Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 18th February 1860, Edition 1 of 2, Page 156, Untitled Article

Page 156
Page 8
8 of 24

On this page

  • Text (2)

      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.

    • Untitled Article

      Untitled Article

    • Untitled Article

      Untitled Article

  • 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

      notes for the purchase or sale of any and all goods , stocks , funds or public securities ; also a duty of threepence on dock warrants , or any document entitling a person to hold property m docks or warehouses , arid on everytransfev of such warrants or documents j a duty , too , of a peimy on every certified extract from any register of births , deaths , or marriages ; also of sixpence on every transfer in the cost-book of a mine of every share or part of a share ; of sixpence on every memorandum of agreement ; and a progressive duty of &d . additional for every 1080 words the memorandum may contain after the first 1080 : and he makes sundry other alterations

      In the stamp duties , abolishing some exemptions from these duties , and among others any now existing on bills , drafts , or orders to pay money . From these various sources he expects to gain for the inland revenue a sum of £ 3 S 6 , 000 ; and he is to save je 86 , 00 Q in the revenue establishments . These several sums amount to . £ 12 , 95-4 , 000 , which shows an expected surplus at the end of the year of £ 464 , 000 . ; Thus , as the result of these numerous changes , as large a revenue is raised as before . For some customs and excise duties , an enlarged income tax and several new customs and stamp duties are substituted . There is an additional amount of direct taxation and a diminution of

      indirect taxation . It has -bitterly been held to be ajust financial maxim to make as few changes as possible in taxation unless they be reductions . Mr . Gladstone makes a great many changes , and no reduction . He substitutes an enlarged property and incotne tax , extends the licensing system ; enlarges and increases the stamp duties * , and invents some new customs duties for the excise and customs duties lowered or abolished . What impediments the new regulations will

      throw in the way of trade cannot possibly be known beforehand . We believe that many of them will , in the end , turn out to be as onerous as the duties repealed , and that the mere substitution of one species of vexatious taxation for another does not lessen but increase its evils . It creates disturbance ^ and gives no actual relief . The burden is measured by its amount , not by the place it rests on . Reduction of taxation is needed ¦; .- . and as long as our enormous expenditure will not permit this , to change the mode of taxation is only to ' rub . in some other ¦ ' place a new

      sore . - . -. ,. - .. ... ; . . . -, - .. ¦ ¦• ¦ . - . . .. ¦ ¦• . To the proposed grant of licenses for selling beer and spirits , paying a small sum , to eating-house keepers and confectionersi we must- take a special objection . Under cover of liberating the victualling business from the brewers arid magistrates' monopoly , it extends the jurisdiction of the licensing system and of the police to a vast number of houses of entertainment . As we read this part of the . resolutions laid before the House of Commons , house and confec

      it will be imperative oh every eating- keeper - tioner to take out a license " to keep a refreshment house . " In fact , therefore , this proposed extension of freedom is a great limitation of it , and will subject a largely increased number of houses to the visitation and control of the police . It is desirable to break up tlie monopoly ; but to ask the Legislature to accomplish this act of justice by a furtive' and decejtfid fiscal clause in a budget , is a public scandal . Like cloth and bread , the sale of beer , wine , and spirits should , be perfectly free .

      Mr . Gladstone and the Ministers may persist in saying that they cannot reduce the expenditure , but when they find it extremely difficult , not to gay impossible , to maintain the present taxes , when they are obliged to abolish the paper duties , and all the minor customs duties , can they justly say that there are no sums in all th ' e estimates which could be spared , to avoid the necessity of levying £ 510 , 000 additional customs duties , and £ 886 , 000 additional stamp duties ? Could they not have deducted for a year or two , till the revenue had recovered from the changes made necessaiy by the commercial treaty , which is

      expected to give new activity to our industry , some two or three hundred thousand pounds from public works , some two or three hundred thousand pounds from building schools , endowing colleges , and fostering much * quackery , in order to avoid the necessity for the new , minute , vexatious , and execrable taxation Mr . Gladstone has proposed P We will undertake to point out from the estimates for oivil services , at least £ 1 , 000 , 000 which need not be exnonded this yeor ; and , not being oxponded , might save the community ftoin , Mr . Gladstone ' s new blisters , iloval palaces , and harbours of refuge and parks , the cultivation

      of science and the promotion of education , are nil useful whoa they can bo ensily accomplished by the Government , but arc they worth purchasing by the obstacles Mr . Gladstone will place in the way of business by his statistical taxes on imports and exports , by his interference with goods in bond , and by his vexatious stamp duties on notes and warrants ? If he ever thought thpv woro , the public meetings alroady hold to remonstrate against his new-fangled , taxation must have awakonod him from Ins delusion . Wo nave no doubt that -tho balance of advantages is decidedly against his course , and in favour of saving outlay to

