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better than the one chosen ; but for the purposes of the present survey we must commend the Finance Minister if , upon the whole , the remissions which he has selected are of a kind to set free revenue-producing commerce or revenueproducing industry . Mr . Gladstone ' s remissions fully answer to that test . The total abolition of the duty on soap is a concession to a long established opinion against that impost : it will afford more relief than the mere amount of the tax , since it will free the trade for improvements that
must speedily render soap better and cheaper . The gradual reduction of the tea-duty , within three years , to 1 * . as the ultimate permanent rate , will relieve every class in the country , especially the humbler classes , and must pave the way for a large extension of an important reciprocal trade . TJie reduction of the stamp-tax on receipts to an uniform penny will reduce a vexatious minor impost on trade to an inappreciable amount , will supersede extensive evasions of the stamp tax , and will indeed reap a largely increased revenue out of a largely extended
use of stamped documents for various purposes in the nature of receipts , vouchers , &c . The reduction of the duty on newspaper advertisements diminishes an impost on the publicity of commerce . In the last case we believe that total abolition would have been the wiser course , but we do not propose to hamper the present survey of a great scheme as a whole , with minute criticism on special things . The whole amount of remissions , when they are completed , will exceed 5 , 000 , 000 ? ., but only half -will take effect during the present year . Their general effect is to relieve large classes of consumers , to remove impediment from the free operations of tra . , and to clear that ground for the growth of revenue .
It has been rightly said , that the Budget must be taken in connexion with Mr . Gladstone ' s plan for converting stock into new kinds , which ¦ will diminish , the pressure of the National Debt , both of the permanent capital and the annual charge ; and in the shape of the Exchequer bonds , will place so much of the Public Debt within the ready control of the Finance Minister . Taken together , the broad effects of the measures will be these : while the burden on the consumer
is diminished , commerce is rendered freer in its working , capital is rendered moro abundant , the growth of revenue is secured , the income-tax is placed in train for natural extinction at a fixed date , and the Finance Minister is endowed with increased power to regulate public finance for public interest . We arrive at a fuller appreciation of Mr . Gladstone ' s achievement when we compare his scheme
with previous budgets . Its best parallel is Sir Hobert Peel ' s Free-trade Budget , of which the abolition of the differential sugar duties and the reduction of the timber dnties were but appendices . Sir Robert Peel ' s object was to reform the tariff on the principle of Free-trade : Mr . Gladstone ' s is to continue the reform by removing taxes which , though not protective or prohibitory , are bad for excess , inequality , unproductiveness , or obstructivencss . And he has also
introduced the principle of mobilization into the public debt . These substantial reforms may bo contrasted with the attempt of his immediate predecessor to conx the income-tax into a means of converting taxation against commerce for the benefit of land . It may also be contrasted with the last Whig budgets , before Sir Kobert Peel introduced the principle of Free Trade . In ^ naking his financial statement of 1840 , Mr . Baring estimated the expenses of the year 1840-1 ut 49 , 432 , 000 / ., and the receipts at 40 , 700 , 000 * ., leaving a deficiency of 2 , 732 , 000 ? . To meet this deficit , he proposed an increase of 10 per cent , on the assessed taxes , with the exception of the post-horso duty ; and an increase of 5 per cent , on the whole of the customs and excise duties .
with the exception of those on corn and spirits . By means of this large increase to the national hurdens , coupled with an additional duty of Ad . per gallon on spirits , and a vote of credit for 350 , 000 ? ., Mr . Baring thought ho would bo able to got along for another year . Mr . . Hume tried to persuade him to impose a tax on the descent of real proporty , but his amendment was negatived by 150 to 31 ) . Tho time had not yet arrived for that .
When tho House of Commons wont into a Committee of Ways and Means , in 1841 , it turned out that Mr . ikring ' H plan for meeting tho deficit ol' tho previous year had not worked
as he anticipated . Instead of having made both ends meet , there was then a new deficit of 1 , 841 , 000 ? . The novel scheme of adding five per cent , to the customs and excise duties had been a complete failure . So far from obtaining a larger sum by that addition , there was a considerable falling off in many of the items : in tea there was a decrease of 2 , 873 , 676 pounds ; in sugar , of 250 , 343 hundred-weights ; in wine , of 397 , 978 gallons ; and in spirits , of 379 , 121 gallons . Sir Robert Peel foresaw these results . Mr . Gladstone is now threatened with opposition ; and he would be effectually arrested if Mr . Disraeli
or Sir John Pakington could address him in the words which Sir Robert Peel addressed to Mr . Baring . " It is impossible to look at the financial position of this country without great anxiety and deep apprehension . * ' * * At the end of the next financial year there will be a deficit of 7 , 589 , 000 / . ; and there has been a continued deficit for five years . I see I am alarming the Chancellor of the Exchequer . Familiar as he is with the subject , he can hardly believe the extent of the deficit under the financial
administration of the Go-vernmenikof which he is a member . I will , however , satisfy the right honourable gentleman that I am not making an incorrect statement on this point . Beginning with 1838 , I find that the deficit for that year was 1 , 428 , 534 ; for 1839 , it was 1 , 430 , 325 ? . ; for 1840 , 1 , 457 , 133 Z . ; for 1841 , 1 , 851 , 997 * . and the Chancellor of the Exchequer estimates that the deficiency for 1842 will amount to 2 , 421 , 0002 . — making an aggregate deficiency of 7 , 589 , 079 ? . Who is responsible for this ?"
