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    1346 THE LEAD EK [No. 507- Dec. 10, 185Q...

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    FINANCIAL REFORM

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    The Perils Of The Congress. One Of The M...

    Russia . After this came the political , as well as the military misdirection of the Russian war , and with all these disappointments it . is no wonder that national enthusiasm declined : The process was hastened by the important fact that not « , single independent member of Parliament , of any conspicuous talent , paid enough attention to foreign affairs to be looked upon as any authority upon the multifarious subjects that continually deserved attention . _

    The selfish , passive , non-intervention doctrine , on the whole , suited the Whigs—semi-rational as thinkers , and proverbially feeble in action . They could evade it when it suited their purpose , and it served the object of checking the demand for a great national policy , founded upon a morality too large to suit the sinister interests of a few aristocratic families . The Tories have always seen that the Whig-Manchester management of foreign affairs tended to lower our position in Europe ; but they preferred its feebleness and fatuity to a bold action in

    oppomined to goad into rebellion ; nor for the Poles , whom the Emperor of Russia refuses to conciliate , and whd might not be kept quiet if a war of liberty broke out . Lord John Russell ' s declaration about Italy ought to be something better than a . mere ebullition of temporary excitement ; but do the people suppose that the Court , with its German dynastic predilections , or Lord Palmerston ' s Cabinet , is prepared to tell the absolutist monarchs that if they force England , against her will , into a war , it shall be a war of principle , in which her alliances shall be -with nations , and her efforts directed to the establishment of a public law ,

    capable of supporting the weak against the strong , and of securing the indefeasible right of every people to assume , if they can , the management of their own affairs ? It is our duty to go to the Congress—we could scarcely avoid it with safety ; but if the people are apathetic , it is likely to prove a dangerous snare . We shall be most safe , as well as most dignified , by becoming the bold and unflinching exponents of public justice . We should determine to have peace , if possible , but be quite prepared , if necessary , to offer the alternative of the only sort of war in which we should deserve victory , and which would offer the best prospects of success .

    sition to their own reactionary views . Lord Palmerstpn possessed energy enough for a successful Minister of the last generation ; but his undisguised antagonism to Parliamentary Reform left no doubt that he would , if possible , avoid any appeal to the nations of Europe , and the fundamental principles of human right . To these various circumstances must be added the action of the commercial spirit in . promoting a hand-to-mouth policy , and regarding a small present evil as far more important than any much larger prospective damage .

    Born in 1784 , Lord Palmerston has long passed the period in which men ' s minds grow with t he times , and he presides over a Cabinet selected upon the principle of taking in a variety of persons whom it would have been dangerous to leave out , and who were never remarkable for representing the same principles or advocating the saine views . With such a condition of the public mind , and of the Cabinetj the approaching Congress can * not be viewed without alarm , and that sentiment is increased by the statement that our country is to be represented by Lord Cowley , a third-rate diplomatist , and a complete nonentity in ^ stirring world of European thought and action , to which he never contributed an idea or gave a serviceable direction .

    How seriously Russia looks at the Congress may be seen by an article in the Invalide Russe , which says , " above all , the Congress will have to enter upon the question of right . The Congress of Zurich decided that the rights of the Grand dukes are reserved . England , on the contrary , maintains that the people have a right to choose their sovereign and their form of government . That power reminds the others , and that with some reason , that France , Sweden , and herself have already applied that principle . . . . This will be the first danger for the Congress , because Austria , France , and the Pope , and with them Spain , Portugal , and Naples , will not fail to

    maintain that the rights of the dispossessed dynasties are sacred and immutable . " The Invalide , after declaring that France an'd Austria would not be entitled to restore the Dukes by force , without the consent of Europe , adds , that the matter must be referred to the Congress . " But the Congress , while confirming the dynastic right , will find itself involved in great difficulties , if it wishes to restore the Grand Dukes by foroe of arms , the influence of one power will carry with it the others . Way will break out again , and we declare that it will then beoome a war impossible to neutralise or circumscribe . " The same paper adds , by way of throwing fuel on the fire , that the Turkish question , and the Treaty of Paris ought to bo

    considered in Congress as well as the affairs of Italy . "With these . elements of difficulty and mischief at work—which the French Government evinoes its appreciation of by vigorously pushing its warlike preparations—British safety depends upon the unquestionable morality of its policy , even more than upon any accumulation of the apparatus of war . To support the absolutist theories of Austria , Rome , and Naples would bo suicidal , and happily impossible , and to play , one despot off against another , without espousing any valid principle , would be even more ignominious , and » Ofwcely less perilous . If we proclaim the right of the Italians to change their rulers if they Please , and can , we ought to do no lees for the . Hungarians , whom Francis Joseph seems dotor-

    1346 The Lead Ek [No. 507- Dec. 10, 185q...

    1346 THE LEAD EK [ No . 507- Dec . 10 , 185 Q .

    Financial Reform

    taxation . The labourer , according to the deuuition , can pay none and live . Such definitions and deductions describe , not unfairly , the . actual distribution in this . country of the annual produc e of 1 labour , and in obedience to it the upper classes and their writers make their extraordinary deductions . All wealth , except a mere subsistenc e for the labourers , is the property of theupperclassesbut of the annual produce of labour , whatev er ' may be its total value , the State , i . e . the Parliament of the gentry , as we have shown , annually seizes and distributes a very large sum ; and by the continued action of the State , year af ter year , through taxation , that distribution is made , taking from the poor aud giving to the rich , which Mr . Ricardo called natural , and journalists now assume to be just .

