REDUCTION OF TAXATION. 
 
 No. 1, 
 
 OF A SERIES OF LETTERS—PRICE THREEPENCE EACH— 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE LAHDOWHERS AXD FARMERS; THE MAND- 
 PACTDRERS AHD TRADESMEN; THE MERCHANTS AND SHIP¬ 
 OWNERS ; AND TO ALL OTHER TAX'PAVERS OF THE UNITED 
 KINGDOM-COMPRISING THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF A PRACTICABLE AND EQUITABLE MEANS 
 OF PAYING OFF THE 
 
 NATIONAL DEBT; 
 
 THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ONLY REMEDY FOR THE 
 PRESENT EVILS OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO PREVENT 
 THE RECURRENCE OF SIMILAR EVILS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 By Bi'itaimiciis. 
 
 LONDO.V : PUBLISHED BY FRED. PITMAN, PHONETIC DEPOT, ], ODEEn’s 
 HEAD PASSAGE, PATERNOSTER ROW; AND SOLD BY ALL OTHER BOOK- 
 
 These LETTERS will comprise an account of tlie rise and progress of 
 THE NATIONAL DEBT;—the working of the SINKING FUND;— 
 the nature of the STOCKS;—and exhibit the extremely injurious effects 
 / upon the Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial Interests of the 
 Kingdom, which proceed from the present system of loans, creating, aug¬ 
 menting, and perpetuating an overwhelming NATIONAL DEBT. 
 
 This Debt amounts to the enormous sum of EIGHT HUNDRED 
 MILLIONS ! The Taxation raised to pay the interest of this Debt is 
 
2 
 
 THIRTY MILLIONS sterling, greatly exceeding the amount of all 
 the other expenses of the nation for the establishment of the Sovereign 
 and Court, the Army, Ordnance, Navy, Judges, National Police, 
 Pensions, &c., &c. 
 
 The advantages which Great Britain has hitherto enjo)’ed—in manufac¬ 
 ture and commerce—from her geological riches—the science of her Watts, 
 Arkwrights, Brindleys, Telfords, and Davys—the skill and enterprise of 
 her mariners, merchants, and manufacturers—are all rapidly beginning 
 to be participated by the Nations on the Continent, who also enjoy the 
 advantages which cheap bread gives to the labouring and manufacturing 
 population. Therefore, much British skill and industry, which cannot 
 find adequate reward in this country, and cajiital not sufficiently produc¬ 
 tive, are rapidly flowing over to the Nations on the Continent, and to 
 America; leaving a great accumulation of infirm or unproductive popula¬ 
 tion to augment the burden of the poor-rates. 
 
 The number of paupers in 184? being 1,471,133') an increase of 
 and in 1848 1,876,541 j 405,408; 
 
 thus augmenting the commercial prosperity and political power of rival 
 nations, at the expense of Great Britain; consequently, although the 
 exports from this country are numerically increasing, the profits thereon 
 are greatly decreasing, whilst the taxation is annually augmenting. 
 
 The corn-growing countries will no longer take our manufactures in 
 exchange for their corn, because they can produce them cheaper among 
 themselves. The late unfavourable harvests caused a drain of several 
 millions of gold from this country; and, if another unfavourable harvest 
 should occur, it must cause a ruinous stoppage of trade, and numerous 
 bankruptcies among the great body of the Manufacturing and Mercantile 
 population in all our cities and seaports; because, to purchase corn from 
 foreign nations, this country must be drained of its gold, and the discount 
 on Bills will consequently rise to 6, 7, and 10 per cent., with decreased 
 profits upon evei-y species of industry./ 
 
 These are positive evils, the existence of which cannot be denied; and, 
 to find out the remedy, ought to excite to deeper reflection, and arouse to 
 more active exertion, than all the other political questions which are 
 agitating the nation. But, why does this state of things exist } Is it not 
 because the great and influential body of the Agricultural, Commercial, 
 and Manufacturing population of the United Kingdom allow themselves 
 to remain totally unacquainted with the details which have caused and 
 continue to uphold it i 
 
In Great Britain, THIRTY MILLIONS of Taxes are annually ab¬ 
 stracted from tbe hard-earned profits, and from the recompense for the 
 mental and physical toil of the labourer, the artisan, the agriculturist, the 
 manufacturer, and merchant—tending greatly to increase the prices of 
 our manufactures in the foreign markets; but America, the producer of 
 the great staple article which contributes so greatly to the prosije. ity of 
 the manufacturers and merchants of this country, is ENTIlvELV FREE-'" 
 ,.FROM PUBLIC DEBT; and almost every other manufacturing coun¬ 
 try can feed its population at half the expense of England./ How, then, is 
 it possible, that, with such an enormous weight of taxation, the British 
 farmer and merchant can, much longer, contend against the superior 
 advantages enjoyed by the corn-producers, merchants, and manufacturers 
 of the United States, and of some of the Continental Nations ? (The evils 
 which embarrass our entire population from excessive taxation must 
 annually augment; and Great Britain must “ douse her top-gallants,” if 
 her tax-payers will not arouse from their snpineness, and apply the best 
 remedy where the real evil existsj") 
 
 The reduction of this National Debt, and the consequent Taxation, has 
 never, and will never, be fairly and efficiently undertaken by any Admi¬ 
 nistration whatever.' Let us look at the fact. Instead of any reduction 
 having been effected during Thirty-four Y'ears of uninterrupted peace 
 with Europe, many millions have been added to the Public Debt; but 
 this has been done so insidiously by the Stock Jobbers, that very few 
 persons are sufficiently aware of the fact—yet it will be clearly exhibited 
 and fully proved in the course of these letteis,' 
 
 It therefore remains for the productive classes of the nation, who must 
 pay these taxes, and who feel the oppression, to propose, and strenuously 
 and continually to urge, the reduction. But, in order to act with judg¬ 
 ment and combined effect, it is absolutely necessary that the real state of 
 the Kingdom, and the effect of this Debt, be clearly understood. 
 
 Ample information on this subject will be detailed in the proposed 
 series of Letters, accompanied by a Plan, founded upon princijiles of 
 PEHFECT JUSTICE both to the Nation and the Fundiioldersinjurious 
 to no interest, but beneficial to allsiinjile in its detail;—and easy of 
 execution by the combined exertions of the Agriculturists, Merchants, 
 and Manufacturers. By this Plan, if carried into execution, the ANNUAL 
 TAXATION WOULD IMMEDI.VTELY BE REDUCED SEVERAL 
 MILLIONS; and the whole of this enormous Debt, and consequent 
 Taxation—so injurious to all our Agricultural, Commercial, and Political 
 interests—would be gradually and entirely paid off in FORTY Years.’ ■ ; 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 THE SUBJECTS TREATED OE. 
 
 1. Examination of the professed Causes of our periodical Commercial 
 
 Embarrassments and National Distress. 
 
 2. Fallacy of the general opinions entertained on this subject. 
 
 3. Excessive Taxation produces small profits, low wages, extensive 
 
 Disease, and increase of Crime. 
 
 4. Numerous proofs from Parliamentary and other official Documents. 
 
 5. State of the National Debt, and its injurious Consequences to the 
 
 Agricultural, Manufacturing, Commercial, and Shipping Interests. 
 
 6. The State of the National Debt is continually alleged by Ministers as 
 
 an Excuse for not repealing any Individual Tax.—Dr. Price, on the 
 evil effects of the Public Debt. 
 
 7. State of the Cotton Trade. 
 
 S. Great Increase in the quantity of Exports, and diminution of Profits. 
 
 9. Advance of the Manufactories on the Continent of Europe and in 
 America, in consequence of our excessive Ta.xation. 
 
 10. National Debt, the cause of the Decrease of our political Power and 
 
 Influence with other Nations, exposing us to continual Insults. K,' '' 
 
 11. The inducing causes of so many hostile Tariffs, injurious to our 
 
 Manufactures and Commercial Prosperity. 
 
 12. Commencement of Funding System in Europe. 
 
 13. Embarrassment of National Finances the general cause of outbreaks 
 
 and revolutions. 
 
 14. Quarterly Retdew on the Effects of Taxation. 
 
 15. History of the rise, progress, nature, and present operation of the 
 
 Public Debt of Great Britain. 
 
16. Unfunded Debt. 
 
 17. History of the Sinking Fund—Plans of Mr. Pitt and Dr. Price for 
 
 paj'ing off the National Debt—The fallacy and failure of those 
 __Plans, because based on impracticable principles. 
 
 18. Opinion of Edinburgh Reviewers. 
 
 19. Review and Refutation of the principles of some other plans for pay¬ 
 
 ing off the Debt—^Their Injustice or Inefficiency. 
 
 20. TAX LEVIED TO PAY THE INTEREST NEARLY DOUBLE 
 
 THE ENTIRE RENTAL OF ALL THE CULTIVATED 
 LAND IN THE KINGDOM. 
 
 21. Position and Claims of the Fundholders. 
 
 22. Comparative Condition of the Agrieulturists, Manufacturers, and 
 
 Merchants. 
 
 23. Competition of Foreign Vessels greatly increasing. 
 
 ^24. Although NOMINALLY the Nation pays only Three per cent, for the 
 Debt, IN REALITY, it pays more than Five per cent., because only 
 £480,000,000 of Sterling Money was received from the Contractors 
 for the NOMINAL present Debt of £800,000,000:—proved by the 
 -terms on which all the Loans from 1797 were contracted.' 
 
 25. Loan of 1798—only the sum of £99 10s. 9d. received for more than 
 
 £200 Stock. 
 
 26. Omnium; of what it consisted. 
 
 27. The manner in which the Debt may he justly liquidated, by an 
 ^ example of a Landed Proprietor, who borrowed the sum of £100,000. 
 
 —Similar proceeding of the Corporation of Dover, and the Dock 
 Trust of Liverpool. 
 
 28. Principles for the management of the public Debt, by Dr. Hamilton. 
 
 29. Proposition for paying off the public Debt, ivith perfect justice to the 
 
 Fundholder and to the Nation. 
 
 30. Tables in which the proposition is e.xhibited for every half-year, until 
 
 the extinction of the entire debt. 
 
 31. Tables of the amount of the funded and unfunded Debt, with the 
 
 Interest annually charged, from 1817 to 1849. 
 
 32. Proof that the sixty-three millions, hitherto employed for paying off 
 
 the Debt, instead of diminishing the amount has positively in- 
 --'creased it by £240,000,000.’ 
 
 33. Nature and Impolicy of the Exchequer Bills ; proving a Loss to the 
 
' Nation of several hundied thousand pounds annually, by the im¬ 
 prudent method of employing those Bills. 
 
 4. Ignorance and consequent apathy of the greater portion of the Nation, 
 
 concerning the real state and operation of the Debt. 
 
 5^Frequent declaration of Ministers, “that no reduction of taxation will /. 
 
 granted, nor any supposed grievance be redressed, until the / ; 
 ition have generally expressed their wish upon the subject.” 
 
 6. Deficiency of the Reform Bill for relieving the burdens of the 
 
 country. 
 
 7. The Nation continually deceived by the official misapplication of the 
 
 terms—Revenue and Taxation. ,“/■ , > 
 
 8. True statement of what is really Revenue, and what is Taxation. ,y,-, 
 
 9. Inutility of any change of Ministers, without a complete change of - 
 
 financial measures. - . ; ^ 
 
 O..^Who are the persons oppressed by the Tax?—and who therefore 
 ought to petition, and exert their energies for redress ? ■ 
 
 1. Interest and Duty of the various Chambers of Commerce, to superin¬ 
 
 tend the National Taxation and Expenditure. 
 
 2. Erroneous system on which all loans have been contracted—being 
 
 both extremely injurious to the national prosperity, and frequently 
 destructive of private fortunes. 
 
 5. True cause of the panic of 1825. 
 
 1. Means of preventing similar panics. 
 
 45. Inutility and folly of petitioning for the removal of any individual tax, 
 producing a few hundred thousand pounds, and leaving the thirty 
 millions of Taxation for the Interest of the Debt untouched. 
 
 46. Proposed new loan at 4 per cent, to receive always £100 sterling for 
 
 £100 stock; and the Nation always to be answerable for £100 
 sterling, whatever may he the state of the money market, as in 
 every transaction between individuals where the borrower is per¬ 
 fectly solvent. 
 
 47. Easy conversion, and means of inducing the fundholders to consent 
 
 to the conversion, of the whole of the uncertain fluctuating debt of 
 £800,000,000, into a fi.xed and certain debt of £560,000,000, allow¬ 
 ing a bonus of 10 per cent, upon the real amount of money bor¬ 
 rowed, which was only £480,000,000, and allowing an IMME¬ 
 DIATE reduction of taxation. 
 
 48. Erroneous and unjust principles on which the 5 and 4 per cents. 
 
 /"/ ■ V * 
 
^have hitherto been reduced;! and the method which, in justice to all 
 parties, ought to have been pursued.' 
 
 49. Calculation of the half-yearly reduction of the Debt, when the whole 
 
 shall have been converted into 4 per cent. Fixed Stock—proper 
 periods for the reduction of Interest and Taxation, and for the final 
 extinction of Debt. 
 
 50. Means of preventing the price of Stocks ever rising or falling more 
 
 than ONE per cent, above or below par, which will prevent the 
 Gambling in the funds, so destructive to all legitimate com- 
 
 51. Refutation of the objection, that “ it is not honourable for the Nation 
 
 to purchase up its own debts, at a discount of 10 or 20 per cent.,” 
 by a reference to the established law and practice of the Lords of 
 the Treasury. 
 
 52. Evil eflfects to our home Commerce, by so many of the English Fund- 
 
 holders being induced, by the excessive taxation of this country, to 
 expend FIVE or SIX MILLIONS of English gold in foreign 
 countries. 
 
 53. Declaration of Ministers that, in order to carry out any effective mea¬ 
 
 sure for the benefit of the Nation, they must always be assisted by 
 the pressm'e from without—the public voice. 
 
 54. Fallacy of the opinion—that any faith has hitherto been kept with the 
 
 fundholders.' The contrary fully proved.’ 
 
 55. Fallacy of the opinion—that the National Debt is a safeguard against 
 
 revolution. Contrary fully proved by reference to History. 
 
 56. Defective education of the j'outh of the richer classes, to prepare them 
 
 for performing their duties as Members of the two Houses of Par¬ 
 liament in this great Commercial Nation. 
 
 57. Declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, “that Indirect 
 
 Ta.xation has reached its utmost limit of productiveness.” 
 
 58. Necessity of taking timely warning from the example of the fall of 
 
 numerous dynasties and some ancient commercial states, not to 
 neglect “ the handwriting on the wall.” 
 
 39. Numerous means of advantageously emploj'ing any money released 
 from the funds. 
 
 60. General benefits to he derived by the foregoing plans, if carried into 
 execution.—Conclusion. 
 
REDUCTION OF TAXATION. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 1. Examination of the professed Causes of our periodical Commercial Emharrass- 
 ments and National Distress.-2. Fallacy of the general opinion enter¬ 
 tained on this subject.-3. Excessive Taxation produces small Profits, low 
 
 wages, extensive Disease, and increase of Crime.-1. Numerous proofs 
 
 from Parliamentary and other official Documents.-5. State of the National 
 
 Debt, and its injurious Consequences to the Agricultural, Manufacturing, 
 
 Commercial, and Shipping Interests.-6. The State of the National Debt is 
 
 continually alleged by Ministers, as an Excuse for not repealing any Indi¬ 
 vidual Tax.-Dr. Price, on the evil effects of the Public Debt.-7. State 
 
 of the Cotton Trade. 
 
 To the Landowners and Farmers; the Manufacturers and Tradesmen: 
 the Merchants and Shipowners; and to all other TAX-PAYERS of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 By the evidence brought forward during nuraerons discussions in 
 Parliament; by the reports from the Magistrates, Clergy, and various 
 Manufacturing and Commercial Bodies; by the reports of the Sanitary 
 Committee; and by numerous other official documents; I believe that it 
 is now an acknowledged and undisputed fact, that Poverty and Misery, 
 with their concomitants-rVice and Crime—abound in this Country to a 
 greater extent, at present, than at any other recent period of our history'. 
 
 Now, for every effect there must he some cause. To find out the true 
 cause, and propose an efficient remedy that maybe easily apphed, are objects 
 of the highest importance; not merely to our Manufacturing and Com¬ 
 mercial Interests, hut to our Political Influence among other Nations—to 
 the Peace of the World—to the True Interests of every Religious Society^ 
 in order to induce a more Moral Condition of the Milhons; and, indeed, 
 to the very Existence of the British People, as a Free and Independent 
 Nation. If, my fellow-countrymen, I should not succeed in comdncing 
 you that the plan I am about to propose is founded upon principles which 
 ought fully to be carried into execution; if I but succeed in fixing gene- 
 
^ attention to the subject, and of inducing some more talented mind to 
 imagine, and more eloquent pen and voice to advocate, a plan which may- 
 produce the same desirable result, my object will he accomplished. 
 
 . The Cause I advocate is not a mere Sectarian or Party Cause; it is the 
 Interest of every Member of every Grade of Society—of every Political 
 Party—of every Religious Denomination, and every Sect; and, without all 
 and every one assist—I do not mean to say in my peculiar panaceum, hut 
 in some attempt to remedy the general evils—then is their vaunted 
 Religion hut Hypocrisy, their boasted Patriotism hut as sounding brass 
 or a tinkling cymbal! 
 
 I appeal more particularly to all Religious and Philanthropic Associa¬ 
 tions, to he up and stirring. The Agriculturists, rich and poor, are gene¬ 
 rally beginning to reduce the wages, or to discharge numerous labourers: 
 the consequence is, that incendiary fires have already commenced; and, 
 without the mass of the industrious population be placed in a more com¬ 
 fortable situation in regard to their pecuniary affairs, your subscriptions 
 must continue greatly to diminish—and your field of usefulness be cir¬ 
 cumscribed. It will be in vain that you labour to improve their moral 
 and religious condition, without their physical state he such as to produce 
 sufficient of calm content to listen to your councils. If any apparently 
 efficient remedy be proposed, it will then be for yourselves. Gentlemen, to 
 apply that remedy and efiect the cure.' 
 
 Whenever any national calamity occurs, it is considered, and rightly so, 
 that it becomes the duty of every individual, however humble his talents 
 may he, to present to the public his idea concerning a remedy; thus, on 
 various occasions, particularly of late years, numerous pamphlets have 
 been published, and our periodical press, provincial as well as metropo¬ 
 litan, has teemed noth theories and prescriptions. Some political econo¬ 
 mists and financiers, who regard only the proximate and secondary causes, 
 or who argue only according to the interests of themselves indUddually, 
 or of the class to which they belong; although I grant that they may do 
 this conscientiously in accordance rvith the system under which they have 
 been educated, and the circumstances by which they are surrounded; 
 assert, that our successive, or periodical, commercial embarrassments were, 
 at one period, occasioned by the American Government rashly attempting 
 to force too suddenly and prematurely a general system of cash payments 
 in all commercial transactions..* This attempt impeded some of the wheels 
 of the great commercial machinery in that country, produced numerous 
 bankruptcies among those who had speculated beyond their capital, 
 induced a want of both private and public good faith, and acted fearfully 
 upon the interests of the manufacturers of Great Britain:—others believe 
 that our distresses have been generally caused by the measures of our 
 own Government concerning the British Currency: some, by the impolicy 
 of Great Britain permitting a Free Trade in numerous productions from 
 
11 
 
 foreign countries, before having induced those countries to adopt an 
 equally liberal system of Free Intercourse for our own shipping and 
 manufactures.- In answer to the petition of 6oo merchants and manufac¬ 
 turers of Glasgow, the minister of the day ascribed the ruinous fall of 
 prices, and the then comparative stagnation of trade, to previous over-pro¬ 
 duction and imprudent speculation. In support of this opinion, many 
 writers adduce the lamentable fact of the entire dissipation of no less than 
 £700,000 by the Directors of the Manchester Joint-stock Bank, in 
 imprudent Loans, and Gambling Commercial speculations. Many 
 throw all the blame on the alleged selfish and impolitic conduct of the 
 Directors of the Bank of England, playing with and governing the 
 money market for their own peculiar ’interest; and numbers exclaimed 
 that it was from the baneful operation of the 'Corn Laws, whence arose 
 all our previous distress: all these circumstances tending to impede the 
 genial flow of Commercial Transactions between this kingdom and 
 foreign countries. But the Corn Laws are now abolished, and are we 
 really and substantially in a more prosperous condition i I do not inquire, 
 whether any individual Manufacture or Trade is more active, or producing 
 more profit; but is the w'hole Countrv more prosperous ? Are the 
 united body of Agriculturists, Manufacturers and Merchants, Ship¬ 
 owners and Tradesmen, more prosperous J' I fear not. 
 
 With all due deference to the high authorities who have severally 
 advanced these previously mentioned circumstances as causes, I must 
 offer my opinion, that those political economists, who, confining their 
 data within such circumscribed limits, attempt to prescribe any effective 
 remedy for the decline of our Manufactures, our profitable Commerce, and 
 our political Influence with other Nations, either are themselves deceived, 
 or wish to mislead the public: they are as much in error as would be the 
 physician w'ho should recommend merely a plaster or poultice to be 
 applied to those superficial ulcers of the body which are only indications 
 and effects of the diseased state of the general mass of the blood, and 
 which are neither the causes nor the real seat of the disease. For let it 
 be granted, that all these circumstances become, in their turn, causes of 
 the evils which afflict our Commerce; still, they are themselves but the 
 EFFECTS OF ANOTHER CAUSE, whicli is the prime moving principle of 
 all. The remedy must therefore be applied to the real origin and source 
 of the corruption. This source, although seemingly remote and indis¬ 
 tinctly seen by some politicians, is deeply seated in our political constitu¬ 
 tion, and extends its corrupting influence throughout every member of the 
 Empire.; It is the EXCESSIVE TAXATION under which every portion 
 of the industrious producing Classes of the Empire is suffering, in order 
 to pay the Interest of the National Debt, forcing our Merchants and 
 Manufacturers to demand very low prices, to diminish their own profits, 
 and transact business in numerous Foreign Markets, on comparatively 
 
12 
 
 very disadvantageous terms; consequently, to pay to the industrious 
 artisan and operative the lowest possible rate of wages that will suffice to 
 support human existence; In proof of this, let us consider the Statements 
 in the Parliamentary Papers of late years, as published under the care of 
 Mr. Porter. Taking one out of many similar statements, we read that, in 
 the town of Paisley, the wages paid for 50,000 shots, were 
 
 In 1814 
 1818 
 1824 
 1827 
 
 «. d. s. d. 
 
 3 9 In 1829 . . . 1 3J 
 
 2 2 18331 
 
 1 2-5 1839 J 
 
 and, according to a statement with which I was furnished, some time 
 since, by a most respectable manufacturer in Belfast, copied from his 
 books during a scries of years, I find that the wages of the Cotton 
 weavers for a similar quantity of work, performed in 1792, was £2 3s. 9d. 
 
 £ s. d. \ ^ s. d. 
 
 In 1812 , . 1 9 0} In 1827 ... 7 5 
 
 1819 . . . 0 19 If 1 1831 . . 5 8f 
 
 And, in the course of the Debates on an Address to Her Majesty, 
 various representatives of the Manufacturing Towns in Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire stated, that in 1814 a family of six persons could earn fifty-two 
 shillings per week, but since 1833 only twelve shillings; a similar piece of 
 calico which, twenty-five years ago, would fetch twenty shillings, would 
 now be sold for five shillings and ninepence.' The Parliamentary returns 
 of Exports prove that, during the last Thirty Years, the profit of the 
 Manufacturer and the reward of wages to the Labourer have gradually 
 diminished. From 1798 to 1808, the exports according to the Custom 
 House returns averaged Twenty-four Millions, and produced Forty 
 Millions.' About this time, money was greatly required to assist the 
 Portuguese and Spaniards, and to pay our own troops in the Peninsula. 
 An immense impulse was given to the production of our Manufactures, 
 but at the same time a fatal blow to the future profits, by Government 
 purchasing large cargoes^and e.\porting to Lisbon. .These were sold by 
 public auction for prompt payment in Gold and Silver; at first, at fair 
 prices, but as the Imports increased-jiat one half— at one ouartee of 
 the Cost Price.' This encouraged the Portuguese Merchants to export 
 to South America, where they forced sales, induced not only the 
 European Inhabitants, but the natives of those countries to wear British 
 Manufactures, from the extremely low prices at which they were offered, 
 and certainly created a subsequent demand, hut, from the glut in the 
 market, at greatly deteriorated prices.' From that period, therefore, we 
 find that the exports regularly increped, but the profits decreased.- It 
 is sufficient to give the returns for every five years. 
 
13 
 
 British Manufactures Exported. 
 
 34,940,550 
 
 41,712,002 
 
 37,818,036 
 
 46,408,282 
 
 58,875,740 
 
 70,285,814 
 
 03,724,380 
 
 77,343,345 
 
 101,763,002 
 
 130,450,426 
 
 170,943,074 
 
 39,259,57 
 
 63,511,49 
 
 83,078,15 
 
 109,536,64 
 
 Since which period I have not been able to procure similar estimates, 
 hut the official returns give the following:— 
 
 1842 
 
 1843 
 
 1844 
 
 1845 
 
 1846 
 
 £ 
 
 102,180,517 
 
 100,200,101 
 
 117,877,278 
 
 131,564,503 
 
 134,599,116 
 
 .-e 
 
 51,031,023 
 
 47,381,023 
 
 52,278,449 
 
 58,584,232 
 
 60,111,081 
 
 We shall next see, from the same official documents, that regularly as 
 the wages of the operative have been reduced, so has crime been aug¬ 
 mented by fearful increase throughout the land. 
 
 j. From 1798 the wages for weaving twelve yards of Cambric averaged 
 fifteen shillings; after which they regnlarly declined, and consequently 
 crime increased. For when a man cannot satisfy the hunger of himself 
 and family by honest labour, he will endeavour to efiect it by other means. 
 
14 
 
 The great inerease of crime in the year 1842 principally occurred in 
 the Northern Counties, probably influenced by the “strikes” in the Coal 
 Districts. In the Manufacturing Districts the increase or decrease 
 appears to be always regulated by the briskness or dulness of Trade. 
 The official tables and observations on this head, prepared for the Home 
 Office and copied into the Companion to the British Almanack every 
 year, will he found full of Interest. Thus we find that regularly as 
 wages decreased, so crimes increased; and they would undoubtedly have 
 still further increased, hut from the admirable and most praiseworthy 
 active benevolence of many enlightened persons in the spread of educa¬ 
 tion for the poor, and of numerous Charitable Institutions. 
 
 -In further proof that good wages and prosperous manufactures cause a 
 great decrease of Crime, and that low wages tend to increase it, the 
 following statement in the Nottingham Papers is worthy of deep atten¬ 
 tion. 1841, Oct. 29th. “Never has the hosiery trade been so dull since 
 •the American 'War, at the close of which, until the commencement of the 
 . French Revolution, workmen were in such request that the Master Manu¬ 
 facturers generally gave a premium of one Guinea for a Man to engage j 
 so prosperous was trade in 17S6, that there was not a single person in 
 either the Gaol or House of Correction, so that the Gaol 'Yard was 
 employed for a Fives-alley Court and other diversions, which practice 
 continued nearly Twenty Years; hut such at present is the depreciation 
 that our stocking-frames are shipping off for Saxony and France; our 
 . Toor House, Gaol, and Infirmary are crowded; and thousands of indus¬ 
 trious Mechanics are in a most destitute state: whilst in Beauvais, and in 
 the neighbouring tillages about thirty miles from Paris, stocking-frames 
 are springing up in great numbers, so as to have lowered the price of 
 cotton hosiery at Paris full twenty per cent.” 
 
 At the former period, above-mentioned, we had little more than Two 
 Hundred Millions op Debt; we have now no less than EIGHT 
 HUNDRED MILLIONS ! and four tijies the amount of Taxa¬ 
 tion levied upon our Industry to pay the Interest. The real cause 
 of our present National Distress must surely he sufficiently apparent. 
 
 Before proposing the remedy, therefore, it is requisite to induce the 
 attention, not only of the Merchants and Manufacturers, but of every 
 land-owner, agriculturist, and tax-payer in the empire, to the Financial 
 State of the Nation. After Thirty-four years of almost uninterrupted 
 peace with the Continental Powers, with almost every coast and harbour 
 in the world open to your ships, and during the most active development 
 of high intellectual and mechanical talent, applied to promote the general 
 prosperity that we have either yet seen, or ever again are likely to witness; 
 what, let us inquire, have been the result and frtiit, in a national point of 
 view, of all your exertions and all your talents! Your public financial 
 affairs have been so mismanaged that you are still labouring under an 
 
15 
 
 Annual Taxation of nearly SIXTY MILLIONS sterling, and a Debt 
 exceeding Eight Hundred Millions ! 
 
 _^Hundreds of our hitherto most wealthy merchants, hankers, manu¬ 
 facturers, farmers, and tradesmen, in various parts of the kingdom, are 
 reduced to a state of insolvency; and many hundred thousands of our 
 most industrious labourers, artisans, and other operatives, are, from want 
 of employment, subjected to the greatest destitution, almost starvation. 
 The successive accounts from Spitalfields, Manchester, Stockport, Glas¬ 
 gow, Paisley, Leicester, Nottingham, Coventry, Birmingham, Sheffield, 
 Worcester, Yeovil, and numerous other towns, as well as agricultural 
 districts, have sometimes been, during several months, most appalling to 
 every sensible mind; and although these towns may occasionally vary 
 their details, from temporary circumstances, still, periodically, they 
 present nearly similar details. 
 
 At a public meeting at Kettering, the Rev. J. Jenkinson stated that the 
 number on the poor-rates in 1836 was 4725, which increased in 1841 to 
 7299; that the dispensary report gave in 1836 only 1911 patients, but in 
 1840 it amounted to 3072. 
 
 The deaths in Preston Union in 1838 were 1269; hut, in 1841, 
 amounted to 1739. This circumstanee attracted the attention of the 
 Registrar-General, who wrote to the Clerk of the Union to inquire the 
 probable cause, and received for answer that the cause in a great 
 measure was insufficiency of food from decreasing wages.^ 
 
 In Glasgow, the mortality, in 1822, was only 1 in 44; but, in con¬ 
 sequence of the decline of trade, in 1837 it rose to 1 in 24j. In 
 numerous other toivns the mortality has increased from the same causes. 
 ^ At a public meeting at Salford, some time since, Holland Hoole, Esq., 
 said:—“ Trade at present is in a state of depression, more severe and 
 lasting than any ever previously remembered by the oldest inhabitant; 
 he had some reason to know, since he had been in the habit of paying 
 . £20,000 per annum in wagesj this distress has been gradually increasing 
 during the last three years, by which the labouring classes are placed in 
 a most destitute condition, and the capital hitherto employed in business 
 has most ruinously diminished; that there are 2030 dwelling-houses, 74 
 cotton mills, factories, and workshops, wholly unoccupied, which would 
 yield a rental of £25,852, whilst vast numbers of respectable and indus¬ 
 trious individuals, who were tenants and work-people, are deprived of com¬ 
 fortable residences and the means of labour and support—thus engender¬ 
 ing disease and demoralization, and threatening to involve the whole 
 community in general ruin.” 
 
