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844 The Saturday Analyst and Leader. [Oc...
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THE NATIONAL REVENUE. 'T THERE are some ...
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HARD WORDS. Hard words have been from th...
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.
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Transcript
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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.
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The Curse Of Diplomacy. Pandora's Bo.X C...
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 long 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 States alone
called upon to leave the internal , affairs of other , 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 John Rtjsseli ,, nothing but disaster will ensue . For . a liberal statesman to put himself in such a position is absurd . He might as well ask the Pope for a Cardinal ' s red hat .
844 The Saturday Analyst And Leader. [Oc...
844 The Saturday Analyst and Leader . [ Oct . 6 , 1860
The National Revenue. 'T There Are Some ...
THE NATIONAL REVENUE . 'T THERE are some persons who value their possessions -L according to their cost . They delight to tell you that their wine was purchased at a guinea a 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 universal , Englishmen' might well be proud of their Government -which * from quarter , to quarter , proves itself the . -most expensive in the world-. ' Accordingto a , return just published , the revenue for the year ending 30 th September , 18 GO , amounted to £ 70 , 800 , 077 , of which Customs' duties , those obstructions to business , 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 in ' Customs , which we suppose may be all accounted for by the reformation which Mr . Gladstone has effected in our tariff ; and the Excise is £ 400 , 000 less . On the other hand , stamps yielded £ 11 G , 000 more ; taxes £ 20 , 000 more ; the property tax £ 407 , 000 more ; the Post-office £ 30 , 060 . more ; and those nests of fraud , the Crown lands , £ 3 , 580 more . On the whole , financiers will tell us we are in a healthy state . We must , however ,
remember , that with the exception of some moderate advances oil 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 also 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 of 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 tho masses whose , labour is so heavily weighted in this country , will permanently consent to remain in it , unless their burdens can he reduced . Wages in the Colonies aro much higher than in this country , and taxation is much less . The same things may be pi-edicnted of the United States ; and it ; may bo doubted whether the working men will toil undor English conditions , after they have "been sufficiently woll-qclucntod to sen all tho chances before them ,
Our immense accumulation of capital enables us to progress undo ? a load of taxation that no other people could bear ; but there is n close connection between high taxation , together with imuienso State expenditure , a nd very painful inequalities in tho distribution of wealth . The money wo spend in national education is the' only part of our outlay that has an ! opposite tendenoy—all tho rest tonds to mnko greater tho gulf which 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 bo upon two oanditions-T-ono , that ifc shall bo moro equitably raised ; and the other , that it shall Tbo more usefully spent . While
the control of taxation is in the hands of tax eaters , we can have no improvement which goes down to first principles . Eveil modei'ate . ' reforms , like those which Mr . Gl . idstoxe advocates , drew upon their proposer a' ferocity of antagonism that is quite surprising , and no statesman -would venture tu undertake a , sweeping alteration . It may not be possible to make taxation pleasant , but we cannot'maintain oiir Customs and Excise against the steady opposition of the industrious classes , nor can the unsatisfactory Income Tax be looked upon as other than a provisional arrangement . with
If our rulers should got up a war , our nearest neighbours , the taxation question would soon come to an issue , and the conflict between old and new principles could not be delayed . The chief cause of misery and crime in this country is poverty ; and it " . an equal division of all good things -were possible , it would not suffice for the . satisfaction of legitimate -wants . We need a great increase of wealth , without a proportional increase of population ; or , in . other words , that our wealth should grow faster than our - ' people . Taxation is one great cause why this does not take place , and heii . ee cheap government is our foremost desideratum .
Hard Words. Hard Words Have Been From Th...
