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178 The Leader andSaturday Analyst. [Feb...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Mr. Gladstone's Restrictions On Trade. "...
Gladstone palls the optional expenditure ; and , deducting the debt the other expenditure increased , in the first-mentioned eleven years , 8 f per cent ., and in the last-mentioned six years , 58 per cent . The latter period embraces the Russian War , to which the increase in the local expenditure from £ 13 , 234 , 000 in 1842-3 to Jbl 7 , 418 , 000 in 1859-60 , or no less than . 33 \ 7 per cent . j can by no ineans be charged . To compare this rapid increase of expenditure with the increase of the national wealth Mr . Gladstone takes Schedules A , B , and D of the income tax , He does not include \ like the Edinburgh Reviewer , the salaries of Government officers and the dividends of the National Debt in his estimate of our wealth . He states the net amount of income under these Schedules in 1842-3 at £ 154 , 000 , 000 , in 1853 at
. 6172 , 000 , 000 , and 1859-60 at £ 200 , 000 , 000 . The increase of wealth between 1842 and 1853 was 12 per cent ., and between 1853 and 1859-GO , 1 ( H per cent . The total increase of the wealth of the country measured by these schedules , between 1842 and 1859-60 was not quite 30 per cent ., or did not equal the increase in the local expenditure . In the same period the optional expenditure increased upwards of 70 per cent ., or more than twice as fast as . our wealth . Mr . Gladstone ' s figures then do not justify the increased expenditure , but . they do justify the impatience of the tax-payers under their present burden . They are an all-sufficient reason why the- tax-payers should not be content with Mr . Gladstone ' s proposition to change the place merely on Avhich . the : burden of taxation
rests .. . ¦ . ¦ ; . , - ¦ ¦ ¦ , ¦ . ¦ ¦ . . ¦ One portion of this increase of expenditure -deserves special attention . The return No , 510 , of Session 1858 , of " the sums voted for each yecyr for civil services , from IS 16 to' 1 S 5 . S i / tclnsive , " states separately the salaries and expenses of the public departments in each year . In 1816 the total a mount of salaries , etc ., was £ 204 , 722 ; in 1842 , £ 730 , 321 ; and in -1 . 857 , the latest year given , £ 1 , 516 , 041 . In the last sixteen ; years of the record , therefore , the official gentlemen who dispose of the public mo ' njey augumented their own salaries , and the salaries of their dependents ' 102 per cent :,, ' or 32 per cent ., more than the increase of the optional expenditure in eighteen ye ^ rs . Between 1816 and IS 5 . 7 the increase in the amount of salaries was fully fiverfold , while the increase of the population Avas not ' . more than 73 per' cent ., and the increase in wealth not more than 150 per cent . The salaried servants of the state have got more than the
lion ' s share of the increased produce of industry . In the interval between 1842 and 1859 , the increase of wealth , by Mr . Gladstone ' s test , was 30 per cent ., and the increase of population in the same interval was 18 per cent . The increase of wealth , therefore , amongst the classes who pay income tax under Schedules A , B , and D , was 12 per cent ., or two-thirds more than the increase of population . Schedule A represents the income derived from real property , chiefly rent ; , and whether Ave adopt the erroneous theory of Eicakdq , and say that the increase of rent is due to an increasing difficulty of obtaining subsistence , oi' the true ; theory of Basttat , and ascribe
it to the ingenuity and skill which more and more as society advances avail themselves of the gratuitous sen-ices of nature ; it is , in either casq , equally true that merely owning the land does ' nothing towards helping the increase which owning the land gives tho right to appropriate . The actual increase in the property assessed under Schedule A alone , between IS 13 and 1858 , as stated in the third BepOrt of the Tnlaritl Revenue Board , was no less than 34 per cent ., or nearly double the increase of population . It is very plain , therofore , that the increase of wealth , on which Mr . Gladstone defends the increase of expenditure , is much grentor amongst the mere oAvncrs of
property than amongst tho working multitude . ' It is no justification ' 'accordingly of nn increasing expenditure which falls almost entirely on the latter ; It might justify an increase in the tax on real property to a considerable extent , but not on eatinghouses , the removal of goods in warehouses , on ( look warrants , nnd retaining the taxes on tea and sugar , tho bulk of which are paid by the working multitude . Mr . Gladstone sentimentally moans . over the increasing expenditure , yct v deltoids it nnd profusely provides for it . Ho has . told us sorrowfully that the poor « ro growing poorer and tho rich rioher ; nnd his Budget , in opposition to his own theory , levies £ 70 , 564 , 000 chiefly on the working multitude to enrich still more the wealthy nnd to . x-
enting classes . Slightly understood , the inorenso in wealth of the idlo clossos , in a greater degree than tlic ineraiso of population is nothing for a statesman to bo prp . ud pf . The mutt * of individuals , being excited by the enjoyments and possessions of the idle nnd the opulent few , increase still luster than tho national wealth . However artificial these wants may be , when they oannot bo gratified , the Qovornment will find this inoveoso of wealth very different from nn increase in revenue We disdain the character of party wvitors ,
but when the partisans of the astute , eloquent , and mystifying Mr . Gladstone reproach Mr . Disraeli with a prospective and imaginary delinquency in deferring to a popular impatience of taxation , they must be reminded that Mr . Gladstone has actually demeaned himself to ask the adyice and help of the Mincing-lane brokers , instead of dictating what they are to pay , and has degraded the Government by proposing a crude measure which the mercantile classes will not accept . He already feels that the new wealth he boasts of is not easily taxed .
