One single party of travellers we did meet, whose journeying exercised considerable influence on our fortunes. It was about mid-day that we saw approaching, from the opposite direction to ourselves, a Frank gentleman, attended by a respectable looking squire. We knew him to be coming from Magnesia, because there was no other place from which he could be coming; and, by the same token, we shrewdly guessed him to be the one Frank inhabitant, the pro-consul, on whose good offices we had reckoned. The only alternative was, that he might be some casual visiter like ourselves, whom business or curiosity had led on a journey, whence he was returning. But, as he drew nearer, we read in the incurious expression of his face, that he was certainly at home; and the air of accustomed importance that beset him argued him to be one in authority. No men, surely, can be so alive to the sense of borrowed dignity as consular agents in out-of-the-way corners; at least no men carry so pompous an exposition on their brow. By these tokens we identified our stranger friend.
"Hail him," said K——.
"Bon giorno, signori!"
"Servo, signori. Andate in Magnesia?"
"I told you so," said K——.
And so it was. He, her Britannic Majesty's, and half-a-dozen other majesty's agent, stood convicted by his speech. The man had not been out of Magnesia, perhaps, any day for the last twelvemonths, and he had chosen, for the prosecution of his foreign interests, that precise day, when these three desolate Englishmen had come to throw themselves on his cares.
However, our blood was up, and our souls superior to trifles.
"Here's a poser! shall we reveal?"
"Not a bit of it. We don't want him, nor any one else. Any mixture of aid would have marred the spirit of our expedition: besides, remember our friend the Seraph."
This Seraph was of no higher than terrestrial order, being no other than the Armenian to whom we had the letter commendatory. What the word in their application means, I cannot say exactly, but believe it to be descriptive of the sordid occupation of a basqua; at any rate, it is a common style and title Αρμενικῶς.
In the confidence of this our possession, we allowed the European to pass on without giving him any hint of our forlorn condition, and without craving any direction for our conduct. He evidently thought that we had some bosom friend ready to receive us, or at any rate that we were fully up to all the ways and means of the country—as well he might, seeing us roam about in suchdegagéstyle. We were far too jealous of our dignity to betray any symptoms of indecision, or having been taken aback; and our adieux were waved to him with a perfect air of being at home and comfortable.
"Now then for an Armenian at home! How fortunate that fellow should be out of the way, for now our friend the Seraph will be sure to insist on our honouring his roof."
"Capital spreads, too, they give—judging by the samples one sees laid out of an evening in their halls."
"Hospitable people; are they not, K——?"
"Oh, very. Not that ever I have been in one of their houses."
"Nor I—any farther than having a pipe with old John the Dragoman at his porch."
"Nor I."
Here was a crown to our adventure! An untrodden city, an unvisited people, a welcome to the mysterious bosom of Armenian hospitality!
"Free Trade," say the Americans "is another word for direct taxation, and direct taxation is another word for repudiation of states' debts." The Americans are right; it is so: and the strongest proof of these propositions is to be found in the conduct of the Americans themselves. The subject, however, is one not less interesting on this than the other side of the Atlantic. It involves the fortune and the temporal prosperity of every man in the united kingdom; and we do not hesitate to say that, on the embracing of just and reasonable views on this all-important subject by the constituencies of the united kingdom, the maintenance of the public credit,—the upholding of the public prosperity,—the ultimate existence of England as an independent nation, must come to depend.
