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    Untitled Article

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    NATIONAL STOCK-TAKING.

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    land ? You must be provided with , an outfit for every season if you would meet the changes of a single day . And so with the vast seini-sayage populations of the East , sank in gross . ignorance and still grosser superstition , and hating the European for his very civilization . You must be provided iigainsfc such , an uprising as that Avhich has lately been put down in the East , even when the horizon appears without a speck . The causes of such an event are not very occult . The occasion of the outburst may have been a , . trifle ; but the real causes resolve themselves "into that antagonism which must ever subsist between dominant settlers and the people wham they holdin subjection , and whose country they have " annexed . " At the first blush it certainly would appeal as if they ordered these things better , not indeed in France , but in Russia and America , inasmuch as those states have been far more successful than ourselves and the Flench . They may probably have profited by our example , whereas the French have been embarked in the same bottom Avith British policy in recent dealings , and that policy is no favourite with the natives . ; but the true reason Avhy the Chinese , for example , look with such an evil eye ' upon our diplomacy , is simply because , as a commercial people , we have had so . much dealiil < j with - them , ami have in a true mercantile spirit striven by fair means or foul to drive a good bargain . Now , when a civilized and powerful nation deals -with one that is all but barbarous , the chances of quarrel will be in proportion to the extent of the transactions ; the untutored race is sure to be taken advantage of , and tohave that advantage justified and enforced by dint of might over right . . It will then attempt . : to resist by force the aggression ? ,. which it can acutely feel , without being , able to parry by cpimneieial dexterity . The insurrection thus pi-ovoked will be chiistised by conquest , by the acquisition of territory , by exacting the cost of the war ; this , in a few ¦ words , is the invariable ivsult of the intercourse between an uncivilized people whose country is worth possessing and a civilized pile , who thinks it worth while to settle there . In the struggle of existence , a civilized nice is sure to overrun , : subject . sup ^> iiint , and finally obliterate , so far as distinctness of nationality is concerned , a barbarous one with which it hapyons to conic into collision . It is the principle of com . petition which obtains in trade , of natural selection among the inferior animals—the weakest goes to the wjill . We do not say that this is right or desirable ; we only . sayit is , as things are constituted , inevitable . \ Ye do not believe that whatever is is right '; and we believe that the exact converse of the absurdity of this being the best of all possible woxids is nearer , the ' truth than the platitude itself . But we must take things as they are . If England did not rule in India and C hina , other nations , whose yoke would be far less tolerable , would soon take pur place . If Jox . es did not compote with his rival Bkown- in the cherrp tailoring line , Roiunson would immediately step in to give the public . ' the benefits of competition . " England is in for it now . In tho present state of public opinion Wo are not -likely to give up our . Oriental possessions . All wo can do is not to bo too exacting ; not to bully our uncivilised , fellow-creatures too much ; to strive to conciliate as muoh as possible b y a judicious mixture of firmness and kindness ; by the exhibition of resistless jiower and swift unerring retribution on really aggressive acts , united with an ovon-handed system of justice . Above all , let the Chinese war be brought to a close , with as little bloodshed and cxponse as possible * and upon as easy terms as may be compatible with rospeet for the British name ; and let not the poaco so made bo lightly brolsen ,

    Untitled Article

    876 The Saturday Analyst and Leader . [ Oct . 20 , I 860

    National Stock-Taking.

    NATIONAL STOCK-TAKING .

    Untitled Article

    A COUNTRY . Hint can afford to pay upwards of 25 , OQO , O 0 QL ~ t % - sterling per annum in customs duties upon articles pf general consumption , if not of primary necessity , exclusive of the excise it pays upon home produce , is , undoubtedly , a country of exhaustless , wealth ; but a country which does thia at the same timo that it vauats itself as the npostle of freetraclo among tho nations , is not an over and above consistent country , Such ft country , however , is England , The six millions of British workers , the grout consumers and producers of articles subject to customs duties , are the paymasters of the bulk of this enormous sum , though the vast majority of them have no voice in making the laws by which it is imposed ;—another fact , which , side by side with Lord Chatham ' s famous dictum , *• taxation without reprosentatipn is tyranny , " does not ' -tend , by any menus , to , rectify the notions of consistency created by the previous fact alluded to ,