Our great objection to Mi * . Gladstone s Budget is the exorbitancy of the expenditure . Admitting the necessity to provide for the national defence , why do the ministers prosecute at the same time , at a . great cost , the unworthy war which our vain and foolish diplomatists entered into with the Government of China about a ridiculous point of etiquette ? Why , when the national existence is , as they allege , at stake , do they keep up large military establishments in the colonies ? And why do they go on increasing ' their own establishments and salaries , and never personally make the smallest patriotic sacrifice for the sake of economy ? Within our experience there have been serious agitations for the reduction of particular taxes , to which the ministers of the day nave succumbed ; but the present dissatisfaction with taxation generally , especially amongst the active , influential classes which suffer most from the income-tax , was
nevei surpassed within our recollection . Hitherto the taxation has been borne , thpugh impatiently , because the community has been , in consequence of the gold discoveries , and the liberation of industry from old fetters , very prosperous . But prosperity has begotten habits of proportionate expenditure , and any great reverse , or even any great check to . it , will endanger the -whole revenue , and the very existence of the taxing power . Is it even decent in any Chancellor of the Exchequer to run such a vast risk , in order to maintain the unnecessary expenditure , which Mr . Gladstone essays in vain to excuse rather than justify ? Before he . set about niaking siicli great alterations in the system , he was bound to take care that not a farthing was expended for
any less necessaiy service than the national defence . Resolving , however , to provide for a profuse and wanton expenditure , and finding in existence several direct and indirect taxes— -numerous . customs ,, excise , and Stamp duties , many local rates , all of which require separate costly collectors and establishments , he proposes several new taxes , without getting rid of any one of' these complicated contrivances . He abolishes somr excise and custom-house duties , but leaves . the establishments in
all their greatness . Nay , while he is reducing the revenue from customs , he augments , by new regulations , the duties of customhouse officers . While trade , as the brokers of Mincing-lane tell him , is unanimous in requiring simplicity in business , and deprecating a multiplication of charges , he burdens every imported and exported article , arid every article moved in bond , with a registration fee utterly contemptible in the amount it will yield to the revenue , but enormous in the vexations it will impose on
trade . We want one pi- two simple taxes , like a house tax , great in proportion to the dwelling ; or a well-devised tax on nil property , such as is levied in the State of New York , leaving every kind pf Industry entirely free ; instead of giving the nation something of this kind , or making an approximation towards it , Mr . Gladstone retains every old species of taxation , and introduces several new sorts , to raise a very paltry sum . In modern fiscal proceedings , enlightened by political science , we kno \ v no instance of any proposition to raise new tnxes so completely paltry as the now taxes proposed by Mi . Gladstone .
He takes a custom-lipuse officer ' s , not a statemnu s view oi the bonding system , and speaks accordingly in his letter to the Mincing-lane brokers of the " important services rendered to trade by custom-house establishments . " According to him , therefore , to restrain trade is tp benefit it . Unfortunately , tpo many traders , knowing nothing of social and political principles , however accurately they are acquainted with their own interests , finding iii the present warehousing system advantages , as compared to the indiscriminate rapacity of custom houses , of which they have a traditionary knowledge , confirm Mr , Gladstone in his error , and even ask that the dealers in bonded goods should be
licensed , & c . The publio , however , having seen the tenacity with whioh hop-growers cling to the old duties on hops , tho ssual with which bankers pray fora continuance of restrictions on banking , mid tlio delight which publicans have in a monopoly , must by this time be convinced that the public interests never arc consulted by tho separate trades to which Chancellors pf the Exchequer readily defer . That s , ome dealers therefore are favourable to the now proposition of . Mr . Gladstone ought not to satisfy the publio that they aro just and proper . By enlightened public writers tho registration shilling on the import of n qunrtor of corn , « ud the penny duty on receipts , which relieved the payees of lurgo sums niul subjected to payment a groat multitude of small truns-
178 The Leader Andsaturday Analyst. [Feb...
178 The Leader andSaturday Analyst . [ Feb . 25 , 1800 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 25, 1860, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25021860/page/6/
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