 The total amount levied for the Relief of the Poor was. 
 
 In 1832 . . £8,622,920 I In 1843 
 
 1836 . ■ . ‘. 6,354,538 | 1816 . 
 
 . £7,085,595 
 . 6,800,623 
 
16 
 
 and the numbers of paupers in England was, in 1847, 1,471,133; in 
 1848, 1,876,541: the number of the latter year exceeding the former by 
 415,418. “People do not sufficiently reflect upon the magnitude of 
 numbers j but it may bring the matter a little more clearly to the under¬ 
 standing if they consider that the pauperism of England, to say nothing 
 of the still more dreadful state of Ireland, would people several of our 
 largest towns and cities; that, in fact, it would fill Manchester and 
 Salford, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Edinburgh, and 
 Glasgow, or the entire of London and its suburbs.” 
 
 “ If these cities and towns were entirely occupied by persons living idly 
 and unproductive upon the industry and resources of the rest of the 
 country, the evil would be considered too gross to be tolerated. The 
 universal outcry against such plague spots of beggary would shame us in 
 the eyes of the world, and in our own. Yet the evil is not the less 
 existing because it is difiused' over the towns, hamlets, and villages; its 
 magnitude is none the less. It is high time that something should be 
 done to prevent its further growth, and to secure its ultimate diminution, 
 if not extinction.” 
 
 These official returns prove that the decline of trade, and consequent 
 increase of misery, are not confined to one or two places; but have been 
 gradually extending over the whole kingdom: and thousands have lingered 
 and are still lingering in daily increasing misery, until typhus or some 
 other disease, brought on by their wretched state, may release them from 
 their woes/ The remaining operatives may then procure more regular, 
 although still very inadequately recompensed, employ; because the labour 
 market may be thinned by emigration; or by the premature deaths of 
 many thousands, whose diseases, classed under various heads, might 
 truly all have been registered under the general head of Starvation. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the severity and extent of this calamity, and that 
 the kingdom is convulsed by the consideration of various secondary 
 causes, the manufacturing interests petitioning against the agricultural, 
 and vice versa, it does not appear that the public view has yet been 
 directed to the real source and cause. That noxious source is the Taxa¬ 
 tion of £60,000,000 for the annual expenses of the Government, in addi¬ 
 tion to many millions for Poor-rates, County-rates, &c., and all this 
 greatly caused by the profound and gloomy abyss of the Public Debt, 
 which frequently has been, and until it be completely cleared out, must 
 continue to be the great inducing cause of our periodically returning 
 National Distresses] But enormous as is the amount of this Debt, oppres¬ 
 sive as are the Taxes which must necessarily be raised to pay the interest 
 thereof, greatly as it must operate in impeding a more profitable inter¬ 
 course with foreign nations; still the ignorance concerning its real amount 
 and bearing, and the apathy that exists among almost all classes of the 
 
17 
 
 I , community concerning its baneful influence, are most extraordinary. 
 Yet the evil that it produces, not only in its immediate operations, hut in 
 numerous distant ramifications of our commercial and political inter¬ 
 course with other nations, is so overwhelming, so wide-spread, and so 
 augmenting, yearly and daily, that there is no subject of equal political 
 importance which, at the present moment, ought to occupy the attention 
 of the public and of our two Houses of Legislature.' - 
 
 One of the evil consequences of the ignorance and inattention of the 
 public concerning the National Debt, is, that they frequently allow them¬ 
 selves to be cajoled and misled upon a wrong scent, or after compara¬ 
 tively worthless game, by various interested parties, or by men seeking a 
 little evanescent popularity.' Sir Robert Peel, on addressing his consti¬ 
 tuents some time sincej stated that “ no less than 170 propositions for 
 altering the Constitution of the Realm had been brought forward during 
 the preceding Parliament;” and, therefore, we may observe that party 
 squahblings, and discussions upon trifling matters of theory, occupy that 
 time and attention of the Legislature,^'hich ought to be devoted to more 
 substantial and generally e.xtended interests. 
 
 Numerous as have been the petitions presented to the House of 
 Commons during late years, for the abolition of various taxes or mono¬ 
 polies which press heavily upon the commercial and manufacturing 
 classes; numerous as were the notices given, and motions made by 
 different talented members for the removal of some of those political 
 grievances which oppress certain individuals, mercantile bodies, or religious 
 sects, still, however desirable and profitable to individuals, or to the 
 empire at large, may he the removal of those fiscal burthens and political 
 grievances that have been brought forward during the late parliament, or 
 are proposed as prominent subjects for future discussion, all those are 
 truly hut very minor evils when compared with the overwhelming mass of 
 evil engendered by the National Debt; to pay the bare interest, charge of 
 collection, and management of which debt the nation is oppressed with a 
 burthen of more than THIRTY MILLIONS of Taxation—including the 
 interest and charge of collection—a Taxation far exceeding that required 
 for all the other expenses of the State, and nearly double the entire 
 
 RENTAL OP ALL THE AGRICULTURAL LAND IN THE KINGDOM. The 
 annual value of landed property assessed to the poor-rates for England 
 and Wales, in 1841, was total £32,655,137. From this amount it is esti¬ 
 mated by Mr. M'Culloch, that £17,000,000 must be deducted as the 
 interest on account of buildings, fences, drains, roads, and other capital 
 laid out in the improvement of the soil; therefore there can only be 
 £15,000,000 for that year as neat rent for all the corn-bearing land in 
 the Kingdom. 
 
 This subject wiU again be referred to, more in detail; but I may here 
 inquire of those gentlemen—who contend that we should enjoy perfectly 
 
18 
 
 Fkee Trade ; that numerous oppressive taxes on windows, soap, &c., 
 should be abolished; and that all Taxation should be paid by the Landed 
 Interest;—what plan they are prepared to propose to prove how a Taxation 
 of Sixty-Five Millions is to be paid from a rental of only Fifteen 
 Millions ? For we find that the Government expenditure for the same 
 year, 1841, was no less than . . £54,771,430 
 
 And that the Taxation, for poor-rates, highways, 
 county, and other local taxes, was . . 11,187,027 
 
 Total . . . £65,958,457 
 
 Total of real property, including land, houses, mines,-&c., &c., 
 was £62,540,036; and the amount of poor-rates alone levied on the above 
 was £6,351,828. 
 
 ■ I am afraid that many of our orators at public meetings harangue 
 without having troubled themselves to ascertain the real facts. I will, 
 however, endeavour to give these facts, as correctly as I can obtain them, 
 for all parties to judge impartially.' The Taxation for the National Debt 
 alone is considered equivalent to thirty per cent, directly or indirectly 
 upon every species of expenditure, whether the income arise from land or 
 houses; a tax upon every natural and artificial production; upon all the 
 intellectual and physical labour of the Industrious Classes; and upon all 
 they cat, and drink, and wear, in order to pay the Interest of the Debt, a 
 great proportion of which has hitherto been expended by absentees in a 
 foreign land to tbe detriment of this Country.' 
 
 On considering the erroneous principles on which the funding system 
 has been established, the numerous evils engendered by it, and the apathy 
 which generally prevails concerning the real source of these evils, it 
 would appear that only a few individuals of the nation, and these merely 
 the money speculators—the Bulls and Bears of the London Stock 
 Exchange—had ever learned that most valuable of all knowledge in a 
 commercial point of view, the first four rules of Arithmetic! Yet, if the 
 public attention can once be attracted to the subject, it must soon be 
 generally seen and acknowledged, that a|l those other subjects which are 
 exciting so much clamour and such strenuous exertions among some of 
 our reformers—convening public meetings, and signing petition after 
 petition—are all upon minor subjects of public interest, when compared 
 with the great parent of all these evils, the funding system ; in the 
 reform of which, every real conservitive, every true reformer, every friend 
 of his country ought to feel an all-absorbing interest, and exert his most 
 active energies.’ 
 
 If the entire revenue of the Kingdom were raised by direct Taxation 
 upon property and income, by the Tax Collector entering each house and 
 stating, “Sir, (or Madam), your income.is returned at £300 per Annum, 
 
19 
 
 the individual Tax upon which, to pay the interest of the National Debt, 
 is £30 per cent., you have therefore to pay me the amount of £90 for 
 that Tax;” then every one would know precisely what he annually con¬ 
 tributed; but the great encouragement to extravagant e.xpenditure, and 
 the great evil of our Taxation is, that no person can know precisely what 
 amount he is obliged to pay./ The price of an article, which costs only one 
 shilling, may he affected through a dozen minute channels of Taxation 
 and consequent augmentation, which cannot be precisely estimated upon 
 the single article, but each tending to increase the cost to the consumer.' 
 
 In order to understand how indirect Taxation affects individuals, it is 
 sufficient to take one example, from No. 3 of the Liverpool “ Financial 
 iReform Tracts.” The average cost of tea may be stated at present to be 
 about Is. per pound. Under the present Tax, this article cannot go from 
 the importer to the general consumer under four shillings per pound, 
 
 «. d. 
 
 Cost of Tea, per pound . 1 0 
 
 Add Profit of £25 per Cent. . 0 3 
 
 Duty on ditto. . . . 2 21- 
 
 Profit on ditto £25 per cent. . 0 61 
 
 Total, to consumers, . 4 0 
 
 And the general effect may be partly judged of, by considering that the 
 DIRECT Taxation arising from all the Assessed Taxes on Land, Houses, 
 Servants, Horses, Carriages, Windows, &c., did not amount to FOUR 
 MILLIONS, previously to the imposition of the Property and Income 
 Tax; whilst the indirect Taxation amounts to more than FIFTY MIL¬ 
 LIONS, but which being comprised in the price of the articles that we 
 purchase we are not aware of the amount. The total taxation for the 
 year 1847, was Fifty-eight Million Four Hundred and Thirty- 
 eight Thousand Pounds, of which the Assessed and Land Tax was 
 £4,475,000, and the property and Income Tax 5,544,000, received from 
 Cliina 668,000, leaving £47,751,000 to be levied upon aU we eat, and 
 drink, and wear. But the outcry, the commotion, and the petitioning 
 are principally against the Taxation of the four or five millions, or of a 
 few other thousands, the payment of which first falls immediately upon 
 the Manufacturers or Importers, whilst the burden of the remaining fifty 
 millions is almost entirely neglected. Again, the total amount of annuities 
 and pensions for civil, naval, military, and judicial services; against 
 which so much outcry has been made, both in and out of Parliament, 
 amounted in 1838, only to £609,544; and in 1849, to £529,804; yet the 
 £30,000,000 Taxation for the National Debt is scarcely ever mentioned. 
 
 Surely then the time spent in the various public meetings and petition- 
 ings, for the removal of any individual or partial Tax, is perfectly vain 
 
and idle, and must be as unproductive of any beneficial result, as it would 
 be in a General to waste the strength of his cavalry and the thunder of 
 his artillery in cutting oflF merely a few skirmishers, instead of dashing 
 forward at once, and charging home upon the massed battalions, and into 
 the heart of the enemy’s camp; or of the farmer who should pass his 
 time in guarding his fields against the birds and the smaller vermin, 
 which devour only a few grains, whilst he leaves his fences in so dilapi¬ 
 dated a state, that whole herds of the larger cattle rush in, and devour or 
 trample down the hopes of the harvest. 
 
 A very able writer on finance, the late Dr. Price, whose name must be 
 well known to Commercial Men, observes, “The evils and dangers at¬ 
 tending an e-vorbitant Public Debt in this country are so great, that they 
 cannot be e.\aggerated: it increases the dependence on the Minister of the 
 day; renders us tributary to foreigners ; raises the price of provisions; 
 deteriorates our population j and embarrasses our trade and manufactures. 
 Among the most prominent evils that it engenders, are— 
 
 “ 1st. The e-vecrable practices of Change Alley: these cannot be men¬ 
 tioned in language too strong, they are increasing every day; and the 
 National Debt, by giving occasion to them, is likely soon to ruin all honest 
 Industry among us, and turn us into a Nation of Gamblers.” This spirit 
 of Gambling, not only among those Gentlemen who make it a regular 
 trade, but among numerous classes of Merchants and Tradesmen, and 
 even Persons of Rank, is frequently productive of most disastrous conse¬ 
 quences. 
 
 “ 2ndly. It must check the e-vertions of the spirit of liberty in the King¬ 
 dom. The tendency of every Government is to despotism, and in this it 
 must end, if the people are not constantly jealous and watchful; opposi¬ 
 tion therefore to the will of the Minister is often necessary, but this may 
 throw things into confusion, and occasion the ruin of the public funds 
 the apprehension of this must influence all those who have their interest 
 connected with the funds, and incline them always to acquiescence and 
 servility to the powers that be. 
 
 “ But, further, it exposes us to particular dangers from foreign enemies, 
 by inviting insults, and rendering us incapable of meeting war, however 
 necessary, without the hazard of bringing on terrible convulsions, by 
 overwhelming Public Credit. 
 
 “All these are evils which must increase with every augmentation of the 
 National Debt; and there is a point at which, when they arrive, the con¬ 
 sequences must be fatal. It is not the Interest of any Minister 
 TO PAY OFF THE NATIONAL DeBT, ON ACCOUNT OP THE DEPEND¬ 
 ENCY AND Influence created by it ; therefore such an act is never 
 likely to originate with any Minister; this is a policy which it may be e.x- 
 pected that men in power will always use when they can; for few of them, 
 except when very closely watched, have ever shown themselves superior 
 
21 
 
 to the Temptation of Power, or virtuous enough to avoid all possible 
 means to extend it.” 
 
 Thus, whenever any application is made to the Chancellor of the Ex¬ 
 chequer for any diminution of Taxation, upon any object whatever, liow- 
 ever advantageous it may be to the general interests and in accordance 
 with the wishes of the Nation, the same cuckoo note is, and will continue 
 to be responded, “ Retrenchment has been carried as far as possible in 
 every department of the Public Service; and the State of the Public Debt, 
 and the Interest to he paid upon it, totally prevent the prayer of your 
 petition from being granted.” 
 
 Has not this been the substance of the answers to your numerous peti¬ 
 tions during the last Thirty Years ? When Mr. Ewart brought forward a 
 motion for the reduction of the Duty on Tobacco, he stated that his prin- 
 
 the prevalence of smuggling—the duty was Three Shillings on the pound 
 weight, being twelve hundred per cent, on the prime cost—tiie 
 temptation for smuggling was thus almost incurable j and to show that 
 such was the case, it was enough to state, that though the Duty was three 
 shillings. Tobacco was sold as low as two and eightpence, and even at two 
 shillings j that such was the prevalence of smuggling, that it has been 
 computed that no fewer than 200,000 persons were concerned in that 
 trade. To meet the evil, the nation was put to the enormous expense of 
 £800,000 for the Coast Guard. In many cases the honest trader has been 
 obliged to give up the trade altogether. To this the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer rephed,—he could not suppose that the Hon. Member for 
 Liverpool was serious; for, unless he could see that the Reduction of the 
 Duty could create an increase of Consumption and of Sevenue,'he could not 
 entertain the specific proposition then made. 
 
 Marine Insurances. Mr. Robinson presented petitions from the 
 Merchants of London, Liverpool, and some other ports, for a gradual di¬ 
 minution of the Stamp Duties on Marine Insurances, which they proved 
 to he very injurious to the Shipping Interests: the Chancellor of the Ex¬ 
 chequer believed that the statement was correct, that the high rate of 
 Duty had driven much Business to the Continent; hut the expenses of the 
 Nation did not permit of any such reduction from the Revenue. Messrs. 
 Gillon, Hawes, and other Hon. Members, were equally unfortunate in their 
 applications for the removal of the Taxes on Soap, Olive Oil, and various 
 other articles : although for the Repeal of the Duty on Cotton there were 
 37 petitions; for Soap, 91; Tobacco, 23; they all received the same reply; 
 —were quietly put under the table, and proved mere -waste of time and 
 money to the petitioners!! 
 
 Now, although one of the leading members of the Reform Administra¬ 
 tion, Sir Henry Parnel (Lord Congleton), some years since, published a 
 hook, containing his sentiments, when out of power, in which he strongly 
 
objected to Taxes on Industry; yet what was the answer returned by the 
 Government of which he then formed a part, as reported by Mr. Wood, at 
 a meeting convened at Manchester, some time since, in order to petition 
 for a repeal of the Duty on Cotton Wool ! “ that the sum this Tax pro¬ 
 duced could not be spared from the Revenue j and what relief could be 
 wanted by a set of men who had reached a state of prosperity, such as no 
 other part of this extensive and prosperous nation could equal J ” Pos¬ 
 sibly, if those gentlemen, when removed from their splendid mansions in 
 Downing Street, which have been built up by the Revenue arising from 
 the extra toil of the Manufacturers, have leisure to visit the humble dwell¬ 
 ings, the Garrets, Caves, and Cellars, and contemplate the scanty and un¬ 
 wholesome fare to which so many thousands of the industrious operatives 
 of Manchester, Paisley, and Glasgow, are reduced; or of the condition of 
 millions of our other Manufacturers, Artificers, and Peasantry, who pur¬ 
 chase the Cotton Manufactures for their families, and who are conse¬ 
 quently the persons oppressed by the Taxation—or to be benefited by the 
 Reduction; these gentlemen would surely, then, entertain very different 
 ideas concerning the Superabundant Luxury of the Manufacturing 
 Classes. 
 
 Not only as it regards the Cotton Trade, but as it applies to the whole 
 of the Manufactures and Commerce of the Countrj', the information com¬ 
 municated at the Manchester Meeting is of high importance to the whole 
 kingdom. G. W. Wood, Esq., formerly M.P. for Lancashire, and Pre¬ 
 sident of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, said; “ That the Cotton 
 Trade, which gave employment to so large a population, rvas menaced, 
 not from any country under the dominion of Great Britain, hut from 
 other countries which afforded equal access to the raw material, and 
 which were making rapid strides in following our course. The Cotton 
 Manufactures had been, it must be confessed, prosperous beyond that of 
 foreign competition; but, as foreigners were following and e.xtending 
 wherever we had preceded, we had much to fear.” Mr. Graham, on the 
 authority of different commercial men, whose names he gave, informed 
 the Meeting, “ that the Cotton Manufactures of the United States had 
 found their way to Malta, Smyrna, Constantinople, Bahia, Pernambuco, 
 Para, Maranham, St. Domingo, Honduras, Havannah, Mexico, Tambico, 
 Carthagena, Buenos Ayres, Valparaiso, Lima, Cape of Good Hope, Bom¬ 
 bay, Calcutta, Batavia, Singapore, Canton, and Manilla.” He gave this 
 long catalogue of names to prove the extent of the evil, and that it was 
 not confined to the markets of foreign States, where every nation has a 
 fair field of competition; but that it affected those markets that had been 
 the most profitable in our own colonies, and where the British Trade was 
 protected hy the greater duties imposed on foreign merchandise; in 
 short, to every place to which the Merchants of Great Britain traded. 
 This competition, he repeated, only applied at present to the coarse 
 
23 
 
 fabrics; but they must of necessity be ’first, and it would follow that 
 finer and more expensive fabrics would subsequently be sent to tbe same 
 destinations. It bad been urged, against the repeal of the Tax, that the 
 whole was but a trifle, not more than Six per cent., and not amounting 
 in the whole to more than Six Hundred Thousand Pounds. This, in his 
 opinion, was a strong argument in favour of the repeal of the Tax; for if 
 the amount was so small, and since, in the preceding year, the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer had declared there was a considerable surplus of 
 Revenue, this amount might the more easily be spared: but what was 
 the answer when the relief was prayed fori “The sum this Tax pro¬ 
 duced could not be spared from the Revenue.” At the same Meeting, 
 Mr. Fletcher declared that such was the injurious effect of the Tax that, if 
 continued, the plains of the Continent would hereafter teem with Cotton 
 Mills. 
 
 This prediction has since unfortunately been rapidly verifying. Not 
 only are tbe Continental Nations and the United States emulating, and 
 even surpassing, us in our most profitable Cotton Manufactures, but 
 Holland and Belgium are not only manufacturing their own Machinery, 
 but have become exporters to a considerable amount; because many of our 
 most talented and experienced artizans were starving in their native coun¬ 
 try, and have carried over their talent and their industry to the Continent 
 —many of them with bitter feelings against that Government which has 
 forced them to expatriate themselves. 
 
 In the letters of recent travellers, concerning the Continent of Europe 
 and the United States of America, we read that rival manufactories are 
 springing up like magic, aud the Merchants and Manufacturers are 
 enabled to offer their goods in foreign markets at full ten per cent. 
 LOWER than the English prices.—If such be the effect of this Tax of 
 £600,000 upon one article, what must be the effect of tbe Thirty 
 Millions Taxation upon the general Manufactures of the Kingdom? 
 
 The city of Lowell, New England, twenty years ago contained only forty 
 or fifty bouses, but at present it comprises a population of 20,000 inhabi¬ 
 tants, thirty-two 'Woollen and Cotton factories, which, in 1840, fabricated 
 65,802,400 yards of Cotton and Woollen cloth; the operatives were well 
 paid, and the masters realized good profits. The competition in hard, 
 ware and other goods was going on with equal rapidity; and the moral 
 and intellectual standard of the people will bear comparison with any in 
 the world. 
 
 It may, however, be remarked by some of you. Gentlemen, that not¬ 
 withstanding all the rivalsbip and activity of the people of the United 
 States and of the continent of Europe, the general amount of our foreign 
 trade has considerably increased within the last half century; that this is 
 proved by various parliamentary documents: but at what price has this 
 been accomplished? It has been almost as ruinous as the splendid trade 
 
24 
 
 of some of the great Linen Drapers of the Metropolis, who, to acquire a 
 name, and do a great stroke of business, bought goods at twenty shillings 
 which they subsequently sold at fifteen or sixteen shillings; this soon 
 ended in bankruptcy, with the loss of many thousand pounds to their 
 creditors. Thus we find, in a petition presented to Parliament by the 
 master spinners and manufacturers of cotton, and which it was under¬ 
 stood was principally drawn up by one of the largest proprietors of Mill 
 property in the kingdom, J. Fielden,E sq., M.P. for Oldham, “That, in 
 1815, the consumption of Cotton in the United Kingdom was only 6500 
 bags of cotton per week. 
 
 In 1820 . . 9,000 I In 1837 . . 20,000 
 
 1823 . . 11,500 1838 . . 23,000 
 
 1830 . . 16,000 1839 . . 21,000 
 
 1835 . . 18,500 1 1840 . . 24,000 
 
 and the average weight in each bag had gone on increasing yearly from 
 250 pounds in 1815, to 354 pounds in 1840. Now it is a remarkable fact, that 
 the manufacturers and their work-people collectively received a much 
 LESS AMOUNT IN MONEY for Working up 9000 bags in 1820, a less 
 amount still for 16,000 bags in 1830, and only a small amount more in 
 1840 for working up 24,000 bags per week, than they received in 1815 
 for working only 6500 bags j and this, notwithstanding the number of 
 operatives employed in 1840, was about treble the number employed in 
 1813; and, taking the quarter of wheat as the standard of payment, the 
 manufacturers find that they have now to give nine and one-third pieces 
 of cloth for one quarter of wheat, whereas two pieces and one-third of the 
 same cloth would purchase one quarter of wheat in 1815—thus proving 
 
li,S3l17CTION or TAXATION. 
 
 No. 2, 
 
 OF A SERIES OF LETTERS—PRICE THREEPENXE EACH— 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE LAUDOWNERS AND FARMERS; THE MAN0- 
 PACTDRERS AND TRADESMEN; THE MERCHANTS AND SHIP¬ 
 OWNERS ; AND TO ALL OTHER TAX-PAYERS OP THE UNITED 
 KINGDOM-COMPRISING THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF A PRACTICABLE AND EQUITABLE MEANS 
 OF PAYING OFF THE 
 
 NATIONAX. DEBT; 
 
 THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ONLY REMEDY FOR THE 
 PRESENT EVILS OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO PREVENT 
 THE RECURRENCE OF SIMILAR EVILS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 By Britanniciis. 
 
 LONDON: PUBLISHED BY FRED. PITMAN, PHONETIC DEPOT, 1, (IOEEN’s 
 HEAD PASSAGE, PATERNOSTER ROW ; AND SOLD BY ALL OTHER BOOK- 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 8. Great Increase in the quantity of Exports, and diminution of Profits.-9. 
 
 Advance of the Manufactories on the Continent of Europe and in America, 
 
 in consequence of our excessive Taxation.-10. National Debt, the cause 
 
 of the Decrease of our Political Power and Influence with other Nations, 
 
 exposing us to continual Insults.-11. The inducing causes of so many 
 
 hostile Tariffs, injurious to our Manufactures and Commercial Prosperity. 
 -12. Commencement of Funding System in Europe.—13. Embarrass¬ 
 ment of National Finances the general cause of outbreaks and reToIutions. 
 
 ■—-14. Quarterly Review on the Effects of Taxation.-15. History of the 
 
 rise, progress, nature, and present operation of the Public Debt of Great 
 
18 
 
 To the Landomners and Farmers; the Manufacturers and Tradesmen; 
 the Merchants and Shipowners; and to all other TAX-PAYERS of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Sheeiff Alison, in his admirahle work. History of Europe, 
 Vol. V. remarks:—“ It was in the boundless extent of the British finances 
 that freedom found a never-failing stay;—in their elastic power, that inde¬ 
 pendence obtained a permanent support when snrrounded by the wreck 
 of other nations—when surviving alone the fall of so many confederacies: 
 it was in their inexhaustible resources that England found the means of 
 resolutely mmntaining the contest, and waiting calmly on her citadel 
 amidst the waves, the return of a right spirit in the surrounding nations. 
 Vain would have been tbe prowess of her seamen, vain the valour of her 
 soldiers, if her national finances had given way under the strain i and the 
 conquerors of Alexandria and Trafalgar must have succumbed in the 
 contest they so heroically maintained, if they had not found in the 
 resources of Government the means of permanently continuing it. Vain 
 would have been the charnel-house of Spain, and the snows of Russia, if 
 England had not been in a situation to take advantage of the crisis; if 
 she had been unable to aliment the war in the Peninsula, when the native 
 powers were prostrate in the dust; and the energies of awakened Europe 
 must have been lost in fruitless efforts, if the wealth of Britain had not 
 at last arrayed them in dense and disciplined battalions on tbe banks of 
 the Rhine. How then did it happen that this inconsiderable island was 
 enabled to expend wealth greater than had ever been amassed by tbe 
 ancient mistress of the world; to maintain a contest of unexampled mag¬ 
 nitude for twenty years; to keep at sea a fleet that conquered the united 
 navies of Europe—and an army which carried victory into every comer 
 of the globe; to acquire a colonial empire that encircled tbe eartb; sub¬ 
 due the vast continent of Hindostan, at the same time that it was struggling 
 in Spain with the land forces of Napoleon; and equipped all the armies 
 of the north, for the liberation of Germany? 
 
 "The solution of this phenomenon, unexampled in the history of the 
 world, is without doubt to be found in the persevering industry of the 
 British people—in the extent of their manufactures, and of the commerce 
 which they maintained in every quarter of the globe.” 
 
 Now since our statesmen and public writers of all parties generally agree, 
 that it was the wonderful development and extent of our manufactures 
 supplying the whole world which enabled this nation to ride triumphant 
 through the last continental war; where, it may be asked—when the er¬ 
 roneous financial policy of our Lords of. the Treasury has forced America 
 
19 
 
 and the nations of the Continent of Europe not only to supply their own 
 wants, but enabled them to furnish our colonies, and even in many in¬ 
 stances our HOME MARKETS, with those manufactures, which formerly 
 were considered the staple wealth of this kingdom;—where can be found 
 the sinews of war to pay our Army and Navy, in case we are unfortunate 
 enough to be engaged in new wars of any extent! and both France and 
 America will long remain smothered volcanoes, whose fires are ever threat¬ 
 ening to burst forth, and involve Great Britain in their eruption. The 
 boundless ambition of America will be continually agitating new subjects 
 of discord, concerning her greatly extended, and continually extending 
 boundaries,' and, in France, however peaceful the face of affairs at present 
 may appear, a day, an hour, in that country, upsets all previous political 
 calculations and arrangements; and their increasing demand for ships, 
 colonies, and commerce, will periodically excite jealousies continually 
 threatening war. But, notwithstanding the necessity for encouraging our 
 manufactures, again to be able to carry us through any similar struggle, 
 the relief which was so earnestly sought for by the abolition of this tax 
 on cotton wool, could not be granted, because tbe interest upon tbe 
 £ 800 , 000,000 of debt must be provided for 5 and because the cotton 
 manufacturers had reached a state of prosperity, such as no other part 
 of this extensive and populous empire could equal. This tax has, how¬ 
 ever, subsequently been taken off by Sir Robert Peel, after much of the 
 contemplated mischief had been effected. A policy something like “lock¬ 
 ing the stable door after the horse has been stolen.” 
 
 As one proof how much our statesmen continually require the assist¬ 
 ance of the deliberate opinion of enlightened and practical men, among 
 our merchants and manufacturers, particularly of our various chambers of 
 commerce, the reiterated reports from various parts of the country, con¬ 
 cerning the destitute and starving condition of more than 100,000 unem¬ 
 ployed manufacturers and artizans, almost before the ink was dry that 
 communicated the answer, is too lamentable a proof. 
 
 Thus, by the total inattention of our Lords of the Treasury to the only 
 means of efficiently reducing the National Debt, they are truly starving 
 to death the goose that has hitherto laid them the golden eggs: for it will 
 be herein subsequently proved that, since the peace of 1815 , the public 
 Debt, instead of having been diminished, has in fact, in consequence of 
 the erroneous system of the funds, been increased two hundred 
 MILLIONS ! 
 
 Concerning the advance of the manufactories on the Continent, and the 
 feelings of the people, I may quote a letter from Berlin, written some 
 time since: “At the last fair at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, the German pa¬ 
 triots remarked with joy, that the British manufactures are more and 
 more supplanted in our market by those of Germany; many merchants 
 even affirm that, if the advantages of manufacturing by machine should 
 
20 
 
 extend among us, as they have lately done, foreign countries will soon 
 be unable to sustain the competition with the German manufacturers; in 
 fact, the consumption of cotton yarn increases among us in an astonishing 
 manner. Some years since there were only six considerable houses here 
 which dealt in twist j we have now about twenty of them, all of which 
 are looked upon as rich.” 
 
