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ME.MOHIA TI-X'ILNICA.
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ART3TOCHACY AND TAXATION.
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of that vast army can only practise rifle shooting' at the expense of one guinea per dozen shots , what hope is there that one tithe of them will ever be able to fire a shot at all ••? . The effect of the regulations t-iiis week at Wimbledon is to exclude from the competition any but the rich , and those whom former practice has made confident of success . How many shopmen or clinks could afford to pay four o-uhieas , or even one guinea , for th ' e privilege . to .. compete for these , prizes ? ' How many of those who could spare the money have " ever ' eveii fired a rifle ? r Many of them have never seen a cartridge , and would be puzzled how " to loud their weapon were they provided UritishTir Wim
• with the requisites . The institution of the - on - Lledon Common on Monday was no doubt an imposing spectacle ; but wo cannot help the conviction that it was altogether premature . Our riflemen want opportunities of practice before they can venture to compete with the ; marksmen of Hythe and the crack shots of Switzerland . If we are to emulate the skill of the bowmen of old , so proudly alluded to in the address to Her Majesty , butts must be erected in every county and district of the kingdom , and our volunteers must have at least weekly opportunities of practising their shoofinsr . And certainly , if this movement is to be a national one , and is meant to be in earnest , the action of the Volunteers-. must not be hedged round with class distinctions and invidious restrictions .
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classes , fallaciously represented as-the upper classes , bat really only . so when compared with the absolute poor . For those on whom it falls heaviest it isa real sacrifice—made to save the poeket , and . still inare , ' to satisfy the spirit of the unquestionably poor . Indirectly , the . poor man may not be greatly a gainer by the - system-, as the ^ sum total scattered among his class is diminished * Jiut you have _ taken the word ' s of discontent out of his mouth ; he is more sensible of a drain , than of a failure of supply , though it may produce the same depletion : he cannot say y ¦ o ' uL put vour ^ h ! mcLJnlo _ his packet as deeply as you miuriit do , — -you havemadtTan eflort in his behalf , and he submits more easily to' inexorable laws from nature than from anan . ' -5 \> r-- men with " incomes , rising from a thousand a year to every imaginable height above it , to have . made , the slightest
filHE aristocracy , . sire oscilhitintc between the terror and the V scandal of the idea of-the people being in a position to tax t / ie >} i- —ii description of iahle turning more surprising than any of the feats of natural magic . They have made eonei-ssionsmore or less graciously , but with the salvo , more or less plausible , that these concessions have been made -with their will , and by their will . In the nuittor of the Ooni Laws there was no question of the thunib--sci-ew . Direct-income taxation struck them , it is true : but the ^ blade parsed more painfully and dangerously through the . sides of that lower class labouring hardly for a small and b . iroly respectable income—ill-left widows of hard " -working professional men , et hoc aenus omne . It was a sacrifice : of -the-middle-: and lower middle
attempt at resistance " to a tax which was pinching .. those on the verge of respectable poverty , and to which the latter submitted as a matter of political necessity for , the sake of their still poorer . brethren , would have been—had it been , possible—an outrageous and insuient farce . The class'on whom the burthen must then have j been . er . iini'ly thrown would . ¦ hay is boon too strong , even for , the ' Jandl ' o :-d : s- of England to cope with , and they know it full well . ; therefore , we give them small thanks for income taxes , reduction - of diitifh , or any ' other measure in whielr they have been fain to : join-with the classes far beneath them in income , lor the beneiit of \ those -who are workinir through their years of-strength for their I
suffered . In Sully V time a hundred arid fifty million francs were raised from the people ; and from tins , of which they paid nothing , placemen and aristocrats clipped so much for their private benefit , that thirty millions only came into the-king's treasury . In Ireland , says Lord Strafford . , " the nobility contrived to lay the taxation almost entirely pn the . poor , tenants . " He givres , as an instance , one Lor . d Qor ] i , who only paid about six and eightpence a quarter towards the twenty thousand pounds of yearly contribution . " This is the aristocratic tendency ; and great as nisiy have been their internal improvement , owing partly to external pressure , since they have suffered , as well as exercised , the squeezing power , still a little of the old leaven is left . Why , actually , when money was wanting at the time of the last French war , when , in the way of voluntary contribution , " regiments were called out to be asked whether they
would give a week ' s pay , and ships' companies brought on deck to Subscribe their contribution , " such is the general love of the rich who have money to keep it , that Sheridan was able boldly in a speech , Jan . 4 th , 1798 , on a motion for an increase of . taxes ,, to state that " From the highest to the lowest of those connected with the Government there had been no example to the people of a spirit of sacrifice . . . . No disposition to contribute voluntarily has yot been displayed from the very hhrhest to the lowest ranks in the administration of Government . " There were generous men—Pitt himself was one ; but this is a fair illustration of money tenacity onthe part of the Tory party at no very distant date ; and what makes it all the worse , this was the question of a single ait , not a final or continuous concession of power or principle—to most of them evidently another name for hard cash .
