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    Untitled Article

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    THE NATIONAL REVENUE.

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    HARD WORDS.

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    Untitled Article

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    Untitled Article

    Been so curtailed in France as it was in Italy under . Austrian rule- Prussia , | too , has a dark story to tell ; her royal family figured badly enough -when the last reaction began , and a . Ion " list of sanguinary atrocities accompanied the restoration of the Court to power . Our duty is to stand aloof from dynastic quarrels , and to insist upon the abandonment of that system of mutual support on which the despots have relied . - Let each government be called upon to leave the internal affairs of other States alone , and we shall soon find rulers cultivating the goodwill ^ of their subjects ; but if Austria is to be told she is an European necessity , for whose security a new Holy Alliance is to be formed under the auspices of Lord Johx Russell , nothing but disaster will ensue . For a liberal statesman to put himself in such a position is absurd . Ho might as well ask the Pope for a Cardinal ' s red hat .

    Untitled Article

    g 44 The Saturday Analyst and Leader . [ Oct . 6 , I 860

    The National Revenue.

    THE NATIONAL REVENUE .

    Hard Words.

    HARD WORDS .

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    T HERE are some persons who value their possessions according to their cost . They delight to tell you that their wine was purchased at a guinea u . bottle ; that their horses are twice as dear as other people's ; and that all their movements are accompanied "by an outlay which proclaims their dignity , if it does not minister to their comfort . If this kind of feeling were xiniveisnl , Englishmen might-well be proud of their Government which , from quarter to quarter , proves itself the most expensive in the world . According to a ' return just . published , the revenue . for the ' year ending 30 th September , 1 . 800 ; , amounted to £ 70 , 80 ' . ) , 07 7 , ; of which Customs' duties , those , obstructions to business , j yielded nearly four and twenty millions . If we look to the last quarter , as compared with its predecessor , we find a decrease of £ 688 , 866 iri Customs , which we suppose may be all accounted for by the reformation -which Mr . Gladstone has effected in our tariff ; and the Bxeise is £ 400 , 000 less . On the other hand , stamps yielded £ 116 , 000 more ; taxes-£ 20 , 000 more ; the property tax £ 407 , 000 more ; the Post-office £ 30 , 000 more ; and those nests of fraud , the Crown lands , £ 3 , 589 more . On the whole , financiers will tell us we are in a healthy state . We" must , howeA'er , remember , that with the exception of some moderate advances on behalf of the China war , our seventy-one millions of taxation represents the cost of Government during peace , and that the foreign policy of the Cabinet precludes the hope of any reduction , while it renders an increase highly probable . This amount of taxation can be borne , if our trading classes will be contented with the obstacles that at present environ them ; and if the difficulty of getting an honest living is always to be permitted to force or incite large firms to the abuse of ¦ . credit ., of which . the failures in the leather trade offer by no means solitary examples ; and al ^ o if the working class will remain contented with a very slow rate of social advancement . Expenditure upon government is simply an . outlay for safety of person and property , and it is so much waste , except so far as it proves the only or the cheapest method pf obtaining that security . Looked at in this way and remembering that the total taxation of England is something enormous , seventy-one millions is a prodigious sum for the central power to expend during a time of peace , especially when more than half of it is obtained by directly and indirectly obstructing the industry of the people . The tendency of civilisation is to equalise conditions ; and it is impossible to suppose that the massed whose labour is so heavily weighted in this country , will permanently consent to remain in it , unless their burdens can be reduced . Wages in the Colonies arc much higher than in this country , and taxation is much . less . The same things may be predicated of the United States ; and it may bo doubted whether the working men will toil under English conditions , after they have been sufficiently well-educated , to see nil tho chances before them . Our immense accumulation of capital enables us to progress under a load of taxation that no other people could bear ; but there is a close connection between high taxation , together with immense State expenditure , and very painful inequalities in the distribution of wealth . The money wo spend in national education is tho only part of onr outlay that has an opposite tendency — all the rest tends to make greater the gulf whioh severs rich from poor . It is possible that as large , or oven a larger amount of taxation may be , permanently borne by the people ; but this must be upon two conditions- —prio , that it ahull bo morfc equitably I'nised ; and tho other , that it shall bo more usefully spent , While

    the control of taxation is in the hands of tax eaters , we can have no improvement Avhich goes down to first principles . Even moderate reforms , like those which Mr . Gla , dstostk advocates , drew upon their proposer a ferocity of antagonism that is quite surprising , and no statesman would venture to undertake a sweeping alteration . It may not be possible to make taxation pleasant , but we cannot maintain our Customs and Excise against the steady opposition of the industrious classes , nor can the unsatisfactory Income Tax be looked Tipon as other than a , provisional arrangement . If our rulers should got up a Avar Avith our nearest neighbours , tho . taxation question would soon come to an issue , and the conflict betAveen old and new . principles could not be delayed . Tlie chief cause . of misery and crime : iit this country is poverty ; and if an equal division of all good things were possible , it av . ouIcI not suffice for the satisfaction of . legitimate Avaiits . We need a great increase of wealth , 'without a proportional increase of population ; or , in other words , that oi ' tr wealth should grow faster than our people . Taxation is one great cause Avhy this does not take place , and hence cheap government is our foremost desideratum .