 Fr.vnce. —In the report of the Minister of Commerce, he states, 
 “ that the Export and Import Trade had both been regularly increasing 
 from 1826 to 1810 — from 1,126,000,000 to 2,068,000,000 francs;” 
 and the Moniteur, Nov. 1841, states that the export of French cotton 
 goods had increased since 1838 to 7l per cent., and of woollen goods to 
 6l per cent.; and what is the result in regard to the United-Kingdom? 
 During the war, almost the whole continent was supplied with British 
 manufactures; and Napoleon, notwithstanding his Berlin and Milan 
 decrees, and his army of douaniers, could not prevent his own Empress 
 and the ladies of her court from wearing British muslins and calicos, nor 
 his soldiers from shaving with British razors: hut, what the power of 
 Napoleon could not effect, in causing the downfal of Great Britain, the 
 measures of our successive Lords of the Treasury have been rapidly 
 accomplishing: for, gradually, since the Peace, our Taxation to pay the 
 Interest of the National Debt has continued so excessive, and the price of 
 food, compared with that of the continent, so extravagant, that many 
 British capitalists have established themselves on the continent; and 
 numerous active minds in France, Belgium, and Germany, no longer 
 occupied in war, have applied their capitals and their talents in commerce, 
 have visited our manufacturing towns, and encouraged numerous fore¬ 
 men and other skilful artizans to emigrate, and teach themselves and 
 their native workmen the British arts. In this, the Russians have also 
 been greatly encouraged by their Emperor and Priuces, who clothed men 
 of science in military uniforms, and decorated them with orders, and thus 
 gained entrance for them into all our Government establishments and pri¬ 
 vate manufactories, and they became acquainted unth all the secrets of our 
 arts, which were politely developed and explained by our manufacturers, 
 not suspecting manufacturing science under the garb of a mere warrior. 
 
 To 6nd an export for her growing manufactures, Russia has already 
 succeeded in excluding British commerce, in a great measure, from the 
 Black Sea, and is ardently and continually labouring in hopes of effecting 
 the same object in the greater part of the Mediterranean, and of gradually 
 supplying the Eastern nations with Russian manufactures—since each 
 successive war contributes to develops new powers, to aggrandize and 
 enrich Russia, but to impoverish Great Britain. At the fair of Novogorod, 
 in 1840, Russia sold of home manufactures to the value of 29,922,493 
 rubles; and, in 1841, 34,159,685 rubles. 
 
 In the commencement, these various countries all required their 
 
21 
 
 machinery from England, which was at first smuggled abroad in con¬ 
 siderable quantities, chiefly from the port of Hull, subsequently exported 
 by legal permission. This export regularly went on increasing from 1S30, 
 from the amount of £30,000, to 1837, when it reached no less than 
 £600,000, at which amount it remained for some years; but, since 
 Holland and Belgium have become manufacturers of machinery, not 
 only for themselves, but for other countries, and are now considerable 
 exporters; even this trade, which has been something like the Dutchmen 
 selling gunpowder to the besieging enemy to knock down their own 
 homes, must gradually decline. Heretofore, France also was supplied 
 with her steam engines from England ; but, at a late trial at Brest, of the 
 steam ship Pluton, before the admiral and several other naval officers and 
 engineers, it was proved that the new French engines were now made 
 superior to those received from England; and it was remarked, that the 
 French manufacturers are now provided with all the tools which are 
 employed in the best workshops of Great Britain. To supply their rising 
 manufactures, our export of twist, and other articles which required but 
 little labour and yielded but little profit, regularly increased, from 1S27, 
 at £4,811,903, to 1838, when they amounted to £10,987,032; but our 
 manufactured goods, which demanded more labour and yielded more 
 profit to the workmen and to the master manufacturers, have declined for 
 the northern countries of Europe, from 1827—£5,272,085, to 1838,— 
 £4,616,002, and are gradually declining. And, according to the statement 
 of some of the representatives of our manufacturing towns, much of our 
 commerce during several years has been effected by forcing sales at prices 
 less than the cost of manufacturing, in order that the holders of stock 
 might disencumber themselves of it previously to closing their mannfac- 
 tories. And, notwithstanding the skill, industrj', and almost starving 
 wages of our Spitalfields, Paisley, Glasgow, Coventry, and Nottingham 
 manufacturers, still we find, according to the official reports, that France 
 exported to England, from 1827 to 1838, silk goods to ihe amount of 
 £3,589,594, of which only £1,875,708 paid duty; consequently, £1,713,886 
 were smuggled, to the great detriment of the honest trader and the 
 industrious tax-paying British manufacturer. This was proved by com¬ 
 paring the returns of the French and English Custom Houses. The 
 Leeds Times, of August, 1841, states that their export of woollen cloths 
 was, in 1826, £427,288; in 1830, £445,260; but, in 1840, only £258,942: 
 whilst the cotton manufacturers in the United States consumed, in 1834, 
 only 196,400 bales of cotton; but, in 1835, 236,700 ditto; and in 1839, 
 276,000 ditto; therefore. Gentlemen, if you do not wish to see your mills 
 and factories all crumbling in ruin, and your vessels I'otting in your mag¬ 
 nificent docks; and in good earnest wish to remedy the ills that already 
 afflict our commerce, and to avoid the greater evils that threaten to over¬ 
 whelm the whole nation—it is requisite that not only every legislator, but 
 
every elector and tax-payer in the kingdom, arouse from his lethargy, 
 and exert himself vigorously and in good faith to obtain a just arrange¬ 
 ment and comparatively speedy annihilation of the National Debt, and the 
 Taxation of Ihirty Millions consequent upon it. 
 
 In the Quarterly Review, Vol. 51, for 1829, we read:—“ The charge of 
 the Public Debt stood in the first year of the iate war, at £9,500,000; and 
 in the first year of peace, at £32,852,000; and amounts in the present 
 year to £29,118,781 : now, if such he the increase of debt during war, 
 and if all attempts at reduction during peace prove, as they hitherto have, 
 inefiectnal, bankruptcy, in the end, cannot possibly be avoided. It cer¬ 
 tainly is to be feared that the burdens of endless war will at length accu¬ 
 mulate too rapidly for the growth of our wealth; few, we imagine, con¬ 
 template our debt without a foreboding of such a crisis; few, without the 
 associate dread of civil anarchy.’’ 
 
 Another very serious evil produced by this enormous National Debt is, 
 that it becomes a continual source of weakness and humiliation in our 
 intercourse with foreign nations. It has been frequently remarked in 
 Parliament, “that England was bound in her own recognizances of 
 £800,000,000 to Iceep the peace with all the world. The Debt shows to 
 other nations the weakness of England, and prevents her from speaking 
 in that authoritative tone in which she should speak to the nations of the 
 earth.” And, whilst residing several years on the continent, and con¬ 
 versing with foreigners concerning the influence of Great Britain with the 
 difierent Powers of Europe, the writer of this was repeatedly answered:— 
 “ Yes, you have been great and influential, but your power is fast waning; 
 you can no longer send forth such grand fleets to sweep the ocean as in 
 the days of your Howe, Nelson, and Duncan; they are retained by a 
 chain cable of £800,000,000 of your National Debt, and more than 
 £50,000,000 of Annual Taxation during peace; otherwise you might, and 
 no doubt would, have prevented the multiplied evils and horrors that have 
 afflicted Spain and Portugal, Poland and Circassia, and would have more 
 efiectually carried your favourite object—the abolition of the slave trade. 
 Your Secretaries may amuse themselves in uwiting their Protocols, but 
 they have become mere waste paper; however your Government may 
 bark, they have no longer the power to bite, except when attacking some 
 weak, unwarlike state.” Now, we well know the moral effect of power, 
 or even of supposed power. Would a feeble and puny man pick 
 a quarrel with a Gully or a Belcher—the Champions of England, whose 
 blow would annihilate him i Would a poor man commence a Chan¬ 
 cery suit with a man who possesses several spare thousands ? Would not 
 each weaker person wish to come to an accommodation, even with some 
 sacrifice of his rightful claim ? How easily and promptly the captain of 
 a British frigate obtained redress from the weak power of Carthagena, 
 and even from Turkey, when our countrymen were insulted, and, accord- 
 
23 
 
 iiig to our ideas, illegally imprisoned. Even from the King of Sardinia, 
 when the interests of our merchants were injured, and when we found 
 that Austria and France were not prepared to support Sardinia in the 
 quarrel. But did we obtain any redress from France when the British 
 flag and our Governor were grossly insulted in our own harbour of Mau¬ 
 ritius, with the apparent intention of e.\citing the French population and 
 capturing the island, in a time of profound peace between the two coun¬ 
 tries ? On the contrary, on the return of the French officer, he was pro¬ 
 moted hy the Minister of Marine to a superior command. Did we receive 
 any redress for another great insult—for a French ship of war forcibly 
 taking out a pilot from a Government packet on the coast of Brazil ? 
 Again, when France declared a long line of the coast of South America 
 under blockade—a blockade, considering the small fleet she sent out to 
 enforce it, almost as ridiculous as Napoleon’s blockade of all Great 
 Britain ? 
 
 Buenos Ayres : — “ M. Baradere, the French Consul at Monte 
 Video, has addressed an official note to Mr. Flood, the British Consul- 
 General, dated 13th March, in which he announces that it was and is 
 the intention of France to include in the blockade of Buenos Ayres, all 
 the coast belonging to the Argentine Republic, as well on the Rio Plata 
 as on the ocean.” The line of coast, thus for the first time to he included 
 in the blockade, is equal in e.xtent to about Three Thousand miles, 
 from Cape St. Antonio, round Cape Horn, to the confines of Chili; and 
 along all that immense range there did not exist a single French ship of war 
 to enforce the blockade thus absurdly and insolently declared on paper. 
 But England humbly submitted to the insult; our cruisers were ordered 
 not to do any thing to cause a collision between the two nations, and nu¬ 
 merous vessels, ready laden in British ports for that country, were 
 obliged to re-land their cargoes, to the great detriment of the merchants 
 and ship-owners, because we are bound in a recognizance of £800,000,000 
 to keep the peace. 
 
 These were all studied and, it may he clearly seen, were premeditated 
 insults, to know how much England would patiently bear; for the then 
 Minister of France, as is evident from numerous circumstances since 
 brought to light, particularly the increase of the naval force in the West 
 Indies at that period, was contemplating and fomenting the national spirit 
 for a war with England, which in all probability was only prevented by 
 Russia and Austria joining Great Britain in the settlement of the Egyp¬ 
 tian affair. For although France would willingly have tried her strength 
 against England single-handed, she feared that the three great powers 
 combined would overmatch her. 
 
 What redress did our protocols procure from Russia for the capture of 
 the “ Vixen” in the Black Sea ? This aflair was also foolishly neglected 
 by the great body of our merchants, as weU as by our own Government; 
 
24 
 
 alleging it to be an affair nrith merely an individual merchant, instead of 
 what it ought to have been considered, and what it has really proved to 
 be—the trial whether Russia could exclude the whole of the British trade 
 from the Black Sea, except through her own enstom houses; to the total 
 prevention of a most valuable and extensive commerce which might have 
 been opened among the Circassians, and through them to other countries 
 of the East, desirous of reeeiving our various manufaetures from Spital- 
 ficlds and Birmingham, from Nottingham and Manchester, from Sheffield, 
 Paisley, and Glasgow. But we have already nearly sixty millions of 
 taxation, and we dared not cope with these European powers: yet, how 
 readily we sent forth our fleets and armies to force a contraband trade of a 
 poisonous drug with China, because we believed her an unwarlike and 
 feeble power. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm which the British people have 
 shown in the cause of regenerating Greece, and the blood and treasure 
 we expended at Navarino in her service, Russia and France have obtained 
 the political influence in that country which we had hoped to possess, and 
 are enjoying commercial advantages denied to British merchants. Even 
 your old and faithful alliesj as they are frequently denominated—Spain 
 and Portugal, for whom thousands of our bravest soldiers have died, and 
 in whose cause you have expended so many millions of treasure—dare to 
 cajole and insult you in your apparent decrepitude. Some time since. 
 Lord Palmerston admitted, in answer to Lord Sandon, that by a treaty 
 between the French and Spanish Governments, the steamers of the former 
 were allowed the privileges and profits of the Spanish coasting trade, 
 the same being denied to the English steamers: and, during another 
 debate, the new tariff of Portugal was described by Lord Palmerston as 
 unfair and detrimental to English commerce. Wine, shipped at Oporto 
 for England, pays there a duty of twelve thousand reis; but, for all other 
 countries, a duty of only one hundred reis. 
 
 The wealth, supremacy on the ocean, and proud bearing of Great 
 Britain, so long the envy of other nations, have at length induced them to 
 commence their attack where they believe she is alone vulnerable—in her 
 commerce and manufactures; following up the conviction of Napoleon, 
 who was always so desirous of obtaining for France—ships, colonies, and 
 commerce; and who, on visiting a celebrated establishment in the neigh¬ 
 bourhood of Versailles, and seeing the perfection to which the manu¬ 
 facturer had brought his cottons and muslins, took off his own Cross of 
 La Legion d’Honneur, and decorated biin with it, adding, “ Sir, you are 
 truly worthy of wearing it; since you have effected more towards impair¬ 
 ing the wealth, and humbling the pride of England, than all my generals, 
 and my Berlin and Milan decrees.” Although the name of the manu¬ 
 facturer has escaped my memory, the circumstance was related to me, 
 while inspecting his manufactory some time since. Thus we see that, at 
 
length, after having gradually possessed themselves of our machinery, of 
 many of our most skilful manufacturers to conduct, and artisans to repair 
 the old and construct the new, believing themselves now possessed of all 
 our science, they almost unanimously declared a commercial war against 
 us. Russia, France, Belgium j the great German League, including 
 Prussia, Bavaria, Sa.vony, Wirternburgh, and several smaller states; 
 Portugal, and the United States; have all fulminated their prohibitory 
 tariffs, in order to encourage their rising manufactures, augment their 
 national finances, and humble the power of England. Whether they may 
 be completely successful, depends almost entirely upon the future measures 
 of our own Government in regard to our National Debt. Let us e.xamine, 
 as briefly as possible, the bearing of these tarifi's on British commerce. 
 
 The Russian Tariff— November, 1841—first raised the duty on 
 worsted or woollen goods, and mixed worsted and cotton, from 3s. 6d. to 
 6s. 2d. per pound, English; the new tariff increased these to from 200 to 
 300 per cent, ad valorem ; and printed goods are prohibited. 
 
 The French Tariff— June 26th, 1842—by doubling the duty on 
 British linen, yarns and linens, is almost entirely prohibitory of what was 
 previously our largest branch of export to France. 
 
 The Belgian Tariff, in obedience to the dictation of France, with 
 the view of preventing the smuggling of English manufactures into 
 France through Belgium, has raised the import duties to the same pro¬ 
 hibitory rate. 
 
 By tbe Gbrsian League Tariff, of September, 1842, the duty on 
 one of the largest branches of our exports—worsted goods, figured or 
 printed—is raised from 30 to 50 dollars per cwt.; so as to be nearly pro¬ 
 hibitory: and tbe duty on hardware is increased about 50 dollars the cwt. 
 
 The Portuguese Tariff. Previously to 1837, the duties were 
 about 10 per cent., ad valorem, on the average qualities of cloth sent to 
 that country; by the new tariff, they are raised to an ad valorem duty of 
 
 United States Tariff —August, 1842—raises the duty on woollens 
 from 29 to 40 per cent.; on worsted goods, from 20 to 30 per cent.; on 
 cotton goods, (although nominally 30 per cent.,) it is in reality occasion¬ 
 ally from 100 to 200 per cent.; and, on some goods, prohibitory. 
 
 How soon have past away all the so greatly vaunted advantages to our 
 commerce and to our national prosperitj’, which were to have flowed from 
 the assiduously supported struggle of twenty years! from the expenditure 
 of £600,000,000 of taxation ; from the glories of the Nile and Camper- 
 down ; of St. Vincent and Trafalgar; of Salamanca, Vittoria, and 
 Waterloo 111 
 
 These successive attacks against the power and prosperity of Great 
 Britain forcibly bring to mind the fable of the old lion and the ass! Now, 
 that we must quietly put up with the cajolery of the French in regard to 
 
Spain, Sonth America, and Algiers, in hopes eventually to turn the 
 Mediterranean into a French lake, as Russia has succeeded in rendering 
 the Black Sea her exclusive domain; that we must tamely brook the 
 insults and prohibitions agdnst our manufactures from the more powerful 
 Eagles and Bears of the north are sufficiently mortifying—but that we 
 must also suffer the kicks of the contemptible minor states—well may 
 the British Lion exclmm: 
 
 “ Fortes, indigne, tuU, 
 
 Mihi insultare; te, natura; dedecus, 
 
 Quod ferre cogor, certe bis videor mori!" 
 
 “ ’Twas hard to bear the brave,” he cried; 
 
 “ But to he trampled on by thee, 
 
 Is nature’s last indignity! ” 
 
 But, Gentlemen, however we may be suffering under this dark cloud of 
 debt, so as to induce foreign powers to imagine us in our decrepitude, 
 some recent events in the East have proved that the lion’s teeth are not 
 all decayed; and I feel assured that, if the land-owners, with the com¬ 
 mercial and manufacturing classes, and the electors in general throughout 
 the kingdom, will take the initiative in the great work of the National 
 Debt Redemption, and diligently pursue the plan that I propose to 
 detail, again may the British Lion arouse from his lair; and, if again our 
 commerce be attacked, and our national honour insulted—again may he 
 shake his mane, and make every foreign foe tremble at his roar. 
 
 In order to the better understanding my subsequent propositions, for 
 the immediate reduction and speedy annihilation of this debt, upon prin¬ 
 ciples of PERFECT JUSTICE, not only to the merchants, the manu¬ 
 facturers, and landowners, and to all the industrious classes dependent 
 upon these three—hut also of perfect and full justice to the fund-holders, 
 it is requisite that I enter, as briefly as the subject will permit, into the 
 history of the rise, progress, and present operation of this debt. This 
 debt was contracted upon terms which were in accordance with the then 
 existing ideas of the land ; therefore, it ought to be honourably repaid, 
 but with perfect justice to all parties—the lenders and the borrowers. 
 
 The system of defraying the public expenses by borrowed loans, and of 
 pledging future taxes for payment of the interest, took its rise in Genoa 
 and Venice. So long as the merchants of those countries advanced loans 
 to the kings and rulers of foreign nations, so long did they go on accu¬ 
 mulating wealth, covering the seas with their argosies, augmenting then- 
 power and influence, and sometimes holding in their hands the power of 
 declaring whether other nations should enter upon war or remain at 
 peace; for, notwithstanding the highest skill of generals, and the most 
 determined bravery of soldiers, no war can be successfully carried on 
 without the expenditure of immense, sums of money. 
 
27 
 
 In the fifth volume of Colonel (General) Napier’s excellent History of the 
 Campaigns in the Peninsula will be found some very interesting details upon 
 this subject, in regard to the embarrassed situation of our own forces, and 
 those of Spain and Portugal during that period, for want of this requisite 
 aid; and which occasionally prevented the carrying into effect the best 
 planned measures. When other nations began to adopt this system of 
 borrowing loans within their territories, and Genoa and Venice required 
 also to borrow loans to carry on their wars, those once powerful states fell 
 into rapid decay. The funding system was subsequently carried to a 
 great extent in Holland; and the financiers and merchants of that country 
 now too late find out, that to this system, and to the excessive taxation 
 which it occasions during peace, the low rate of profit in that kingdom, 
 and the decline of her fisheries, manufactures, and commerce, are to ha 
 ascribed—the inevitable consequences of all loans, borrowed on the im¬ 
 politic and usurious system of our own National Debt, are, that the 
 people are less happy, and the State greatly enfeebled. It was the same 
 system pursued by the French Government which caused the disastrous 
 bankruptcies of 1715 and 1796 in that country. 
 
 The ministers of Louis XIV. boldly asserted, “ that one national bank¬ 
 ruptcy was required in every hundred years, in order to bring the State 
 home. Acting upon which sentiment, in 1715, the National Debt of that 
 country was arbitrarily reduced, by the Regent Duke of Orleans, from 
 3,111,000,000 of livres to 2,000,000,000; and the interest from 86,000,000 
 to 80,000,000; but no provision was made for the payment of even this 
 reduced debt. Subsequently, under Louis XVL, from the facilities which 
 this system of loans had previously given for a lavish expenditure, the 
 exchequer was at length exhausted, as well as the means of procuring 
 fresh supplies to pay the army. The impotence of the government with¬ 
 out their aid was apparent, and they revolted—which led to the downfal 
 and massacre of the Royal family, and of more than two millions of the 
 most respectable inhabitants of the kingdom; not only of the nobility and 
 clergy, but of the tradesmen, artisans, farmers, and peasants. And, as an 
 example of one of the dreadful consequences resulting from a national 
 bankruptcy, according to the well-authenticated statement of M. Chateau¬ 
 briand, no less than twenty thousand women, and a still greater number of 
 children, perished miserably by the guillotine, the musket, and the sword ; 
 or were burned in their own houses. AR those horrors were caused by 
 an oppressive and overwhelming National Debt, and consequent Taxation. 
 Again, in 1796, the expense of the war obliged the French Government 
 to cancel two-thirds of the Public Debt, and only one-third was inscribed 
 in the Great Book of the Treasury, and became the nucleus of the present 
 French Debt. About the same time a loan was proposed to be raised for 
 the invasion of England; this was accompanied by a lottery, the winners 
 of the prizes in which were promised one-fourth of the booty, and the 
 
contributions which should he realized by the victorious army in London, 
 Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, and elsewhere. This pro¬ 
 ject was renewed hy Napoleon, in 1804—a considerable sum was raised 
 upon it j not only were the estates of our great landed proprietors all 
 mortgaged to his generals and m-arechals, but the merchandize of your 
 warehouses was engaged to the bankers and money-lenders; of all which 
 the Government had procured, through various agents in this country— 
 foreign spies and domestic traitors—accurate plans and estimates. For¬ 
 tunately. however, the intrepidity of our naval bull-dogs, and the imme¬ 
 diately starting into e.vistence of 300,000 armed volunteers, to defend 
 their homes and families, turned all their tickets into blanks. But Napo¬ 
 leon employed the profits of this jugglery, and never returned the amount 
 to the individual subscribers. Subsequently, for a time, Napoleon sup¬ 
 plied his exchequer by ransacking not only the public treasuries and 
 magazines of the Continent, but every place of worship, private home, 
 and poor man’s cottage, from Lisbon to Moscow—all fell a prey to his de¬ 
 vastating army. These resources being exhausted, although the French 
 rentes amounted only to two millions and a half sterling, the payment was 
 suspended. 
 
 In Holland, also, Louis Bonaparte had equally annulled two-thirds of 
 the public debt of that country. 
 
 Now, although the Cortes of 1820 and the present Government of 
 Spain have also been equally faithless to their creditors, I trust that none 
 of these precedents will ever seriously be considered as proper examples 
 for a British people to follow; but since we continually see that not only 
 individuals and corporate bodies, but even the greatest conquerors and 
 most wealthy nations, without they be careful to ieep their expenditure 
 xeithin the amount of their available resources, have all found themselves, 
 sooner or later, obliged to resort to the most dishonest and disgraceful 
 actions, in order to disembarrass themselves from the burden of their 
 accumulated debts. 
 
 These examples ought to serve as beacons, warning us to port our 
 helm in time, and direct our vessel in a safer course, in order to avoid 
 those shoals and quicksands upon which other nations have been so 
 lamentably wrecked; and. Gentlemen, this is a catastrophe which, sooner 
 or later, most assuredly must afflict ourselves, and is probably much 
 nearer than is generally suspected. 
 
 As a warning to ourselves, to avoid the possibility of witnessing similar 
 horrors, let us consider by what circumstances those catastrophes were 
 occasioned. The preceding hundred years of that country fully exhibit 
 that it originated in e.xpeusive, unnecessary wars; the aggrandizement of 
 public functionaries, contractors, and stock speculators; to the ruin of 
 agriculture, manufacture, and commerce: producing a gradually aug¬ 
 menting, and at length overwhelming debt; a dcartli of provisions j and 
 
29 
 
 jf sufficiently profitable employment for the labouring classes : 
 
 then ponder upon our own history during the last century 
 present position, we shall have too much reason to fear that, not¬ 
 withstanding the wonderful display of talent among our industrious 
 population, we are rapidly hastening towards a similar catastrophe; 
 for, however some circumstances are occasionally exaggerated for party 
 purposes by the one side, and diminished by the other, every impartial 
 person must confess that there is most undoubted evidence, from numer¬ 
 ous authentic official documents, of a general decline of profitable trade, 
 a fearful destitution among thousands and tens of thousands of our most 
 ingenious and industrious citizens and workmen. Although the state of 
 many of our manufacturing towns must be so well known from the 
 reports in the daily journals, still I must beg leave to call attention to a 
 few short extracts, at different epochs, not only on account of the com¬ 
 mercial distress, but particularly to prove that commercial distress greatly 
 augments disease and crime. 
 
 At a meeting, some time since, presided over by the Lord Mayor, it was 
 stated that the number of individuals in Spitalfields wholly dependant on 
 charity amounted to the number of 24,000; and, at Paisle)', the number 
 reported by the magistrates, at a meeting of the leading gentlemen of the 
 county of Renfrew, was 17,000—one-fourth of the entire population of the 
 town. These are not the willingly idle and dissolute, but persons declaring 
 that one shilling of their own earning was sweeter than two received from 
 the hand of charity, and willing to work for the poor remuneration of 
 three or four shillings per week : yet it is these so greatly distressed and 
 jiatiently-suffering individuals, whose hands have worked those beauteous 
 fabrics of silks and satins, of velvets and rich shawls, in which our fairest 
 and most wealthy ladies of the land, even Majesty herself, so delight to 
 clothe themselves. It is their taste that has imagined the beauteous 
 flowers and shades that adorn them, and tinted them with every variety 
 of colour, that makes them rival all that tradition has reported, or the 
 poetic imagination depicted, of the ancient Tyrian dyes; and which, 
 when tastefully arranged and displayed, add such attraction in the ball¬ 
 room or at the levee, that we feel inclined to deny the assertion of the 
 
 “ Beauty when unadorned, adorned the most.” 
 
 On this subject it was very feelingly and eloquently remarked, by the 
 Rev. Mr. Harvey of Calton, at a meeting at Glasgow, September, 1841, 
 Jas. Oswald, Esq., M.P., in the chair;—“ If the misery of which we 
 complain were confined to the idle, the improvident, and the profligate, 
 we should have little cause to complain—moral means would be the 
 best correcter; but the wretchedness which we deplore has entered the 
 dwellings of the sober, the industrious, and the pious; they are willing 
 
to work, but can find no employment; they toil, but in many instances they 
 cannot earn enough to keep their families from starving. I cannot con¬ 
 ceive a more melancholy spectacle than to witness intelligent and indus- 
 trions men pleading for work, that they may earn, by the sweat of their 
 brow, bread for themselves and their families, and unable to obtain even 
 this poor request; yet this is so common in the midst of us, that it has 
 almost ceased to impress us. The property, that was most productive, is 
 now of least value; machinery, that was wont to employ its busy millions 
 and to give activity to our towns, is now nearly motionless,” 
 
 Manchester. —^At a public meeting, September 10th, 1842, convened 
 by the mayor, on the requisition of 918 of the most respectable firms and 
 individuals of the town, Mr. Watson moved the first resolution:— 
 “That the distress now experienced by all classes, from the greatest 
 capitalists to the humblest workmen, is unparalleled in extent and 
 intensity; that, from the want of demand for their produce, many factories 
 are closed, and the workpeople thereby are entirely out of employment; 
 that one-eighth of the houses in this manufacturing district are un¬ 
 tenanted ; that a large proportion are paying no rent, and the population 
 is consequently crowded together in a manner greatly destructive to 
 health, and injurious to morality; that the low rate of wages, and high 
 price of food, leaving the labouring classes nothing to expend hut in the 
 provision shops, the distress has spread to the tradesmen in general who 
 supply other articles; there are at this time, in Manchester and in the 
 adjoining country, thousands of industrious families in a state of extreme 
 destitution. This state of things has continued during many months, 
 and is progressing with a fearfully accelerated speed. It has been ascer¬ 
 tained that, in one district of this town, more than 8000 persons are exist¬ 
 ing upon less than fifteen pence per head, per week; and individuals are 
 dying of absolute want.” Other speakers proved that such was the des¬ 
 titution, that many were living in cellars, had nothing but a few shavings 
 to lie upon, on damp floors, having sold or pawned their beds to procure 
 food and clothing; and these were families who had previously been noted 
 for industry and sobriety. 
 
 Sir Thomas Potter said, “ That such was the destitution, that numerous 
 articles might be had for less than they can possibly be made, and 
 hundreds of the workmen were desirous to go to prison, for there they 
 would be better fed than they could be at home.” 
 
 Bradford, September 27th, 1842.—Owing to the great distress and 
 want of employment for operatives, the poor rates amount to fifteen 
 shillings in the pound on rack rents. The accounts from Nottingham, 
 Kilmarnock, Stockport, and numerous other towns, varying slightly in 
 their details, for several years have been equally distressing. 
 
31 
 
 Fdnding System. —In England, we may date the commencement of 
 the funding system at the epoch of the glorious Revolution of 1688. 
 With the germs of increased civilization and general liberty which that 
 event introduced into the kingdom, it also brought over from Holland 
 the great evil of the funding system—a canker which has ever since been 
 increasing in magnitude and poisonous effect. Previously to that epoch, 
 when those barons and sovereigns—in whom were somewhat too fully 
 developed the organs of love of approbation, or ambition, acquisitiveness, 
 and destructiveness—were desirous of engaging in warfare, they were 
 obliged to find the supplies for their armies within the same year of their 
 operations. For, with the volunteer soldiers of those days, it was “no 
 longer pipe, no longer dance”—“ no longer pay, no longer fightthere¬ 
 fore, when the amount of their voluntary and sometimes their forced con¬ 
 tributions were expended, they were obliged either to make peace and 
 disband their troops, or to carry their private plate and jewels to the 
 money-lenders of their own, and sometimes of foreign countries. But 
 the ministers and rulers of modern times are wiser in their generation. 
 
 During the whole of the late wars, and even in the present day, it is 
 the industrious classes of the nation,—the merchant, manufacturer, and 
 agriculturist—who are forced to give their time, their talent, and the 
 sweat of their brows, and sacrifice their domestic comforts, to swell the 
 coffers of the stock speculators, the contractors, and those Machiaveban 
 politicians, who, hoping to gain power and wealth, urge by various arts 
 a nation to war, and lavish the treasure and blood of the people, to glut 
 their private ambition, and administer to the gratification of the baser 
 passions. There are too many well-authenticated facts, during the last 
 fifty years, which prove the fraudulent and even wicked attempts to affect 
 the price of stocks, for ihe advantage of a few speculators, to the detri¬ 
 ment of the nation, to render it needful here to recapitulate any. 
 
