On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
bug-a-boo a property-tax is to our legislators—there will yet be occasion for an application of the principle to the case of tithe , which should be forthwith transmuted into rent , both in Ireland and England . Tithe should no longer be allowed to fall either on producer or consumer . It was the donation of the proprietor , who thereby made the priest a co-landlord ; and so let it remain . In what proportion they divide the rent between them , matters not either to the cultivator or to the
purchaser of his produce . The public has an interest in the good , for the sake of which the priest was thus endowed ; of which he is the responsible trustee ; but that is another branch of the subject , which has been already adverted to . The Church or Instruction Fund was a gift by original intention , and has been only made a tax by jugglery .
Another case to which there will be an opportunity of applying this principle , is that of the taxation upon knowledge-Most disgraceful is it that this abominable impost should yet remain for discussion . The government is pledged to take it off as soon as the state of the revenue will allow . But when will that time come ?—Or what can be said of the good faith of such a pledsre , when proofs have been tendered aorain and aerain such a pledgewhen proofs have been tendered again and again
, of the possibility of its remission , so far as newspapers are concerned , without loss to the revenue ? One cannot treat this subject exclusively on the common grounds of taxation . It ought to be considered as out of their sphere . Better , infinitely better , were it that the means for disseminating knowledge should be provided for by taxation , than that they should be subjected to taxation .
A Poor Law Bill for Ireland will probably be introduced . The subject is more complicated than any of those which have been glanced at in this paper . The principle of the English Poor Laws is a just and Christian principle . It is , that every man has a right to live . Born into a community which has taken possession of , and divided , the earth and all that it produces ; excluded from his proportionate share of that world which the world's maker has made our common heritage ; he
has a right to , at least , protection from starvation , when the demand for labour is insufficient to afford him the means of subsistence . Still the abuses of this principle have been so enormous , and so demoralizing , that extraordinary caution should be used in its application to Ireland . For all propositions of organic reform ; an Irish Corporation Bill ; the Ballot , and Triennial Parliaments ; Peerage Reform ;
the only principle is that of public utility , applied by means of a sound theory of government , raised on that analysis of general experience and that knowledge of human nature , which make theory the most practical of all things ; and never forgetting that the exclusion or any member of a community from a pro-
Untitled Article
Principles of Legislation for the ensuing Session . 69
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1836, page 69, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2654/page/5/
-