The notion that' a great and reckless rush is going to be made at the property of the aristocracy , is ; a mere scarecrow ; the _ very class whom , we have before represented as . offering their sides to the weapon which went through their ribs and grazed the --skin of the wealth y * Would again throw their bodies as a barrier sitrainst any attempt upon property of a really unprincipled character , an d so armed with a just quarrel that the weapon would pierce neither . England is no country for sans culotte desperation , and the aristocracy know ife as well as we can tell them . This last matter is not of much consequence , except as not a straw but a paper kite sent up to show the direction and strength of the ; wind ; and the paper is still up , thanks to the breath of the Lords .. We do not make any great grievance qf the ' -matter taken by itself ; - ¦ /¦ ' ¦ ' - - ¦ ¦ ¦¦ ¦¦ ¦ ¦ " ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦ ' "• ' ' ' ¦ ' 'J —
. . ;;_ .. ; . v : , , After all , the taxation from which the richer classes in England have been made to suffer— -we are alnVost ashamed to use the word —is a were flea- bite , when we look " sit their equipages , t heir luxuries still unlopped ; and when we consider" the enormously greater debt which they owe towaroVthe maintemanc&ef the Government that secures to them the safe enjoyment of all their superfluities , than a poor man does for those bare-necessaricsr -x ) -iew , that his country seems scarcely worth staying in , when emigration often offers him happier prospects elsewhere . . '' Quesont aux riches les invnots ? . ¦ ¦ ' Quelques rats dp plus dausleur grange . ' ?
" What are taxes to the rich" ? " says 13 krax < jkk ; " only a fi ; . w more rats in their ham . " When they see and .. know- the privations ami struggles of the poor , this . jealousy of taxation on the part of the trfch ^ -RTrd ^ lre-Trrrtltin ^ with a few words from " Hero Worship . " " Liberty to tax ones * ' ! f ? No century , I think , but a rather barren one , would have fixed on that as the first right of man . A just man ( still more , a wealthy one ) will generally have better cause than , money , in what shape soever , before deciding to revolt against his Government . Ours is a most confused world , in which a good man will be pleased to see any kind of Government , maintain itself in a not insupportable manner ; and here , in England , if ho is not ready to pay a great many taxes which- he can see very small reason in , it will not go well with him , I think j "—words which have much sense in a rich mail ' s , none in a poor man ' s mouth , thoug h , the author puts them into both ' indiscriminately .