    Untitled Article

    Hard words have "been from the earliest ages the greatest and chief obstacle to the diffusion of useful knowledge . The monks-of old who compiled histovy -and chronicled scientific discovery , ' wrote in the Lathi tongue , that nobody but themselves might be able to read their books ' - knowledge was not deemed a fit meat for . the stomach of the : profctnum rulc / i ! * . It wsis something 1 to be hoarded up and kept in dust and darkness , to be visited occasionally jind gloated over like a miser ' s stove ; and the - -monks who -Weft * its sole depositories , look the most jealous care in guarding it fVom the wind of diffusion . The modern and more enlightened inheritors of this hoarded Avealth , have , until very lately , pursued tlie same selfish policy . Some of them pursue it still , as a sound and necessary precaution against the dangerous results' pf a " little learning . " The nature , of many ¦ .. useful '" arts and sciences , simple enough in themselves ' , has been rendered abstruse , mysterious , and incomprehensible to ordinary understandings , by the use , in relation to them , of far-fetched ¦ technical terms , and " hard " unmeaning names . The science of thinking * logically has been cloaked under the formidable title of " Philosophy ;¦ " morals haA e been dignified with the name of " Ethics . " The masses have been frightened from the study of the principles of government by the pprtentious word " Politics , " which until very lately have always been represented as a science with , which none but the rich and . the highly educated ought to meddle . The most familiar laws of trade and commerce—laws which every man can understand and appreciate iii their practical application—have been set Up as scare -crows , in the guise of " Political economy ;" and oven the nature of money has been so little discussed , that we are still Avithout a satisfactory solution of Sin Robert Pef . l's . amous problem— " What is a pound ? " There is , perhaps , no more striking illustration ot ^ he system which has been so consistently pursued for the obstruction of iisef ^ knowledge , than the practice , of the physician , Who , to this day , continues to write his prescriptions in Latin—Latin , too , of a most mysterious and dog-like character . But possibly , considering the state of the healing * art , the physician is Avise in his generation ; for " JJfydrar / , " by tlie other name of blue pill , might not be so much respected ' .. Trie , policy of tho modern physician , however , is exactly that of the monk of the dark agos . Ho does not consider it sure that the vulgar herd , should pry into the secrets of his art . It would bo subversive of his order , and of his reputation for cunning , if his patients knew that the hioroglyphics on tho scrap of pape which they take to tho chymists to bo made u ]> , simply means " black draught . " We are not going- to denounce tho physician for . keeping Tip this mystification ; for wo know there are people who loill have physic , and the almanacs of Zadkikiv and Francis Mooris , physician , aro existing testimonies to the popular respoct for hioroglyphical expression . Wo have heard of a very effective medicine being made up from an order to tho boxes of the Adolp hi Theatre , in tho handwriting of tho late Mr . Yatrh , notwithstanding that the important ingredient " not admitted after seven o ' clock , " Avas omitted from tho . mixture Happily , hoAvevor , except in tho last-montionod scionco , tho clouds oi mystification aro rapidly being cleared oil" , and ordinary folks aro beginning 1 to understand that tho thing which has , beqn «<> „ long callocl b y a fine hard name , is simply a spado . Wo have sig-nal ovidonco of this gratifying fact in tho groat gathering of tho working classes at Glasgow . Tho workmen of Glasgow showed , on tliin ocoasiipn , that they Averp not only capable of listening to and appreciating 1 tho addresses of tho loar ' nod men who tpok a leading part in tho congross ; but that they woro competent to join in thei disnusfiion . Humble avtjssanjs wore thore sopn taking their turn with such mfin as Lord lJRoVaTiAM , '' Sir Join * Kayr 'SHinerr , !* : worth . Dr . Lancaster , and M . Garnihr I ^ oisb , in dobntinp ? and elucidating questions which hnvo hitherto boon regarded . as tho property only of tho exalted and tho loarnod . And tho working men who spoke on tho occasion , distinguished themselves by a praotical turn of thought Avhich contrasts lUvourably with tho more abstruse and abstract oho . rooter of tho disquisitions of tho moro loarnod speakers . Sir John J [ Cavi 3 Sjiu'r'ri-jiiwottTTi was very loo-rood upon tho eorro * lotion of moral tvml physical forces \ Mr , JCjniujr ' p was equally

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 6, 1860, page 844, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2368/page/4/