“Semper inopsVentique fidem poscebat et anni.”
“Semper inopsVentique fidem poscebat et anni.”
“Semper inopsVentique fidem poscebat et anni.”
“Semper inops
Ventique fidem poscebat et anni.”
Three-fourths of these immense supplies come from two countries only—Russia and America. Can we say that we are independent for a year together, when either of these powers, by simply closing their harbours, can reduce us to scarcity—the two together to famine prices? If a fourth of our subsistence is cut off by an ukase of the Autocrat of Russia, or a mandate of the imperial people in the United States, where will be the food of the British people? Both these powers were at war with us at the same time in 1811;—are their dispositions now so very friendly, and our interests and theirs so little at variance, that we can rely upon the like thing not occurring again? And if it does occur, could we hold out three months against a secondNon-ImportationAct, passed in either country?
We are often told of the great reduction of taxation which has been effected—to the amount, it is said, of £12,000,000 sterling—since Free Trade was introduced; but this statement is grossly exaggerated. The following tables, taken from a late parliamentary paper, shows that the reduction of taxation under Protection has been nearlySEVEN TIMES GREATERthan under Free Trade; for in the former period the reduction was £41,000,000, in the latter only £6,500,000:—
Further, how has this reduction of £5,860,457 been effected? Simply by the previous imposition of the income-tax, which produced £5,629,000 before Free Trade began. That is, Sir R. Peel took taxes off the shoulders of the whole community, when it was so generally diffused that it was not felt, and laid it asan exclusive burden upon less than 300,000 individualsin it! This is not reduction of taxation; it is shifting the burden, for the sake of popularity, from one class to another, on whom it falls with crushing severity.
The Free-Traders boast of a surplus of above £2,500,000 annually under the operation of their system. But for the income-tax it would not be a surplus at all, but a deficit of £3,000,000 annually. So oppressive, however, vexatious, and unjust is that tax, and so enormous the severity with which it presses upon agricultural industry compared to commercial, that its continuance cannot much longer be endured. It has been truly described as an “imposton the landed interest, and acontributionby the commercial.” And that really is its character, so flagrant are the frauds and evasions by which the unscrupulous among the trading classes evade its operation. The present high state of the public funds, owing to the long continuance of peace, the destruction of a large part of the trading classes by Sir Robert Peel’s monetary system, and the impulse given to industry by the repeal of that system, by the opening of the great banks of issue by Providence in California and Australia, has now raised the 3 per cents above 100, and gives a fair prospect of the Chancellor of the Exchequer being able to save £1,500,000 to the nation annually, by converting the 3 per cents into a 2½ per cent stock. Should he effect this, and, by the aid of that reduction and the surplus, succeed in taking off the income-tax, he will confer the greatest boon ever bestowed on his country since the former tax of 10 per cent was repealed, and do more to establish the popularity of his administration, than by any other measures that could possibly be devised.