 But I must now recur to the rise and progress of this debt, the means 
 by which it has been augmented, and examine who are the parties that 
 have most profited by its continuance. Let us inquire what are the cir¬ 
 cumstances which have thrown around the operations of each successive 
 administration those shackles, from which they cannot free themselves 
 without the active, continuous, and efficient aid of the electors, and the 
 general population of the kingdom. 
 
 The first permanent loan to Government was advanced by some London 
 merchants to King William III. which formed not only the nest-egg of 
 our present National Debt, but also the foundation of the Bank of 
 England. 
 
 Original Loan ..... £1,200,000 
 
 Increase up to the Accession of Queen Anne . . 16,394,702 
 
 „ „ George I. . . . 54,145,363 
 
 Decreased, at the Accession of George II. . . 52,092,238 
 
 „ Coramencementof War, 1739 . . 46,954,623 
 
32 
 
 Increase during the War, to 1748 . . . ^78,293,312 
 
 Commencement of War, 1755 .... 74,571,840 
 
 Increase during War, to 17C2 . . . 146,682,844 
 
 Commencement of American Wai-, 1776 . . . 135,943,051 
 
 Increase during War, to 1783 . . . 238,484,870 
 
 Commencement of War, 1793 .... 239,350,148 
 
 5th January, 1817, when the English and Irish Exchequers were 
 consolidated ..... 796,200,191 
 
 Thus we observe that this debt has increased with a fearful and over¬ 
 whelming rapidity. It has increased not by a simple arithmetical ratio; 
 each war has not entailed merely an equal additional charge; hut it has 
 advanced with a geometrical impulse. The new loans of each succeeding 
 contest have nearly equalled the united burthen of all which preceded. 
 As I believe so little is understood by the general public concerning the 
 nature of the funds, even by most of the fundholders themselves, the fol¬ 
 lowing detail may be interesting:— 
 
 Public Funded Debt of the United Kingdom, January 5th, 1837. 
 
 Due to South Sea Compauy, at 3 per cent. . . . 353,062,784 
 
 Old South Sea Annuities .... 3,497,870 
 
 New Ditto ...... 2,460,830 
 
 Ditto for 1751 . ' . . . . 523,100 
 
 ToBank ofEnglaud ..... 11,015,100 
 
 Bank Annuities, 1726 .... 825,262 
 
 Consolidated Annuities ..... 357,166,317 
 
 Reduced Ditto ..... 125,141,486 
 
 £504,292,749 
 
 £10,725,232 
 
 66,273,320 
 
 146,229,682 
 
 438,240 
 
 Totid for Great Britain . . . £727,959,223 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Irish Consolidated Annuities .... £3,004,253 
 
 Reduced Ditto ..... 162,882 
 
 3i Debentures and Stock .... 14,757,160 
 
 3i Reduced ..... 1,045,712 
 
 New 3i Annuities ..... 11,855,903 
 
 To Bank of Ireland, at 4 per cent. . . . 1,615,384 
 
 New 5 per cent. ..... 6,661 
 
 To Bank, at 5 per cent. .... 1,015,384 
 
 Total for Ireland .... 33,463,339 
 
 Total, United Kingdom . . . 761,422,562 
 
 Exchequer Bills outstanding and unprovided for . . 28,155,150 
 
 Total Debt .... £789,577.712 
 
 {To be continued JFeeTily) 
 
 Stevens & Co., Printers, Bell Yard, Temple Bar. 
 
 Total at 3 per cent. 
 Annuities, at 3i per cent., 1818 
 Reduced Ditto 
 New Ditto 
 New 5 per cent. 
 
REDVCTIOir or TAXATION. 
 
 No. 3, 
 
 OF A SERIES OF LETTERS—PRICE THREEPENCE EACH— 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE LANDOWNERS AND FARMERS; THE MAND- 
 PACTHRERS AND TRADESMEN; THE MERCHANTS AND SHIP¬ 
 OWNERS ; AND TO ALL OTHER TAX-PAVERS OF THE UNITED 
 KINGDOM-COMPRISING THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF A PRACTICABLE AND EQUITABLE MEANS 
 OF PAYING OFF THE 
 
 NATIONAL DEBT; 
 
 THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ONLY REMEDY FOR THE 
 PRESENT EVILS OF THE COUNTRY. AND TO PREVENT 
 THE RECURRENCE OF SIMILAR EVILS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 By Britannicus. 
 
 PHONETIC DEPOT, 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 16. Unfunded Debt.-17. History of the Sinking Fund—Plans of Mr. Pitt and 
 
 Dr. Price for paying off the National Debt—The fallacy and failure of those 
 Plans, because based on impracticable principles.-18. Opinion of Edin¬ 
 burgh Reyiewers.-19. Review and Refutation of the principles of some 
 
 other plans for paying off the Debt—Their Injustice or Inefficiency.—— 20. 
 Tax levied to pat the Interest nearly double the entire Rental of 
 
 ALL THE Cultivated Land in the Kingdom.-21. Position and Claims of 
 
 the Fundholders.-22. Comparative Condition of the Agriculturists, Manu¬ 
 facturers, and Merchants.-^23. Competition of Foreign Vessels greatly in¬ 
 
 creasing. 
 
34 
 
 To the Landowners and Farmers; the Manufacturers and Tradesmen; 
 
 the Merchants and Shipowners; and to all other TAX PATERS of 
 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Gentlemen. 
 
 In the early part of the funding system a separate account was kept of 
 each loan, and of the individual tax imposed for payment of the interest. 
 This method was afterwards found inconvenient, as the produce of some 
 of the taxes fell short of the expected sum, while that of others exceeded 
 it, and the multiplicity of funds produced confusion. To obviate this 
 inconvenience the different stocks were united or consolidated (whence 
 the term Consols), and the whole revenue charged with the payment of 
 the interest or annuities. 
 
 Unfunded Debt. —Besides the funded debt, there is a large sum due 
 by Government under the denomination of Unfunded Debt. It arises 
 from any National Expense for which no provision has been made, or the 
 provision has proved inefficient, or not forthcoming at the time required. 
 During the latter period of the late war, and for a few years after, its 
 amount exceeded fifty millions. Of late years it has been reduced to 
 about twenty-five millions j the form in which it chiefly exists is that of 
 Exchequer Bills, which are issued in sums of from £100 to £1000, and 
 occasionally larger, bearing interest at from Id. to 3Jd. per day, on each 
 hundred pounds. After a certain time they are received in payment of 
 taxes, or other money due to Government, and the interest then due is 
 allowed in the payment. These are sometimes converted into funded 
 debt, by granting capital in some of the stocks to such holders as are 
 willing to accept it. In addition to those, navy bills, ordnance bills, vic¬ 
 tualling and transport bills, are issued from their respective offices to 
 answer any demand on those branches of public expenditure. The 
 interest of these unfunded or floating debts has gradually somewhat 
 decreased since 1816, and at present varies from £500,000 to £600,000 
 per annum. 
 
 Some writers assert that it is a disease which has reached a state of 
 virulence that precludes all hope of cure or alleviation. As to the liquida¬ 
 tion of it altogether, this is an idea which scarcely any person seems to 
 entertain. All that the most reasonable look forward to is postponement, 
 until such a crisis in public affairs may occur as may demonstrate to all 
 parties the expediency of coming to terms of a compromise for mutual 
 SAFETY AND ADVANTAGE, But the debt has been legally, though un¬ 
 wisely borrowed, and it is the duty, and no doubt the wish of every 
 honest-intentioned individual in the nation to pay it in a just and honour¬ 
 able manner, but not with profusion, and on the excessively usurious 
 terms to which we are at present subject. 
 
35 
 
 Now, what should we expect of an honourable, conscientious tradesman; 
 who, in his outset in business, has been obliged to borrow a sum of money 
 to fit up his shop and otherwise establish himself. If he possesses the 
 requisite talent, and exhibits due industry and prudence in the conduct of 
 his affairs, ought he not, after Thirty-four years of prosperity in 
 business, to have paid off, if not the whole of the original debt, at all 
 events, a considerable portion of it. If he should not do this, would he be 
 judged any longer worthy of public confidence and encouragement; and 
 ought not his creditors, for their own security, to demand an inspection 
 into the state of his accounts, and endeavour to regulate them ? Surely, 
 then, what is just and correct to be done between individuals is equally so 
 in conducting the affairs of joint-stock companies, corporate bodies, or the 
 whole nation. Let us, therefore, examine whether our national stewards 
 have transacted our financial affairs in such a manner as to conduce to 
 the prosperity and permanent interests of the nation. No less than 
 £556,000,000 were added to the debt, during the twenty years of the late 
 war with France; and would you not naturally expect that, during thirty- 
 four years of almost uninterrupted peace, a considerable portion of this 
 debt ought to have been paid off? 
 
 The official statement which has been delivered into Parliament is as 
 follows:— 
 
 Date. I Ui 
 
 1817 
 
 1819 
 
 1828 
 
 832 
 
 836 
 
 841 
 
 844 
 
 846 
 
 847 
 
 796,200,191 
 
 791,867,313 
 
 781,123,222 
 
 777,476,892 
 
 771,251,932 
 
 757,486,996 
 
 755,543,884 
 
 700,294,554 
 
 766,371,725 
 
 772,169,092 
 
 29,842,014 
 
 29,310,454 
 
 28,372,200 
 
 28,389,809 
 
 28,285,900 
 
 27,674,754 
 
 27,658,299 
 
 28,403,304 
 
 28,556,324 
 
 29,963,614 
 
 27,827,265 
 
 27,056,555 
 
 27,704,233 
 
 In addition to this, the interest on the floating debt was, in 
 1807 . .£2,165,177 1 1844 . .£531,843 
 
 1828 . . 873,246 1846 . . 420,607 
 
 1831 . . 675,000 1847 . . 421,432 
 
 1841 . . 818,040 I 1848 . . 436,298 
 
 The total interest for the whole debt, in 1849, is £28,243,527, accord¬ 
 ing to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget. 
 Friday, June 22nd, 1849. 
 
3G 
 
 Let us, now, examine the steps that have been taken, and the plans 
 which have been pursued, by the successive Lords of the Treasury, to pay 
 off this enormous debt, and relieve the nation from the excessive burden 
 of so many millions of annual taxation. 
 
 Sinking Fund. 
 
 The evil of a continually increasing debt was early seen, and the minds 
 of various political economists brought to the consideration. A plan for 
 the gradual extinction of the debt, by consolidating the various surpluses 
 of revenue arising from the reduction of interest and other sources into a 
 SINKING FUND, to be Constantly applied to the purchase of stock, was 
 first proposed by Earl Stanhope, and adopted by Sir Robert Walpole, so 
 early as 1716; and its advantages, if suffered to operate at compound 
 interest, are fully detailed in a tract by Sir N. Gould, 1726. The act 
 establishing the.sinking fund declared, ‘-that the various surpluses of 
 which it consisted shall be appropriated, reserved, and employed to and 
 for the discharge of the principal and interest of such national debts and 
 incumbrances as were incurred before the 25th December, 1716, and to 
 and for no other use, intent, or purpose whatever.” But, notwithstand¬ 
 ing this clear and explicit enactment, the Sinking Fund was very soon 
 diverted from its original destination; several disguised encroachments 
 had been made in 1727 and 1732; and, in 1736, the entire produce of the 
 fund was anticipated and mortgaged. Dr. Price, from whom Mr. Pitt 
 took his plan of a sinking fund, greatly laments this perversion from its 
 original application. “ Thus,” says he, “ after an existence of a few years, 
 expired the sinking fund, that sacred blessing, once the nation’s only 
 hope, prematurely and cruelly destroyed by its own parent.” Mr. Pitt 
 was also strongly impressed with the incalculable importance of decreasing 
 the amount of the National Debt—one before which all wars or subjects 
 of present interest, excepting only the preservation of the Constitution, 
 sink into insignificance; and he repeatedly expressed, in the most 
 energetic language, his sense of its overwhelming magnitude. In 
 bringing forward his plan of a sinking fund, in 1786, he said, “ to accom¬ 
 plish this is the first wish of my heart, and it would be my proudest hope 
 to have my name inscribed on a pillar to he erected in honour of the man 
 who did his country the essential service of reducing the National Debt.” 
 — Alison’s Europe, Vol. V. ch. 41. 
 
 Mr. Pitt’s plan was, to set apart a portion of the surplus revenue to 
 accumulate by compound interest, and, after the expiration of a 
 certain period, to apply the aggregate amount of interest and principal to 
 the liquidation of the debt. To show the fallacy of this scheme, a few 
 explanations will be requisite. Interest is of (wo kinds—simple; and com¬ 
 pound, or that which is allowed for the use of both principal and interest 
 taken together, and continually accumulating. If money be lent out at 
 
o7 
 
 simple interest, at five per cent,, it will be doubled in twenty years; that 
 is, if the interest be forborn during that time, it will equal the principal. 
 If money be laid out at compound interest, on the same terras, it will be 
 doubled in little more than fourteen years. We will suppose £100 lent at 
 five per cent, at compound interest, for 100 years; at the e.vpiralion of the 
 first fourteen years, omitting fractions, it will amount to £200; at the e.\pi- 
 ration of the second fourteen years, to £•100; the third fourteen, to £800 i 
 and so on; doubling itself every fourteen years; until, at the e.vpiration of 100 
 year-s, it would increase to the sum of £14,112. While, at simple interest, 
 it would amount to only £600, including principal and interest. It was, 
 then, on this power of money to accumulate at compound interest that the 
 sinking fund was established. 
 
 Dr. Price, a very skilful arithmetician, calculated that the sum of one 
 million, annually improved, would, in the period of twenty-eight years, 
 amount to four millions per annum; and that one penny, if laid out at 
 compound interest at the birth of our Saviour, would, in the year 1775. 
 (the period at which he wrote,) have amounted to a solid mass of gold 
 eighteen hundred times the whole weight of this globe. This was really 
 prodigious 1 The doctor was so pleased with the result, that he thence 
 conceived the idea of reducing, or redeeming, the national debt. Dr. P. 
 communicated his scheme to Mr. Pitt, who appears to have hecn as much 
 captivated by the discovery as the doctor. This was in 1786—a time 
 favourable for the experiment, as there was a surplus revenue of a million 
 to commence with. It was resolved that this million should be set apart 
 to fructify by the miraculous power of compound interest, agreeably to 
 Dr. Price’s calculation. Commissioners were appointed to take charge of 
 the sacred deposit which, on no pretext, was to he violated. Now, 
 however accurate the arithmetical calculations of the doctor might be, 
 the payment of the debt by this means was not possible. For to whom 
 could the money be lent; or on what security could it be invested, to 
 procure the compound interest ? If the million, by being deposited in 
 the Treasury Chest, could there fructify and produce its hundred-fold, 
 like grain in the earth; or if it could have been lent to any foreign power— 
 France, Russia, or Germany—in perfect security, until each million should 
 become a hundred millions; then the plan would have been excellent. 
 But, on the contrary, new loans were to be continually borrowed, and 
 new taxes were to be annually imposed, in order to pay it. The British 
 nation was to lend it—to itself, and the compound interest could only be 
 accumulated by the imposition of Iresh taxes. A certain number of 
 commissioners, at high salaries, were to be employed to transfer the 
 nominal amount from iron chest A.; or rather from ledger A. of the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, to Ledger B. of the First Lord of the Trea¬ 
 sury : for the gold never found its way into the iron chest. To make 
 capital increase at compound interest, it must be employed in some sort 
 
of productive industry; and the profits, instead of being consumed as 
 income, must be regularly added to the principal, to form a new capital. 
 —Has any such national sinking fund ever existed i On the contrary, 
 we find there were always floating from twenty to forty millions of 
 Exchequer Bills,—which, in commercial language, are denominated yjo/ier 
 iiles—anticipating the revenue. 
 
 In 1/92, some further additions were made to the fund; and it was 
 also enacted—besides providing for the interest of any loan that might 
 henceforth be contracted—that additional taxes should be imposed, to 
 form a sinking fund of one per cent, on the capital stock created by such 
 loan. Subsequently to the commencement of the late war, the income of 
 the country uniformly fell greatly short of the expenditure, and the debt 
 rapidly increased. But, although there was no annual million in the 
 Treasury to transfer to the commissioners, the patronage and the lucrative 
 salaries attendant upon its nominal existence were all kept up; the loans 
 for the service of the year were uniformly increased; and the whole of the 
 sums placed at the disposal of the commissioners of the sinking fund. 
 So that, for every shilling’s worth of stock transferred by this futile pro¬ 
 ceeding, an equal amount of new debt had to be contracted, exclusive 
 of the loss incurred on account of the expense of management; and yet 
 this delusive proceeding was lauded by all parties—the opposition vied 
 with the ministerial benches in celebrating its praises!! 
 
 The sinking fund was universally considered as the great bulwark of 
 the country; and so lasting and powerful was the infatuation, that after 
 fourteen years’ experience of its absolute nullity, when Lord Henry Petty 
 (now Marquis of Lansdowne) introduced his plan of finance in 1807, it 
 contained a system of checks, to prevent the evils likely to result 
 from allowing the sinking fund to accumulate without any limit, and 
 deluging the country with a flood of wealth. Has any one 
 ever heard any of our wealthy nobles, or great capitalists, express their 
 fears at any terrible catastrophe that threatened the peace and welfare of 
 their own families, by the expected irruption of ten or twenty thousand 
 a year into their liLxurious mansions ? Or would any family, in the middle 
 ranks of life, think themselves very miserable at suddenly receiving an 
 accession of a thousand a year to their income; if not, how could it 
 distress and revolutionize the country, by dispersing these thirty millions 
 per annum in as many million minute streams to irrigate, render verdant, 
 and fertilize the land ? But thus, we find, that those spectators upon 
 whom some juggling has been successfully practised whilst seated in 
 the front of the stage, although they may subsequently be admitted 
 behind the curtain to move some of the machinery, still they are sur¬ 
 rounded by so many inferior actors, whose interest it is to keep up the 
 delusion, and deceive even their chiefs, that the eyes of the latter are still 
 deceived, and their judgments warped by the influence of their first 
 
39 
 
 impressions. The writer of the article “ Funds,” in the Encyclopiedia 
 Britannica, remarks, in regard to this subject, that “ we doubt whether 
 the history of the world can furnish another instance of such extraordinary 
 delusion.” 
 
 Dr. Hamilton, in 1813, has the merit of having greatly assisted in dis¬ 
 sipating this delusion—the greatest, certainly, by which any people have 
 ever suffered themselves to be blinded and deceived. But, when I say 
 the nation was deluded, I do not mean to assert that Mr. Pitt and his 
 supporters intended to delude the nation; they were themselves first 
 deluded; they had imagined a phantom, which they firmly believed to be 
 a reality: but Dr. Hamilton subsequently demonstrated that the process 
 of the sinking fund, instead of reducing the debt, had really been the 
 means of increasing it. The total amount of loans contracted from 1793 
 to 1816;—that is, including the whole period of the war against France; 
 —was £584,874,556. The proportion which was transferred to the com¬ 
 missioners of the sinking fund during this period was £188,522,350; the 
 expense of the office of the commissioners for the same period was £62,968; 
 which sum—as it was all borrowed—occasioned an annual charge to the 
 public of £9,771,063 : but the stock which the commissioners purchased 
 with this sum, £188,522,350—transferred to them out of the loans—only 
 yielded an annual dividend of £9,168,233. On the one hand, therefore, 
 an annual taxation of 9,771,063 was laid on the agriculturists, manufac¬ 
 turers, merchants, and tradesmen, in order to enable the commissioners 
 of the sinking fund to go to market; and, on the other hand, they bought 
 stock which yields only £9,168,233; so that, on the whole, their opera¬ 
 tions during the war occasioned a dead loss to the country of £602,830 
 per annum—a sum considerably exceeding the amount of revenue raised 
 by the duty- on cotton-wool, from which our Manchester and other manu¬ 
 facturers prayed in vain to be relieved, and equivalent to a three per 
 cent, capital of £20,094,333. Since the peace, the operation of the com¬ 
 missioners has been equally injurious to the public, and profitable only to 
 themselves and the speculators in the funds. 
 
 Becapitulation according to the Parliamentary Papers. 
 
 Loans transferred . . . ..£188,522,350 
 
 Expense of Commissioners . . . 62,968 
 
 Annual Charge of Interest . . . £9,771,063 
 
 Diridcnds on Stock purchased . . 9,108,233 
 
 Annual Loss to the Nation . . £602,830 
 
 Being equivalent to a Loss of Capital, at 3 per cent., of £20,094,333 
 
 Mr. Marshall, in his valuable work, A Statistical Display of the 
 Finances of the Kingdom, exhibits that, in addition to the above-mentioned 
 loss to the nation by the whole of the sinking fund transactions; the stock- 
 
40 
 
 jobbers received a further bouua of £15,000,000 in the aggregate, by the 
 payment of the two first half-yearly dividends on the loans, before the 
 instalments on the loans were all paid up!!! 
 
 Let us now. Gentlemen, consider what has invariably been the fate of 
 this sinking fund, which, by some, was looked np to as the salvation of 
 the nation j by others, it was feared that if the fertilising flow of so much 
 wealth were restrained but for a few years, the accumulated masses would 
 at length burst their impediments, and deluge our previously impover¬ 
 ished country with a torrent of Luxury !!! The parental foresight of suc¬ 
 cessive ministers has, fortunately, hitherto saved us from this calamity j 
 and we find the temptation to employ it for the nation’s good has always 
 been too powerful for any minister to resist. 
 
 Therefore, upon balancing the public accounts towards the close of the 
 war, we find that instead of having a surplus income when the nominal 
 sinking fund amounted to about millions, the clear real surplus did 
 not amount to tm millions, the remaining thirteen millions having almost 
 insensibly glided away. Thus, by some unlucky movements, like the 
 lass with her milkpail, the milk was always scattered before it had time to 
 fructify into eggs, chickens, scarlet robes, and all the other brilliant 
 accompaniments. 
 
 After many years of futile operations, ministers however became either 
 more clear-sighted or more candid; for, in 1813, Mr. Vansittart stated 
 that the sum produced by the sinking fund would be an instrument of 
 great power in the hands of Parliament (.alias, a minister), which might lead 
 to the most important results. And Lord Castlereagh went still further, 
 for he distinctly stated, in 1822, that HE had never represented the sink¬ 
 ing fond as a saving to be held sacred (notwithstanding the express terms 
 of the Act of Parliament for its creation), but as a means of placing a 
 large sum at the disposal of Parliament, to be by them applied as might 
 be thought most equitable—whether for the relief of any pressing exigency 
 of the present day, or for the security of posterity. We too well know 
 that these pressing exigencies periodically occurred, and impoverished 
 posterity are groaning under the consequences. 
 
 Dr. Price, who, as I have previously mentioned, was the proposer of 
 the sinking fund adopted by Mr. Pitt, lived long enough to see so many 
 departures from every principle that it contained which might have bene- 
 fitted the nation, that he wrote, in his last work on Reversionary Payments, 
 “ I must however observe, that having now no hope that an efficient plan 
 of redemption will ever be established, I think with regret of the time and 
 attention which I have bestowed on this subject. Nothing relieves me, 
 hut the reflection that the object about which I have lost my time has 
 been the removal of an evil which, if no such measure as I have proposed, 
 or some other efficient plan for removing this burden of the National Debt 
 be adopted, a catastrophe must be brought on which will make this 
 country a warning and terror to the world.” 
 
41 
 
 ■ In the Edinburgh Revieio, Octobe^r, 1823, we find the following pertinent 
 remarks:—“The loans raised in 1815, for which upwards of £87,000,000 
 of capital were created, and all included in the account of January, 1816, 
 at the rate of £100 debt for every £52 sterling actually received into the 
 exchequer, there remained to be paid up, after January, 1816, the sum of 
 £5,939,303, with which the same stock that had been created at FIFTY- 
 TWO POUNDS was repurchased by the Commissioners of the Sinking 
 Fund, at the advanced price of EIGHTY-TWO POUNDS, to the amount 
 of £9,563,082; thus giving a profit to the original contractor or to the 
 fundholder, and consequently causing a loss to the tax-payers of £30 upon 
 every £100 stock—or of nearly three millions (£2,868,900). Thus it ap¬ 
 pears,” continues the reviewer, “ that every statement made by ministers 
 since 1816, with respect to the financial situation of the country, has been 
 completely nugatory, fallacious, and unfounded. Instead of reducing the 
 debt, they have considerably increased it; their sinking fund, stock trans¬ 
 ferences, and other hocus pocus tricks and devices, have cost the public 
 £7,528,000 of surplus revenue, and £700,000 of additional annual bur¬ 
 den. But perhaps this is not enough to show the propriety of abaudon- 
 ing this system of jugglery and delusion ; and we doubt not, that if the 
 public continue to manifest the same degree of stupid indifference to the 
 financial quackery of ministers as they have hitherto done, they will, as 
 they ought, he graciously favoured with some still more striking proofs 
 of the efficiency of the sinking fund, to sink them still deeper in debt and 
 difficulty.” 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, I wish particularly to call your attentiou, not only to 
 the sentiments above quoted, but to the peculiar source whence they are 
 drawn. It must he well known to all political readers, that the Edinburgh 
 Review has long been the organ of the opinions, if not of all the members 
 of the Reform Administration, at least of the great majority of their sup¬ 
 porters ; for it is well known that the writers were Lord Brougham, Lord 
 Jeffery, Messrs. Macauley, Ricardo, and M'Cullock, and other gentlemen 
 who either held high situations in that government, or were consulted by 
 themtherefore, if those Great Reformers, whilst they held the reins of 
 power, did not move in effecting those grand measures of reform, the 
 theories of which they so boldly and ably put forth whilst out of power, 
 we must believe that they were only waiting the will of the electors to be 
 declared; they frequently acknowledged that so great was the opposition 
 against which they had to contend, that they could effect hut little good 
 without they were assisted by “the pressure from without.” It was the last 
 sentiment expressed by the retiring minister in the debate on the address 
 to her Majesty. It is therefore for yourselves to take the initiative in 
 this business, and to declare your opinions to your respective represen¬ 
 tatives, in so firm and explicit a manner that it can neither be misunder¬ 
 stood nor neglected; or you will run the chance of again being told, that 
 “ if you continue to manifest the same degree of stupid indifference to the 
 
42 
 
 financial quackery of ministers that you have hitherto done, you will he 
 graciously favoured, as you will well deserve, with some more striking 
 proofs of the eflicacy of the funding system to sink yon still deeper in 
 debt and difficulty.” With the above pithy eulogy from the talented 
 writers of the Edinburgh Review, I think we may now leave this formerly 
 so vaunted Sinking Fund to the “ tomb of all the capulets.” But what I 
 wish particularly to impress upon your minds by calling your attention to 
 this extract is, that each party, when displaced from the helm, finds the 
 same fault with the pilot in command; as an Ex-Chancellor of the Ex¬ 
 chequer, previously the object of the above criticism, brought a similar 
 accusation of hocus pocus tricks against his successors in office. It is, 
 therefore, not the individuals in power, but the system which must be 
 changed; and that this change is never likely to originate with any 
 minister whatever, there are one hundred million reasons against 
 it—so many friends and dependants to be employed in receiving the fifty 
 millions of taxation, and as many to assist in e.xpending them. 
 
 The hopes which had been excited by the adoption of this system having 
 been disappointed, and the rapidly and regularly increasing amount of the 
 debt becoming daily more burdensome, attracted the attention of various 
 political economists to find out a remedy. 
 
 Some writers have asserted that there is only one means of relieving 
 the nation—by at once declaring a bankruptcy, and thus getting rid of 
 the whole evil. Other political economists have proposed that, following 
 the example of other nations, U])on the plea that individuals must suffer 
 some inconvenience for the public benefit, a certain portion of the debt 
 may very justly be cancelled, in the same manner as an insolvent indi¬ 
 vidual acts when he pays a composition to his creditors : and they have 
 endeavoured to prove that, if this he carried into e,xecution, it would pro¬ 
 duce a benefit to every fundholder who remains and expends his income 
 in the country; because the general price of provisions, and of the other 
 requisites of life, would be reduced by that measure in a still greater pro¬ 
 portion than their incomes. Notwithstanding the talent with which this 
 proposition has been occasionally supported, and the specious colouring 
 thrown over its injustice, fortunately for the honour of the country, it has 
 not been entertained by the legislature. This proposition, although it 
 really had some truth and justice for its basis, still had the appearance of 
 being a glaring violation of the public faith, and a lasting stain upon the 
 honour of this wealthy, commercial, and powerful nation—injurious to in¬ 
 dividuals, and pregnant with many evils. It would be about as just as 
 seizing upon a portion of the estates of our great landed proprietors, or of 
 the contents of the warehouses of our merchants, and selling them in 
 order to effect the same object. It may however, I fear, be asserted, that 
 however the principle was repudiated, the practice was actually effected, 
 under a disguised and more plausible form, when, in 1822, the five per 
 cents, were first reduced to four, and afterwards to three-and-a-half 
 
43 
 
 and THBEE-AND-A-auABTER per cent., which will he subsequently 
 detailed. 
 
 Another proposition also, which was brought forward to convert the 
 whole debt into terminable annuities, although not quite so unjust, 
 is still liable to the charge of injustice; because it would equally be a 
 violation of the contract entered into by the nation, through the interven- 
 'tion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the public creditors, who 
 did not originally agree to accept terminable annuities for their capital 
 advanced, but have wished that their heirs should inherit, for a long series 
 of years, what they themselves enjoyed. Terminable annuities, it is well 
 known, bear a very inferior value in the money market compared with 
 the prices of other stock, so as generally to be termed “the dead weight;” 
 and that the proportion which the Bank of England formerly purchased 
 of Government is understood to have been one of the principal causes of 
 the occasional embarrassment in the money market, from locking up so 
 great a proportion of their funds in stock so difficult to be negociated. 
 Terminable annuities are also frequently productive of disastrous conse¬ 
 quences to the families of annuitants. lYhen a man originally places his 
 money in an annuity, he generally devotes a portion of his income to the 
 insurance of his life, for the benefit of his heirs. This he could not effect 
 so advantageously at a more advanced period of life, if an annuity be 
 FORCED UPON HIM by government in exchange for his consols; and his 
 family, brought up in comparative luxury, may find themselves, on the 
 decease of a parent, plunged in a moment into want and misery. If the 
 annuity should terminate at a fi.xed period, the consequences might be 
 stiff more lamentable, because it may expire during the lifetime of the 
 original annuitant, when he would not only be unable to pay his annual 
 insurance, but in his old age would be reduced to positive want. 
 