      Untitled Article

      the extent of avoiding all the new taxes he recommends . To persist in levying them , in order to-supply--an extravagant expenditiu-e , Jind to plead in defence that the public will have , it , betrays in the Ministers a blunted perception of right and wrong , and a want of self-respect , a deficiency of a sense of honesty , and of their own dignity . He loses sight of the origin of the warehouse system in proposing these changes . It was * and it continues to be , a part of tlie restraints imposed on the importer for the behoof of the Government , though somewhat relaxed for Ms convenience , when

      he was allowed to withhold by its means the payment of the duties till he required the articles imported for use . All taxes on imports are restraints , restrictions , violations of individual freedom , gross evils , only to be justified if no better means than , they can be found for raising a revenue ; but they do not cease to be restrictions because they are somewhat lightened by modern ingenuity ,-while , as large a revenue is equally raised . Mr ; Gladstone , however , obviously and fallaciously regards the warehousing system as a favour done to the -merchant ; as a benefit conferred on trade , and therefore he feels himself at liberty

      to lessen its advantages . The warehousing system is a great amendment on the rapacious plunder of trade by the Plaxtagj : nets , the Tudoks , and Stuaiits , but it is still vitiated by the violence in which it . originated ; and while it is the duty of modern statesmen more and more to deprive it of its restrictive characteristics , Mr . Gladstone increases and extends them . A similar sort of fallacy may be traced in Mr . Gladstone ' s notion about taxing all parcels and packages coming into and going out of the kingdom . The State keeps a register of them for its revenue purposes , not for the benefit of- individuals .- Importing or exporting merchants keep a very correct and minute account of every package they have to deal with , and they want no additional registration of it . To them the accounts kept at the Custom House are of no use whatever . These accounts have

      a statistical value for State purposes ; they are interesting to the political economist ; they help to guide the statesman , but they are of no special service to the importer and exporter that they should pay a registration fee on every parcel . Forgetting that tlie origin of aU custom-house and excise regulations is a desire to extort a revenue , customhouse \ officers and . fi nance ministers have come to regard them as inherently beneficial , like annies and navies ; and now Mr . Gladstone actually taxes trade for the restrictions imposed on it . For political economists , ministers , and other officials to write about business and to

      register its steps is to do it . This is a fatal mistake . It fills the world with worthless books , and wastes tlie time of public men . Every sort of work now connected with the Government is stilled Under much writing—mid every official is overwhelmed by useless work . For individuals to keep accounts of their transactions is necessary ; but to suppose that , national wealth and national prosperity can be promoted by docketing and ticketing the industrial products of human action is nothing less than absurd . To this absurdity , however , Mr . Gladstone is now lending the support of his astounding eloquence .

      For tlie sake of the commercial effects , of this renowned budget , Mr . Gladstone appears to havp exclusively constructed it . He recognises public opinion , and uows to the reclamations of Liverpool for the abolition of vexatious custom-house .. duties , and the reclamations of the press for the abolition of tlie paper duties ; He avows that , having £ 2 , 000 , 000 and upwards of less annual charge on the national debt by the falling in of annuities , his object is to " scatter a thousund blessings on the land . " He has yet to learn , apparently , that nothing so

      beneficial can be clone for trade as to loave it uiriiiterfercd with . I ' or the purposes of abating expenditure the £ 3 , 000 , 000 is' a compnratively unimportant , item , but he regards it as a mighty engine for the relief of trade . Nor can it bo denied that the restraints , restrictions and taxation Mr .. Gladstone gets rid of are nil great injuries to the public , and it is good to get rid of thorn . The abolition of the excise duty on paper releases one of our most ingenious arts from the trammels of barbarian

      ignorance , llcmoving from the tariff all differential duties ,, except those on cprn and timber , equal to throe per cent . of . their price and conferring an advantago to that amount on landowners , is common ' justice ; and these two yet lingering ronwauts of tho old plundor must speedily follow the rest .. Butter , cheoso , and fruit are happily released from contributing , by taxes on thorn , to tho rent of tho landowners . Only fortyoicrlit articles remain in the tariff subject to duty , which is a great and bpnefieiol improvement . ' Mr . ' Gladstone h , on tins point , a true disciple or Sir Uquekt Peel , biit he co . rrics out tho vIoavs of his master rutlior with mQohanical )) Teoision than mental discrimination . If ho had inflicted on trodo no additional duties this part of his budget would havo had our hearty -commendation .. Mr . Gladstone , taking tho Liverpool view , speaks ot

      Untitled Article

      156 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Feb . IS , 1860 .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 18, 1860, page 156, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2334/page/8/