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Leader (1850-1860), 10th March 1860, Edition 2 of 2, Page 14, * X>es Wruitts de Commerce, solon la Con...

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      A Dream Of Taxation. [As It Is The Objec...

      Besides yielding a lar ^ e sum , licenses would tend to make trade more respectable . If the hop duty and the malt duty were abolished , and if the beer license were four or five times as much as it is now , the low beershops would disappear , the hop-grower and the maltster being meanwhile benefited . Our unpaid magistracy is a monstrous imposture ; but we should allow neither paid nor nnpaid magistrates to interfere with the Government ' s right to grant licenses . If a man ¦ Wants to sell spirit ? , or beer , or wine , let him have a license for selling 1 them ; if he commits ah offence against police or other Jaw , let him "be punished for the particular act . Is it not in the highest degree unjust to punish him for the particular act , and rob him of his means of livelihood too ? A poor cabman does

      somethingwrong . You fine and imprison him ; that is surely enough ; but in addition you decree that he is never to be a cabman more , and this is horrible injustice and cruelty . There is another aspect of taxation closely connected with this : the police is ordered to put down gambling houses and betting houses—it puts down neither ; it cannot put down either ; but . it admirably succeeds in giving to vice that intensity and tenacity which make it incurable . If each keeper of a gambling house or of a betting house had to pay a hundred a year to Government , there would be an important addition to the revenue ; that which now skulks in villanotis comers would be open to the gaze of every one , and the control of . public opinion would be far more effectual for remedy or prevention than the control '¦ ¦ of the police . In England , we find ourselves knocking our

      heads every day against two tilings—the Rump of Medievalism and the Rump of Puritanism , The latter Rump hinders us , as much as English stolidity and Tinteachableness , from carrying out a , noble plan of taxation ! A false Puritanism , besides contradicting human nature , increases , intensifies every evil that it would- cure . Its attempts lately at suppressing vice have been supremely ridiculous ; , and they have simply made the community—too hypocritical already —infinitely more a hypocrite . This is a theme for the satirist , more than for sober mortals like ourselves , who want to show how taxation may be alike simple and productive . It is ours only to say that the very weakest government in England may now defy the false puritans ; and , as the principal representative in Parliament of the Rump of Medisevalism , Mr . Gladstone ought to defy

      them . . It is more our desire to brealc ground on the subject of taxation , than to give , fortified by figures and blue books , a systematic exposition grouped and graceful . Of direct taxation we are the advocates out and out . If we have given prominence to licenses , it is merely as an illustration . Stamp duties are good taxes .. A house tax of a shilling in the . pound , universally levied , but to be paid in the first instance by the landlord , would be a good tax . But , . truth , so many people live by levying- taxes , so many by avoiding them , or by paying an inadequate proportion , so many—ornamental knowled of

      persons—by eating taxes , that it is not so much ge as hope amendment or courage to reform which is wanting . We might spend less than half in levying , yet make the taxes doubly productive ; while we mi ^ ht spendless -than half on the army and navy , yet render both more effective . Hail to real financiers ! Hail to veal economists We have a word ,. by-and-by , to say to the Peelites , a ' nd especially about their leader and prophet , Mr . Gladstone . But briefly , we may now say that the reason why the Peelites have failed , not only as finaii ? ciers and economists , but as sta tesmen , is that they have more head than heart , more heart than will , and it is will and heart that evermore g-ain the mastery of the world .

      234 The Leader Aiid Saturday A7iahjsl. |...

      234 The Leader aiid Saturday A 7 iahjsl . | M £ iicn 10 , I 860 .

      A French- "Chowler.* Had This Pamphlet O...

      A FRENCH- " CHOWLER . * HAD this pamphlet of M . Girardin been on the other side , it would have been entirely admirable . The acutoness with which the arguments are manipulated , the fearlessness with which the author attacks his opponents , and above all ,, the independence of expression which this " old patriot of' 89 , " us lie calls himself , has cultivated , all contribute to form an important and remarkable production ; and the most stanch Free-trader tnay , without compromise , praise the tone of this Protectionist writer . In plain truth , however , in order to understand the full meaning of M , Girardin ' a remarks , it is necessary to regard them as directed much more agajnst tine application of I ' l-otcutioninfc principles to discussion , thai * their abolition in commerce : and though the nuihor is evidently liostilo to free-trade , his chief complaint is that , its ; supporters in Franco tyrannically suppress " free-trade in proofs and arguments . "

      In this position every Englishman must > ynipathize with Jt , Girurdin ; aind however eaunostly wo may prefer , tlio vigour and com « pnrativo enligthtenment of the Imperial vdgimc to the sway of efi ' cto Bmirbonism , or tho wrangling anarchy of tho republic , wo must d <> plore the repression of Ivee debate , whother it be demanded by the licence of tho national character , or by tho caprice of despotic policy . ' Jjti % us lippo that the new system which is inaugurated by fyee trade will , at Rome near period , be crowned witli tho . ' vat move important light of unrestricted tliacussion , l < Yee exchange of muteiiul goods is an inadequate ofl ' crintf , unless it he followed by permission of equal freedom in circulating and interchanging arguments . Free trade in commerce in good , bi . it iVeo tnido in thong-lit is still better . 44 Borrowing 1 her cutlery * instead of hpr liberty , from England , is this advancing civilization ? " exclaims M . Girardin . Ycfl ;" but interchange of mtmulnwturo may very well precede interchange of liberal institutions . As yearn advance , and tlio French nation experiences tl » o benefits of n liirtfo expansion of trade , they will begin

