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Untitled Article
• quite inconsiderable . And those who needed and had their help , pledged even to the extreme of refusing payment of taxes should the Tories be restored , might have spared the taunt and threat which are somewhat indiscreetly put forth in the article under consideration . How like the repetition of an old Standard or John Bull cheer to Wellington and his musketeers , does it read . ' Let Government be firm and decided ; let all attempts at resistance , provided any such be made , be immediately repressed by prompt and exemplary punishment , and they will very soon cease to be heard of . * ( P . 438 . ) How it smacks of the spirit of the Great Captain . In what a summary way are the refractory to be disposed of . The modus is not revealed . Is submitting to seizure for taxes to be made treasonable ? Is the empty pocket to become legal evidence of felony , without benefit of clergy ? Must there be an English Coercion Bill for the pacification of the Strand and Regent Street ? The reviewer and the reviewer ' s masters may depend upon it , that when once any considerable body of the people are so far provoked as to leave the tax-gatherer to his remedy , it will not be so easy a task as they imagine to settle the account . Big words will not do . ' Vigour beyond the law' is a kind of action that induces reaction . Tax in kind is less manageable than tithe in kind . The people have learned from events that they possess a peaceful power which may make Government give up a tax , ' and give up something else along with it . No bluster , then . ' Some mollification for your giant , ' sweet peers and potentates , great lords of Downing Street and St Stephen ' s . Like Bottom the weaver , let him roar gently .
Ihe beauties of the assessed taxes , according to the reviewer , are four : * They give no encouragement to smuggling ; they do not change the natural distribution of capital and industry ; their assessment requires no officious interference with the affairs of individuals ; and they are not easily evaded ? Now if these be the criteria of the reviewer , let them be fairly applied to that whole system of taxation on articles of consumption and the necessaries of life , of which the assessed taxes are an integral portion . For it must never be forgotten that with them the whole system stands or falls . It was on this view of the question that the House of Commons did decide , and that the people should decide . The alternative was of ministerial selection , and we do not object to it . The choice is between the present system , as a whole , and a property tax . That entire system cannot be more distinctly or completely condemned than by the application of the proposed test . Under the existing imposts , smuggling does exist , the natural distribution of capital and of industry is
perverted , there is plenty of officious and vexatious interference , and there is also abundance of evasion . It is idle to select this particular tax , and by commendation of its assumed qualities vindicate a system of a directly opposite character . This is the mere trick of the rhetorician .
Untitled Article
578 Qn the Defence of the
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 578, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/66/
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