 These individual calamities must subsequently be productive of national 
 inconvenience, for the whole community is made up but of individual 
 members. Moreover, this proposition, and that of some other political 
 economists, instead of offering any alleviation of the present pressure, 
 must tend greatly to increase it upon the present generation for the 
 benefit of a distant posterity; since, if the transfer is to be voluntary on 
 the part of the public creditor, be must be offered a much greater rate of 
 annual interest than the present interest of consols, during the continua¬ 
 tion of the annuity, in order to induce him to accept the terms; for, 
 according to the calculations of a late Chancellor of the Exchequer—Mr. 
 Baring,—to convert the permanent into terminable annuities, it would be 
 requisite to give £150 per annum for every £100 in the three per cents., 
 thus increasing the annual taxation for the interest of the whole debt from 
 THIRTY to FORTY-FIVE MILLIONS ; and if, to raise an additional three 
 millions, it was found necessary to impose an income and property tax, 
 which is found so onerous, by what means is the additional fifteen mil- 
 
4-t 
 
 lions to be raised } This additional interest must of course be provided 
 for, either by a very great augmentation of numerous taxes, or by new 
 loans equally burdensome to the present community; because the interest 
 for these latter must be provided for. Further, the proposition to make 
 the transfers at full market price of the day would be unjust towards the 
 nation; because the average price of the three per cents, is full £90, whereas 
 the nation has received on an average not more than £60 sterling for 
 every nominal £100 stock. The increase of price has been caused by 
 various monopolies, and other artificial means, for which in justice the 
 nation is not responsible. Taking this price, then, as the basis of oper¬ 
 ation, the debt would be increased from £600,000,000 to one of 
 £900,000,000. On the contrary. Gentlemen, 1 trust you will find that 
 my subsequent proposition is founded on the basis of the strictest justice 
 to all parties—to the individual fundholders who are the creditors, and to 
 the public who are the debtors. Some of the advantages that it oflers 
 are, that it will allow at once a great diminution of taxation; will cause 
 no violent sudden change among any portion of the community; will 
 return to the individual creditors the whole sum originally advanced; 
 and, I trust, leave the national faith unsullied. Concerning some other 
 propositions, which have recently been brought forward, I shall not 
 attempt to detain my readers—their merits are sufficiently before the 
 public—but shall advance to the remedy which I believe may prove 
 beneficial. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, it must be perfectly vain and fruitless for us to waste 
 our time in petitioning for the removal of any individual Tax whatever, 
 so long as our debt demands thiuty millions of Taxation to pay the 
 interest and the charges of collecting this enormous revenue. No effec¬ 
 tual and permanent reduction of provisions and other necessaries of life 
 can possibly take place, until, by a general reducUon of expenditure 
 AND TAXATION, you place the English landlord and farmer in as favour¬ 
 able a position, as far as it may be possible, as those of the foreign coun¬ 
 tries from which you hope to receive cheap corn. From authentic parlia¬ 
 mentary documents, the landowners in general do not receive four per cent, 
 for their capital. If the agriculturist does not make a certain profit upon 
 his labours, he can neither purchase the same amount of manufactured 
 goods, nor of foreign production—tea, cofiTee, &c.—which he has hitherto 
 done; nor can he pay the proportion of taxation which be is now paying: 
 therefore, with a greatly diminished sale, and greatly reduced profit, the 
 manufacturer, importing merchant, and tradesmen of every kind, must 
 pay not only their present portion of taxation, but also their share of that 
 amount which is now paid by the landed interest; for, however we may 
 flatter ourselves on the removal of a tax from, any individual object, the 
 tax is but shifted to some other object, perhaps a little more removed 
 from our daily view, but still equally onerous and injurious to general 
 
45 
 
 commerce, so long as the national expenditure be not diminished, and so 
 long as your Chancellor of the Exchequer still demands and gathers in 
 nearly sixty millions of taxes—miscalled revenue. 
 
 For the sake of illustration, let it he allowed that there was consider¬ 
 able truth in the statement of the anti-corn law advocates, who asserted 
 that we paid fifty millions more per annum for our corn than the corn 
 consumers of other countries for the same quantity of food; and that the 
 sole reason for the imposition of these corn laws was to increase the rents 
 of the landlord. 
 
 Now, let us consider that the entire rental of England and Wales, as 
 estimated by the returns of the Property Tax Commissioners in 1S14-15, 
 was £34,330,462; of this thirty-four millions it is estimated, by Mr. 
 M'Culloch, that seventeen millions must he deducted as the interest, on 
 account of buildings, fences, drains, roads, and other capital laid out in 
 the improvement of the soil; therefore there can be only seventeen mil¬ 
 lions as NEAT RENT for all the corn-bearing and grass-land in the king¬ 
 dom. Now although, since that calculation, either from the improve¬ 
 ment of the lands or from the tightening of the screw by the Property Tax 
 Commissioners, the return is increased to forty millions, the effect is but 
 little changed. 
 
 Suppose, then, the whole body of landowners removed to Australia, or 
 annihilated, all the land enjoyed free of rent, and the amount of the pre¬ 
 vious rental devoted to reduce the price of corn and meat, we should even 
 then have but little more than one-half of the burden of the interest of 
 the national debt removed. Further; let us consider that this seventeen 
 millions of rent is now greatly expended in the home market, in the pur¬ 
 chase of manufactured goods, or in articles of foreign produce, which 
 give employment and profit to the shipowners, sailors, merchants, and 
 retail traders. A portion of this seventeen millions would be transferred 
 to the hands of other individuals, and another portion would go to the 
 benefit of foreign landowners; but, in a national point of view, we should 
 not be benefitted, because that portion of the thirty millions of taxation to 
 pay the interest of the national debt must then be paid by the manufac¬ 
 turers and other consumers of corn, which is now paid by the landowners 
 and farmers who, during the late war, paid nine out of fourteen mil¬ 
 lions of the property tax. Therefore, although the profits will change 
 hands, the taxation and burthen upon the general population will be 
 equally oppressive, UNLESS THE NATIONAL DEBT BE RE¬ 
 DUCED. 
 
 "During the war with Bonaparte, the agricultural classes contributed 
 to the State, by their industry and labour, more than three times 
 as much as the manufacturing and commercial united. This is found by 
 the property tax. When there was an unrestrained admission of foreign 
 grain in the peace, it struck off at once fifty millions from the gross re- 
 
46 
 
 ceipts of the agricaltural classes. The result was a fall of wages and of 
 every species of commodity, and a consequent diminution of profit and 
 income to every class of the community. Farmers in Lancashire, of 
 frugal habits, which they still retain, and who in former times had always 
 a stock-purse of two or three hundred pounds, have broken their nest- 
 egg. In many of the counties of England numerous farmers are now in 
 a state of insolvency, than whom there was not a more industrious set of 
 men living, and who had succeeded their fathers and grandfathers upon 
 the same land for two nr three hundred years: these have had their pro¬ 
 perty swept away by the fall of prices, and can no longer support the 
 shops of the villages and small towns. Many thousand acres, formerly 
 in high cultivation, are now lying waste. In Surrey and Susse-v it is very 
 difficult to procure tenants. The land is ill-cultivated, and therefore 
 deteriorated. Tenants would gladly keep more men at work, but they 
 have not the means of paying them; impoverished as they are, they 
 cannot bestow upon them half the labour they used to do.”—Qiiarferfy 
 Review, 1834, Vol. 51. 
 
 In any attempt at reducing this debt every proposition must be founded 
 on an adamantine basis—that of the strictest justice to the public creditor^ 
 and to take due care that the commercial honour of this great and wealthy 
 nation, which owes so much of its prosperity, grandeur, and power to its 
 high reputation for commercial integrity, should remain perfectly unsul¬ 
 lied. But, Gentlemen, in doing the most ample justice to the two hun¬ 
 dred thousand fundholders who advanced their money to the nation in 
 the hour of need, we must also take equal care that w'e do not decline 
 into a profuse generosity, which would become the greatest injustice 
 towards the remaining twenty-six millions comprising every other class 
 of the community, and injurious to the national prosperity—injurious to 
 the fundholders themselves. 
 
 Let us, then. Gentlemen, first consider the position of the fundholder 
 at the epoch at which he invested his capital in the national funds, 
 or during the period of the war from 1803 to 1815, when so great a pro¬ 
 portion of the debt was incurred. During the greater part of this time 
 there was deducted from his income a tax of either five or ten per cent, 
 towards the expenses of the nation; therefore, it was with this reduction 
 that he estimated his interest and advanced his money. He had at that 
 time to pay for his corn, occasionally, 120s. per quarter; but let us state 
 the average as low as 100s.: this average is now reduced to 50s. The 
 reduction of the other requisites for a family, as copied from parliamentary 
 papers during many years of peace, are in the following proportions:— 
 meat has fallen from 6s. 6d. to 4s. per stone; iron, from £15 to £8, and 
 sometimes even to £5; and the manufactured, articles frequently 50 per 
 cent. The same quantity of frame net, for which some years since the sum 
 of £1.1 s. was paid, can now be furnished by the Paisley manufacturers for 
 
47 
 
 the odd shilling. Other articles of domestic consumption have also 
 greatly fallen in price. Cheese, from 105s. to 65s.; tea, of the same 
 quality as that sold during the war at 10s., may now be had for os.; 
 a coat may now be had for £3, which was formerly charged £5; hoots, 
 dresses for ladies, more beautiful in texture and more elegant in design, 
 and many other articles, at one-half the prices they cost at the time the 
 money was borrowed: so that an income of £150 derived/rom the funds, 
 but not from any other source whatever—because the sources of all other 
 incomes, or the capitals whence those incomes are derived, are all heavily 
 taxed—is at least equal to one of £200 per annum during almost any 
 portion of the period when the money was borrowed. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, are the landowners, manufacturers, and merchants 
 placed in the same favourable position ? I believe, by no means so; for, 
 although these classes are also participating in some of the advantages, 
 they are also forced to contribute towards these reductions by greatly 
 diminished profits on their capital and labour, and by the exercise of 
 superior skill in their various employments. Landed property has sunk 
 in value, in most instances, from 30 to 50 per cent. The immediate neigh¬ 
 bourhood of improving towns, or land immediately adjoining any railroad 
 station, are exceptions. For the farm that would freely let in 1812 for 
 £200, will now scarcely find a tenant for £160, without much capital has 
 since been expended on the soil in improvement; and those landlords 
 who had previously granted long leases are continually, at each rent day, 
 obliged to deduct 20 or 30 per cent, from the original bond, or their 
 tenants would become bankrupt. 
 
 Throughout almost all England, in what state do we find the farmer 
 himself—he who, in the principal agricultural counties during the war, 
 was the most prosperous of the prosperous, the most hospitable in a hos¬ 
 pitable nation, the best friend and customer to the general manufacturer, 
 through the country shopkeeper, and who could afford to his children a 
 good education at a respectable boarding-school, and himself help to fill 
 the ranks of the yeomanry, mounted on a handsome charger, or enjoy the 
 sports of the field upon a good hunter ? The social friend, with the plen¬ 
 tiful roast joint and bottle of old port, is now banished from his board; 
 the comfortable carpet and elegant furniture of his parlour have given 
 way to the sanded floor and common deal tables and chairs; his children 
 receive a very inferior education at the village school, and his equestrian 
 performances are confined to jogging to market on a rough cart-horse. 
 
 The merchants and shipowners have also suffered great diminution of 
 profit, from having lost much of the carrying trade which they enjoyed 
 during the war, when the British union flag covered the seas, almost 
 without a rival; and at present—from the greater competition in the 
 market, from the cheaper rate at which the Americans and the northern 
 nations of Europe can build and equip their vessels, and from a great 
 
proportion of our most skilful shipwrights and able mariners haring gone 
 into the American, and many of them into the French service—the 
 profits of both the merchant and shipowner are greatly reduced. The 
 Hon. Captain Rons, during a debate on the corn laws, stated that be was 
 a captain and shipowner; that, if he went to Hamburgh, he could there 
 build a ship for £2000, which at Hull or Liverpool would cost him f3500; 
 then, after the ship was rigged at Hamburgh, he could procure Prussians, 
 Swedes, and Norwegians, all good seamen, for 15s. per month, and 
 rations for them at 3d. per day, per man. But to Knglish sailors he must 
 pay 40s. a month; and their rations, purchased in an English port, would 
 cost Is. per day j making a difference of 48s. per month. It was therefore 
 impossible for the English shipowners and merchants to contend in 
 freights with the foreign merchant. 
 
 At a public meeting held at the Court House, Aberdeen, October 12, 
 1841, it was shown from the Custom House entry that, from 1834 to 
 1840, the transport of the import trade had been regularly increasing 
 in foreign bottoms no less than three-fourths, whilst the British had 
 remained stagnant—as follows;— 
 
 Foreign 
 
 because every British vessel is taxed in her timbers, ropes, masts, sails, 
 policies of insurance, provisions, &c., in order to pay the interest of the 
 National Debt: therefore the cost to the foreigner is not more than one- 
 half of that which is paid by the British owner. And whilst British 
 vessels had frequently to leave their own ports in ballast, these foreign 
 vessels procured a full return-cargo. 
 
 A few years since the merchants of Greenock and Glasgow enjoyed a 
 very profitable export trade to Newfoundland and the West Indies j but at 
 present, when wishing to supply the inhabitants of their own colonies, and 
 even their own clerks and agents, not only with manufactured goods but 
 with much which they eat and drink, they inform me that they are obliged 
 to send their vessels in unprofitable ballast, on long and frequently tedious 
 and dangerous voyages, to Hamburgh, with purses of gold instead of Bri¬ 
 tish merchandise, there to purchase those stores which formerly the manu¬ 
 facturers and agriculturists along the banks of their own Clyde exclusively 
 supplied; because they have thirty millions of taxation levied upon 
 their shipping, their lands, and provisions, to pay the interest of the 
 National Debt. 
 
 (2'o he continued.) 
 
31ES»?CTX0N' OF TASSikTlON. 
 
 No. 4, 
 
 OF A SERIES OF LETTERS—PHIOE THREEPENCE EACH — 
 
 ADDKESSED TO THE LANDOWNERS AND FARMERS; THE MANH- 
 FACTHRERS AND TRADESMEN; THE MERCHANTS AND SHIP¬ 
 OWNERS ; AND TO ALL OTHER TAX-PAYERS OF THE UNITED 
 KINGDOM-—COMPRISING THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF A PRACTICABLE AND EQUITABLE MEANS 
 OF PA AUNG OFF THE 
 
 NATIONAL 9EBT; 
 
 THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ONLY REMEDY FOR THE 
 PRESENT EVILS OF THE COUNTRY. AND TO PREVENT 
 THE RECURRENCE OF SIMILAR EVILS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 a*}' Bi-itaiinicns- 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 23. Competition of Foreign Vessels greatly increasing— co»/gn(C(?. -24. Although 
 
 NOMINALLY the Nation pays only Three per cent, for the Debt, in reality, 
 it pays more than Five per cent., because only £480,000,000 of Sterling 
 Money was received from the Contractors for the nominal present Debt of 
 £800,000,000:—proved by the terms on which all the Loans from 179“ were 
 
 contracted,--25. Loan of 1798—only the sura of £99. lO*-. Od. received for 
 
 more than £200 Stock.--26. Omnium; of what it consisted.--27. The 
 
 manner in which the Debt may be justly liquidated, by an example of a 
 Landed Proprietor, who borrowed the sura of £100,000.—Similar proceeding 
 of the Corporation of Dover, and the Dock Trust of Liverpool.-28. Prin¬ 
 ciples for the management of the public Debt, by Dr. Ilaniilton.-29. Pro¬ 
 
 position for paying otf the public Debt, with perfect justice to the Fundholder 
 
 and to the Nation.-30. Tables in which the proposition is exhibited for 
 
 every half-year, until the extinction of the entire debt. 
 
 \ 
 
50 
 
 To the Landowners and Farmers; the Majiufactiirers and Tradesmen; 
 the Merchants and Shijwwners; and to all other TAX PAYEES of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Gentlemen. 
 
 At a meeting of shipowners at Newcastle it was stated, that, after sixteen 
 years’ experience, they found that the increased trade had been engrossed 
 by foreign vessels, whilst the freights for British had diminished. The 
 arrivals were— 
 
 1819 British vessels 
 1839 Ditto . . , 
 
 1819 Foreign vessels 
 1839 Ditto . 
 
 agricultural labourer haj 
 forced to pay heavy taxes! 
 the county and parish 
 
 . Tonnage 
 . Ditto . 
 
 . Ditto . 
 
 . Ditto . 
 
 494,606 
 
 being a decrease of 95 British; whilst the foreign had increased no less 
 than 2997: because the expense of manning and victualling a ship of 300 
 tons were—British, £206 J foreign, £105. Numerous petitions and reports 
 to Parliament—from the Slk, cotton, and other manufacturers—prove that 
 the manufacturers of thd European continent and of the United States 
 are rapidly and successfully supplanting the British in various foreign 
 markets; that the comforts and recompense of the citizen and of the 
 e equally diminished. All these classes are 
 s| either in money or toil, to the State, the clergy, 
 e, land and window tax, and upon (not only 
 every luxury but) every necessary of life that they consume. They must 
 pay heavily for the maintenance of the army and navy, the support of 
 judicial officers and police, for the maintenance of prisons, the trial and 
 punishment of felons. These are all taxes upon your land and houses, 
 warehouses, and other capital whence you derive your profits, by great 
 mental anxiety, the exercise of high talent, and much physical toil. 
 
 In the Liverpool Times, we read, “Business of all descriptions becomes 
 duller every day; the cotton and woollen trade both e.xhibit the same 
 unequivocal symptoms of distress and decay that they have shown for the 
 last three years. The iron masters have determined to diminish the pro¬ 
 duction of iron £25 per cent, for six months; whilst whole forests of 
 colonial timber may be seen at present piled around the Brunswick dock 
 in this port, unsaleable except at most ruinous prices, and the value of 
 shipping continues to decline rapidly under the influence of ruinously low 
 freights to all parts of the world. The pressure on the mercantile and 
 manufacturing interests is now extending to retail traders of every des¬ 
 cription, and threatens to involve the shopkeepers in embarrassment and 
 poverty, along with all the classes who used to be their customers for the 
 necessaries, the conveniences, and the luxuries of life.” 
 
51 
 
 But the fiindhoklei'S have not one of these drawhacks on either their 
 capital or their income. They only pay a tax on the articles they actually 
 consume; and, if they remain in the country, they are ])artici))ating the 
 benefit of all the reductions in the prices of the articles they iiiirclmse, 
 without having, as mere fundholders, contributed in the slightest degree, 
 by any exertion of their talents, or any diminution in their profits, 
 towards the reduction of the prices of provisions; and they may, and con¬ 
 sequently we find that many thousands of them actually do, pass their 
 lives and expend their incomes—those incomes entirely arising from 
 your excessive taxation—in foreign countries, without contributing one 
 penny towards the relief of the poor, towards the general revenue of the 
 kingdom, or towards any of the expenses necessarily incurred in the con¬ 
 servation of their capital; that is, of your lands, and houses, and ware¬ 
 houses, and ships, and stocks, and your intellectual faculties and phy¬ 
 sical strength, which truly form their capital : since these, and every 
 thing else that 3'ou possess, are all mortgaged to the fundholders, who 
 have been receiving without one farthing deduction—until the recent 
 income tax imposed by Sir Robert Peel—the neat profit and interest, 
 leaving to all the stay-at-home classes of the nation the tare and tret, 
 to use and digest as best they can. 
 
 Thus the industrious classes of the kingdom are nearly like the 
 Israelites in the land of Egypt, and the absentee fundholders, their 
 Egyptian task-masters. But these fundholders are not to be blamed, 
 either individually or collectively; for who would not, if in their power, 
 also delight to breathe the health-inspiring transparent atmosphere, 
 ramble over the sunny plains and vine-covered hills, of the gay regions of 
 Italy and France—where I have often purchased a fine fat turkey for half- 
 a-crown, and delicious Burgundy or Bordeaux, when bought by the 
 barrel from the grower, at less than one shilling the bottle. These fund- 
 holders are not to be blamed or vilified; indeed, I think them very wise 
 in their generation, in thus enjoying “ the blessings your free bounty 
 gives,” and carrying into practice the advice of the jioet, “to enjoy is to 
 obey.” But is not the whole system of your successive Lords of the 
 Treasury and Chancellors of the Exchequer—from Sir Robert Walpole to 
 Sir Robert Peel—to be blamed, for having thus so greatly mismanaged 
 your financial affairs; and ought not the supineness of the whole nation to 
 be blamed if this unjust state of affairs should longer remain ? Now, 
 Gentlemen, I ask: Is this justice towards the merchant, the manufac¬ 
 turer, and the landed proprietor—towards the industrious farmer and 
 tradesman, the half-fed labourer and squalid artizan 1 Surely, there is 
 not a single fundholder ivho would answer in the affirmative. Now, 
 when all the industrious stay-at-home classes must yearly have new 
 burdens imposed on them (for it is to be feared that the income and pro¬ 
 perty tax, burdensome as it is found to be, will shortly prove very inade- 
 
52 
 
 quate to the expenses of the nation under the deficiences arising from 
 our decreasing commerce), and when so many thousands of our indus¬ 
 trious artisans, mechanics, and agricultural labourers are literally starving, 
 and perishing miserably from want of employment, would it not be perfect 
 justice that the fundholder should contribute his proportion of expendi¬ 
 ture towards the conservation of his own capital and the collection of his 
 rents, by a reduction of interest from five to four per cent., which 
 would still be nearly one per cent, above the market price—as I shall 
 subsequently prove, notwithstanding the various devices pursued in 
 the transfer of stock and pretended three per cents.This might be 
 managed by the simplest machinery—by the deduction of the sum 
 total of dividends, whenever payable, as is now done in collecting the 
 income tax. 
 
 Let us next consider, that although five per cent, was the legal and 
 general interest paid in all money transactions during the war, therefore 
 that it was just that the nation should then pay such an interest to the 
 public creditor; still, that the rate of interest has since greatly fallen, 
 and the fundholder is no more entitled, either lawfully or in honour, to 
 reeeive 5 per cent, for the nse of his money in the present day than your 
 clothier is entitled to receive £5 for a coat, because you paid him that 
 sum during the war, when materials and wages were much dearer; yet, 
 as these have since been greatly reduced in price, and as other clothiers 
 only charge £3, or £3. 10s. for a similar article, he in justice can only 
 demand the same sum. 
 
 Perhaps the uncalculating fundholder, who has recently purchased his 
 stock, may assert that he is not paid five per cent., since all his capital is 
 invested in the three per cents., and has been purchased at £80 or £90; we 
 may reply—If, sir, you have given an e.xtraordinary high price for your 
 stock, which has been raised, either by the artifices of the Stock Exchange 
 speculators or by any casual circumstances—such as the annihilation of 
 the American Debt, the reduction of interest in the Prussian funds, 
 or the hazard of placing money in any of the other foreign funds—thus 
 throwing much capital into the British fund market; the nation is, in 
 strict justice, not responsible for this artificial price, nor for these private 
 transactions, but only for the amount of sterling capital originally 
 advanced; and, therefore, you are to calculate your nominal £100 stock 
 only as £60 sterling, for which, as you receive £3, you loud fide enjoy— at 
 least the E.xchequer, or more correctly speaking, the Tax-payers of the 
 nation, are paying—five per cent. This must he perfectly easy of compre¬ 
 hension to any person who can calculate—that, if £60 gives £3 interest per 
 annum; £100 sterling, at the same rate, will give £5. To prove that we 
 are really paying this interest for money, let me request your attention to 
 the following Table of the Loans contracted during ten years of the war— 
 from li97 to 1806 inclusive. 
 
53 
 
 £ s. d. £ s. d 
 
 1797 . £18,000,000 at 5 14 1 1801 . £28,000,000 at 5 5 5 
 
 1797 . 14,500,000 „ 6 G 10 1803 . 12,000,000 „ 5 2 0 
 
 1798 . , 17,000,000 „ 6 4 9 1804 . . 14,500,000 „ 5 9 2 
 
 1799 . 3,000,000 „ 5 12 5 1805 . 22,500,000 „ 5 3 2 
 
 1799 . . 15,000,000 „ 5 5 0 1806 . . 20,000,000 ,. 4 19 7 
 
 1800 . 20,000,000 „ 4 14 2 | 
 
 Thus we see tliat only two of these loans were subscribed above £60; 
 viz., that of 1800, the interest of which is only £4 14s. 2d.; and that of 
 1806, at £4 19s. 7d. But some were as low as £43 for £100 stock: viz., 
 that for 1797, bearing an interest of £6. 6s. lOd.; and 1798, an interest of 
 £6. 4s. 9d. The rest were all below £60 for £100 stock; and, conse¬ 
 quently, bear an interest of more than five per cent. 
 
 Now, although the whole debt, including the unfunded Exchequer 
 Bills, stands recorded in round numbers, nominally as £800,000,000, and 
 whicb WILL SOON become a real debt of that amount, if tbe nation still 
 continue a])athetic and supine under tbe burden; yet, it may be safely 
 asserted that not more than 480 millions of sterling money has really 
 been received by tbe nation. This will easily he proved, by multiplying 
 the 800 millions by GO, the real debt; and dividing it by 100, the nominal 
 debt. 800x60^100=480. 
 
 To understand how this difference has arisen between the real value 
 received and the nominal amount of the debt, although it must be a sub 
 ject well understood by most of you. Gentlemen, yet there may be a few 
 of my readers who have not yet paid attention to the subject. I may 
 then state, as examples, tbe loan for April, 1798, contracted for by Curtis, 
 Boyd, Solomon, Goldsmid, and Ward; and another loan in November, 
 1813. In the former, for each hundred pounds sterling advanced, there 
 was funded, 
 
 £150, 3 per cent. Consols, at 48|, for . . 72 11 3 
 
 £50, 3 per cent. Reduced, at 471 • • 23 15 0 
 
 Long Annuities, at 4s. lid., 13^ years’purchase . 3 4 6i 
 
 £99 10 9t 
 
 So that, for less than £100 sterling, actually received into the Exchequer, 
 we are now burdened with a debt of more than £200, and, consequently, 
 are paying more than six per cent.; although the public ignorantly believe 
 they are paying only three per cent. In the loan for November, 1813, the 
 sum for which the public was made debtor was. 
 
 In the 3 per cent. Consols .... £14,940,000 
 In the 3 per cent. Reduced . . . 24,000,000 
 
 Total present Nominal Debt . . £38,940,000 
 
 But the Chancellor of the Exchequer received only 22,000,000 
 
 Loss to the nation of . . . £16,940,000 
 
54 
 
 Tbe Omnium of this loan was subsequently transacted at 20 per cent, 
 profit to the contractors, and simple John Bull threw up his cap, calling 
 out: “ See how gloriously markets are looking up! What a high state 
 of prosperity the country is in!” forgetting that this glorious looking up 
 of the stocks was to the tune of nearly five millions of extra taxation, to 
 he deducted from the hard-earned profits of the industrious portion of the 
 people. But thus has the nation been continually plundered and deceived 
 by paragraphs in the public papers, inserted by the interested speculators 
 in the funds. A few of my readers, who have commenced their mercantile 
 and political studies since those days when the price of omnium was so 
 an.\iously looked at, as the index of victory or disaster, of peace or war, 
 may inquire—“ Of what did this omnium consist?” 
 
 Although the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed the terms of the 
 loan in parliament, he generally made a previous agreement with the 
 parties who were willing to advance the money. The subscribers imme¬ 
 diately deposited a certain portion of the loan, and paid the remainder by 
 instalments. They were entitled, not only to their full proportion of the 
 capital funded, but generally to an annuity for ten years, and to the right 
 of receiving a certain number of lottery tickets upon very advantageous 
 terras. They were then enabled to sell their stock to one person, their 
 annuity to a second, and their right to the lottery tickets to a third. 
 The value of all these in crests together was called omnium, and always 
 bore a considerable pren ium, to the advantage of the contractor and the 
 disadvantage of the natic n. 
 
 Now, I may ask—Is there a single banker, merchant, or tradesman in 
 the United Kingdom, who, having heal security to offer, would have 
 made so improvident a bargain ? If there be, his friends would have a 
 good plea to shut him up in a lunatic asylum, as totally incompetent to 
 conduct his own affairs. And can you be surprised, as the same impro¬ 
 vident system still continues, and the consequences have gradually and 
 regularly been advancing since 1S16, that—notwithstanding the occa¬ 
 sional gleam of mercantile prosperity—the gloom of insolvency, misery, 
 and destitution—much more fatal than the visitation of the cholera—is 
 gradually advancing and settling over the whole countiy, from John 
 o’ Groat’s House to the Land’s End ? 
 
 House of Lords, June Hth, 1849.—Earl Stanhope said, “ Beggary and 
 bankruptcy were stalking through the land, and discontent of a formidable 
 character was already taking its place by their side. Reduction must be 
 applied, without exception, in all cases—must he applied to all persons, 
 high and low, public and private—and, last of all, must be applied to the 
 NATIONAL DEBT, hy what has been sometimes called an equitable 
 adjustment." 
 
 The Marquis of Salisbury, on presenting a petition from the owners 
 and occupiers of land in the neighbourhood of Wisbeach, complaining of 
 auncultural distress, said, “That no noble lord on the other side of the 
 
55 
 
 House had been bold enough to rise in his place and assert that every 
 interest in the country was not suffering most severely, (/(ear, hear). 
 Whatever might be the cause of the depression, there was, unfortunately, 
 no ground for disputing the fact that, at the present moment, every inter¬ 
 est was suffering.” 
 
 Gentlemen, in order to prove that the evil may be remedied for the 
 genera] benefit of the millions, yet with perfect justice to the two hundred 
 thousand fundholders, allow me to propose a hypothetical case, which 
 may be considered as a parallel for the operation of the gradual reduction 
 and final annihilation of the National Debt. Let us suppose, that at any 
 given period from the year 1803 to 1815, that period during which the 
 greater portion of our present debt was accumulated, if any landed pro¬ 
 prietor required, either for building, for otherwise improving his estate, 
 or for carrying on and successfully terminating a law-suit, for the sake of 
 preserving that estate for himself and his heirs, he found it requisite to 
 borrow the sum of £100,000, he commissioned his steward to effect this 
 on the best terms; but, as during that period the general rate of interest 
 was five per cent., this was demanded and freely paid. To pay this interest, 
 therefore, his revenue is burdened with an e.vpenditure or tax of £5000 
 per annum. Yet, although during several intervening years the general rate 
 of interest has been gradually reduced from five to four, and even to three, 
 per cent., either from his own negligence, the ignorance or any fault of 
 his steward, or from his own gratitude for the assistance rendered to him 
 in his hour of need, he has continued to pay this original high rate of 
 interest. But, in the year 1849, pressed by the demands of an increasing 
 family, or enlightened by a more faithful and intelligent steward, he feels 
 that it is a duty which he owes to himself and family to reduce the rate 
 of interest according to the general market price; he therefore proposes 
 to his creditors that, for the future, he should pay them the reduced 
 interest of four per cent. If his creditors know no better means of em¬ 
 ploying their money, they will be happy to accede to his terms; if 
 otherwise, they will reply, “ No, sir; you must either continue to pay us, 
 according to your original contract of five per cent., or pay us back our 
 principal.” In this case, the debtor has only to have recourse to any 
 respectable solicitor in the metropolis, who would be happy immediately 
 to furnish the amount required, at four per cent. 
 