      to have their lightheartedness and impetuosity tempered by a due admixture of the commercial element , and possibly the end of our century inay see Napoleon IV . ¦¦ a constitutional- monarch .. M . Girardin takes exception to the commercial treaty with England on two grounds , . and regards it both as inexpedient in itself , and as being a virtual infringement of the con . stitu'tion of 1852 , ' when the Imperial prerogative was-defined . ( 1 . ) On the first . ' -point , ¦ ¦ namely , expediency , he argues that all treaties of commerce bet-ween two countries are objectionable under any circumstances , inasmuch as they fetter that free : control which every nation oii"ht to have over the management of its own finances . Why should not two great States * by a common agreement , revise their tariffs , each on its own account , and adapt one to the other without mutually shackling their liberty ?

      This objection is borrowed from Mr . Pisraeli , ^ vlio complained against the treaty as a deviation from the principles of political economy , and " a tying of our hands in the administration of our own finances . " We do not deny that under ordinary circumstances this argument is sufficiently tenable , but there is no principle so universal that the pressure of events and the rise or unexpected incidents may not legitimately demand some concession , and too close an adherence to the letter frequently involves the commission of what is absolutely hostile to tlie spirit . Surely it was politic in the English ministers to sacrifice to a trifling extent the independent commercial field

      control of finance for the sake of enlarging our , and of doing-oxir utmost to promote free trade principles ; and it was no less wise and laudable in the French Emperor to undertake a measure . winch j- though apparently antagonistic to an established principle of political .. economy ; and unwelcome among-st a selfish and short-sighted class , must certainly tend . to an almost unlimited increase of national wealth , and .-eventually to the perfect development of- 'the . . national character and institutions * -In short , 'hi politics . as in private life ,-we are constantly called upon to weigh two principles , either of which abstractly true may become so modified by circumstances as to he for the time impracticable ; we are bound to choose

      which of the two is most , expedient . But supposing- some .. anomalous state ' of ; thing's justified the ratification of a commercial treaty , says M . Girardin , France is not prepared for the application of the competitive principle to her trade : Frencli industry has indeed made marvellous progress , but under a system of moderate protection , and not of free trade . " English commerce and English industry have required almost a hundred and fifty years of the prcitective system to create their great firms , and to aniass those enormous capitals Which enable them to compete against the whole of Europe ; and yet you wish our industry and our commerce , which scarcely dates from the empire , which has not yet had more than fifty years for its -growth , which has only , been able to accumulate capital for the hist thirty

      years of peace ; you wish our industry : to accept the rivalry of the industry of England ; you want to pit the child against the fullgrown man ! " But , says the advocate of free trade , if this system has met witU such admirable success in England for the last ten years , why should it not work equally well in France ? To which M . Girardin impetuously answers , " Ask all the statesmen of our time how it is that parliamentary government , which is the cause of England ' strength and greatness , yet can never , as they constantly assert , become firmly established in . this country . They will at once tell you that our customs and our ideas are entirely different from those of England ; that we have not the

      same feel ings or the same character ; that our past history , our continental situation , our civil institutions--everything , in short , is different from England . It is only our commerce ^ then , and our industry which can be put under an English system without inconvenience and without danger ; it is in this only that we can resemble England ! In every thing else , complete difference , but on this point an absolute harmony : such is the decision of the free traders . I would lend myself readily enough to' a free exchange between Franco and England in laws , institutions , and parliaments : such free trade is forbidden , on account , they eay , of the profound differences between tho two countries : it is only free exchange of goods that is allowed . " ( p . 1-1 . )

      This is Rpecious arguing , and will have more than ordinary weight with the' French nation , who nob only recognise but glory in ythat entire dissimilarity of character which undeniably subsists between themselves and their " natural enemies . " across the channel ; but the fact that parliamentary government hns ° not hitherto worked well in France , proves nothing- with regard tb'the probable operation of tho competitive principle in trade ; neither does it . by any means follow that , because a free constitution does not bring' the sumo tranquillity to Franco as it does to England , therefore free commerce will not advance the material prosperity of Franco in tho snino proportion , and eventually to the same' extent , as it has done that of England . A man may bo an inferior statesman , but a firstrate merchant ; . So a people may display no aptitude for

      government , and yet prove unrivalled in transactions of commerce , lho French have made a trial of tlio representative system in leg-islatuve , and with imperfect success ; that comparative 'failure should bo no obstacle to a trial of our system in tho department of trade . Doctrines of government or theories of legislation are of necessitypartially empirical ; but the principles of political economy—mid Free Trade is one of them—aro little short of demonstrative truths . ( 2 . ) M . Oirardin ' s chief objection , however , to tho Treaty of Commerce in based on const Uutiomil grounds , hy a decreo of tho Senate , of JX'cembev 20 , 1852 , full power waa given to tho ZSnmoror to make a treaty of commerce without consulting' the Corps JLet / islatiff but oi > that occasion tho Senate , feeling legitimate approhon-

      * X>Es Wruitts De Commerce, Solon La Con...

      * X > es Wruitts de Commerce , solon la Constitution do 1852 . Pur M . Saini-JVUno QlHAIWlN . Purls : Cnftrnentior . 18 ( 50 .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1860, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10031860/page/14/