We hear much, in the popular phrase of the day, of "great facts." We will assume "free trade" as a "great fact." We will not stop to inquire how it was brought about, or whether, by any means, it could have been avoided. These are the topics of history, and history, no one need fear, will do them justice. As little shall we stop to ask, whether direct or indirect taxation is the best, or whether a mixture of both is to be recommended. We shall not ask whether it is better to pay taxes on the price of the articles we purchase, when the amount is not perceived, or, if perceived, seldom objected to, at least against government, and when the disagreeable operation of paying money is compensated, at least in some degree, by the pleasure derived from the article purchased,—or to pay them at once to the tax-gatherer, when we get nothing for our ample disbursements but a bit of paper from the collector to remind us of the extent of our losses. As little shall we inquire, from history, how many nations have been ruined by direct taxation, and whether there is one, the decline of which can be traced to indirect; or from reason, whether it ispossiblethat anationcan be ruined by indirect taxes, when the only effect of their becoming too high is, that they check the consumption of the articles on which they are laid, and therefore cease to be paid. We shall not remind our readers that, in the latter years of the war £72,000,000, under the protective system, was levied in the shape of taxes amidst general prosperity, on eighteen millions of people in the British empire; and that now, under the free trade system, fifty-two millions net revenue is felt as extremely oppressive by twenty-eight millions. These topics, vast and important as they are, and deeply as they bear on the past history and future prospects of the British empire, have become the province of history, because the great change on which they hinge has been made and cannot be unmade. We have chosen to have free trade,—in other words, to abandon indirect taxation; and free trade we must have, and indirect taxation will in consequence be abandoned.
But it is particularly to be observed, in the outset of this system, that free trade, once adopted and applied to certain great branches of national industry, must necessarily beprogressive, and embraceall, if we would avoid the total ruin of many of the staple branches of our production and main source of ourdirectrevenue. In a short time, grain of all sorts will be left with the nominal protection of a shilling a quarter; and many branches of manufactures already find themselves with a protecting duty so small that, keeping in view the difference of the value of money in England and the continental states, it amounts to nothing. If the classes thus left without any protection, or a merely nominal one, exposed to the effects of foreign competition, are not indemnified for their losses by the diminished price of the articles which they themselves purchase, they must grow poorer every day. Amidst the general cheapening of the articlessold, which constitute the income of the productive classes, if there is not a proportional cheapening of the articlesboughtwhich compose theirexpenditure, they must inevitably be destroyed.
This truth is so obvious that it is adapted to the level of every capacity,and accordingly we already see it producing agitation for the farther repeal of indirect taxes, which it does not require the gift of prophecy to foresee will, in the end, though perhaps after a severe struggle, prove successful. It may not do so in this session of Parliament or the next; but, in process of time, the effect is certain.
A squeezable ministry, a yielding premier, will ere long be found, who, in a moment of difficulty, will be glad to buy off one set of assailants, as we did the Danes of old, by giving up what they desire. The separate agitations which must, in the end, produce this result, are already manifesting themselves. The West India planters allege, with reason, that, exposed as they are, when burdened with costly and irregular free labourers, to the competition of slave labour in Cuba and Brazil, without, in a few years, any protection, it is indispensable that the market of the mother country should be thrown open to them for all parts of their produce, especially in distilleries and breweries. The farmers, exposed to this attack in flank, while the corn laws have been repealed in their front, have no resource left but to clamour incessantly for the repeal of the malt-tax. In this attempt it is probable they will, in the end, prove successful, not because their demands are either just or reasonable, for as power is now constituted in this country that affords no guarantee whatever for being listened to, but because their claims are likely to be supported by thebeer-drinkers in towns, a numerous and influential class of the community. The tea-dealers, encouraged by the success of agitation in other quarters, are already making a loud clamour for a reduction of the duty on tea, and prepared to prove, to the entire satisfaction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that nothing is so likely to increase a branch of revenue now producing £4,800,000 a-year, as to lower the duty from half-a-crown to a shilling on the pound. The tobacco dealers will not be behind their brethren in agitation; and we may soon expect to see all the venal talent of the nation enlisted in the great cause of free trade in smoking and chewing. The spirit-dealers will, most assuredly, not be the last to insist upon a reduction of the duties affecting them; and they are sure to be supported by the whole publicans in the urban constituencies; a class of men so numerous that it is certain their united voice is not long likely to be treated without attention. Every class, in short, will insist for a remission of the taxes affecting themselves, without the slightest regard to the effect it is likely to have on the revenue, the public credit, or the general security of the empire; and when we reflect on the stupendous array of indirect taxes, which, under the influence of similar partial but fierce agitations, have been abandoned by successive conceding administrations to purchase temporary popularity, we feel convinced that the time is not far distant when the remaining customs and excise, producing, at present, about thirty millions of revenue, will share the same fate.