 In proof of the correctness of this assertion, there are frequent adver¬ 
 tisements from respectable solicitors, oSering to lend trust and other 
 money on mortgage at four per cent. The three per cent, consols have, 
 for a long time, averaged £90, which gives to present purchasers of stock 
 an interest of only about £3. 6s. 8c/. for £100 sterling. The money articles 
 in the London papers, during several past years, concur in asserting that 
 money was easily attainable at three per cent.; and, some time since, the 
 directors of the Bank of England, being desirous of lending money to the 
 
merchants, required to borrow a considerable amount of gold, and made 
 a bargain with the East India Company for a loan of £750,000, at three 
 per cent., for seven years; and again lent money, at the same rate of 
 interest; according to the evidence of Mr. Stuckey, before a committee of 
 the House of Commons, concerning joint-stock banks. The Morning 
 Post, of November 4, 1842, informs us, " Money is plentiful, even to a 
 glut. Good bills are sought after for discount at two to two-and-a-half 
 per cent. The coffers of the Bank have a greater amount of bullion than 
 for the ten years last past.” The occasional high rate of discount for 
 short periods, during any sudden demand for gold to pay for importations 
 of com, cannot be adduced as any contradiction. 
 
 The directors of the dock trusts of Liverpool, in 1837, succeeded in 
 reducing the rate of interest on the debts of their trust from five to four 
 per cent., as appears by the following :— 
 
 “Dock Committee, Liverpool, March 10th, 1837. It was stated, that 
 the amount of bond debts to be paid off to persons who refused to submit 
 to a reduction of interest to four per cent, was £24,069 j and that offers 
 to lend money on security of the dock estate at four per cent, for seven 
 years, amounted to £46,680, a portion of which only would be required.” 
 —Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 The corporation of Dover also, in 1843, succeeded in reducing the rate 
 of interest on the town bonds from five to four per cent.; and numerous 
 private individuals have made similarly advantageous arrangements with 
 their creditors—and even, in many instances, to three per cent. Yet are 
 yourselves. Gentlemen, and aU the industrious classes of the nation, 
 paying more than five per cent, interest upon all the loans which were 
 advanced to the nation during the war, when the general rate of interest 
 was two per cent, higher than at present. Thus is the nation cajoled and 
 deceived by the delusive system of the management of loans and the 
 public funds; by the stock speculators and all those gentlemen who are 
 behind the scenes, and who know well beforehand when stocks are about 
 to rise or to fall, and who therefore buy or sell accordingly. You admire 
 a few Rothschilds, whose coffers are running over with accumulated 
 millions, hut you seem totally to forget w'hence have been drawn the 
 supplies which have filled their coffers: they are the accumulated fruits 
 of your own toils and exertions, and which you and your own families 
 might and ought to enjoy, if you had not been too confiding in the 
 financial wisdom and arithmetical science of your former ministers, and 
 particularly of your Chancellors of the Exchequer. 
 
 Let us now recur to the situation of this individual who has borrowed 
 a new sum of £100,000, at four per cent, in order to pay off his 
 original creditors. Instead of £5000 per annum, which he originally paid 
 as interest, he has now to pay only £4000 to his new creditors j but, 
 having been accustomed to deduct from his rental the sum of £5000, he 
 
57 
 
 now resolves—previously to the increasing his expenditure for new 
 luxuries, in order to disencumber his estate, and for the advantage of his 
 children—to appropriate the surplus £1000, annually, to the gradual 
 reduction of the original debt. For the practical operation of this 
 measure, I must request your attention to the following table, starting 
 from the yiar 1849. This table is calculated according to the half-yearly 
 paj’ment of interest, in order to assimilate its operations more intimately 
 with the public funds, the dividends of which are paid half-yearly. We 
 have here the full debt of £100,000, the ancient interest upon which for 
 the half-year, at five per cent., is £2500, from which is now to he deducted 
 one per cent, of interest, being equal to one-fifth on the dividends, or half- 
 yearly payments. This deduction of £500, therefore, reduces the original 
 debt to £99,500, in July. The interest upon this is only £1990: there 
 is now a surplus of £510, which reduces the debt to £98,990. Thus, 
 through the whole operation, it will he seen that the amount of interest 
 is regularly decreasing, and the surplus to he devoted towards paying off 
 the debt is increasing. The sums in the two columns of interest and 
 surplus being added together, will always amount to £2500—the half- 
 yearly interest according to the first contract; and by this process the 
 amount of £10,000 will be reduced at the following periods :— 
 
 The first in . .8 years 
 
 second . . „ 
 
 third . . 5 „ 
 
 fourth . . 4i „ 
 
 fifth . . . 3| „ 
 
 The sixth in .31 years 
 seventh . . 2.1 „ 
 
 eighth . . 21 „ 
 
 ninth . . 21 „ 
 
 tenth . . 2 „ 
 
 leaving a surplus in hand of the amount provided of £18 If at the end of 
 the fortieth year, udth the whole debt paid off, and now an extra revenue 
 of £5000 per annum. Whether the debt be £10,000 or ten millions, or 
 a hundred millions, the result would be the same, from the simple process 
 of diminishing the interest one per cent., and appropriating the surplus 
 every half year to pay off the principal, instead of its being allowed to 
 accumulate, and to he squandered, according as any “ pressing emer¬ 
 gencies ” might arise. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, I request you to study well this proposition, in 
 order that you may he prepared the better to decide on the measures 
 that I shall subsequently propose to you, for the reduction of the 
 NATIONAL DEBT.—You will he kind enough to weigh well, whether 
 there can be any injustice in, either paying off the whole of the original 
 debt, at the precise sum advanced by the creditor to the debtor, or, with 
 THE Consent of the Ckeditors, of reducing the rate of interest, 
 according to the price which I have shown, from authentic documents, 
 is the market price of the day, which the daily newspapers confirm j which 
 has been carried into practice in numerous instances by every solvent 
 corporate body, hank, or individual in the kingdom, and which is neglected 
 only by those who are ignorant of the market price; or by the insolvent 
 
58 
 
 spendthrift who lies completely at the mercy of his creditors, and who, as 
 they undergo the hazard of losing their capital lent, ought in justice to 
 receive extra interest, because the expecting heir may break his neck in 
 a steeple chase, or he shot by some friend for not paying his gambling 
 debts, without ever coming into the possession of his hereditary estates. 
 
 Calculation of the proportions in which a debt of £100,000 will he dimi¬ 
 nished, by reducing the rate of interest paid upon it, from five to four 
 per cent.; and the period when the debt will be finally paid off, by 
 devoting to that purpose the surplus saved each half-year from the 
 amount of £2500—being the interest previously paid at the rate of 
 five per cent. After the year 1854, it has been thought requisite to 
 insert the result of only each alternate year. This table presents a 
 most important study for every land proprietor who is.paying more 
 than four per cent, on any mortgage—if there should be any one so 
 iraproiident. 
 
 Jan. 1849 . . 100,000 2000 500 99,500 
 
 July „ . . 99,500 1990 510 98,990 
 
 Jan. 1850 . . 98,990 1980 520 98,4/0 
 
 Julv „ . . 98,4/0 1969 531 97,939 
 
 Jan. 1851 . . 97,939 1959 541 97,398 
 
 July „ . . 97,398 1948 552 96,846 
 
 Jan. 1852 . . 96,846 1937 563 96,283 
 
 July „ . . 96,283 1926 574 95,709 
 
 Jan. 1853 . . 95,709 1914 586 95,123 
 
 July „ . . 95,123 1902 598 94,525 
 
 Jan. 1854 . . 94,525 1890 610 93,915 
 
 „ 1856 . . 92,012 1840 660 91,352 
 
 „ 1858 . . 89,292 1786 714 88,578 
 
 „ 1860 . . 86,348 1727 773 85,575 
 
 „ 1862 . . 83,162 1663 837 82,325 
 
 „ 1864 . . 79,712 1594 906 78,806 
 
 „ 1866 . . 75,980 1520 980 75,000 
 
 „ 1868 . . 70,940 1439 1061 70,879 
 
 „ 1870 . . 67,567 1351 1149 66,418 
 
 „ 1872 . . 62,832 1257 1243 61,589 
 
 ,. 1874 . . 57,708 1154 1346 56,362 
 
 „ 1376 . . 52,161 1043 1457 50,704 
 
 „ 1878 . . 46,156 ,923 1577 44,579 
 
 „ 1880 . . 39,657 793 1707 37,950 
 
 „ 1882 . . 32,622 652 1848 30,774 
 
 ,. 1834 . . 25,006 500 2000 23,006 
 
 „ 1886 . . 16,763 335 2185 14,598 
 
 „ 1888 . . 7,841 157 2343 5,498 
 
 „ 1889 . . 3,108 62 2438 670 
 
 July „ . . 670 13 ' 2487 
 
From £248?, surplus provided, deduct the remaining debt of £67o; there 
 rvill then remain, at the end of the year 1889, a surplus of £1817. 
 
 That which is just and correct on a small scale in private hfe, 
 ought to be equally just and advantageous when the scale is extended to 
 the financial operation of a nation. AYe may then, I think, adopt four of 
 the principles laid down by Dr. Hamilton, in his “ Enquiry into the 
 Management of the National Debt.” 
 
 “ 1st. The annual income of a nation consists of the united produce of 
 its agriculture, manufactures, and commerce j and from which the public 
 revenue, necessary for internal administration or for war, is raised. 
 
 “ 2nd. The amount of the revenue raised in time of peace ought to be 
 greater than a peace establishment, and the overplus applied to the dis¬ 
 charge of debts contracted in former wars, or reserved as a resource for 
 the expences of future wars. 
 
 “ 3rd. The excess of revenue above expenditure is the only real sink¬ 
 ing-fund, by which public debt can be discharged. 
 
 “4th. The nation, in strict justice, ought to pay no more in discharge 
 of debt, than the sum actually borrowed, together with the interest during 
 the time the debt subsists.” 
 
 The whole debt, in round numbers, being £800,000,000, the interest 
 and other charges upon this debt for 1848, was £28,141,531 ; but deduct¬ 
 ing the perquisites of office, and salaries of the commissioners of the 
 sinking fund, we may take the interest really paid to our creditors at 
 twenty-eight millions; let us then suppose that this sum of twenty-eight 
 millions continue to be annually raised for a series of years, and be devoted 
 to the payment of interest and to the gradual paying off the principal 
 of the debt. 
 
 As I have previously shown, if one per cent, be deducted from the rate 
 of interest in regard to a private debt of £100,000, the whole debt would 
 be paid off in forty years, simply by the accumulation of the surplus, 
 arising from the reduction of interest from five to four per cent., so if 
 the interest on the national debt be reduced to four per cent, which is 
 full one per cent, above the general rate of interest in the present day, 
 upon any real security, the whole debt would by the same process be paid 
 off equally in forty years. Now, surely it cannot be denied, that what is 
 not only legal and just, but satisfactory to both debtor and creditor among 
 the indmduals of a nation, must undoubtedly also be just and legal be¬ 
 tween the national debtor and creditor; but although it cannot be denied 
 that three per cent, is and has long been the market price of the day, and 
 that the nation in justice ought to pay no higher rate of interest—for no 
 individual can offer more substantial security than the public funds—yet, 
 since this reduction from five, actually jjaid, to three per cent, which only 
 ought to he paid, might he exclaimed against as too heavy a tax upon 
 the dividends, and too great a sudden diminution in the income of indi- 
 
60 
 
 viduals; and as many of the present fundholders may have purchased 
 their stock subsequently to the year 1S16 j when the price was £58; since 
 which, not only by the operations of peace, but from the miscalculations 
 of our lords of the treasury, the stock market has been continually “ look¬ 
 ing up,” until the price of the three per cent, has frequently exeeded £90 
 sterling; and, since this state of affairs has greatly arisen from our own 
 negligence, let us first examine what will he the result of reducing the 
 interest merely to four per cent. 
 
 In the following tables, the First Column contains the date of each half 
 year, from January 1849, according to the general payment of the divi¬ 
 dends for the first eight years; after which it has been thought requisite 
 only to insert the resnlt of each year. 
 
 2nd Column. The nominal amount of the debt, including the floating 
 debt of Exchequer Bills, and the terminable annuities :• this amount 
 gradually decreases half-yearly. 
 
 3rd Column. Tlie half-yearly interest, also gradually decreasing; being 
 precisely three-and-a-half per cent, upon the gross nominal amount, or 
 within a fraction of six per cent, interest upon the sum actually 
 advanced to the nation—viz., £480,000,000. 
 
 4th Column. The proposed reduction of one-fifth of the interest; 
 that is, from flve per cent, to four per cent. 
 
 5th Column. Amount of half-yearly surplus, arising from the interest 
 now paid being less than the amount provided; this, consequently, must 
 gradually increase. 
 
 6th Column. Amount of total saving half-yearly, from the united sums 
 of the two preceding columns; viz., the deduction from the interest and 
 the surplus of money provided beyond what is now' required to pay the 
 
 7th Column. The amount of stock to be purchased, or paid off, half- 
 yearly, at £70 sterling for £100 stock in the three per cents.; and the 
 remaining stock of three-and-a-quarter per cents., &c., in the same pro¬ 
 portions. 
 
 But, since the stocks have frequently fluctuated from £60 to £90 ster¬ 
 ling, for £100 stock; and, according to the present system, are continually 
 fluctuating: it will be subsequently clearly explained how this stock may 
 all he purchased at £70 sterling for £100 stock, with the full consent 
 and by the voluntaby acts of the fundholders themselves. 
 
Date. 
 
 
 Half-Yearly In- 
 
 aii(l-a-lialf ou the 
 whole Debt. 
 
 Deduction of 
 oiic.lifth oil 
 
 nuc provided. 
 
 Total Saving. 
 
 StoAat 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 Jan. 1S6G . 
 
 607,864,84.1 
 
 10,637,635 
 
 2,127,527 
 
 3,362,365 
 
 5,489,892 
 
 7,842,703 
 
 600,022,138 
 
 „ 1807 . 
 
 592,022,581 
 
 10,360,395 
 
 2,072,079 
 
 3,639,605 
 
 5,711,684 
 
 8,159,548 
 
 583,863,033 
 
 „ 1808 . 
 
 575,540,293 
 
 10,071,955 
 
 2,014,391 
 
 3,928,045 
 
 5,942,436 
 
 8,489,194 
 
 567,051,099 
 
 „ 1869 . 
 
 558,392,121 
 
 9,771,862 
 
 1,954,372 
 
 4,228,138 
 
 6,182,510 
 
 8,832,157 
 
 549,559,964 
 
 „ 1870 . 
 
 540,551,163 
 
 9,459,645 
 
 1,891,929 
 
 4,540,355 
 
 6,432,284 
 
 9,188,977 
 
 531,362,186 
 
 „ 1871 . 
 
 521,989,429 
 
 9,134,815 
 
 1,826,963 
 
 4,865,185 
 
 6,692,148 
 
 9,560,211 
 
 512,429,218 
 
 „ 1872 . 
 
 502,677,803 
 
 8,796,802 
 
 1,759,373 
 
 5,203,138 
 
 6,962,510 
 
 9,946,443 
 
 492,731,360 
 
 „ 1873 . 
 
 482,585,986 
 
 8,445,255 
 
 1,689,051 
 
 5,554,745 
 
 7,243,796 
 
 10,348,280 
 
 472,237,706 
 
 „ 1874 . 
 
 461,682,460 
 
 8,079,443 
 
 1,615,888 
 
 5,920,557 
 
 7,536,445 
 
 10,766,350 
 
 450,916,110 
 
 „ 1875 . 
 
 439,934,432 
 
 7,698,853 
 
 1,539,770 
 
 6,301,147 
 
 7,840,917 
 
 11,210,310 
 
 428,733,122 
 
 „ 1876 . 
 
 417,593,508 
 
 7,307,886 
 
 i;4Gl,577 
 
 6;692;il4 
 
 8,153,691 
 
 11,648,130 
 
 405,945,378 
 
 „ 1877 . 
 
 394,064,285 
 
 6,896,125 
 
 1,379,225 
 
 7,103,875 
 
 8,483,100 
 
 12,118,714 
 
 381,945,571 
 
 ■ „ 1878 . 
 
 369,584,483 
 
 6,467,299 
 
 1,293,545 
 
 7,532,701 
 
 8,826,246 
 
 12,608,923 
 
 356,975,560 
 
 „ 1879 . 
 
 344,115,072 
 
 6,022,014 
 
 1,204,402 
 
 7,977,986 
 
 9,182,388 
 
 13,117,697 
 
 330,997,375 
 
 „ 1880 . 
 
 317,617,322 
 
 5,558,303 
 
 1,111,661 
 
 8,441,697 
 
 9,553,358 
 
 13,647,654 
 
 303,969,668 
 
 „ 1881 . 
 
 290,049,062 
 
 5,075,859 
 
 1,015,171 
 
 8,924,141 
 
 9,939,312 
 
 14,199,017 
 
 275,850,045 
 
 „ 1882 . 
 
 261,367,047 
 
 4,573,923 
 
 914,785 
 
 9,426,077 
 
 10,340,862 
 
 14,772,660 
 
 246,694,387 
 
 „ 1883 . 
 
 231,526,276 
 
 4,051,719 
 
 810,342 
 
 9,948,281 
 
 10,758,623 
 
 15,369,461 
 
 216,156,815 
 
 „ 1884 . 
 
 200,479,954 
 
 3,508,399 
 
 701,679 
 
 10,491,601 
 
 11,193,280 
 
 15,990,400 
 
 184,489,554 
 
 „ 1885 . 
 
 168,179,346 
 
 2,943,139 
 
 588,627 
 
 11,056,861 
 
 11,645,488 
 
 16,636,411 
 
 151,542,935 
 
 „ 1886 . 
 
 134,573,794 
 
 2,355,041 
 
 471,008 
 
 11,644,959 
 
 12,115,967 
 
 17,308,524 
 
 117,265,270 
 
 „ 1887 . 
 
 99,610,576 
 
 1,743,185 
 
 348,637 
 
 12,256,815 
 
 12,605,452 
 
 18,007,788 
 
 81,602,788 
 
 „ 1888 . 
 
 63,234,845 
 
 1,106,610 
 
 221,322 
 
 12,893,390 
 
 13,114,712 
 
 18,735,303 
 
 44,499,542 
 
 „ 1889 . 
 
 25,389,534 
 
 444,317 
 
 88,863 
 
 
 13,644,546 
 
 19,492,208 
 
 5,897,326 
 
 July „ . 
 
 5,897,326 
 
 103,203 
 
 20,640 
 
 13’896’797 
 
 13,917,437 
 
 19,882,053 
 
 
63 
 
 Thus, in July 1889, the debt is only £5,897,326 stock, which, purchased 
 at £70, will cost £4,128,128. 
 
 The revenue provided for the haif-year is £14,000,000, which will leave 
 a balance in hand of £9,871,872, with twenty-eight millions of annual 
 taxation, now to be reduced. 
 
 Gentlemen will be kind enough to recollect whilst reading this calcu¬ 
 lation that, although the greater portion of the debt is nominally at 
 THREE it is. in reality more than five per cent, interest: therefore the 
 reduction which I propose is not one pound from an income of three, but 
 from five; or, a reduction from five to four per cent. 
 
 This result is upon the supposition that no taxation be immediately 
 reduced, but the sum of twenty-eight millions he applied annually to the 
 interest, and the gradual reduction of the debt. By this simple process, 
 we find that the whole of this enormous debt would be paid off in FORTY 
 years, leaving a surplus of no less than £9,871,872, and allowing twenty- 
 eight millions of annual taxation to he then taken off. 
 
 If such a proceeding had been commenced in the first year after the 
 peace, WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE MILLIONS LESS 
 OF EXPENDITURE than the Lords of the Treasury have already em¬ 
 ployed, no less than five hundred and thirty-eight millions of 
 the debt would have been paid off in the present year; and, instead of 
 the impoverished nation being visited by a property and income tax, no 
 less than EIGHTEEN MILLIONS of annual taxation might have been 
 reduced. The relief given by this measure would have included the 
 window tax, malt tax, hop duty, soap, tea, paper, advertisement duty, 
 and numerous other taxes which different commercial and agricultural 
 bodies have in vain prayed to be relieved from, as greatly vexatious and 
 oppressive to the built of the people, and injurious to our intercourse, 
 both commercial and political, with foreign nations; would have prevented 
 the establishment of rival manufactories on the continent, because the 
 capitalists of other nations confess, that if our manufactures were not 
 saddled with thirty millions of taxation for the national debt, such are 
 our other advantages of coals, iron, and other minerals; our insular 
 position presenting an easy and cheap ingress for the raw material, and 
 egress for the manufactured material from all our great towns; that it 
 would be hopeless for other nations to contend against: our manufac¬ 
 turers and merchants would consequently receive better profits, and our 
 artizans and labourers in general better wages and cheaper food, because 
 it would have enabled our legislators to abolish the corn laws without 
 any injury to our landowners. and farmers, who would then have been 
 placed in as favourable a position as the corn producers of any other 
 
 But some of you. Gentlemen, may probably remark that, “ However 
 valuable the result of such a measure would be if it had been put in 
 
G4 
 
 operation in 1816, if now commenced, it will only pay off the debt at a 
 distant period, and produce but little relief to those who are at present 
 suffering the inconvenience and groaning under the burden.” Of you 
 Gentlemen who have children, whose future interests are no doubt dear 
 to you, for whom “you rise so early and so late take rest, and eat the bread 
 of carefulness ” more frequently in the hope of supplying their increasing 
 wants and settling them respectably in the world, than to gratify your 
 own immediate pleasures, 1 would ask. Will it not be a source of high 
 gratification for you to believe that you will leave an unencumbered estate 
 to those dear children ?—^To those gentlemen who have not the same 
 domestic ties, I may say. That a real patriot must legislate not merely for 
 the present moment, but for a late posterity. When we erect a national 
 edifice, we must not look to its endurance for our own short lives only, or 
 even for those of our children ; a true patriot and lover of his country 
 must desire to see it in a condition to bear the buffet of ages. If a man 
 labour merely for his individual benefit, the next day’s cloud may destroy 
 his fairest hopes j but, if he labour for his country’s weal, he may eft'ect the 
 happiness of unborn ages. And the date I propose is not so very distant; 
 for, according to the natural course of events, most persons under the 
 age of twenty may hope to assist in the jubilee for its total extinction. 
 
 At all events, the proposition which I have made is infinitely better 
 than an annual increase of e.xpenditure and consequent taxation, which 
 the parliamentary documents prove have gradually taken place since the 
 year 1830—the (/lorious epoch of the passing of the Reform Bill, with aU 
 its rainbow tints “ as bright as transient too j” when the taxation was at 
 the lowest amount during the last thirty-four years of peace. 
 
 'llie ancient poets have sung about the Golden Age; the Silver Age; the 
 Brazen Age; and the Iron Age; the present may properly be denominated 
 the “ Rail-road Age;” and almost every one is desirous of advancing not 
 only his body and fortune, but all beneficial reforms, with Rail-road speed. 
 Now, as this is a very laudable wish, in which I heartily participate; in 
 order to gratify that wish as far as possible, I shall subsequently propose 
 another means of effecting the same desirable object. But although the 
 beneficial effects of a more immediate reduction of taxation would be 
 accomplished by this second operation, the final extinction of the debt 
 would be somewhat deferred. Before proceeding to this second propo¬ 
 sition, however, let us compare the result of my first detailed plan with 
 what has actually taken place since 1816. 
 
 (To be continued.) 
 
reduction of taxation. 
 
 No. 5, 
 
 OF A. SERIES OF LETTERS—PRICE THREEPENCE EACH— 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE LANDOWNERS AND FARMERS; THE MANU- 
 FACT0RERS AND TRADESMEN; THE MERCHANTS AND SHIP¬ 
 OWNERS : AND TO ALL OTHER TAX-PAVERS OP THE UNITED 
 KINGDOM-COMPRISING THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF A PRACTICABLE AND EQUITABLE MEANS 
 OP PAYING OFF THE 
 
 NATIONAL DEBT; 
 
 THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ONLY REMEDY FOR THE 
 PRESENT EVILS OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO PREVENT 
 THE RECURRENCE OF SIMILAR EVILS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 By Britanntciis. 
 
 LONDO.'I : PUBLISHED BY FRED. PITMAN, PHONETIC DEPOT, 1, RDEEn’s 
 HEAD PASSAGE, PATERNOSTER ROW; AND SOLD BY ALL OTHER BOOK- 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 31. Tables of the amount of the funded and unfunded Debt, ;vitb the Interest 
 
 annually charged, from 1817 to 1849.'-32. Proof that the sixty-three 
 
 millions, hitherto employed for paying off the Debt, instead of diminishing 
 
 the amount has positively increased it by ^240,000,000.--33. Nature and 
 
 Impolicy of the Exchequer Bills; proving a Loss to the Nation of several 
 hundred thousand pounds annually, by the imprudent method of employing 
 
 those Bills.-34. Ignorance and consequent apathy of the greater portion 
 
 of the Nation, concerning the real state and operation of the Debt.- 
 
 35. Frequent declaration of Ministers, “that no reduction of taxation will 
 be granted, nor any supposed grievance be redressed, until the Nation have 
 
 generally expressed their wisU upon the subject.”-36. Deficiency of the 
 
 Reform Bill for relieving the burdens of the country.-37. The Nation 
 
 continually deceived by the official misapplication of the terms—Revenue 
 
 and Taxation.-38. True statement of what is really Revenue, and what 
 
 is Taxation.-39. Inutility of any change of Ministers, without a complete 
 
 change of financial measures. 
 
66 
 
 To the Landowners and Farmers; the Manufacturers and Tradesmen: 
 the Merchants and Shipowners; and to all other TAX PAYEES of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Gentlemen. 
 
 Thirty-four years of almost uninterrupted peace have now elapsed, 
 and as good a state of commercial prosperity has been enjoyed during the 
 greater part of it as, under the operation of our present financial s)’stem, 
 we can reasonably hope for; yet we find the taxation levied to pay the 
 interest of the debt nearly as burdensome as in the first year of the peace. 
 According to the returns given in to parliament, we find the amount of 
 funded debt, including the interest of the terminable annuities, is— 
 
 1817 796.200,191 29,842,014 2,014,003 
 
 1818 776.742,403 29,310,454 2,165,177 
 
 1819 791,867,313 29.934,294 1,710,119 
 
 1820 794,986,481 29,785,653 2,143,476 
 
 1821 801,565,310 30,149,920 687,027 
 
 1822 795.312,767 29,985,216 1,769,219 
 
 1823 796,530,144 28,596,866 2,159,602 
 
 1824 791,701,614 29,078,570 1,385,424 
 
 1823 781,123,222 28,372.206 1,131,121 
 
 1826 778.128,267 28,267,272 1,087,284 
 
 1827 783,801,739 28,556,903 829,498 
 
 1828 777,476,892 28,389.869 831,207 
 
 1829 772,322,540 28,245,534 873,247 
 
 1830 771.231,932 28,285,900 949,430 
 
 1831 757,486,996 27,674.734 878,494 
 
 1832 755,543,884 27,638,299 793,031 
 
 1833 754,100,549 27,703,433 649,833 
 
 1834 753,238,753 27,730,939 659,165 
 
 1833 745,327,511 27.803.533 779,796 
 
 1836 760,294,554 27.765,464 691,294 
 
 1837 761,422,570 28,464,634 740.211 
 
 1838 762,275,188 28,539,310 720,928 
 
 1839 762,771,224 28.597,360 856,701 
 
 1840 764,000,000 28,738,720 642,907 
 
 1841 I 766,371,725 28,556,324 818,046 
 
 1842 772.169,092 28,703,110 725,009 
 
 1843 773.068,340 28.581,075 688,084 
 
 1844 772,169,092 29,963,614 531,843 
 
 1845 769.193,644 27,827,265 426,607 
 
 1846 766,672,822 27,656,555 421,432 
 
 1847 764,608,284 27,705,233 436,298 
 
 1848 772,401,851 27,763,527 480,000 
 
 Total . . £914,232,825 £31,675,513 
 
67 
 
 According to these Parliamentary Returns we 6nd that, in 1817, 
 the interest upon the whole debt, including the terminable annuities, 
 was ..... £29,842,014 
 
 and, in the year 1848, the interest and attendant ta-xation still is 27,7<'j 3,327 
 a diminution of only .... £2,078,487 
 
 a portion of which arises from various short annuities which have 
 fallen in. 
 
 To produce this trifling result, we see by the foregoing table that the 
 Lords of the Treasury have expended more than Nine Hundred and 
 Fourteen Millions to pay the interest of the funded debt, and 
 £31,675,513 as interest of the unfunded, besides Sixty-tiiree millions 
 to purchase up the debt; making a total of £1,008,906,338. Let us next 
 consider what has been the effect of employing this Sixty-three Millions 
 towards the redemption of the debt. If our loans had been negotiated 
 according to the principles which every man of common sense, who has 
 real security to offer, would negotiate a loan for himself, that is, to be 
 answerable only for the precise amount of sterling money borrowed, to¬ 
 gether with the interest during the time the debt subsists ; then the debt 
 would really have been diminished by the amount of £100 for every 
 hundred pounds paid to the creditors: but, on the contrary, this very 
 payment of sixty-three millions has augmented the real debt by more 
 than Two Hundred Millions !! 
 
 Every commercial man understands, that if there is a great abundance 
 of any article whatever in the market, and but few purchasers, the price 
 must necessarily decline ; and, on the contrary, if but a scanty supply, and 
 many buyers, the prices must rise. Now, from the egregiously erroneous 
 principles upon which our loans have been contracted, the amount of this 
 debt is subject to similar variations: therefore, in proportion as the com¬ 
 missioners brought gold into the market to purchase stock, they enhanced 
 the price; regularly, as they purchased, rendering stock scarcer: so that, ac¬ 
 cording to the amount of those purchases, the stock rose from £60 in 1816, 
 to £70, £80, £90 j which last has been the average since 1830; when, with 
 the exception of a few thousand pounds, the operation of the commis¬ 
 sioners ceased, e.xcepting in so far as regarded the receipt of their salaries! 
 The reform agitation in 1831 caused the stocks to fall to £76; and during 
 1839—40, the period of the agitation of M. Thiers, and of the export of gold 
 for corn, they fell to £86 : so that, if a new loan, the amount of which should 
 not he subject to fluctuation, had been contracted in 1816, the three 
 per cents, being at £60, the whole debt might have been paid off for 
 £480,000,000, the then market price. If paid in 1820, about the period of 
 the trial of the Queen, at £70 it would have amounted to £560,000,000; 
 if, in 1822, at £80 to £640,000,000; and, at present, at £90, to 
 £ 720 , 000 , 000 .— 
 
Reeapitulalion 
 In 1816 
 „ 1820 
 » 1822 
 „ 1849 
 
 £60 
 
 70 
 
 80 
 
 90 
 
 560,000,000 
 
 640,000,000 
 
 720,000,000 
 
 Tliis proceeding somewhat resembles the result of the efforts of our late 
 navigators to reach the North Pole. When they had advanced so far that 
 they thought the firm and wide -spread field of ice a-head of the vessel 
 must be connected with the Pole itself, they launched upon this field of 
 ice a boat fixed upon wheels, and by the almost incredible labour of the 
 crew, the boat was dragged over the surface some sixty or eighty miles; 
 but when at last the sun permitted an observation to be taken, they found 
 that, whilst toiling over the surface towards the north, unfortunately this 
 field of ice was based on the sliding principle, and that an under current 
 had drawn the whole mass some 150 miles back towards the south. 
 
