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    nt this result as one of the merits of the defeated 1 > ud (? et . jklost of the improvements above mentioned may be onsidered as virtually effected by the retiring cabinet ; for to propose such is to effect them . No successors lare stop short of that which these men declared themselves ready to do . If we hear again of an oppressed mercantile navy , of wasteful and inefficient dockyards , of defective and misarranged public accounts , of tea duties obstinately maintained , of an income-tax which cruelly applies to incomes of unequal nature and effects ,

    the same unbending rule of exaction , we shall at least Jcnow where to find men who , whatever their faults or errors , are ready to gfapple with these particular evils . Nor can reform stop here . The principles requisite to defend the changes the late Administration would have made , will apply , and will be applied , much further . Change in the right direction has commenced ; and all the inertia of office ( the real obstacle to improvement ) cannot stop it . Mr . Disraeli ' s was emphatically a budget of transition , and in that character , although " dead , it yet speaketh . "

    Our tribute thus willingly rendered to the excellences of the budget , we turn to its faults . We may dispatch at once that demerit which consisted in its changes being in great part only semi-abolitions . Had the taxes on malt and hops been wholly repealed , considerable establishments would have been dispensed with , while under the proposed plan the entire charge of management must have been incurred for a collection of half the amount . Even more—to have abolished the very machinery of the tax , would have been a security against its re-imposition , such as the mere reduction of the tax could never afford against the reesfcablishment of the old rate .

    It is no novelty to say that the late budget , with much in it to be approved , was ruined by the attempt to substitute an increased house-tux for on « -half of the malt-tax . Other faults might have been borne with or remedied , but this was fatal . Before we discuss these contrasted taxes , let us inquire how it became necessary to oppose them to each other . If a reduction of the malt-tax was necessary aa a colourable compensation for the withdrawal of agricultural protection , does it follow that an increased house-tax should have been selected to supply the deficiency ? Town and country were expressly set against each other by this proposition ; and nothing could justify the risking of defeat on such a point but the impossibility of avoiding it .

    The loss on the malt-tax was estimated at two-anda-half millions . Now , exclusive of the device of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer , this loss could only have been met by additional customs and excise duties , —or in part by an extension of the legacy duties to real property , —or by a sufficient extension of the income-tax . But the first of these alternatives is inconsistent with the established doctrines of Free-trade . The second and third would have been merely laying on the land , in another form , taxes which were professed to be taken oil" by reducing the malt-tax ; for it must be remembered thiit if a distinction of incomes for purposes of taxation wan to be admitted , the chief increase of the ineonie-tax to meet the reduction of the malt-tax must have fullen on real property .

    The Chancellor of the Exchequer , then , had little choice but to increase the house-tax , for any other device would either have been resisted by the commercial and l 1 roe-trado majority , if hi ; took one course ; or it would have struck away from him his own supporters , who looked to him for some nort of compensation , if lie took the other . The case stands thus :- — . Land has long been believed to be unduly favoured in our ' lineal arrangements . Whether this be true or not ( which , ' on the whole , nobody can clearly show ) , hind tricn to keep and

    extend the advantage . Trade and labour have lately thrown oil' undue bunions * . Land tries to cflert ; i change in fixation intended to retrieve the standing it . believes itself to have lost . Tmdu resists . The << overninenf takes the side of land , : md fails in the atlempt . The system comes to si dead lock , without even yielding us from the , catastrophe the means of Inline , guidance . Only on ft thing is certain , thiit in the midst of nil our groping darkness on the subject , "lost tux-payers and electors be . Hevf ; land to lmve already ho nmny advi'nta ^ cs , that they resolutely resist » ny addition to them .

