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Those only would think of leaving it , who could best be spared , and we could well endure their absenteeism . The taxes would be paid but once , and with the smallest expense in collecting ; new markets would open ; the competition which is becoming formidable , would be distanced ; and the thriving architect of a fortune ,
would be tenfold remunerated beforehand , for the premium which he would have to pay for the security of his property , when he should resign himself to its enjoyment . Instead of industry being paralyzed , fresh life-blood would be infused into its veins , and strength into its sinews . Only imagine the removal of a burden
of thirteen millions per annum from the labouring classes of this country . It would be a beautiful ' paralysis . ' And the removal of almost double that pressure from the middle classes ; they would be paralyzed too . There would certainly be little disposition in either to move off . Nor would more than a fraction of the burden
taken from them fall upon the wealthy . There would be the saving of an enormous expense in collection ; smd having the powers of legislation chiefly in their own hands , retrenchments in public expenditure would no doubt be found practicable , which now are pronounced to be totally impossible . Altogether , we should not be quite so totally ruined as the reviewer prophesies .
If the present system of taxation is to continue , there are many taxes of which we should rather be rid than the assessed taxes ; many which are worse in principle and more injurious in their results . We agree with the reviewer that their pressure falls chiefly upon the middle and not on the lower classes . It is not the mechanic , but the tradesman and shopkeeper , that is
chiefly affected by them . They injure , not so much the producers as the exchangers and distributors of commodities . They might be worse : it does not follow that they are not sufficiently bad . Their continuance partakes something of the nature of a retributory visitation on the middle classes for that apathy towards
the political rights and peculiar interests of the labouring classes , which they have to a considerable extent manifested . Had they stood by those classes in demanding a more extended suffrage , they would now have had a better prospect of relief . Had they even exerted themselves as much for the addition to the Reform
Bill , of free , that is , secret voting , and responsible , that is , short parliaments , as they have done for the removal of this impost , there would have been a tolerable certainty of its removal as soon as those changes came into operation . They have ( a large proportion of them ) acted under the influence of that blighting curse
of our country , —the selfishness of class morality , and verily they have their reward . It might have come , indeed , with a better grace from other hands . It might have been left for other than ministerial tongues and pens to revile them as fools or madmen , rogues and revolutionists . It might have been left for other journals than the * Edinburgh' to smile at their complaints as
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tioust and Window Tar . 577
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No . 80 . 2 8
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 577, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/65/
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