 Thus, although the Nominal Debt, according to the official docu¬ 
 ments has somewhat decreased, still the Real Debt, for which we are now 
 answerable to our creditors, has been increased by more than £240,000,000. 
 We may then add this amount to the previously stated result of the finan¬ 
 cial operations of ministers 
 
 Interest paid for funded debt 
 Ditto, unfunded 
 Towards redemption 
 Augmentation of Debt 
 
 £914,233,825 
 
 31,675,513 
 
 63,000,000 
 
 240,000,000 
 
 Total £1,248,909,333 
 
 The total advantage of this enormous expenditure of ta.xation and accu¬ 
 mulation of debt is a reduction of interest, or annual taxation, of only 
 £3,612,490. Butbytheplan that I have proposed, the sum of only twenty- 
 eight millions would be required annually; or, for the whole thirty-two 
 years, £896,000,000, and by which the debt would be diminished no less 
 than £538,000,000; and the interest for the year £18,852,154. And if the 
 extra amount of ta.xation, which has been e.xpended by the Lords of the 
 Treasury for the purposes of this debt, had been employed according to 
 my plan, it would at £70 sterling for £100 stock have redeemed a further 
 amount of £161,297,625 stock. Moreover, if it had been commenced in 
 1816, when the three per cents, were at £60; the four, at £80; and the five, 
 at £100; at which prices my plan would have rendered them stationary; 
 then the whole would have been gradually purchased at ten per cent, less, 
 or £80,000,000 upon the entire debt, rvithout one dissentient voice—except 
 that of the mere gamblers of the Stock Exchange—and the WHOLE 
 DEBT in the present year, 1849, would have stood at only TWENTY 
 MILLIONS; which at three per cent, would give an interest, and demand 
 
a tax of only £602, 082 instead of tlie Thirty Millions of taxation which 
 we are now forced to pay, and which is the real cause of the decline of our 
 commerce and national power. Such a measure ivould have enabled the 
 government, instead of visiting us with an income and property tax, to 
 have reduced no less than THIRTY MILLIONS of taxation; and I may 
 challenge all the Lords of the Treasury, with their w'hole staff of clerks, 
 and all the political economists of the kingdom, to prove to the contrary. 
 
 Recapitulation ; 
 
 The debt according to the table, page 62, to the end of the year 1881, 
 being thirty-two years—equivalent to the period from 1817 to 1849— 
 ivould be reduced to .... £261,367,047 
 
 This being deducted from the original debt will show 
 the amount paid off to be . . . 538,632,953 
 
 Now the Lords of the Treasury have expended during the same period 
 for the Interest of the Debt (see page 66) 
 
 Ditto, Interest of Exchequer Bills 
 Ditto, to purchase up the Debt 
 
 Total 
 
 But the plan I have detailed would require only 
 £28,000,000 per annum for the same period of thii'ty- 
 
 AVhich would leave a balance of . 
 
 And if this balance were employed to purchase stock at £70, according to 
 my proposition, it would reduce the debt still farther, by £161,297,625 
 And if commenced in 1816 or 1817, when the three 
 per cents, were £60, would have saved ten per cent, 
 more on the whole debt of £800,000,000, or the sum 
 of .... . 
 
 Which further sum deducted from the £261,367,047, 
 as above stated, would leave the debt in the present 
 year at the amount of only 
 
 Upon which the interest or tax would be only 
 
 80,000,000 
 
 £241,297,625 
 
 £20,069,422 
 
 £602,082 
 
 £914,232,825 
 
 31,675,513 
 
 63,000,000 
 
 £1,008,908,338 
 
 896,000,000 
 
 £112,908,338 
 
 Yet, Gentlemen, the simple, easy, just, and, I hope, intelligible means 
 which I propose to you is precisely what every one of yourselves, as 
 intelligent men of business, would pursue in the conduct of your own 
 
70 
 
 afiairs; and when the nation is paying such enormous salaries to our 
 Lords of the Treasury, why should they not conduct our national affairs 
 on terms equally as advantageous ? Is then, I inquire of you. Gentlemen, 
 such a reform in our financial operations worthy your consideration or 
 
 Another annual saving of at least £600,000 might also be immediately 
 effected in regard to the unfunded debt. Should we not judge any indi¬ 
 vidual very improvident who, possessing an income of fifty thousand per 
 annum, regularly paid to him quarterly, should require every three 
 months, in order to pay his butcher, grocer, and other tradesmen, to 
 issue some six or seven thousand pounds of promissory notes, upon 
 which he has to pay interest i Thus, although the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer has no less than thirteen or fourteen millions paid to him, very 
 regularly every quarter, still he issues some £20,000,000 annually of pro¬ 
 missory notes of exchequer and navy bills to pay the national creditors 
 and public sen'ants. Let us consider on what terms, for whose profit, 
 and for what purpose, these bills are issued. First, they are given—in 
 bills of £100, £1000, or of larger amount—to the Bank of England, some 
 private bankers, and other capitalists; who give in e.xchange—what ? 
 Gold and silver ? By no means; that would be too inconvenient to trans¬ 
 port ; but paper of inferior value, though in more convenient sums of 
 £5, £10, or £20 notes of the Bank of England, or some other private 
 bank j for, although the Bank op England sounds very magnificently 
 —an ideal sublimity—it is, after all, but a private company, the same as 
 any other Joint-stock bank. 
 
 The exchequer hills are then deposited in the iron chests of these capi¬ 
 talists, which do not resemble the profitless chest of the Chancellor of the 
 E.xchequer; but in these private chests the e.xchequer bills fructify and 
 daily increase in value, at first, at the rate of Id. or l\d. per diem for 
 £100. Here for a short time they repose, germinating slowly, whilst the 
 bank notes which have been given in exchange are wearing, tearing, and 
 frequently lost or destroyed, to the great profit of the hankers. After a 
 time, capitalists find an opportunity of lending money to individuals at a 
 greater interest. First, a few paragraphs appear in the various news¬ 
 papers, “ of the merchants requiring greater facility in discounts; but 
 the Bank of England has so much money locked up in the dead weight 
 and exchequer bills that it is not able to lend so much assistance as 
 the demand requires.” There is then, from " our own correspondent,” 
 a great call for the Chancellor of the Exchequer “to relieve or give 
 buoyancy to the money market, by increasing the rate of interest on the 
 exchequer bills, to enable the bank to bring some into the market.” A 
 deputation of “influential men,” wishing to extend their speculations, 
 trails on the Chancellor, who is fortunately saved the embarrassment of 
 hearing the two sides of the question, for the unfortunate manufacturers. 
 
71 
 
 farmers, and other working tax-payers have then no advocate at the 
 council board; and the Right Hon. Gentleman clearly sees that it is 
 perfectly right and beneficial to the commercial interests to increase the 
 rate of interest to 2d. or 3d. per diem, per £100. Immediately the pre¬ 
 mium on the bills mounts up, and the original holders sell off a consider¬ 
 able amount at a handsome profit; and the Chancellor is lauded greatly, 
 as a man of high sagacity and just decision, for thus relieving the market, 
 increasing the profits of the bankers, and, by his own will and pleasure, 
 thus laidng on a tax upon the nation of about £300,000, without any 
 reference to the House of Commons—the constitutional imposers of 
 taxation. Yet, if an equal amount of £300,000 had, by a vote of the 
 House of Commons, been devoted to the services of our naval defenders, 
 or for the payment of ten or twelve thousand of our army, for a whole 
 twelvemonth, what an outcry we should have heard from some of our 
 reforming economists! Let us further consider that this tax is equal to 
 three-fifths of the whole amount charged for annuities and pensions for 
 civil, naval, military, and judicial services, against which so many public 
 meetings have been called, and petitions signed. Yet this £300,000 
 taxation, imposed by the sole will of an individual for the profit of a few 
 speculators, scarcely excites a passing remark from one or two of the 
 public journals. 
 
 The Morning Chronicle, May 21, (one of the usual supporters of the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer,) says;—“ On the subject of the interest 
 of the Exchequer BUls, it is much regretted in the city that the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer should not have rendered a more satisfactory explana¬ 
 tion to the house. The interest was raised early in 1837, at the instance, 
 it is said, and almost at the command, of the directors of the Bank of 
 England, for no other reason than that they were heavy holders of these 
 securities and did not think proper to sell any part of their investment at a 
 moderate profit. Having broken down the American trade, and brought 
 on the panic of 1836-7, these monopolists refused to remedy the deficiency 
 of money and of credit which had been caused by themselves, unless 
 hundreds of thousands of the public money should be wasted in paying 
 a needlessly high rate of interest upon exchequer bills. But, however 
 unjust may have been the first demand of the Bank of England, there 
 has certainly been nothing in the state of the money market, or of trade, 
 or credit in general, to justify a continuance of the additional interest, or 
 of any part of it, for the last twelve months. Little less than a million of 
 money has thus been wasted, and estimating on the other hand the 
 reduction which the value of money might have made, it follows that 
 almost double that amount has been lost by Mr. Spring Rice in the 
 unaccountable mismanagement of the interest upon the floating debt.” 
 
 Next, for what purpose is it asserted to be requisite to issue these pro¬ 
 missory notes ?—“ To pay the creditors of the National Debt, the high 
 
72 
 
 officials of the State, the army and navy, half-pay and pensions, the 
 judges, commissioners, &c., &c.” Why should not all those gentlemen, 
 who enjoy their thousands quarterly, receive their salaries in £100 or 
 even £60 notes, without any additional interest—for it is not probable 
 that they have expended every shilling of their previous quarter’s salary, 
 and are without credit with their tradesmen—precisely on quarter day. 
 They might therefore resen'e them for a time in their private coffers, 
 just as well as locking up the notes of any private or joint-stock bank, 
 without receiving interest upon them: or deposit them at their bankers, 
 as security for the amount of any checks they might require to draw, 
 and every hanker would be happy to receive such valuable security. 
 
 For those gentlemen who receive smaller salaries, why should not the 
 Treasury issue notes of £20, or even £10, which may be paid in^ through¬ 
 out the whole country, to the collectors of customs, of excise, and other 
 collectors of ta.\es, who would again pay them to the Receiver-General, 
 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or to his agent—the Bank of Eng¬ 
 land ? Now, why should not a bond upon the w'hole live and dead stock, 
 and all the land in the kingdom, be just as valuable as the promissory 
 note of any private banker or joint-stock bank, for the use of whose 
 paper so many persons are happy to pay rather than receive interest for 
 circulating ? Thus, instead of a constant succession of e.xchequer in-aid 
 bills, let aU payments he made in these exchequer bills of various amounts, 
 which might be renewed and re-issued as may be required j for every 
 tradesman w'ould be happy to cash them for his customers, in the same 
 manner as he now does the Bank of England notes. In England, where 
 we have no paper less than five-pound notes, the average weekly or daily 
 receipt of tradesmen is half gold, half notes. In Scotland, where one- 
 pound notes abound, the proportion of gold received is not one-fourth. 
 Thus, all tradesmen, as well as private individuals, have always a great 
 proportion of their balances in band, in the form of promissory notes, 
 BEARING NO INTEREST. They would Surely all, if not prefer, at least 
 willingly receive, government paper equally without interest. Such an 
 arrangement would immediately save several hundred thousand pounds 
 per annum; and since there is an agent for the Treasury, in the shape 
 of a tax collector of some branch of revenue, in every parish in the 
 kingdom, they would be generally esteemed throughout the country as 
 the best medium of making payment, until a better arrangement of the 
 public debt should enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer to withdraw 
 the whole from circulation. If, in the mean time, he be very hard pressed; 
 the various receivers of ta.xes might be required to remit their balances 
 monthly, which, by not leaving such large sums of money in their hands, 
 would probably prevent so much defalcation as frequently takes place in 
 the public accounts. But this simple arrangement might probably not 
 suit the speculators who control the judgment of the Chancellor of the 
 
Exchequer. But is the safety of the whole nation to he hazarded for their 
 
 Although the officers and privates of the army, on home service, receive 
 prompt payment every’ month; still, when on foreign service, they are net 
 always so regularly paid to the day; and the navy payments are frequently 
 considerably deferred: therefore the army and navy agents would feel no 
 inconvenience, particularly if it be understood that all bills carried into 
 the Treasury, at the expiration of one quarter after being issued, should 
 be then paid—as the Chancellor would, by that time, have received his 
 balances from the various receivers of taxes; and, as the exchequer hills 
 at present average five millions per quarter, and his receipts of revenue 
 average thirteen millions per quarter, he would always have, for urgent 
 cases, no less than eight millions of hard cash; or—of what is frequently 
 preferred as more portable—Bank of England soft paper; and, by the 
 general estimates, the army and navy require only three millions per 
 quarter; even of this sum a considerable portion has to he paid to 
 various contractors for provisions, accoutrements, and the other materiel 
 for war and shipbuilding, all which might certainly be satisfactorily paid 
 by these bills without interest. For there are very few banks of issue in 
 the kingdom in the habit of charging any discount upon a bill at a month 
 of a half-pay officer upon his London agent; for, when accepted, they are 
 considered as good as bank paper. 
 
 In order effectually to prevent such a system of forgery as appears to 
 have been carried on during ten years, by Mr. Beaumont Smith and 
 his associates, the larger bills might alw'ays he indorsed by the persons 
 through whose hands they pass. This is generally required to be done 
 on a hank note if paid in at the General Post Office, or at any shop where 
 the customer is not well known, and could be no great inconvenience, as 
 these larger notes would circulate through very few hands. 
 
 Tire great delusion which generally prevails is—that this national debt 
 does not concern individuals, but is merely the affair of government; and 
 the remark frequently made is: “Oh! but the National Debt is the 
 affair of the nation; we, as individuals, have plenty to do to attend to 
 our own private concerns.” As if the nation were composed of masses of 
 land and water; and, as if the trees and stones, the valleys and the 
 mountains, were the poor suffering tax-payers, which ought to meet toge¬ 
 ther and hold council concerning the public debt; and, as if it were not 
 the affair of every individual in the nation wdio is forced to pay nearly 
 thirty pounds in taxation for every hundred pounds he gains by any 
 exertion of his intellectual or physical powers, solely to pay the interest of 
 this National Debt. Now, surely it is a subject of intense individual 
 interest, if it can be proved, that, if the electors and industrious classes in 
 general, who are suffering under this oppression, can be induced properly 
 to exert themselves, this burdensome and injurious taxation maybe saved 
 
74 
 
 for the individual benefit of themselves and their families. The delusion, 
 ignorance, and apathy concerning this debt and its consequences are the 
 more extraordinary, since, if a new lail-road, or any other joint-stock 
 speculation be proposed to the public, offering an interest of ten, or of 
 only five per cent,, numerous claimants for shares instantly press forward, 
 eager to employ their capital to such prospective advantage; but here is 
 an assured interest of thirty per cent, to every individual in the nation, 
 without any call for or the hazard of one shilling of capital, and only 
 requiring a little reflection and exertion on the part of the public to 
 obtain it; yet scarcely has any person hitherto thought it worthy his 
 consideration. 
 
 Yet we have been told by the nobleman, who for several years held the 
 important post of prime minister of these realms, that “no efficient mea¬ 
 sure for the welfare of the whole people will be introduced, without it be 
 previously agitated by the people themselves.” In the debate on the 
 address to her Majesty, August 24tb, Lord Melbourne “lamented the 
 irritation which had accompanied the agitation of the Com Laws, but it 
 was only at such a price (agitation) that any great measure would ever be 
 carried.” And his Grace the Duke of Wellington, although he did not 
 fully coincide in that sentiment, still remarked, that “ In aU great ques¬ 
 tions of important alterations in the finances, commerce, trade and cur¬ 
 rency, in which he had been concerned, previously to the discussion of 
 these subjects, previously to an opinion being ashed of the House, Parlia¬ 
 ment and the country had the means, by preliminary inquiries, of judging 
 of the question to be propounded by the Government; by such means 
 the public became acquainted with the nature of the great changes to be 
 proposed.” 
 
 It has further been frequently observed in the House of Commons, by 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Attorney-General, or by some other 
 leading member of the Government, whenever any member of the House 
 has brought forward any motion for the reform of any alleged abuse 
 which affected the public, or for the remission of any tax—“ But has the 
 hon. member any number of petitions to present on the subject! Since 
 the people in general have not yet expressed their opinions, I hope that the 
 hon. member will not press bis motion to a division.” 
 
 Another great mistake that exists in the minds of many electors is, that 
 the Reform Bill, having once received the sanction of the legislature, the 
 whole machinery would work well and spontaneously, and produce the 
 hoped-for beneficial results. As well might the farmer suppose that, 
 having once bought a plough, a harrow, drill, and the other requisite 
 implements, these would work of their own accord, and bring his harvests 
 home to his granary. But the Reform Bill is not even the machinery; it 
 comprises but the theory and directions to' provide a supposed better 
 machinery than heretofore. The reformed House of Commons, municipal 
 
corporations and magistracy, are but the intellectual machinery to per¬ 
 form the work and produce the harvest for the general enjoyment. New 
 members of parliament, of the cabinet council, or other high offices of the 
 state, and of municipal corporations, have not been chosen merely to feast 
 and fatten themselves, their families, and dependants, upon the loaves 
 and fishes, the turtle and venison displayed on the tables whence their 
 predecessors have been driven. But, without the intelligent part of the 
 public look a little better after their own interests, and not trust implicitly 
 to the correct working of the new machinery, or in any changes of the 
 administration, most assuredly in such feasting, and in the enjoyment of 
 commissionerships, places, and retiring pensions, transferred to another 
 class of infiuential families, will end the great benefit of the Reform Bill, 
 and of the successive changes in the executive. The great outcry of the 
 nation was, “The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill!” They 
 have unfortunately obtained their wish, for as yet they have truly received 
 nothing but the bill; and, during the last ten years, the ta.\ation to pay 
 the interest of the National Debt has been annually increasing from 
 £27,658,299 to occasionally £29,439,000; and, notwithstanding additional 
 taxation, and extra rigour exerted in the coUection, the expenditure 
 during several years frequently exceeded the income; and a keforming 
 ministry left an accumulation of more than eleven millions of e.xtra ex¬ 
 penditure to be laid on in fresh taxation, wdien Sir Robert Peel was recalled 
 to office. And the gloom of insolvency and starvation has frequently 
 been brooding over all our manufacturing population. 
 
 The fruit that the great body of the people expected, aud which they 
 had a right to have received long since, w’as a considerable diminution of 
 our annual general taxation, in order that not only the bare necessaries, 
 but the comforts of existence, should be placed within the grasp of every 
 industrious operative and labourer in the kingdom. Among numerous 
 instances of the general feeling and expectation of the people, a practical 
 example was afforded at a late election for Lancashire: the candidates 
 were met at Leigh by a procession of the electors, who entered the town 
 under a sort of triumphal arch, from which a large loaf of bread was sus¬ 
 pended. One of the operatives thus accosted the candidate; “ Mester, 
 d’un yow zee that ? We want a big loaf for our brass.” But this pro¬ 
 spective good has, like the rainbow, receded as we pursued, and ever 
 mocked our grasp. 
 
 Now, as I purpose to confine my reasoning and subsequent propositions 
 strictly to matters of finance, I have carefully studied the claims which 
 occasionally went the round of those newspapers favourable to the reform 
 ministry, in order to influence the electors to show their gratitude to those 
 candidates who professed to be reformers; and we find that, however com¬ 
 plicated the machinery may be to arrive at the end, stUl, that the end and 
 object of aU the measures which had been passed—with the exception of 
 
76 
 
 the abolition of slavery, the mitigation of the criminal law, and those on 
 national education—were pecuniary; the prominent claims which the 
 Reform Chancellor of the Exchequer, the lU. Hon. Mr. Spring Rice 
 (Lord Monteagle), is reported to have brought before the electors of Cam¬ 
 bridge were: “ When Christmas and the cold winds shotild remind them 
 of the comforts of a warm hearth, they would do well to think that it was 
 the Whig Ministers who relieved the fuel from taxation; if again, as the 
 hours of night and heaviness approach, when they returned home to their 
 families, with joy at the thought of beholding their wives and children in 
 domestic comfort, they would reflect that it was by the light of a candle 
 that they saw them—a candle taxed by the Tories, but relieved from that 
 tax by the present Government. Young men, if they were possessed of a 
 sweethe.art, whom they msh to please by the purchase of a new gown, 
 would think again that they bought it at a price much reduced by the 
 AVhig Government, though ta.xed by the Tories.” Although the fallacy 
 of these eloquent claims will be subsequently proved, and that this 
 diminution of prices has been caused by the diminution of the profits of 
 the manufacturers, and of the wages of the operatives; still, since it ap¬ 
 pears acknowledged by all parties—by ministers and peasants—that the 
 great object of the Reform Bill WAS the reduction of taxation, what, it 
 may be fairly inquired, IS the total amount of the burdens already 
 removed; or of several others which have been repeatedly but inef- 
 fectuaUy petitioned for, to he removed—as the reduction of duties on 
 wool, cotton, olive oil, soap, marine insurances, tobacco, windows, paper, 
 and numerous other articles; or by the abolition of church rates, state 
 pensions, and sinecures—these would all he but so many hucketsfuU 
 compared to the ocean of the National Debt taxation; all this, if granted, 
 would he hut lopping off a few of the infectious branches of the poison 
 tree. Moreover, how is it possible that any tax whatever can be abolished, 
 WITHOUT SOME OTHEn TAX OF EQUAL AMOUNT BE IMPOSED, Until 
 the National Debt, and the thirty millions sterling per annum, to pay the 
 interest, be first reduced ? 
 
 In order to show the fallacy of any such expectations, as well as the 
 fallacy of the statement of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, (Mr. 
 Spring Rice,) before the electors of Cambridge; and of a subsequent 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, (Mr. Baring,) during the debates on an 
 address to her Majesty; let us examine the real facts. 
 
 Mr. Baring stated, “that, in 1831, the REVENUE was £51,112,000, 
 and, since that year, six millions of taxes had been taken off; hut, in 
 1839, the REVENUE had not fallen off, but had risen to £51,927,000!!” 
 Thus are the public cajoled, by official men ringing the changes upon 
 TAXATION and revenue, in hopes of gaining a little momentary ap¬ 
 plause from unthinking auditors. Now, however such a statement might 
 be excused from a candidate anxious to secure his seat, by hook or by 
 
77 
 
 crook, by truth or by fallacy, when addressing such a multitude as is 
 generally assembled in front of a hustings — and this statement was 
 pretty generally employed by the reform candidates—it is surely un¬ 
 worthy of the dignity of the House, and an insult to the common sense of 
 the nation, when gravely uttered by a minister. 
 
 If a steward, by superior management, conducts the affairs of an estate 
 so that the revenue to his lord is increased, and the tenants not oppressed, 
 he is certainly commendable; but, if when a tenant complains, that, from 
 the neglect of the steward, in not making those repairs to his outbuild¬ 
 ings which by his contract he was bound to have done, they had become 
 unserviceable, aud for this the steward deduct £5 from the vent, he does 
 what is just. But if, immediately after, he finds that, by the e.xertion of 
 the tenant, he has greatly improved the custom of his shop, and at con¬ 
 siderable expense improved the front of the house j then, if the steward 
 observes; “ But the property is so much more valuable in front, that you 
 must pay ten pounds extra rent for that.” Or, if when a farmer com¬ 
 plains, that his’ pasture lands, which he is not allowed to break up, are 
 greatly deteriorated of late years, and the steward agree to a diminution 
 of rent upon them; but, at the same time observes, that by additional 
 draining, and by superior skill and labour, the farmer has greatly 
 improved his arable lands, so he consents to deduct 5s. per acre from the 
 rent for the pasture lands, hut adds 10s. per acre for the arable lands; 
 and, after this, if he boasts, that he has reduced the genekal burden 
 of rent to the two tenants, does he state what is correct or not? and is 
 he entitled to their gratitude ? Now, this is precisely what your Chan¬ 
 cellors of the Exchequer have done, for which they claim the gratitude 
 of the nation. If this additional Revenue were raised by the science of 
 ministers discovering some procedure which would cause two ears of 
 corn to grow’where only one grew before, without exacting double labour 
 from the operative farmer, then we might heartily call out, “ Bravo! ” 
 But whence do they derive this additional Revenue ? They have 
 reduced the taxation upon those articles that were no longer productive, 
 on account of that taxation; but they have increased it upon those 
 articles upon which they thought it might with more certainty be pro¬ 
 cured, from the improvements which your own skill and industry had 
 made, by the additional exercise of your mental powers, or the greater 
 e.xhaustion of your nerves and muscles. 
 
 Now, although the house of Baring, Brothers, and Co., and some other 
 great commercial and banking houses save several thousands per annum, 
 and the poor man some 2s. or 3s. by the alteration of the postage duties— 
 a most valuable and agreeable alteration for myself, I confess—still, if 
 the successive chancellors, to make up the Revenue, were in consequence 
 obliged to impose an additional tax of ten per cent, on all the assessed 
 ta-xes, and five per cent, upon all e.xcise articles, followed up by a property 
 
78 
 
 and income tax; those must each, equally, according to their expendi¬ 
 ture, assist to make up the deficiency. The rich, by extra taxation on 
 their horses, carriages, servants, windows, their letter paper, and general 
 expenditure; and the poor man by occasionally abridging himself of a 
 pint of beer, by washing his hands without soap, or extinguishing his 
 candle half-an-hour sooner of a night, that candle which had been “ taxed 
 by the Tories,” untaxed and retaxed by the Whigs. 
 
 Since these terms of revenue and taxation are so frequently played 
 upon and made to change places, accordingly as each party may wish to 
 discredit their opponents, and laud their own financial wisdom. Let us 
 examine what really is REVENUE, and what is TAXATION. 
 
 Abstract of the NET Produce of the Revenue of Great Britain, ending 
 July 5th, 1849. 
 
 REVENUE. 
 
 Crown Lands . . . £130,000 
 
 Post Olfice . . . 849,000 
 
 Received from China . . 84,284 
 
 - 1,063,284 
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 Customs . . . £18,810,774 
 
 Excise .... 12,196,913 
 Stamps . . . 6,103,408 
 
 Land and Assessed Taxes . . 4,339,500 
 
 Property and Income Tax . 5,362,083 
 
 Miscellaneous . . . 204,564 
 
 Imprest and other Moneys . 606,568 
 
 Repayments of Advances . . 511,789 
 
 - 48,135,599 
 
 Total Net. . 49,198,883 
 
 Additional Ta.xation, to pay the charge of 
 Collection, not returned to the Exche¬ 
 quer ..... 4,727,405 
 
 Total Taxation and Revenue . £53,926,348 
 
 Thus, the total amount which can possibly he reckoned as REVENUE 
 is only £1,063,284 ; whilst the TAXATION for 1849 is no less than 
 £52,863,064!!! 
 
 Now, although the official terms introduced in the darker ages have 
 been preserved by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer; surely, in 
 these more enlightened times of national education, a hefobm Govern¬ 
 ment might have spoken plain English. , Let us then take the literal 
 reading. Mr. Baring stated, “ that the annual taxation in 1831, when 
 
79 
 
 the Reform Ministry succeeded to office, amounted to £51,112,000, and 
 since that year no less than six millions of taxes had been taken clF. 
 Yet, in 1839, the taxation had not fallen off; hut, on the contrary, had 
 risen to £51,927,000. Then, every schoolboy, who had advanced as far 
 as subtraction, could have refuted the right lion, gentleman, by calculaiing 
 how much would remain after subtracting six millions from fifty-one 
 millions. £51,112,000—£G,000,000=£45,112,000. 
 
 The right hon. gentleman ought to have honestly stated: "That in 
 consequence of numerous petitions presented to the House, the Govern¬ 
 ment had endeavoured to alleviate the grievance complained of, by va¬ 
 rious CHANGES in the duties, from those articles which appeared to 
 weigh the heaviest upon the general commerce of the kingdom, and upon 
 the comfort of individuals, to other articles on tvhich it ivas hoped the 
 ta.xes would not he found so onerous; but, although these changes had 
 been effected to the amount of si.x millions, still the necessary' expenses 
 of the kingdom, and the interest on the National Debt had obliged them 
 to increase the general TAXATION by the sum of £815,000; and, not¬ 
 withstanding this increase of £815,000, he was sorry further to inform 
 the honourable house, that there was a deficiency of receipts below 
 expenditure during the preceding year, 1833, tf £1,430,325, which must 
 be made up by additional taxation, as soon as he could clearly understand 
 what objects and what persons would best hear the burden.” 
 
 I confess that I am too ignorant of the feelings which influence the words 
 of some public men, to explain satisfactorily the motives which could in¬ 
 duce any gentleman of arithmetical science, general commercial knowledge, 
 ample private fortune, and distingnished station in society', to prefer the 
 momentary gratification of the cheers of his party in the House, given for 
 what is surely a fallacious statement, to the solid and permanent delight 
 arising from ever possessing “ mens siii conscia recti.” But I must parti¬ 
 cularly impress upon my readers that, in thus naming one speech and one 
 individual, I do not mean to confine my remarks individually; hut it is 
 the whole system, the general practice and technical language of men in 
 office which are faulty. Each successive Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 when he comes into office, puts on the harness of his predecessor, and 
 immediately finds himself like a horse in a mill, confined by bars and 
 other impediments, which force him to move round and round in the 
 course which his predecessors have trodden, and from which it appears 
 he cannot free himself without the active assistance of the intelligent and 
 reflecting electors of the nation—the pressure from without. 
 