It is useless to lament this tendency, because lamentations will not stop it, and the reform bill has vested power in classes who, for good or for evil, will work it out. Nearlytwo-thirdsof the Imperial Parliament are, under its enactments, the representatives of burghs.[18]In these burghs the great majority of the voters are shop-keepers, that is, persons whose interest it is to buy cheap and sell dear. In making the first use of their newly acquired power to force on free trade, and a repeal of all duties affecting themselves, our burghs have exactly followed in the footsteps of their predecessors, when parliamentary writs were first addressed to them by the Earl of Leicester, in 1264."The burghers," says Guizot, "as much astonished as charmed at the importance which Leicester gave them, took advantage of their influence to procurefreedom to trade, and to get quit of all custom-house duties, instead of establishing, in conjunction with him, the government on a durable foundation."[19]The influence of these urban constituencies is not likely to decrease under the increasing embarrassments of the landed producers, and the augmented stimulus to certain branches of trade from foreign importations. And, in consequence, as the revenue melts away under the effect of successive repeals of the indirect taxes, the question will, ere long, force itself on the government and the country, How is the interest of the debt to be paid? How are the charges of the national establishments to be defrayed? The extraordinary prosperity of the last two years, the result of the three fine harvests which had preceded them, cannot be expected to continue. A railway mania is not immortal;—like every other violent passion it must soon wear itself out. Peace cannot much longer be relied on;—the clouds are already gathering in more than one quarter. A recurrence to general indirect taxes is not to be thought of in these days of restricted currency and unrestricted importation. The only alternative is, either a reduction of the interest of the national debt, or a great increase of direct taxation.
It is not probable that a forcible reduction of the national debt will be attempted, at least till the other alternative has been tried and failed. The public funds are the great saving bank of the nation. Out of 192,970 persons who received the half-yearly dividend at the Bank of England in the year 1841, no less than 158,735 drew dividends under £50 half-yearly, of whom 58,000 were under £5; while those above £50 and not exceeding £200 were only 10,094, and those exceeding £2000 only 125![20]This is the great security for the public funds in England—the extent to which shares in them are held by persons composing that middle commercial class, in whom, under the present constitution, supreme power is practically vested.
Nor is it only the actual holders of the public funds who would be immediately struck at by an invasion of the national debt. Stock of every kind would at once fallpari passuwith the three per cents.—credit of every kind would be violently shaken—the rate of discount at the Bank of England would instantly rise—money would become scarce over the country—every debtor would find his whole creditors on his back at once, while his means of recovering payment from those indebted to him would be proportionately abated. It is not going too far to say that, within a year after a blow had been struck at the public funds, one-half of the whole trading classes would find themselves insolvent. None would be able to stand the shock but those possessed of considerable capital. The majority who carried the measure would, for the most part, be ruined by its effects. This consequence is not a remote or secondary one, which large bodies of men can never be brought to see; it is immediate and direct, and is practically known, by the intercourse with banks, and the necessity of getting bills discounted, to the whole commercial community in the country. It is not probable that the burgher class, to whom the Reform Bill has given power, will voluntarily advocate a measure so evidently and palpably destructive to themselves. The public funds of Great Britain rest on the securest of all bases in a popular community, the self-interest of the holders of power. They would soon be swept away under universal suffrage, as they have been in so many states of America, because the majority under such a system have no funds to hold.
Two things, then, may be considered as certain as any thing depending on the varying chances of human affairs can be. 1. That the indirect taxes which at present constitute three-fifths of the net revenue of Great Britain will, in great part, in process of time, be swept away. 2. That touphold the public credit and save from ruin the commercial classes, a great addition must be made to direct taxation.
