On this page
-
Text (1)
-
156 ¦ . Tlie Leader and Saturday Analyst...
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.
-
-
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.
The Budget Analysed. "Vjete Were: Not As...
notes for the purchase or sale of any and all goods , stocks , funds , or public securities also a duty of threepence on dock warrants , of any document entitling a person to hold property in docks or warehouse ' s , and on every transfer of such , warrants or documents ; a duty , too , of a penny on * every- certified extract from any register of births , deaths , or marriages ; also of sixpence on every transfer in the cost-book of a iiiine of every share or part of a share ; of sixpence on every memorandum of agreement j and a progressive duty of 6 < £ additional for every 1030 , words the memorandum may containafter the first 1080 : and he makes sundry other alterations
in the stamp duties , abolishing some exemptions from these duties , and among others any .. nowexisting on bills , drafts * pr orders to pay money . Prom these various sources he expects to gain for the inland revenue a sum of £ 386 , 000 ; and he is to save ^ 86 , 000 in the revenue establishments . These . ¦¦ several sums amount to £ 12 , 954 , 000 , which shows an expected surplus at the end of the year of £ 464 , 000 . Thus , as the result of these mimerous 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 latterly been held to be a just 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 income 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 thein will , in the end , tum . out to be as oneious 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 ° naode of taxation is only to rub in some other place a hew
sore . . . Jr - . ..- ; - . ¦ - . To the proposed grant of , licenses for selling beer and ; spirits , paying a small sum , to eating-housekeepers and confectioners , we must ° take a special objection . Under cover of liberating the victualling business froin the brewers and magistrates' monopoly , it extends the jurisdiction of the licensing system and of the police to a vast munber of houses of entertaininent . As ayq read this part of the resolutions laid , before the House of Commons , and confec
it will be imperative on every eating-house keeper - tioner to take out a license ^ cto 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 the inonopoly ; but to ask the Legislature to accomplish this act of justice by a furtive and deceitful fiscal clause in a budget , is a public scandal . Like doth and bread , the sale of beer , wine , and spirits should be perfectly free ,
Mr . Gladstone and the Ministers may persjist in spying that they cannot reduce , the expenditure , but when they find it ex-: trembly difficult , not to say 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 the estimates winch could be spared , to avoid the necessity of levying £ 510 , 000 additional customs duties , and de 38 C , 0 Q 0 additional stamp duties P Gould they not have deducted for a year or , two , till the revenue had recovered from the changes made necessary by the commercial treaty , which is expected to give new activity , to our industry , some two or three hundred thousand pounds from pivblic works , gome two or three
Hundred thousand pounds from building schools , . endowing colleges , and fostering muclf quackery , in order to avoid the necessity for the new , minuto , vexatious , and execrable taxation Mr . Gladstone has proposed ? We will undertake to point out from the estimates for civil services , at least £ 1 , 000 , 000 which need not be expended this year ; and , not being expended , mi ° 'lit save the community from Mr . Gladstone ' s new blisters , lloyul paluces , and harbours of refuge and parks , the cultivation of soience and the promotion , of education , are nil useful when
they can be' easily accomplished by the Government , but are they worth purchasing by the obstacles Mr , Gladstone will placo in the wiiy of business . by his statistical taxea on imports ond exports , by hjs interference with gpods in bow ] , and by his vexations stamp duties on notes and , warrants P IT lie over thought tliev wero , the public meetings already held to remonstrate agonist his new-fangled taxation must havo awulcened him from his delusion . Wo have no doubt that the balaiico of advantages is deouleclly against his course , and in favour of saving outlay to
the extent of avoiding air the new taxes he recommends . To persist in levying them , in orcler to supply an extravagant expenditure , and to plead in defence that the public will have it , betrays in . the .-Ministers a blunted perception of right and wrono-, and a want of' selferi-espedv 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 the restraints imposedon the importer for the behoof of the Governmentthough somewhat relaxed for his convenience , when .
, he was allowed to \ yithhold by its means the payment of the duties till he required the . articles imported for use . All taxes on imports a re 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 riot 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 ; tlie warehousing ; system as a favour done to . the merchant- ; as a , benefit conferred oil 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 Plantagknets , the -TuDOKSj and Stuaiits , but it is still satiated by the violence in whicli it originated ; and while it is the duty of modern , statesmen more and inore todeprive it of . its restrictive characteristics , Mr . G ladston jb . 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 tlie benefit of individuals . _ Importing .. op -exporting , merchants keep a very correct iind minute account of every package they liaye 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 , tothe political ecanoinist ; they help to guide the statesman , but they are of no special service to the importer and exporter that they should pay a registration feeon every parcel ; Forgetting that the origin of all custom-house and excise , regulations is a desire to extort a revenue , customrrhouse officers ami finance ministers have come to regard them as inherently beneficial , like armies 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 the time of public men . Eveiy sort of work now connected with the Government is stifled under much writing—and every official is overwhelmed by useless work . 3 ? or individuals to keep accounts of -their transactions is necessary ; but to suppose that national wealth and national prosperity can be prompted by docketing and ticketing the industrial products of human action is not lung less than absurd . To this absurdity , however , Mr . Gladstone is now lending the support of his astounding eloquence .
For the sake of the commercial effects of this renowned budget , Mr . Gladstone appears to have exclusively constructed it . He recognises public opinion , and bows to the reclamations of Liverpool for the abolition of vexatious custom-house duties ,, and the reclamations of the . press for the abolition of the paper duties . lie avows that , having £ 3 , 000 , 000 and up-iirds of less annual ehurge v on the national debt by the fulling in of annuities , his object is to " scatter a thousand blessings on the land . " He has yet to leurn , apparently , that nothing so beneficial can be done for trade as to leave it uninterfercd with . For the purposes of abating expenditure the £ 3 , 000 , 000 is a comit
paratively unimportant item , but he regards as a mighty engine for tl \ e relief of t i rade . Nor can it be denied that th <; restraints , restrictions and taxation Mr , Gladstone gets rid of are all great , injuries to the public , and it is good , to gob rid of them . The abolition of the excise duty on paper' releases one of our most ingenious arts from the trammels of barbarian ignorance , Honoring from the tariff all . differential , duties , except those on corn and timber , equal to three per cent , of their -pricp and conferring an advantage to that amount on landowners , is common , justice ; and these two yet lingering remnants of the old plunder must speedily follow {\\ o rest , T ) .-4 . A A » . « "K ~ ««<• ,. n . * 1 - &¦* ii 4 mm lto iMtiltr i * j-k 1 j tiion / l f \« rtin r » r * n I I'll 111 f" 11 K *' i 1 Mb iuv awjv <\* *
, , MUl > l-Ulj UAlUwOv , UMH x ** "I , 1 V » mwv ** w **« , w » v » *•* v-.-.-q , by tuxes on thorn , to the rent ot' the landowners . Only fortyeight articles remain in tine tariff subject jto duty , which in u groat and'bpnoficinl iwiproyomont . Mr . .. Gladstone is , on this , point , a true disciple of Sir Uobhht Peel , but he carries out the views of his master rather with meehanioal precision tluux mental discrimination . If ho had inflicted on trade no additional duties this part of his budget would havo had our hearty connneiulatipn . Mr . Gladstone , taking the Iivorpool view , speaks of
156 ¦ . Tlie Leader And Saturday Analyst...
156 ¦ . Tlie Leader and Saturday Analyst , [ Fjeb . 18 , I 860 .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 18, 1860, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18021860/page/8/
-