    Tlii * , however , in slating the mutter according to the principles generally current , and it is necessary no to "Into it , in order U > show how the existing unsound » y « Uun brings itself into extreme diHieiilfieN . Hut we object to this whole treatment , of the subiect . Why distiii ( jj | iiHb between land and trade , ill ; ( ill ? It is nil "qually property protected by t-lm State , Mid should bu liublo alike , nn ' d only alike , each as property alone , to I '" share of the ' wml . Thin budget , like all before it , J'iis been framed , discussed , supported , opposed , and

    overthrown without one single reference to the question which lies at the foundation of the whole subject , — does any class pay more or less than its fair share of the common expenses ? The only questions , whatever their form , are at bottom , either , shall we pay more under the new budget than before ? or , are we strong enough , right or wrong , to make or prevent an alteration for or . against ourselves ? Mr . Disraeli failed , not because he was either right or wrong , but because , on a most obscure subject , he attempted a change in favour of a particular class , which that class was not strong enough to enable him to carry . This eventful contest between the house-tax and

    the malt-tax leads to an examination of both . Eminent economists say that the house-tax is a fair tax , and the reason given is , that the rent a man pays is commonly a fair index of his income , From this opinion we entirely dissent ; the rent a man pays is no true gauge of his income ; his income is no true gauge of his obligation to the State . According to these economists , the house is not taxed merely as a house , but as a gauge of income ; any other item of expenditure has just as good a title to be taxed , if only it be fixed on as such a gauge , — say , clothes or food . But taxes on both clothes and food have been abolished by force of consequences , and of public opinion resulting from them , which nothing

    could resist . Every reason which opposes the taxing of food and clothes equally opposes the taxing of habitations . If bread , calico , and broadclotb be matters of expenditure , so is rent . If the taxing of calico in any of its materials or processes interferes with the industry which produces that article , so does the taxing of rent interfere with the profits of house property . If the taxing of corn took away so much of the earnings of the country as to restrict the employment of those who fabricated clothes , through the scantiness of the remainder of fcho'se earnings , so does the . taxing .. of-refnt . likewise diminish the fund which should be devoted to the consumption of other articles , and so diminishes the demand for labour . The parallel is complete ; and it holds , whether the tax fall eventually on the occupier or the owner .

    Houses are unfortunate in their . relation with the nationa } . exchequer . Bricks , timber , glass , all the chief materials of houses , have been highly taxed , and the taxes have been taken off ; that is , the owners of existing houses have paid for them perhaps 25 per cent , more than houses quite as large and good can now be bought for ; and this not through any natural consequence of the progress of art , industry , intelligence , or morals , but by the mere wayw ardness of an artificial policy , without natural rule or basis . Through other changes these capricious devices may any day attack houses again , or may exempt them perchance from even oquitable charges . All depends on the chance of guessing , and of who may havo to guess . Kent is not a fair index of income : it bears no

    uniform ratio to it . In the recent debate , Mr . IJLmne read to the House a statement founded on inquiry , the unrpose of which , was to show that , on the whole , the Uglier classes spend a much smaller ixroportion of their income in rent , than ; the lower ones ; and Unit , consequently , a tax . proportionate to rent falls lunch the heaviest on those who . am least able , to bear it , and who are under no corresponding obligatiouj to ' bear , it . Thu statement , which neonis chiefly to apply to iLomlau , may be tubulated as follows :- — : ¦ . JJ . C iifriii ; illy A < ux of I * . Ort . And ( ho lax If a pWnoii ' fl flJ > iMi < lfl in tho pound would Ink . o ineoihe ho in I'fiit . would be- of his'iiicomo « : . 1 ) Ju s . ( I .

    100 ... 'JO ... . 1 10 0 ... If . per cent . 1 , 000 ' ... 100 ... ' ' -5 10 O . ... i „ , io , ooo ... r . oo ... 1 L' JO a ... ' : i o , ooo ... looo ... 2 . vo 6 ' . 1 ' . » ' „ ¦ ¦¦ ' The house-tax , then , in tins virtw , is : i bad incometax •¦ --an income-tax graduated in the wrong direction . This view of'the subject , founded on averages , however convincing , does not show iho full magnitude of tho error . An average is consistent , with ^ rcal inequalities in the quantities from which it is deduced ; ami in every class great inequalities exist in the ratio beUveen income and rent . Of ( . his fact any person may satisfy himself who will only review the cases

    within his o \ Vn iicquaintauco : ho will h ' ii < l men of ' liir « .- ¦<> income living in small houses or in apartments , suul widows stn ' iggliii' .- ; for a living by means of a highlyrented hotise . ' IJetwc . cn these , extremes are eases in . every variety . Of two men wlt . h equul incomes , out . ) has a , largo family , the other a . small one , ami tho house of each is -n ' oportionute , not to Ins income , but to the lurniber of Ins children ; and no of every diversity of circumstance , pursuit , and disposition . Now , it , is not only as ii inuttcr' of justice , but of safety , that tije . elTeci of such a tax is to be considered ; for content , and