It has become, therefore, a matter of the very highest importance to consider how an additional revenue can be raised without wide-spread ruin in that way; and what are theprincipleson which direct taxation should be founded, in order to be at once equal, just, and productive. It will be found, on consideration, that they are simple and of universal application—so plain as to be obvious, when stated, to every capacity, although a protracted struggle may doubtless be anticipated from the various classes whose immunities or exemptions such a just and equal system may abolish or abridge.
The first principles on the subject will naturally suggest themselves on the principle of "lucus a non lucendo," upon considering the gross inequalities, the enormous injustice of our present system of direct taxation. Upon reviewing it, one can hardly discover under what prevailing interest in the Legislature the regulations have been framed, so strangely is occasional and unjust favour to the landed interest, in some particulars, blended with frequent and equally unjust oppression of them in others—so unequally is undue favour to the middle classes, in some respects, combined with unjust and partial burdens upon them in others.
To begin with one particular, in which the landed interest are greatly and unjustly exempted, while the other classes are severely and unjustly burdened. There is no duty on bequests or inheritance in land, while there is such a duty, and a very heavy one, in movable succession. The legacy duty on succession, from one unconnected with the legatee by blood, is tenper cent.; from relations six, and from parents oneper cent.By the aid of the probate duty, which must be paid by the executors, and the expense of suing out letters of administration in England, or an edict and confirmation as executor in Scotland, these duties are practically nearly doubled. Succession in land, on the other hand, costs nothing, at least nothing requires to be paid to government; and though the expense of making up titles to landed estates is often very heavy, that is a burden for the benefit of lawyers, not the good of the state. A poor man who gets a legacy of £100, pays £10 direct to the Exchequer, and the executor, in addition, pays the heavy stamp on probate of the succession; but the great landholder succeeds to £100,000 a-year without paying a shilling to the state.
A creditor in Scotland, who succeeds to a bond for £100,000, heritably secured, pays nothing; if it is on personal security, he pays the full legacy duty of £10,000.
This glaring inequality, the remnant of the days of feudal oppression, or the relic of a time when the landholders had no money, and taxes could be extracted from movable property only, should forthwith be abolished. Succession of all kinds, whether in land, bonds heritably secured, or movable funds, should be taxed at the same rate. And by the addition of the vast amount of the landed property to the produce of the succession duty, it would be in the power of Governmentto reduce the general tax at least a halfwithout any diminution, probably a large increase, in the general result. This must be at once apparent, when it is recollected that out of £5,303,000, which the income tax produced in 1845, from Britain, no less than £2,666,000, or nearly a half, came from the land. When it is recollected that the remainder embraced, besides income from realized money, no less than £1,541,000 for professional income, which of course corresponds to a comparatively small amount of realized capital, it is evident how great an increase to the taxable amount of succession this most equitable change would produce. It need hardly be said that the land should pay on so many years' purchase, say thirty in Great Britain, and twenty in Ireland of theclear rent, after deducting the interest of mortgages or heritable bonds or jointures.Theywould pay the tax on the succession of their holders respectively. And the distinction as to the lesser amount of the tax to be paid by children and relations, than strangers, now observed in the succession to personal property,should be applied also to landed succession.
This is one obvious burden, which should be applied equally to landed as to any other class of proprietors. But there are several particulars in which they are most unjustly subjected to burdens from which other classes are relieved; and if they get justice done them in this respect, they could well afford to pay the succession duty.