pittance-of from eight to thirty shillings a week ; even if force could not , shamo'inus ' t have compelled . The poor labourer is still taxed heavily enough , imlirootly , for the very few luxuries which he enjoys—too . heavily ; not timt we wish to see him a legislator or voter without being a . tiix-p . uyer ; indued , he would . cease to have a right to dictate in any way to a -Government towards tho support of which he contributes absolutely nothing . As it is , ho contributes in u far greater proportion than he fairly ought to do , and we believe that he would rather bear his duo but small fraction ' of direct taxation , than suffer ns ho does from malt and
tobacco duties . Taken as individuals , the improvoincnt in the character of our aristocracy is immense , especially as regards their conduct and feeling towards' , tho-poor . Many of them stand honourably and worthily in-tho van of the many armies of philanthropists who go forth in every direction to the , rescue of humanity ; but nothing is better known than the difference of tho same individual jjct m , and as the member of an order , and as to positive charity thut is not tho main question . As to the general disposition of aristocracies towards thone whom they Jmvo l >> t < l tho power to oppress by their strength and drain for their own benefit ., lot the question bo decided , not by themselves , but by persons of considerably greater
Importance—men who have earned themselves a niuno . us great writers . Take divines , historians , mondLsts , poets , and deduce a Tordiofr 'rake thecharitsvble , utjcensorioim Archbishop Ijkighton 1 , when lie speaks of tho " oppression and hard exactions of hucIi jih are superiors of hinds , grinding tho faces of the poor , ami squeezing them till tho blood come . " Wo could c ' rnnv our airticlo with such passages on the conduct of the landed aristocracies , wherever they , aavo had' the pbweri It has been tho huuio everywhere . Louis Nxpolkon , tho father of tho present Emperor , complains , in his " Documcns Historiquos , '' thut in Holland ' ^ every lord tried to throw tho burthens tuid imposts on tho people . " Every one knows what Franco suffered in the same way , und how long it hud
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ON Ttiescliiy evening , the : 5 rd in . sl .. 3 ) r . 1 * 101 . ' , of Vieinin , \\ hnso _ . sy ' slcui of Mnemonics has n . 'f . ' »; utly attracted : i liu-gu amotiiit of attention in England , ; is vrdl as in 3 'Yniico and . ( J » nn : ! ny , delivered n lociuve exphinntfiry of the basis of his systcui ' at A \ i > rwick College , Warwick tfqunri' , IJt'lgrnve Koad . In addition to the huly jirincipnl , ? , lrs . . l > i , ANCiiA « , i » , und other liiilien connedod with the establishniLMit , tho tiunounoouiwnt of tho lecture ntlnictod a lnum rou . s ¦ siHsomhlngtJ comprising t \ w t / i / o of the neighbourhood , nnd many persons interested in historic-id . research . We sluill Jnko-tld : i opjiortiuiity of giving an annlysis of tho systom ho far as in u single lecture it could bis uulbltled . Tho lecturer commenced by observing , that as | i foreigner he should stand in need of tho indukniee of liin jiuditorv—an apology altogether unnecessary , iih Dr . V \ m niicnks the-English huvgunga . oxtroii » L'ly wall . iIu .. hiiid . tl ) at . h ( i . sl ) ould . bL > « lJl ^ by . Mhowi ' m ? whiithiri system would ( U . bfl ' ovo ho proceo . lod to cjqtlain tho lhooiV " on whiith- it wan \ n \ M > d , and ho caused a lionrd to b «? »( . iviH **« I ' by linen ( if black cludlc into twi-nty-Hve divisions , oiudi niiinb . Tcd ; various nieinbcr . s of the company Jhen gave each thin ; fiynri-s , llamin ^ nt tho same time the eiiinpurtim-nt in which they drMVi-a thorn to bo i . lnod , ho that when all wore filled tlwiv worn si-vrnlyfive flguroH on the board , tho order of which had I ) . ; .- ; . Nind . fnur-DOBfilyaa irruguiar us pon ^ iblo . Dr . Pmw , who had during the whole procoa * stood with hid biu-U to the board , the figures being- « nttcu
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July 7 , 1 SCO ] The Satm-day Analyst and Leader . 631
Me.Mohia Ti-X'Ilnica.
ME . MOHIA TIOCILNICA .
Art3tochacy And Taxation.
ARTSTOCllAOY" AND TAXATION .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 7, 1860, page 631, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2355/page/7/
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