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e^cM» mkrit/, MteSh^. 2^ A POLITICAL AND...
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"The one Idea winch. History exhibits as...
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REVIEW OF THE WEEK- vagbI Miscellaneous ...
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VOL. VIII. No. 358.1 SATURDAY, JANUARY 3...
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rpHE controversy between Government and ...
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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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E^Cm» Mkrit/, Mtesh^. 2^ A Political And...
e ^ cM » mkrit / , MteSh ^ . 2 ^ A POLITICAL AND LITERARY REVIEW .
"The One Idea Winch. History Exhibits As...
" The one Idea winch . History exhibits as evermore developing itself into greater distinctness is the Idea of Humanity—the noble endeavour to throw down all the barriers erected between mei ' by prejudice and one-aided views ; and , by setting aside the distinctions of Religion , Country , and GoLonr , to treat the whole Human , race as one bjotb . erb . ood , having one great object—the free development of our spiritual nature . "—IFumboidt ' s Cosmos .
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¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦ . ' ' ¦ . " © oittmts : ¦ .. ' . " : ¦ .. . ¦/' ¦ ;
Review Of The Week- Vagbi Miscellaneous ...
REVIEW OF THE WEEK- vagbI Miscellaneous 105 ; OPEN COUNCIL- ANew Illustrated Shakspeare . 116 MeetTn kof T ^ kct-of-Lave Men . ... 98 Postscript . 10 * ; Sccretsof the Purchase System ...... 110 Tho Wedding Gueats 116 ^ b licieetings ... !„ .. ™ . ' .. V ... 99 PUBLIC AFFAIRS- Tho Moon ' s Motion Ill THE ARTSPrison Discipline 100 Imperialism in Italy ,... 108 ; - ,. „ . „ ,..,., •__ Kathwine . and Petruchlo on Horse- ; S ^ te of T raU e 100 Common Sense of theBank Charter j LITERATURE- back . 116 The Orient .. 101 Question 107 > Summary 112 Ireland ' . 101 Tho English at Brussels . 108 ! New Edition of Carlyle 112 —~ America' ! " !!!!!!' ..... ! 101 The Eve of the Session 109 ¦ Horace Walpole ' s Letters 113 _ , Oa 7 pttp 11 T Continental Notes 101 Our Operations in . Asia ... 109 : Quarterly Essays 113 lne Gazette 11 T Accidents and Sudden Deaths .... 103 The Ticket-of-Leave Parliament ... 110 ; The Adulterations of 3 ? ood 114 COMMERCIAL AFFAIRSOur Civilization 103 Colonial Appointments 110 Tlie iNew Zcalanders 114 .. Nswal and Military .... 104 The Unemployed at the "Unions .... 110 . Advice to Officers m India 115 City Intelligence , Markets , & c 117
Vol. Viii. No. 358.1 Saturday, January 3...
VOL . VIII . No . 358 . 1 SATURDAY , JANUARY 31 , 1857 . . Price { gSS" ^ ::: Sg , Sr
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Rphe Controversy Between Government And ...
rpHE controversy between Government and tlie X public on the subject of the Income-tax has commenced in good earnest , although with , good manners . Sir George CoaisrEWALii Lewis lias now received two deputations pressing upon him a great change in the tax—with reference to the mode of assessment , to the persons who would fall under the l ¦ ; I !
pressure , and to the amount , — -and ' Manchester follows up the attack . ' No satisfaction ! Sir Geobge puts aside at once any idea , of readjusting the tax . He treats that as a closed question . He admits hardships , but pleads the ' difficulty . ' Readjustment of the Income-tax , therefore , at the hands of the present Government , is a thing that the public must not look for ; and politely as Sir George Lewis expressed it , it is quite as well that they should understand the distinct refusal . ' One of the : r j i - 1 2 e y c
grossest inequalities of the tax is , that it presses hard upon the man with 1001 . a year , not at all upon the man with 99 J . a year ; which is of course so absurd that we may call it simply silly . Sir George declined to meddle with that iniquity : it must go on . He does not indeed adopt the barefaced expedient of standing upon tlie letter of the present statute , and continuing the tax literally one clear year after the ratification of the treaty of peace ; but he tells us that he shall have to provide for a heavy expenditure this year , and he must cons II > f [ . : } - ie
sider tlie expenditure along with the tax . The war augmentation of divers taxes on malt tax , & c , will fall in , and lie implies that he shall be able to reduce the Income-tax very little . A bad tax , badly adjustcd 3 and still heavy—that is the Ministerial reply to the request of the public for a reconsideration of the Income-tax . We are not disposed to press hard upon the Government ; but we cannot refrain from observing that at the best tliis reply is , that Government has not the capacity for doing any better , though others could toach it .