In 1842 Sir Hobert Peel encountered a deficiency of 2 , 469 , 000 ? ., but he calculated that the aggregate of deficiencies really amounted to something over 10 , 000 , 000 ? . Deficit had been becoming a Whig institution , and it was to free the country from deficit , almost as much as to free it from anti-commercial protection , that his reforms were made . The subsequent remissions of taxation in the aggregate far more than rival the old aggregate of annual deficiencies , and yet at the end of the financial year 1852-3 we have a surplus of 2 , 460 , 000 ? . Such has been the success of the process which Sir Robert Peel began at a season of almost unexampled adversity , and which his pupil and colleague is continuing and extending at a season of almost unexampled prosperity .
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POWER OF THE WORKING-CLASSES . It is very interesting to witness the progress which every day exhibits in the conscious power of the working-classes . Little more than ten years ago—a very short time in the life of a country—working men were petitioning for work as they would for charity ; were glad to live upon " green tail , " and to labour on the terms
dictated by their employers . . Nay , it is very few years since working men who combined to promote the interests of their own class were liable to punishment . We now see the Attorney-General declaring , that workmen have a right to combine for their own protection , and to obtain such wages as they choose to demand , or to gain themselves any benefit ; a remark which he makes to show that there is no occasion to alter
the law as it was administered by Mr . Justice Erlo at Stafford in 1 . 851 . But those who have observed the administration of tho law , perfectl y know that the interpretations of tho Bench ordinarily leave the masters free to such combinations aa suit their own purposes ; while the workman incessantly finds that his right of combination , recognized as it may be , is surrounded by traps of legal nicety . How often it happens that tho right to combine results solely in tho ri f ^ lit to go to prison . But a good time is come—a time when the working-classes need not depend upon those legal niceties ; and tho principal guarantee which we see for securing all that that time can yield is , that the working-classes know their own power .
The simple rise of wages would be a small matter in comparison with that conscious povror . Not that tho increase of money jh a trifle . tSo small an addition uh 2 a-. in Wiltshire or Dorsetshire- makes all the difference between wretched life- and tolerable . Tho workman , however , knows not only that he has a right to higher wages , but that ho has a right to wagon as high nH tho trade can afford - Il ' o knowH not only that ho Iuih a right to a rise of wages now , but to another rise in a short tinu \ if trade should go on as it ; Iuih done . This knowledge will induce him to seek further information as to the real stuto of
his business ; and if the working classes once begin to inquire ; once begin to collect practical information for their own guidance , as commercial men do for theirs , they will not so continually be losing in their bargains as they have been . In nine cases out of ten the master beats the workman , because the workman , uncertain as to the facts , not knowing how trade goes , how workmen in other branches are acting , is not firm in his purpose . It has happened , indeed , that sometimes he has been firm when he ought not to have been so ; or he has stuck out for a particular sum of wages when the trade could not afford it . The master has then been obstinate
with sound reason , and the man , being beaten , has taken that experience as a proof that firmness on his side may be carried too far . Now , it never can be carried too far—when it is correct ; but it may be used at wrong times ; and that is the true distinction . The workman can only know the difference by collecting information . At present , with the increasing value of labour , with the necessity which the employer has for carrying on his business at all events , the labourer is acquiring an independence which he has never enjoyed in this country ; and he may use it for something better than a rise of wages . There are three modes in which , it may benefit him .
The first is , by the ordinary rise of wages ; which , gives him a larger proportion of the returns . The second is , by an improvement in the conduct of the trade itself . Workmen have hitherto been jealous of machinery , because it displaces them \ but if they now know their own interest , they will encourage machinery , which may increase the productive power of their trade , and thus create larger returns to be shared between employers and men . They may do so the more safely , if they possess sufficient information and sufficient discipline over themselves to attain the third advantage , which their greater independence renders possible ; it is that of regulating the hours of working .
If trade were to be the blind thing that it has been until this very day ; if the masters were to go on working machines and men , without regard to markets or consumers ; any multiplication of productive power could only end in glut , panic , crisis , and disaster . If masters and men , however , are in possession of information , they can regulate their make by the market . That is the true and the only philosophy of trade . Every step in seeking and diffusing sound information tends towards that result . Short time is
recommended , not only by its moral considerations , but by its keeping the make within the control of masters and men . Hitherto men have been obliged to petition for it from Parliament : they have got it in part , and they are now carrying on an agitation about the country to get more protection out of Parliament . Wo agree with tho men at Ashton-under-Lyne , that they are
not likely to get much more , although the Ten Hours JBill has worked well , even in the estimation of its originalopponcnts . The trading desire to grasp profit is so great , that it will always resist an extension of the ten hours principle . Even in Protectionist districts there is the same repugnance . Your Suffolk farmer will be as niggardly in resisting the demand of his men to work ten instead of eleven hours , as the most thorough-going economist of Manchester . How can the labourer
want a shilling moro wages , cries the farmer , if he won ' t work another hour for it P Luckily , tho time has come , when tlio working classes , if information and right understanding bo sufficiently diffused amongst them , can take this matter into their own . hands . The working classes do so in other countries , where information is not on a par with our own land . In Italy , for example , tho working classes , obeying a custom , leave their work nt twenty-four o ' clock ,
half an hour after sunset all tho year round . At Ashton-undor-IJyno , tho working hands have acted on that resolution , and wo trust that they will adhere to it . They began on tho evening of tho 12 th instant , leaving their work at six o ' clock , without tho consent of their masters , at tho sarao time as tho " foundoH and young persons . " This in the more remarkable , tuneo a concession of an advance of wages was almost simultaneously made by tho masters ; showing that the two questions can be treated quite separately .
In short , a time has corno when tho working classes ean have a voico in arranging thoir own terms , both uh to money and ub to time ; arid if they proceed in tho Hiimo way , ihoy will yet bo
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396 THE . LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), April 23, 1853, page 396, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1983/page/12/
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