In the first place, the levying of thePoor's Rateas a burden exclusively laid onrealproperty in England, that is, lands and houses, to the entire liberation of personal property or professional incomes, is a most monstrous inequality—indefensible on every principle of justice or expedience, and the long continuance of which can only be explained by the well known and proverbial supineness of that class of men, and their inability to rouse themselves to any combined or general effort, even for matters in which their own vital interests are concerned. The Poor's Rate, it is well known, is, especially in England, a very heavy burden. It amounted, prior to the late change in the law in England, to above £8,000,000 a-year: and although it was at first considerably reduced in the years immediately succeeding the first introduction of that Act in 1834, yet it has been steadily rising since, and has now nearly attained its former level.[21]Under the most favourable circumstances it cannot be estimated in round numbers at less than £6,000,000 a-year; in seasons of distress it never fails to reach £7,000,000. Scotland hitherto has paid less, because under the administration of the old law, the support afforded to the poor was miserably stinted, and quite inadequate to meet their necessities. This was fully exposed by the efforts of Dr. Alison and other distinguished philanthropists, and a parliamentary inquiry having demonstrated the truth of their statements, the Act of 1846 introduced a more humane and careful provision for the poor. Under the operation of this Act, the Poor Rate in Scotland has in most places considerably, and in some alarmingly, increased. The dreadful state of Ireland, suffering less under the failure, total as it has been, of the potato crop, than the general indigent condition of the poor, has at length forcibly aroused the attention of all classes in the empire, and it may confidently be predicted that the mockery of supposing the Irish paupers, 2,300,000 in number, to be provided for because £240,000 a-year, or abouttwo shillingsa head a-year, is levied for their relief on a rental of above £12,000,000 annually, cannot much longer be maintained. The Poor's Rate, therefore, is a subject which already interests deeply, and is likely to interest still more deeply, every part of the empire, and it is of the highest importance to consider what are the principles on which, in conformity with justice and expedience, it should be levied.
The monstrous injustice of the present system will be rendered apparent by a single example. Manufactories, collieries, iron-works, and commercial towns, are, it is well known, the greatproducersof the poor, because they bring together the labouring classes in vast numbers from all quarters while trade is prosperous, and leave them in a state of suffering or destitution a burden on the landholders the moment it becomes depressed. The commercial classes, too, are immediately and directly benefited by the labour of these manufacturing poor while they retain their health; while the landholders in their vicinity are only so indirectly and in a lesser degree. This is decisively demonstrated by the colossal fortunes so frequently made in the commercial classes, contrasted with the declining circumstances or actual insolvency of the landholders by whom they are surrounded. Do these, the merchants and manufacturers, pay the larger proportion ofthe poor tax, thus rendered inevitable by the nature of their operations, which are in so high a degree beneficial to themselves? Quite the reverse: they do not, in proportion to their profits, pay atenth partof its amount. The poor's rate, as at present levied, is on the rural proprietors anIncome, on burgh inhabitants aHousetax. The difference is prodigious, and leads to results in practice of the grossest injustice.
A landowner has an estate of £2000 a-year in a parish of which the poor's-rate is 1s. in the pound, or £100 a-year on his property. A manufactory is established, or an iron-work set agoing, or a coal mine opened upon it, from which the fortunate owner derives £50,000 a-year of profit. The buildings on it, however, are only valued at £2000 a-year. He pays for hispauper creatingwork, yielding him £50,000 a-year, £100 annually, the same as what the landowner in the same parish pays for hispauper-feedingestate of £2000 a-year. In other words, in proportion to the respective incomes, the landholder, who had no hand in bringing in the poor, and derives little or nothing from their labour, pays justfive-and-twenty timesas much as the manufacturer who introduced them, and is daily making a colossal fortune by their exertions! And this becomes the more unjust when it is recollected, that under the present system of free trade in corn and easy communication with distant quarters which railways and steam-boats afford, the little benefit the neighbouring landholders formerly derived from the presence of such manufacturing crowds, is fast disappearing. But further, the manufacturer or mine-owner having got off thus easily during the time of prosperous trade, when he was realising his fortune, stops his works, and discharges his workmen when the adverse season arrives. The rateable value of the manufactory or the mine has, for the present, almost or wholly disappeared, and the poor starving workmen are handed over to be supported by the land-owner.
Persons not practically acquainted with these matters may think this statement is overcharged: on the contrary, it iswithinthe truth in some instances. We know an instance of a great iron master, whose profits average above £100,000 a-year, who pays less poor's rates for the poor he has mainly created, than a landholder in the same parish, of £2000 a-year, who never brought a pauper on its funds in his life. Such is the consequences of the present barbarous system of levying the poor's rate as an income tax on the landlords who are burdened with paupers, and only a house tax on the manufacturers who create and profit by them. The first thing to be done towards the introduction of a just system of direct taxation is to lay the maintenance of the poor equally on all classes; and above all to abolish the present most unjust system of making it only a house tax on the producers of poor in towns, and an income tax on their feeders in the country.