It is well known that the Opposition lias under consideration a readjustment of the Income-tax and of our whole financial arrangements , "with a view to rendering the burdens of the people less severe . This has appeared for some time past , most especially from the declarations of Sir John P ^ icington and our able -weekly contemporary the Press . Mr . Roeihtck has disclosed one reason for this inability of the public to obtain any kind of effectual influence over the Government . He calls it " corruption . " There is corruption , ho says , in every
public department , from top to bottom . Members are inveigled into the great connexion by invitations to the Queen ' s Palace ; and ' independent ' as they may be in their wishes and their position , they are thus coaxed into tameness . If Mr . A . is stubborn , Mrs . A . gives way , and A . is cohquered through his wife . 1 STow , there is some truth in this description by Mr . Roebuck , though it is a great deal too abstract and general . Taking the matter in a less precise form , and yet in a more correct form , what it amounts to is this : — When gentlemen are elected by the constituencies , and come to reside in [ London for the legislative season , it is also the London season . Those of them who ai-e suited for drawing-room business are drawn into 'distinguished' society , and are gradually induced to feel tlie same sympathies , interests , and objects in life with that undefined and yet perfectly cognizable class which constitutes the ' upper' society of London town , and manages or cajoles the public business of the country . There is the whole story . A contractor has put forward a distinct denial that public contractors do business with the public departments by corruption , and we believe him . No money passes , even the distribution of place is necessarily too limited to corrupt all those who thus betray the
public interests . But London residence , the natural desire for ' distinction , ' the universal devotion to advancement , especially in appearances , drag the representatives of the people into a new £ sct , ' and constitute them tlie representatives of the West-end . The House of Commons accordingly conducts the affairs of the nation on West-end principles . And since City men have taken to live about Belgravia and Tyburnia , even they constitute no effectual check , unless we come to a matter like the Hank Charter Act , in which they have the first word . The only improvements , therefore , reforms , changes of policy , or whatever else we may call them , for the interest of the public , arc those which West-end statesmen and philosophers can approve , on grounds of intellectual fitness , good taste , or the supremacy of the upper classes . For instance , many Lords , Baronets , and Judges , Members of Parliament , and other intelligent gentlemen , constitute themselves a Law-Amendment Society , —and an excellent society it is . The society has this week assembled a conference on mercantile law ; a branch of law which is in . the grossest confusion . The state of the joint-stock companies acts , the doubts as to the real position of insurance companies , tho atatc of the bankruptcy
law , the Royal British Bank , the confusion of the law on the subject of dock warrants , the gigantic and hideous expenses of bankruptcy , —these are but a very few instances of the excessive confusion , of the mercantile world . Poieigners speak with the greatest contempt of the foolishness of a people like the English- —of a mercantile people , —whose mercantile law is quite incapable of being understood
by a foreigner or explained by a native . Nothing can be more desirable , then , than a revision of the whole , with an improvement on Lord Brougham's principle of rendering it in accordance with plain common sense instead of Mandarin technicali ties . The upper classes of the West-end are quite willing to concede reforms of this kind , and we may thank them for their condescension .
But let any public man attempt to break through the class interests , especially the interests of the high-born , wealthy , and titled classes , —those , in short , who are fairly called the West-end classes , and he is crushed . Sir John M ' jMeili forms an example ; Colonel Tullocu another . They were sent out as commissioners into the Crimea to expose the bad management , the frightful sacrifice of life in the British army , many times greater than that of Walchercn , as they reported . Now Sir John belongs more to the engineering classes , to the
nation , than to the upper classes , He has a title and a fine position , but he is a man who takes an interest in the work to be done , whatever it is , more than in class or person . Well , the Government could not but receive his report . Who had occasioned that mismanagement in the East ? The Government , carried on by the representatives of the West-end class . They were the officers that outrageously sacrificed life , property , and taxes!—officers bom of the West-end class ; and what was the result ? Tlie result was , that when the worst officers—most pointed at by the Report—came home , they were all promoted to distinguished positions ,
got General commissions , Colonelcies , honours , increased pay : -while Colonel Tulioch was worried into illness , and Sir John M'Neill has been treated with total neglect for a year , until certain persons at Liverpool sent him that vote of thanks which lie ought to have had from Lord Palmeuston's Government and from the Parliament . That is the example of the way in which any man is crushed who attempts to thwart the West-end classes and the people will never get their rights until they awaken ¦ to a sense of the real conspiracy against them . „ ¦ - - ' At present , however , the peoplo at hvrgc ajrp / d ^ ojjigleas than some small section of them , such" as tliO . ¦ j . - j ' ¦• ^ ¦ - '" " J "• • ¦'"" ' / i ¦'¦ '• -
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 31, 1857, page 1, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31011857/page/1/
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