    discontent nro not regulated by avenges , bu ( , by instances , und chielly by instances of wrong . To a man who feel . s that he is being ruined by taxes , it is no answer

    that his class are on the average but lightly burdened ; his resentment and the discontent of others are kindled by the injustice of his own particular case : while , on the other hand , the man accidentally favoured by any plan of taxation , gives the Government no thanks and no support for it , to counterbalance the dissatisfaction of him who obviously suffers . Averages are convenient instruments of thought , but they are often very deceptive and dangerous bases of action .

    Rent , then , is no true gauge of income . In former papers we have sho wn that income is no true gauge of property , while , however , property is the chief true gauge of the obligations of the individual to the State . We have here , then , two false ratios , one superimposed on the other . Kent is falsely taken as bearing a constant ratio to income , and income is falsely taken as bearing a constant ratio to property . No wonder that , in myriads of instances the result is to falsify and confuse all such relat ions of taxation as the common sense of men requires , and to leave on the mind of the taxpayer an indignant sense of wrong . -

    But why go through this double and distorting process of inference ? Almost every writer on the subject begins , and rightly so , with the postulates , that taxation is payment for service rendered , and that the service rendered is mainly , though not exclusively , proportioned to property . Then why not go to the property at once ? For two reasons , neither of them of any validity . 1 st . It would be difficult to assess the property . And yet see the enormous difficulties and shamefully imperfect results of our present modes of assessment and

    taxation . Could any assessment of visible and tangible property be worse ? 2 nd . The taxation of property , as property , would tax much property that is not productive . Well , be it so . The question for the State is , not whether it is productive , but whether it is protected , and if so , at what cost . To seek an object like a house , which is assumed tu boar a certain ratio to income , and through it to property , is merely to slide away covertly from the true question to one which sanctions an unfair d istribution of the public burdens * and favours property at the expense of labour . -

    If , then , we reject the house-tax , let us examine its antagonist , the malt-tax , of which Mr . Disraeli proposed to abolish one-half . IJut , in point of principle , a reason for abolishing one-half of such a tax is a reason for abolishing it altogether ; and if any excuse is to bo found for keeping one-half , while the other is given up , it is in the nature of that heterogeneous , unquiet , and incoherent system which we call our system of finance . We may give up half , because we may think we can get so much from some other quarter ; we may retain the other half , becausewe do not know how to replace it . . Right and wrong , however , i ^ ccins to . have had nothing to do with such a question .

    If everybody objects to an increased liousc-tax , nobody seems to wish for a re ' . luced malt-tax ; a fact which a Chancellor of the Exchequer might easily have foreseen , and with which he should have laid his account . This indifference to , a diminution of the malt-tax seems to arise from three causes : — 1 st . Thanks to our financial philosophy , such as it in , nobody kccius certain t <> whom the benefit of the reduction of tax will accrue ; £ mlly , The reduction , at most , would be . small in its elu . 'ct , nobody of authority on such a question estimating it at more than about u farthing per quart o . f beer ; nmliidly , This small advantage would be felt by but n part off . be population ; all teetotallers , professed and unprofe-iseu , and the greater part , of our

    women iin < l children , use , . some , no ina . lt liquor nt all , and others , very , little of it . Hut if low expected to profit ; by the redaction of flu' malt-t ; ix , multitudes know that 1 hey ' would have ; to pay a burtlions . onie house-tax ; and it was proved t . ha , f the reduction in the . prir

    The argument , of Mr . \ Valp . > U : on this subject requires examination , not so much for its o \\ n sake , an because l . ho , true fads con :-. idrralily illustrate the real condition of the malt-tax question , and lead to other considerations . That , gentleman asserts that , in ( 750 , when the duty on mall , was only Cxi . -lur bushel , the <¦ ousiimpfio . li was five bushels

    Untitled Article

    Dece mber 25 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1233

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 25, 1852, page 1233, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1966/page/13/