TheLand Taxis another burden, exclusively affecting real property, which should either be abolished, altogether or levied equally on all classes. Its amount is not so great as the poor's rate, nevertheless it is considerable, as it produces about £1,172,000 a-year.[22]
The wholeAssessed Taxes, though not avowedly and exclusively a tax on the landed interest, are, practically speaking, and in reality, a burden on them almost entirely; at least they are so much heavier on the landowners than the inhabitants of towns, that the burden is nothing in comparison on urban indwellers. Had they been practically felt as a grievance by the urban population they would long since have shared the fate of the house tax and been abolished. They have so long been kept up only because, with a few exceptions, they press almost exclusively upon that passive and supine class of landlords, the natural prey of Chancellors of the Exchequer, whom it seems generally impossible by any exertions, or the advent of any danger how urgent soever, to rouse to any common measure of defence. It no doubt sounds well to say that the assessed taxes are laidgenerally on luxuries, and therefore they are paid equally by all classes which indulge in them. But a closer examination will show that this view is entirely fallacious, and that the subjects actually taxed, though really luxuries to urban, are necessary aids to rural life. For example, a carriage, a riding horse, a coachman, a groom, are really luxuries in town, and their use may be considered as a fair test of affluent, or at least easy circumstances. But in the country they are absolutely necessaries. They are indispensable to business, to health, to mutual communication, to society, to existence. What similarity is there between the situation of a merchant with £1000 a-year, living in a comfortable town house, with an omnibus driving past his door every five minutes, a stand of cabs within call, and dining three days in the week at a club where he needs no servants of his own; and a landholder enjoying the same income, living in a country situation, with no neighbour within five miles, and having six miles to ride or drive to the nearest town or railway station where his business is to be transacted, or where a public conveyance can be reached?
Gardeners, park-keepers, foresters and the like, are generally not luxuries in the country, they are a necessary part of an establishment which is to turn the land to a profitable use. You might as well tax operatives in mills, or miners in collieries, or mechanics in manufactories, as such servants. Yet they are all swept into the assessed taxes, upon the rude and unfounded presumption that they are, equally with a large establishment of men-servants in towns, an indication of affluent circumstances. The window tax is incomparably, more oppressive in country houses than in town ones, from their greater size in general, and being for the most part constructed at a period when no attention was paid to the number of windows, and they were generally made very small from being formed before the window tax was laid on. Taking all these circumstances into view, it is not going too far to assert, that on equal fortunes the assessed taxes aretwice as heavyin the country as in towns; and that of £3,312,000 which they produce annually, after deducting the land tax, about £2,500,000, is paid bylandowners either in town or country. It is inconceivable—no onea prioricould credit it—how few householders in town, and not being landowners, pay any assessed taxes at all—or any of such amount as to be really a burden. The total number of houses charged to the window tax, in Great Britain, is 447,000, and the duty levied on them is, £1,613,774, or, at an average, about £3, 10s. a-house, while the number of inhabited houses was, in 1841, 3,164,000, or above seven times the number. The total number charged with one man-servant, is only 49,320, and,persons keeping men-servants at all, 110,849,[23]facts indicating how extremely partial is the operation of these taxes, and how severely they fall on the class most heavily burdened in other respects, and therefore least able to bear them.
TheHighway Ratesare another burden exclusively affecting land, although the whole community derive benefit from their use. This burden, exclusive of the sum levied at turnpike gates, in England amounted to £1,169,891, a-year.[24]This charge, heavy as it is, is felt as the more vexatious, that the rate-payers are not at liberty either to limit the use of the road, for which they pay, to themselves, or to allow it to fall into disrepair. An indictment of the road lies at common law, if it becomes unfit for traffic, even at the instance of any party using the road, though he does not pay any part of the rate. In other words, the neighbouring landholders are compelled to keep up the roads for the benefit of the public generally, who contribute nothing towards their maintenance. This matter becomes the more serious that in consequence of the general adoption and immense spread of railways, the traffic on the principal lines of road in England, has either almost entirely disappeared, or become inadequate to contributing any thing material to thesupport even of the turnpikes hitherto entirely maintained by them. It is not difficult to foresee, that the time is not far distant when nearly thewhole roads of England will fall as a burden on the rate payers; for these roads cannot be abandoned, or the country off the railway lines would have no communication at all. And the sums paid by railway companies, how large soever, to landholders, afford no general compensation; for they benefit a few in the close vicinity of the railways only, while the highway rate affects all.