    This efiect is very clearly demonstrated b y Mr . Bright , though we cannot say that he had the demonstration in view . He showed that since the alteration was made in our fiscal system by Sir Robert Peel—that since the Corn Laws were repealed , and indirect taxation reduced—the condition of the . working classes has been much improved . They get more wages , and their wages go further .- Before that period , therefore , the system of taxation , of which the Corn Laws were a part , continually appropriated aud distributed a still greater proportion of the annual produce of industry amongst the rich than since that period .

    But much improved as their condition now is , in consequence of less injustice being perpetrated on them , it is still , as we all know , much more to be deplored than commended . By dint of inordinate taxation wages are continually kept down to what Mr . Ricardo and his disciples describe to be . the natural rate ; and the present condition of the multitude , though it has been much improved by repealing taxation , which should encourage the upper classes , and encourage statesmen to do them justice , is thus described by-Mr . Bright . The extract is long , but the description is accurate , and worthy of close consideration ;—

    Look at the condition of the labourer as compared with the condition of what is called the upper classes , or even of tlie middle classes . I live close to , in fact within the bounds of a large manufacturing town . At this moment everybody who can work is well employed , and wages , I am happy to say , are such as , looking back to past years , are considered highly satisfactory ; the condition of the people is much better than it Has almoBt been known before during my lifetime ; yet , under all these favourable circumstances , look at the condition of the labouring man and his family ? Look at the almost inevitable precariousness of his employment , aiid look at the fact

    that the moment his health ' , fails him his income ceases ; or if he fails ill for a day or two , instead of going to his doctor , or to his bed , and resting quietly at home till the little ilness passes away , he struggles on . His family depends upon his every day ' s earnings for his overy day ' s subsistence , and in hundreds , nay thousands of cases in which we nil of us who are here recover from any slight indisposition , a man thus tied—hammered as it were to the gnlling oar of life—he cannot lay by for a day . His constitution

    has deoper and deeper inroads liuido upon itj . becomes permanently enfeebled and disabled , and multitudes of them , as you know by the returns ol mortality , do not live moro than about one-halt the years that persons no stronger or more robust in constitution do live who are in happier circumstances with regard to their social and pecuniary position . Lot . mo beg of you to consider the incidents to wlucii the labouring classes in erery country aro subjectea —the dangers which they meet continually innlinoat nil their omnlnvmGntfl—the incessant etruggie WlllCli

    they have to maintain and keep themselves Ironi that which most of them greatly drciul— -tlie wotkhouae—( Hear , hear ) . Consider -all this , and Uion ask youeelves , ye of the middle classos , whether it is not fitting that we should combine together to say to tho rulers of our country , that we , all who W property , aro willing to contribute to tho necessary expenses of tho State } but that honcoibrth wo ww never consent to any law that will intorpuso between the exchange of tho industry of every man In mghind for tho industry of ovory man out of kngiaiw —which shall pormit the hand of the tax-gathcror to lesson the little comforts whloh a man s iopoui pan baroly bring to supply his necessities—( U > uu and prolonged ohoering ) .

    touch the great principle of political economy , — that labour is the source of all wealth , and , consequently , pays all taxation ; and ultimately , therefore , pays all that is deducted by the State from the annual income of the owners of property . He stated , on the authority of Mi \ Newmarsh , one of our most renowned statisticians , that 75 p er . cent of all the families of England and Wales live in houses below the value of . £ 10 , and of these 15 per cent , only live in houses above the value of £ -6 . Mr . Bright assumes , and with apparent reason , that were the comparison extended to the whole empire , 80 p er cent , of the people would be found to be living in houses below the value of £ 10 . At this hour , accordingly , taking the proportions roughly , twenty-four millions of

    FINANCIAL REFORM . Mr . Bright has disposed , very satisfactorily , of the fallacies of the Times , Saturday Review , Spectator , and Economist . He has shown conclusively that the statement of the Board of Inland Revenue , on which two of those journals built so much , has no good foundation , and supplied facts to justify the conclusion , that the increased consumption of sugar , tea , and tobacco , which is more than double what it was in 1838 , has taken place almost wholly amongst the working classes , and that they actually pay the large proportion , he stated , of our indirect taxation . He did not

    people live in houses below the value of £ 1 0 , and six million people live in houses above the value of 4 J 10 . If not an exact transcrip t of the actual fact , this'represents it tolerably correctly ; and his conclusion is , that these twenty-four millions consume much more of the heavily-taxed articles referred to than the six millions who pay , according to the journals of the aristocracy—as they undoubtedly receive—the bulk of the taxation . We believe , however , that it will never again be said by any man in his senses , and tolerably well acquainted with tho condition of the people of England , that the higher classes pay the chief portion of the taxos , and that taxation is only a deduction from their incomes .

    Jft has been asserted , indeed , by a great economist , Mr . Ricardo ( not by Adam Smith ) that the * ' natural price ( wages ') of labour is thatprtoo which is necessary to enable the labourers , one with another , to subsist and perpetuate their raco , without either increase or diminution . " The same authority also asserted that rent is only the differonoe between the produce , of capital lonst productively employed on land , and necessarily employed to subsist society , and the capital most productively employed on land . ' Whence it

    follows , that all tho produce of industry , except tho amount of this difference , whatever it may be , which is rent , and except tho subsistence of tho labourer , naturally belongs to the capitalist . On this doctrine , as long as tho labourer receives enough to subsist on and continue his race , without increasing in number , and as long as the landowner receives the above-stated , difference , all tho wealth of tho world is tho property of tho capitalist—and , as the Times has stated , ho pays all

    Suoh is now—after statesmen hiwo toiled ana philanthropists have wept for ages- —tho condition of tho labouring multitude . It is plainly tno result of our fiscal system . It is not tho oonjoquonco of any doom or natural laws from wUiou tho multitude cannot escape . Nature has noi inseparably connootod industry with dosUtimon

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 10, 1859, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10121859/page/14/