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Untitled Article
operation have been confined to direct government taxes . The tithes , of course , would have been in the same predicament ; so would the parochial rates ; so , to a considerable extent for the time , would it have been even with private debts . The customs and excise must have fallen off , instantly and largely . Their proceeds would have been reduced to a minimum , by every possible
contrivance , and their claims would soon have been disregarded . There would have been a general withdrawment of deposits and balances from bankers' hands , and the cry which had been raised , * To stop the Duke , go for gold , ' would have echoed from one end of the country to the other , —a more potential battle-cry than was ever shouted by feudal chieftain . The financial Atlas , who bore up the funds for two days , must have found the world upon his shoulders
heavy enough to crush him in less than two weeks . In such a state of things , workmen must have been discharged , and markets would not have been supplied . Every district would have been thrown upon its own resources ; the only authorities in the country would have been those to whom the people yielded a voluntary obedience , and out of these must have sprung the power which should create , or indicate , the future government of the country .
There is 3 comparatively , little in this process on which military force could , in any way , be brought to bear ; it could not have been arrested by an army often times the amount of that at present in the country ; they might have held a few towns in military occupation , and they might have levied plunder and forced contributions ; but this mode of ruling Great Britain could not have
lasted long . As it was , the military were of little account in the calculation . The power which has been described would have been beyond the sphere of their opposition , until it was above the reach of their control . It is impalpable and impassable . It cannot be arrested by the constable , nor pierced by the bayonet , nor demolished by whole pares of artillery . The Great Captain might as well make war upon the electric fluid . It would elude as easily ,
and yet diffuse itself as rapidly , shock as violently , and destroy as surely . In its commencement strictly legal , quiet , and , as far as submission can be enforced , obedient , it would soon have displaced all authority , but that of its own choice , and all law but what received its own sanction . This is the power which in Ireland has abolished tithes . It would have been tried in France , two years ago , but for the precipitation which brought the question
between Charles X . and the people to a speedier issue in the streets of Paris . Some illustrative experiments , on a small scale indeed , but successfully , have been made in one or two of the north-western parishes of the metropolis , to rid themselves of the minor nuisance of a select vestry . The public mind has thus been familiarized with it , and familiarity is much to an Englishman . Its nature , extent , and force , have been frequently adverted to ,
Untitled Article
SS 4 The Recent Political Crisis .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 394, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/34/
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