TheChurch Rateis another burden exclusively affecting land, though all classes obtain the benefit of it in the comfort and convenience of churches. It amounted, in 1839, the last year for which a return was made, to £506,512.[25]Nothing can be clearer than that this is a burden truly affecting real estates. It is entirely different from tithes, which are not, correctly speaking, a burden on land, but a separate estate apart from that of the landlord, which never was his, for which he has given no valuable consideration. But on what principle of justice is the burden of upholding churches exclusively laid on the land, when all classes sit in churches, and enjoy the benefit of their accommodation. The thing is evidently and palpably unjust, and won't bear an argument.
ThePolice,Lunatic Asylum, andBridge Rates, constitute another burden on real property to which no other property is subject, which, though not universally introduced, are very oppressive in those counties where their establishment has been found necessary. Mr. Blamire, a very competent witness, estimates these incidental and partial charges at 2s. 1d. an acre.[26]The land is still liable also to a heavy disbursement on account of the Militia, if that national force should be again called out. There has been no return yet laid before parliament of these partial burdens on land, but they cannot be estimated at less than the church rate, or £500,000 a-year.
TheStamp Duties, from deeds and instruments which produce annually £1,646,000 a-year, fall for the most part as a burden on real property. This must be evident to every person who considers that real estates in land or houses are the great security on which money is advanced in every part of the country, and the extremely heavy burdens, in the shape of a direct payment in the requisite stamps for deeds to government, is imposed on the transmission and burdening of such property. It is particularly severe, in proportion to the value of the subjects burdened, in the mortgaging or alienating of small freeholds or heritable subjects. It is stated in the Lords' Report, on the burdens affecting real property, "The stamp on a conveyance of a certain length, on a sale of real subjects of the value of £50, would cost 12-1/2 per cent, or £6, 10s.; on a £100 sale, to 5 per cent; on a £200 sale, to 2-1/2 per cent; on a £500 sale, to £1, 14s. 3d. per £100; and above that sum, to one per cent." The weight on the establishment of mortgages, especially on small sums, is not less remarkable. The same report adds, "A mortgage for £50 costs, in stamps, and law expenses, thirty per cent.; a mortgage for £100, twenty per cent.; one for £450 seven per cent.; for £1500 three per cent.; for £12,500 one per cent.; for £25,000 fifteen shillings per cent, and for £100,000 twelve shillings per cent."[27]These burdens on the sale or mortgaging of real property are felt as the more oppressive, when it is recollected that movable property to the greatest amount, as in the public funds, or the like, may be alienated, or burdened in the most valid and effectual manner for the cost of a power of attorney, which is a guinea and half-a-crown per cent. to the broker who executes the transaction. Materials do not exist for separating exactly the deed-stamps falling as a burden on land transmissions and mortgages, from those affecting personal estates; but it is certainly within the mark to say, that they are three-fourths of the whole stamp-duties on deeds and instruments, or £1,200,000 a-year.
Thus, it appears that, setting aside the tithe, as not the land-owner's property, and, therefore, a separate estate, and not, properly speaking, a burden on land; and saying nothing of the malt-tax, which produces annually £4,500,000 a-year, on the supposition that, at present at least, that falls as a burden on the consumer; and saying nothing of the income-tax, which, as will immediately appear, falls as a much severer burden on land-rents than commercial incomes,—these distinct, clear, and indisputable burdens laid on land, from which property of other sorts in England are exempt, stand thus:—