    Let us , however , with the aid of the last Customs Report , examine the enormous annual wealth , a mere per-centage ,. ' on which represents more than 25 , 000 , 000 /; The exports of British produce for the year 1859 , were , using round numbers , one hundred and thirty ¦ ¦ millions , and a .-half sterling , while our imports of the foreigner ' s produce amounted to one hundrdd and seventy-nine millions and a-half . But we do not merely export ; we . re-export ; .-and of ' our imports riot less than twenty-five millions sterling were subsequently exported . Deducting * this amount from the original receipts , we have a hundred and . fifty-four ¦ millions of net imports , which , set against the home produce exported , shows a nominal difference of twenty-live millions excess of the former over the latter ; or , reduced to an average , about thirteen per cent . ; the real difference , however , between the two amounts is said to be little , if any , because insurance , freightage , and general charges will , the Report informs us , when taken into account , make the balance pretty even . The chief point that presses itself upon our attention , is the curious circumstance that such an intangible , incorporeal thing as human happiness and national prosperity resolves itself entirely into a question of corn and grocery , metal and meat . Hut : when we come to the inexorable test of statistics , to the rigorous lo ^ ic of figures , we find that when a nation has consumed much beef and bread , and tea and sugar and coffee , and got plenty of iron , and other mineral productjoris- ^ eyeriincluding such yellow dross asgold- ^—to deal in , that 'impalpable etherealessence called" happiness , " which poets and philosop hers have rhapsodised upon so delightfully , does , iti " the great average of human affairs . " find its maximum . True , it may be , that a happy man may be found in the midst of penury and famine ; but . it is Jiottrue of -man .. Upon a cursory view , however , this test would seem to fail us in the present ease , and to suggest the paradox , that there is nothing so fallacious as figures except fuels . Thpru has been ari apparent falling , off in tea and corn in the year ' ' 1-859 ; - but this is explainable by the fact that , for our own consumption , we did' not ' fake' less , but more , tea . in 3-S 59 than in 1858 , though hot . so much to export again ; and -that a more abundant home harvest made us less dependent upon foreign cereals . To take the best test of aTl , we find , the revenue of 1859 increased'by a million , as compared with that of the preceding year .- One of the evils of indirect taxation appears upon the face of the report itself ;—the creation of the factitious artificial' crime of smuggling . The act of bringing foreign commodities into the country ,. . and carrying home produce abroad , is , in itself , not inertly an innocent act , but . upon every principle of free-trade , a highly beneficial one . Yet this unobjectionable mode of obtaining alivelihood , is , by an absurd and oppressive law , converted into a criminal offence , punishable by severe penalties , and often productive of sanguinary encounters , in which men are killed or maimed for life . We arc not surprised to learn from the report that the inquisitorial nuisance of crows-examining travellers about their luggage , or ransacking the luggage itself , is regarded by them as peculiarly vexatious and offensive . Yet vve abuse the passport system , as if'there was the slightest difference in principle , except that the hitter is more necessitated by circumstances than the former . The "Great Gold Question" has boon well discussed in Mr . Cobben'h valuable edition of M . ChicvalikiVs work > and the report before us affords data for forming an appi'oximative estimate of the influence which tho new gold fields are likely to exorcise in the long run . In 185 U , Russia and South America sent us about a couple of millions each ; but California sxtppliod littlci short of eight , and A ustralia little short : of nine millions ; the total being in round numbers twenty-two millions ; the whole world , beside ^ only contributed about u ' million .. Mox'o than two-thirds of this gold ( fifteen millions in round numbers ) found , its wiy into France ., The amount of silver we received was seventeen and a-half millions ; of which nearly six and a-half millions came from Franco ; while wo sont sixteen millions of it to India and China . It is curious to traoo the silver ouvront in jts flow from the original source in tlio Western -workl , through Europe , into the oxtromitios of Asia ; "while tho goldon stream rmi . 3 in an opposite direction . If wo balanoo the totals we find that out of thirty-seven millions of gold and silver received wo parted with thirty-five rmd a-hull' millions . Suoh isonr national stock-taking for theyoar . 1859 . It shows tho boundless souvocs of our wealth , whioh wvon iho inoubus of indiioct ta . xution , of taxes loviod upon men ' s nocossitiea and wants , nob in proportion to their ability to pay;—of taxes that operate as an impediment alike to production ' and ¦ distribution ; —i « not able to crush , howovor it may woigli thorn down ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 20, 1860, page 875, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2370/page/4/