HARD WORDS . Hard words have been from the earliest ; ages'the-, greatest' chief obstacle to the diffusion of useful knowledge . The monks of old who compiled history and chronicled scientific 'discovery , wrote in the Laiiu tongue , that nobody but themselves might'be able to read their hooks ; knowledge was not deemed a fit meat for the stomach of . the pt'ofanum vuicjvx . Ifc Was something- to be hoarded up and kept in dust and darkness , to be visited occasionally and gloated over like ^ miser ' s store ; and the monks who were its sole depositories , took the most jealous . care' in guarding- it from the wind of ' diffusion - The modern and more enlightened inheritors of this hoarded wealth , have , until very lately , pursued the same selfish policy . Some of them pursue it still , as a sound and necessary precaution against the dangerous results of a " little learning . '' The h \\\ them
nature of many useful arts and sciences , simple e noug - selves , lias been rendered abstruse , mysterious , and incomprehensible to ordinary understandings , by the vise , in ' . relation' to . them , of farfetched technical terms -. and" hard " unmeaning nanies . The science of thinking logically has been cloaked under the formidable title of " Philosophy ;' " morals have been dignified ' with , the name of " Ethics . " The masses ljavc been frightened from the study of the principles of government by the portentious word " Politics , " which until very lately Lave always been represented as a science with which noiie but " the l-i ' cli and the higlily educated ought to meddle . The most familiar laws of trade and commerce—laws which every nian can understand and appreciate in their practical application—have been set up as scare-crows , in the guise of " Political economy ; and even the nature of money lias boon so little discussed , that we are still without a satisfactory solution of Sru Robert Peel s
simons problem— " What is a pound r There is , perhaps , no more striking illustration ot ^ he system which has been ko consistently pursued for the obstruction of usef ^ knowledge , than the practice of the physician , who * to tins 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 wise in his generation ; tor " J £ i / drar / , " by tlio other name of blue pill , might hot bo so much respected ' . Tlio policy of tho modern physician , however , is exact y that of tho monk of the dark Jigcs . He does not consider it sate that tho vulgar herd should pry into the secrets of his art . it would be subversive of his order , and of hi . s reputation for cunning , if his patients knew that tho ljieroglyphicn on tho scrap of paper which they taiko to tho chymists to bo made up , simply means " black draught . " Wo aro not going to den ounce tho physician lor keeping this mystification ; for wo know there arc people who
up havo physic , and tho almanacs of Zaokiei . and Jmiancis Moore , physician , aro existing testimonies to tho popular respect for hieroglyphical expression . Wo have licard of a very c' ™> ctiyo niodicine ' bemg made up from an order to tlio boxes o ! ' tho Adojpni Thontro , in tho handwriting of tho late Mr . Yatbs , not withstanding that theI important ingredient " not admitted after soven o clock , was omitted from tho mixture . / . Happily , however , oxcopt in tho lust-mentioned si ; io » uv , tlio clouds of mystiliflution avo rapidly being cleared oftj and ordinary folks aro l > ojyinnm | r to understand that tho thing winch has boon so long called by a fine hard name , is simply a ftpndc . Wo haro signal evidence of this gratifying fact in the groat gathering of tlio working classos at Glasgow . Tho workmen of Glasgow showed , on this occasion , that they were not only capablo of listening to ami apprcciatinK tho addrosses of tho learned in on who took' a loading part in clissus
tho congress ; but that they wore oompotont to join m tu < J - Hioii . I fumble nrtizans we ' re . thoro soon talcing thpir turn with » uui » men as Lord UiioucmAM , Sir , [ onN Kaym HnuTTi . uwoitTHf j >>' . Imnoabtkr , and M . Gaknirii Paohis , in debating and elucidating querttions wliioh havo hitherto boon rogarded m tho property only of tho exalted iincl tho learned . And the working vnem who spoke on the occasion , distinguiahed themselves by a practiciu turn of thought which contrasts llivournbly with tho mow WMWUflo ana atotraot ohavnotor of tho disquisitions of tha more learned spoalcora . Sir John K < vyio SnuTTLKWouTn : was vpvy loavuod mion two correlation of moral aiul nlivsionl Ibrcos ; Mr . Kinnaird vrm c < i \ i « uy
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 6, 1860, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06101860/page/4/
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