 Allow me. Gentlemen, to state a somewhat parallel case, which may he 
 comprehended by the plainest understanding. Suppose that it had been 
 the practice of government to levy the whole taxation upon five articles 
 of apparel, thought to he absolutely indisiiensahle to he worn by every 
 inhabitant—hat, coat, waistcoat, stockings, and shoes—and that the tax 
 
80 
 
 upon each was one shilling per annum. It is found, after a time, that 
 some persons dispense with the wearing of stockings j others, like some 
 of the northern lads and lassies, even rvith their shoes; some line their 
 coats warmer, button them to the throat, and put aside the waistcoats; 
 numerous petitions are presented to the honourable House, stating the 
 hardship of so many persons being forced to go without shoe or stocking. 
 The Chancellor finds the Revenue falling oft '; therefore, looking forward 
 to a future reimbursement, he magniloquently and generously states that, 
 in compliance with the prayer of the petitioners, he consents to abandon 
 the taxation on those articles so indispensable to the comfort of the poor 
 man—and reduces the individual taxation to the amount of two shillings; 
 but, the subsequent quarter, he lays on a taxation upon both the raw and 
 manufactured materials of wool and leather, from which the mass of the 
 people cannot escape, rvithout they go naked. The tailor and shoemaker 
 now get all the abuse for asking so much more extravagant prices than 
 the French or Belgian tailors and shoemakers, and the Chancellor gets 
 the cheers. But, when he thus levies half-a-crown on the general popu¬ 
 lation for every two shillings he has taken off—is he really entitled to our 
 
 It will be in vain that we change the denomination of our cabinet 
 council, and our legislators, nearly similar measures will ever be pursued 
 by men in power, by whatever party-title they may designate themselves; 
 and all the evils of which we have now to complain must continue to 
 afflict the nation, and even to augment from year to year; for the reduc¬ 
 tion of the National Debt and of the accompanying taxation has never 
 yet been, and will never be, fairly and' efficiently undertaken by any 
 administration whatever; without the intellectual portion of the nation, 
 who are engaged in commerce and other productive occupation— 
 and are therefore uninfluenced by the hopes of places and pensions; of 
 ships and regiments; of promotions and ribbons; of rectories, prebends, 
 and bishopricks; of receiverships and cominissionerships; and retiring 
 pensions—and who well understand arithmetical calculations, will actively 
 devote a portion of their time, taken from their private affairs, to become 
 the unpaid Patriotic Auditors of the Public Accounts; to watch over and 
 control the expenditure, and diminish the burden of more than fifty mil¬ 
 lions of taxation. The task has now become comparatively easy, from the 
 clearer statements that are now published annuaU}', by command of the 
 legislatmre, under the care of Mr. Porter. 
 
 (To he continued) 
 
REDACTION OF TAXATION. 
 
 No. 6, 
 
 OF A SERIES OF LETTERS—PRICE THREEPENCE EACH— 
 ADDEESSED TO THE LANDOWNERS AND EAEMERS; THE MANU- 
 FACTDEBRS AND TRADESMEN; THE MERCHANTS AND SHIP¬ 
 OWNERS ; AND TO ALL OTHER TAX-FAVERS OF THE UNITED 
 KINGDOM-COMPRISING THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF A PRACTICABLE AND EQUITABLE MEANS 
 OF PAYING OFF THE 
 NATIONAL DEBT; 
 
 THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ONLY REMEDY FOR THE 
 PRESENT EVILS OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO PREVENT 
 THE RECURRENCE OF SIMILAR EVILS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 By Bi-itannicus. 
 
To the Landowners and Fanners; the Manufacturers and Tradesmen; 
 the Merchants and Shipowners; and to all other TAX PAYERS of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Gentlemen. 
 
 Besides, granting that all public men, however their ideas may differ 
 from our own, are all actuated by the most patriotic and honest inten¬ 
 tions, no set of ministers are “ heaven-horn ’’ and omniscient: they are 
 but your own public servants, whom you have delighted to honour, and 
 therefore whose conduct you have ever a right to criticize, and, if you 
 can, to amend. This doctrine of the superintendence by the electors has 
 ever been ardently promulgated by each party whilst out of power, and 
 established by repeated examples of late years; for, amongst numerous 
 similar instances, even when no idea was entertained of a new election, 
 did not one of our great officials—Sir Henry Parnell—take a voyage to 
 the north, to put himself on trial for his parliamentary conduct before the 
 weavers of Dundee ? Did not the son of one of our noble dukes, and 
 himself formerly governor-general—almost absolute sovereign—in the 
 East Indies, make a similar journey in order to submit his parliamentary 
 conduct to a jury of the merchants and manufacturers of Glasgow? And, 
 in the report of a speech of a late Right Hon. Chancellor of the Exche¬ 
 quer to the electors of Cambridge, we read, “ They were now approaching 
 the seventh year since Lord Grey first undertook the administration of 
 affairs: they were now approaching that period which the artisan of 
 this country adopts as the term of an apprenticeship. If I have served 
 you during those seven years honestly and faithfully j if I have zealously 
 fulfilled my duty, receive me again among you: do not cast me forth 
 AS AN INDOLENT SERVANT, who has abandoned his trust!” Did not, 
 also, the electors of Edinburgh recently displace from the high official 
 situations of Cabinet Minister and Paymaster to the Forces, one of the 
 most eloquent orators and historians of the age, because he had given a 
 vote contrary to the sentiments of the majority of his constituents ? 
 
 But examples need not be multiplied, since this superintendence by the 
 electors is established by law, as the grand palladium of the liberties of 
 the people, and is continually acknowledged by aU our sovereigns in suc¬ 
 cession, who, when in doubt concerning the wisdom of the proceedings 
 of ministers, constantly appeal to the people to decide. Who, I may ask, 
 called Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne to power ? Was it not the elec¬ 
 tors of the empire ?—^Who, dissatisfied with the measures of the reform 
 parliament, recalled Sir Robert Peel and the conservatives to power? 
 The electors of the nation.—Some of the most ardent supporters of the 
 reform ministry strongly insisted “ that the ministry itself should be con¬ 
 trolled and kept in unison and tune with the minds of the people.” And 
 Lord Suffield, on seconding the address to his late Majesty, in a former 
 
83 
 
 parliament, said, " It was not in the power of their Lordships, nor of any 
 assembly in this country, to stay the current of pubhc opinion. It was 
 time that many considerable reforms had been effected. If they resisted 
 the Public Voice, the contest would be one in which right, justice, num¬ 
 bers, strength, and activity were all on one side.” Now, upon this 
 declaration of the noble lord—who, in this instance, was put forward as 
 the organ of his Majesty’s ministry—let us try our present question. 
 
 1st. Right. Is it right, is it justice, that the merchant, the manufac¬ 
 turer, the agritulturist, and all the industrious classes of the nation, 
 should continue to pay upwards of thirty millions of taxes annually^ 
 merely to support the fundholders, so many thousands of whom e.xpend 
 those millions in a foreign land, to the injury of this nation; and for the 
 speculators of the stock-exchauge, by whose interested movements your 
 commerce is so frequently put into jeopardy, and who, to produce a 
 change in the price of stocks for their own advantage, so often threaten a 
 
 2nd. As to Numbers. The industrious population, who are oppressed by 
 this enormous taxation, comprises twenty-six millions of people; 
 the bond fide fundholders, according to the parliamentary returns, cannot 
 exceed 200,000 persons. Now, if new roads, canals, streets, or any other 
 improvements are required for the benefit of the public, then individuals 
 are obliged to put up with inconvenience and suffer pecuniary loss for 
 the advantage of the public. When it was found that travelling by rail¬ 
 roads would be safer and more expeditious than on macadamized roads, 
 no recompense was given to the creditors and trustees of the old roads; 
 excepting to some influential proprietors of land, who received four times 
 the value of their interests or property, to buy off their opposition in par¬ 
 liament : nor to the thousands of coach-proprietors, harness-makers, 
 coachmen, guards, innkeepers, horsekeepers, and numerous other 
 dependants upon the old system; many of whom were instantly reduced 
 from the receipt of comfortable incomes to positive deprivation of all 
 income. To take one among many similar examples:—Before the open¬ 
 ing of the rail-road, the tolls at Swinburne were let for £1992; and, at a 
 subsequent letting, for only £654—a diminution of more than two-thirds. 
 Much property in inns, shops, and houses, in the old lines of road, has 
 suffered proportionate reductions. 
 
 When it was judged that “ the bill, the whole bill,’’ would he beneficial 
 to the nation, you did not hesitate to deprive many of the aristocracy of 
 property that was estimated at many thousand pounds value, and which 
 had either been purchased by themselves, or had descended to them as 
 hereditary wealth, by the sanction of the laws of the kingdom; thus, 
 individuals must ever suffer for the public good. Therefore, why should 
 the fancied interests of these 200,000 fundholders impede the alleviation 
 of the burdens which oppress the twenty-six millions? I say fancied 
 
84 
 
 interests; for my plan proposes to return to them the full amount of ster¬ 
 ling money that was originally lent to the nation, with a bonus of ten per 
 cent., and which they may then invest in some other lucrative concern. 
 By subsequent facts and reasoning, I hope to prove that my proposition 
 will be equally beneficial to the real fundholders as to the other ta-v- 
 
 3rd. It cannot he denied that the Strength is with the millions; hut 
 if the millions he supine, and allow merely the gamblers of the stock 
 e.\change to be active—for it is not the general body of real fundholders 
 who cause, and profit by, the eternal ebb and flow in the pnbhc funds— 
 why, then, most assuredly the supine, wilfully ignorant, and indolent 
 millions must crouch and groan ignominiously under this taxation. 
 
 Mr. Pitt undoubtedly possessed the acutest talent possible for ima¬ 
 gining the most effective means of making his countrymen contribute 
 their utmost farthing towards the public service; yet, although he is 
 entitled to the highest commendation for the strictest integrity and abne¬ 
 gation of self in pecuniary matters, still, his whole system of loans, par¬ 
 ticularly the delusive practice of borrowing at three per cent, instead of 
 five, tvas equally injurious to the prosperity of the nation, as the post-obit 
 bonds of the minor spendthrift and gambler are to the future fortunes of 
 himself and his family, when he gives to some usurer a bond for £2000 
 in exchange for only one thousand actually advanced. It is true, that 
 this erroneous system did not originate with Mr. Pitt; it was imported 
 from Holland and Genoa, and is pursued by most other governments; 
 hut it was originally planned by the money lenders, in order to secure to 
 themselves enormous profits, to the ruin of any individual or nation that 
 should be so desperate and so ignorant as to bprrow on such terms. In 
 corroboration of this assertion, let any unprejudiced person examine the 
 terms of the loan for April 1798 (page 53), when, for less than £100 ster¬ 
 ling received into the Exchequer, we are now burdened with a debt of 
 £200!! 
 
 The same practice, so injurious to the nation in every respect, was 
 continued by the successors of Mr. Pitt; as we find that the loan for June 
 1315, of £36,000,000, was contracted at 
 
 Reduced three per cents. . . . £130 
 
 Three per cent. Consols . . 44 
 
 Four per cents. . . . .10 
 
 Total of . . £184 
 
 stock for only £100 sterling received. This stock immediately rose to 
 four per cent, premium, giving to the contractors, before advancing the 
 principal part of the money, a premium of one million four hundred and 
 forty thousand pounds, imder the burden of which our manufacturers 
 and aU tax-payers are now suffering!! 
 
As examples of the disastrous consequences which may befal the nation 
 by the arrangement of the funds permitting such fluctuations, and the 
 temptation that it holds out to individuals in power, or to great capitalists, 
 to injure the whole nation for the sake of effecting private gain, we 
 may mention the events of 1825 and 1839. In the latter year, when the 
 then Minister of France was accused by several of the Paris journals, and, 
 at length by M. Dupin, in the Chamber of Deputies, of having uttered his 
 inflammatorj' speeches, raised the war-cry in France, and nearly brought 
 on a continental war, with all its horrors, chiefly for himself to profit by; 
 at least, that he had greatly profited by the fluctuation in the public 
 funds; and that, from being previously acquainted with the effect which 
 must he produced by the forthcoming royal or ministerial ordonnances, 
 he had pocketed more than £100,000 sterling; or, about £80,000 on the 
 French Bourse, and £40,000 on the English Stock Exchange. All the 
 reply which the French Minister thought requisite to make, was; “Well, 
 M. Dupin, you did the same when you had the power! ” Now, although 
 not a whisper has ever been heard against any of our ministers for similar 
 conduct; and, although among the inferior officers, only a few Trotters 
 and Beaumont Smiths have been proved to have employed the public 
 money for such purposes, still the public, or rather the official knowledge, 
 maybe employed; and, therefore, the power exists with many of the 
 subaltern clerks, from their previous knowledge of the numerous circum¬ 
 stances that must raise or depress the funds; therefore, either by them¬ 
 selves, or by their friends, they possess the power of gambling with 
 loaded dice, to the great injury of unsuspecting individuals ; and further, 
 the power, not only of ruining individuals, but of bringing on the most 
 fatal consequences to our commerce and to the best interests of the 
 nation, exists with a few great capitalists and stockjobbers. As a signal 
 example, I may quote the panic of 1825-6. In the commencement of the 
 year there was a calm in the money market, which, to a stock speculator, is 
 as unpleasant and unprofitable as a calm between the tropics to a mariner in 
 a sailing vessel, and the foreign exchanges were unfavourable to the Eng¬ 
 lish capitalists. It was agreed among a few of these gentlemen to export 
 a large quantity of the precious metals to their connexions on the con¬ 
 tinent, from whom they could receive it hack again when the results, 
 which it was supposed would arise therefrom, should he attained. It was 
 presumed, that such an exportation, by draining the Bank coflers, would 
 alarm the directors, and occasion them to contract their issues. That this 
 would, in the first place, influence the exchanges, of which circumstance 
 these capitalists could avail themselves: in the second, from the sale of 
 Stock and Exchequer Bills, and the calling in of money lent on other 
 securities, in order to eflect the purchase of tlie bullion, the funds in 
 general would decline: and thirdly, the Bank Directors would be placed 
 at their mercy, when they could make their own terms with the Bank for 
 
86 
 
 the return of the gold and silver thus previously sent out of the kingdom; 
 and, ultimately, they would be enabled to re-purchase the stocks at 
 greatly reduced prices to what they had previously sold out. In pur¬ 
 suance of this arrangement, (as may be seen by the returns of bullion 
 exported weekly, given in the journals during the year,) the amount of 
 nine milUons was gradually exported; ostensibly, preparatory to a loan 
 about to be contracted by the French Government; and, according to the 
 evidence of Mr. Rothschild, before a Select Committee of the House, for 
 large purchases of spelter, for which he drew out one day from the Bank 
 no less than £600,000 (see Parliamentary Reports, p. 131). 
 
 The effects foretold soon began to be verified. The Bank Directors 
 became alarmed—their issues were contracted—their discounts curt^ed 
 —the funds fell—the exchanges were affected—and danger rapidly suc¬ 
 ceeded danger. At the time when the operation of this plan com¬ 
 menced, the English three per cent. Consols had reached £96; all the 
 foreign securities, European and South American, were high and of good 
 repute in the market: the principal holders of these were country bank¬ 
 ers, gentlemen of independent fortune, and tradespeople of small capital— 
 all induced to become gamblers, and many on borrowed capitals, from 
 the temptation which the fluctuation and hoped-for rise of stocks pre¬ 
 sented ; but these minor gamblers always become the pigeons who are 
 •plucked by the great capitalists. The South American Securities were 
 the first affected; and, as soon as these began to decline, the shareholders 
 eagerly rushed into the market and sold, to prevent further losses: thus, 
 from day to day, these funds continued to decline until an absolute panic 
 took place on the Stock Exchange; dismay and consternation spread 
 through the whole city, and soon extended throughout the country. A 
 dreadful depreciation took place—first, in all articles of colonial produce, 
 and soon affected those of home manufacture, from the necessity to which 
 the holders of thefm were subjected to force sales, in order to raise the 
 money to meet their engagements and preserve their credit, in the 
 absence of all accommodation from the Bank of England or from private 
 bankers. The Directors of the Bank were now compelled to submit to 
 these capitalists; who, themselves alarmed at the wide-spread mischief 
 which, undesigned as to extent, their speculations had caused, readily 
 acceded to terms for bringing back the bullion—this was soon accom¬ 
 plished. The bank resumed its usual discounts and accommodations, 
 confidence revived, and the panic was at length stayed; but, in the mean 
 time, NO LESS than seventy-five banks had stopped payment, 
 spreading misery, and almost starvation, among thousands of the here¬ 
 tofore most respectable and eomfortable living families of the kingdom, 
 from the Tweed to the Land’s End. The Scotch bankers, being further 
 removed from the dangerous vortex of .the London Stock Exchange 
 gambling-house, and more generally preferring to place their surplus 
 
87 
 
 capital in Exchequer Bills, the prices of which fluctuate hut little, escaped 
 these disasters j hut the Bank of England itself was exposed to within 
 twenty-fours of stoppage; its bullion, on the 24th December, 1S25, being 
 reduced to £600,000, and its coin to £426,000, to meet liabilities of 
 £32,000,000 (according to returns made by the Bank to the Currency 
 Committee of 1832). Such ai’e the national disasters to which this 
 country must continue to be exposed, so long as our public debt is so 
 enormous, and so long as it is conducted on the extremely erroneous 
 principles which govern the transactions in our loans. 
 
 To prevent a system so ruinous to all the best interests of the nation, it 
 appears to me fully eiddent that the best and only just plan for the legis¬ 
 lature to pursue, in regard to all loans, is—to borrow a certain sum ster¬ 
 ling, for which, whenever it may be convenient that repayment should be 
 made, the nation shoirld he held responsible for only the precise sum 
 RECEIVED ; and that the principal debt should not be liable—from any 
 circumstance whatever—to any augmentation, to the future detriment of 
 the public. It is upon these terms that the floating debt of Exchequer 
 Bills is transacted, to the amount of more than twenty millions annually. 
 It is always followed in the transactions of individuals, where the bor¬ 
 rower is solvent and has real security to offer; and why should it not be 
 followed for the benefit of the nation ? For can there be a more solid 
 security than a mortgage upon the whole live and dead stock in the 
 kingdom ! or any more desirable, than one which can be brought into 
 the market, and the amount lent he again received within a few hours of 
 the demand arising ? 
 
 If money he scarce at the moment, let four, five, or even six per cent, 
 interest be paid upon the sum advanced; and, when the difiiculties of the 
 nation be surmounted by peace, or by any other favourable occurrences, 
 then the interest may be immediately reduced, according to the state of the 
 market. This plan was pursued to advantage during the reigns of KingWil- 
 liam and Queen Anne, when money was borrowed at a high rate of inter¬ 
 est; but the stock created was the precise amount of the gold received. 
 Therefore, as early as 1716, Sir Robert Walpole, by offering to pay off 
 the creditors, reduced the interest, effectually, one-fifth. Again, in 1749— 
 money being more plentiful, and the Government more stable—the inter¬ 
 est was reduced from four to three per cent., by Mr, Pelham. The same 
 course was pursued by all the banks at the various seaports, during a late 
 scarcity of gold, when it was required to pay for the importations of corn 
 from foreign growers, and that demand having ceased, the discount again 
 fell accordingly. All country bankers, who allow interest for deposits, find 
 no difficulty in this arrangement: they charge the interest they allow 
 according to the state of the market, and merely put up a notice in their 
 banks that the interest will be increased, or diminished, as it may be, 
 from a certain date. The depositors are at liberty to withdraw their 
 deposits; but they do not. because they can make no better interest of 
 
88 
 
 their money, as the price is general. If the fundholders should ohject to 
 diminish the rate of interest, they may also easily sell out; or loans may 
 be always immediately procured at the market price of the day. In this 
 industrious nation, there is always abundance of floating capital waiting 
 to be profitably employed; and the old bonds may be paid off at par— 
 that is, at the precise amount originally advanced. 
 
 Now, although the Bank of England could enter the market and bor¬ 
 row a sum of £750,000 of the East India Company at three per cent, 
 interest, and although the journals of the day, during a series of years, 
 state that money is plentiful at three per cent., and if our Lords of the 
 Treasury could also borrow eight hundred milhons at the same interest— 
 it would not be of the least service in paying off the old debt; although 
 we are really paying more than five per cent, upon that debt, as has 
 previously been fully shown. Since, for the amount funded in the three per 
 cents., £495,069,671, the whole sum received from the contractors, was at 
 most £297,041,802. The interest on the former nominal sum, as charged 
 January 5th, 1835, was £14,852,089; being precisely the same amount as 
 five per cent, would be on £297,041,802: whereas, for the same sum, the 
 Bank of England, or any other solvent company or individual, could now 
 make a loan for the annual interest of £8,911,254; the tax-payers of the 
 nation thus suffering the loss of a sum annually of no less than £5,940,836 
 upon this species of stock alone, which might be saved by the plan I 
 propose, and which is adopted in your own private transactions. 
 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 According to the Parliamentary Returns for 1835, we find that the 
 Total funded in the these per Cents, was . . £495,069,671 
 
 Total received from Contractors only . . . 297,041,802 
 
 Interest charged upon the former amount is £14,852,089 
 And if charged at five per cent, upon the sum 
 actually received would amount to . 14,852,090 
 
 therefore, whether the nominal debt be at three per cent., or the eeal 
 debt at five per cent., the interest is precisely the same; but if the real 
 debt—that is, the amount bond fide advanced by the creditors—were at 
 three per cent, the interest would amount to only . £8,911,254 
 
 Annual loss on this portion alone of the Debt . . 5,940,836 
 
 Yet do the Lords of the Treasury and the nation at large entirely 
 neglect the means of attempting this annual saving; which might he 
 accomplished, not only with perfect justice to all the fiindholder.s, 
 but, as I shall show, by the voluntary acts of the fundholders them¬ 
 selves, if once proposed to them by Government. 
 
 Now, whether it be the incompetence and inexperience of those gen¬ 
 tlemen to whom our financial affairs have been entrusted, or whether it 
 be the supineness of the tax-payers in general under their burdens, in 
 
89 
 
 consequence of their ignorance of the true causes thereof, I leave you, 
 gentlemen, to determine; hut, whilst numerous public meetings are 
 periodically convened, and petition after petition sent to the two Houses 
 of Parliament for relief from the taxation of a few hundred thousand 
 pounds, to sen'e the private or local political interests of certain indi¬ 
 viduals or classes, we see that this amount of taxation of nearly six 
 millions—an amount equal to two-thirds of the entire interest of the debt 
 previously to the commencement of the late war with France—is entirely 
 lost sight of. 
 
 YET THE PROPOSED SAVING UPON THIS PORTION OF 
 THE DEBT ALONE WOULD ENTIRELY SUPERSEDE THE 
 NECESSITY FOR THE INCOME AND PROPERTY TAX. 
 
 Such proceedings are surely as foolish and ridiculous in the people, as 
 would he the conduct of a man who should exhibit a violent agitation 
 and exclaim vociferously at the buzzing of a fly or the sting of a mos¬ 
 quito, whilst he totally neglects to guard himself from the spring of the 
 tiger which is about to clutch him and glut itself upon his life’s blood. 
 
 But, singular as it may appear at the first glance, it would not benefit 
 the nation one shilling to borrow a new loan at three per cent., in order 
 to pay off the whole of the old debt, for which we are paying more than 
 five per cent.: because such new loan would immediately cause the pre¬ 
 sent three per cents, to mount up to £100 sterling, and we must then pay 
 off the debt at the advanced price of £100, the then market price. 
 
 Let us then suppose that the legislature authorize the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer to contract a new loan at four per cent, to an amount 
 sufficient to pay off the whole of the old debt in the various stocks; and 
 that he should contract to give four per cent, interest for every £100 
 sterling loud fide paid into the treasury, without any of the usual siftings, 
 filings, bonuses, and other deductions. At this rate, any individual 
 having £1000 to place out at interest may receive for that sum £40 per 
 
 in the present three per cents, to obtain an equal amount of annual 
 
 The price of the three per cents, averaging £90, it will require 
 £1333. 6s. 8d. of stock to give an income of £40, equivalent to the value 
 of £1000 stock in the four per cents.; but this £1333. fis. Sd. of stock at 
 £90 sterling for each £100 stock, will require only £1200 of sterling 
 money—what then must be the result of this new loan in the money 
 market ? Will any inaivmuai in the nation be so blind to, or negli¬ 
 gent of, his own interest as to give £1200 for an income of £40 from 
 the old three per cents., when he may insure the same income, upon the 
 same security, in the new four per cents, for £1000 ? Will not every 
 person who desires to make an investment subscribe his capital to the 
 new loan; and will not, also, every holder of stock in the three per cents, 
 be desirous to sell out that stock and purchase in the new four percents.? 
 
90 
 
 But who will then buy of him at £90, or even £80 ? Now, stock is pre¬ 
 cisely like corn, sugar, labour, nr any other commodity. If there be a 
 scarcity of sellers and abundance of buyers, the value will be increased; 
 thus, every time the Government Commissioners have come into the 
 market to purchase stock, we have found that the price rose gradually 
 from £60, when it gave live per cent., until now exceeding £90, when it 
 gives but little more than three per cent, to present purchasers. But, on 
 the contrary, if there be many sellers and but few buyers, the price must 
 gradually decline, until £1000 invested in the three per cents, will pro¬ 
 duce the same income as £1000 invested in the new four per cents. 
 
 As I am explaining for those persons who are uninitiated in the myste¬ 
 ries of the funding system; or for those persons who have not made the 
 causes in the variations in the price of stocks their study; the initiated 
 must excuse me for entering occasionally into details which to them 
 would be quite unnecessary. I must, therefore, request attention to the 
 following table of the comparison of the value of Money placed in the 
 different Stocks. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that, to insure one pound income per annum in the 
 five per cents., it will cost only £20 sterling; in the four per cents., £25; 
 and, in the three per cents., £33. 6s. Sd. original purchase. In order, 
 therefore, to procure the same amount of annual income from £100, 
 whether placed in the three, four, or five per cents., we should require to 
 purchase in the present four per cents, to the amount of £125 stock; 
 and, in the three per cents., £166. 13s. id. to receive an equal amount of 
 £5 interest for £100 sterling. 
 
 The price, therefore, of the four per cents, should be only £80, and the 
 three per cents. £60; when £80 and £20 in the former, and £60 and £40 
 in the latter, will cause the same outlay of capital, and produce the same 
 income as £100 in the five per cents. Thus, then, as £1000 invested in 
 
91 
 
 the four per cents. wUl purchase ten hundred stock, and give an interest 
 of £40; so it will be requisite to purchase thirteen hundred and one-third 
 of a hundred pound stock in the three per cents, to give the same interest 
 of £40: since 13 times 3 is is £39; and one-third of a hundred stock, or 
 £33. Gs. Sd., will give £1: thus, the hundred stock must be at only £75 
 gold; 13 times 75 will be*£975; and one-third of 75 is £25, to complete 
 the £1000 invested. 
 
 Recapitulation In the four per cents. £1000 sterling will pur¬ 
 chase ten hundreds of stock at £100 each, and give an income of ten fours, 
 or £40. 
 
 In the three per cents. £1000 sterling will purchase, at £75 per hun¬ 
 dred stock, no less than thirteen hundreds and one-third of a hundred 
 stock, equally giving an interest of £40. Thus, one lady may have for 
 her fortune £10,000 in the four per cents.; and another lady no less than 
 £13,333. 6s. 8d. in the three per cents.; and yet the tw'o fortunes in gold 
 and in annual interest will be the same to a shilling. 
 
 Thus, then, I trust it will he perfectly intelligible, even to those who 
 have previously had their organ of calculation the least e.vercised, that as 
 soon as a new loan at four per cent, for £100 sterling be in the market, 
 the price of the present three per cents, must fall to £75; and the Chan¬ 
 cellor of the Exchequer may sell £100 stock with the one hand, and 
 purchase immediately with that sum no less than £133 three per cent, 
 with the other. 
 
 Now, I believe, that it has been very fairly estimated by various political 
 economists, that for every £100 expended by any individual in the king¬ 
 dom, at least £40 is paid in taxation, either directly or indirectly; since 
 there is not a single article worn or consumed in any way that does not, 
 in some shape or another, pay tax: if, then, the general population pay 
 forty per cent., surely it will be very lenient, and perfect justice to 
 the three per cent, fundholders, to require from them a reduction of in¬ 
 terest, according to the market price of the day; always keeping in mind 
 that, for all the original THREE per cent, stock, the nation has been 
 paying FIVE per cent., because only £60 sterling was received for the 
 nominal £100 stock. This deduction is the more just, because the great 
 portion of that stock was advanced to the nation, with a deduction of a 
 ten per cent, income tax, imposed under Lord Henry Petty, now Marquis 
 of Lansdowne; but which tax those fundholders have never been called 
 upon to pay during more than thirty years. This reduction of interest is 
 precisely equivalent to what all five per cent, fundholders were subjected 
 in 1822, when the amount of £149,627,825 was reduced from five to four 
 per cent. Again, in 1826, the four per cents., to the amount of 
 £70,105,403, were reduced to three-and-a-half; again, in 1830, four per 
 cents., to the amount of £151,021,728, were reduced to three-and-a-half. 
 This proceeding would reduce the value of the three per cents, to 
 £2. 8s, annual interest per hundred. One thousand pounds three per 
 
92 
 
 cent, stock will then only give an annual income of £24; but, to pro¬ 
 cure the same annual income in the four per cents., will require only 
 £600 sterling. The fundholder will then be induced to sell his old 
 stock, to the amount of £1000; which, at £70 sterling, will produce him 
 £700, and by purchasing into the new four per cents., he will receive an 
 interest, clear of all tax or deduction, of £28 ; or an addition of about 
 £15 to every £100 income. He may thus avoid the tax and increase his 
 income, by immediately transferring his stock from the three and three- 
 and-a-quarter per cents, to the new four per cents. And will not every 
 fundholder who can calculate endeavour to gain this £15 per cent. ? The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer may then easily purchase up the whole debt 
 at £70 for the three per cents., and the remaining stock in the same 
 proportion. Let us now suppose the whole debt transferred at the same 
 ratio. Then the total amount of nominal debt of £800,000,000 {nominal, 
 because its value is daily fluctuating) will be reduced to a real fixed debt 
 of £560,000,000., and all this transfer may be transacted by the employ of 
 one million of gold, or indeed without any gold at all, by the mere 
 e.xch!inge of securities; for it is no longer to be sent out of the country, 
 but to circulate in new channels for the improvement of our agriculture, 
 manufactures, and commerce. 
 
 Let us suppose, then, that during the first week, the sum of one mil¬ 
 lion be subscribed to this new stock. This is no exaggerated expectation, 
 since we find that when the books were opened for a loyalty loan, in 
 1797, the amount of eighteen millions was subscribed in four days. 
 Thus, as soon as the Chancellor has received a bond fide amount of one 
 million sterling, for which he will have to pay £40,000 interest, with this 
 million the Commissioners may enter the market. As previously ex¬ 
 plained, the offer of borrowing at four per cent, will immediately cause 
 the three per cents, to fall to £75 per hundred stock, which will then give 
 the same amount of interest—£4 for £100 sterling j and the deduction of 
 interest on all the old stock would cause a further fall in that stock of 
 full five per cent.; w'e may therefore fix upon £7o as the permanent price 
 of the three per cents. You may then purchase these three per cents, to 
 the amount of the one million subscribed in the new fours: this will give 
 £1,428,571 stock, for the interest of which at three per cent, you are now 
 paying £42,857. Thus you will save, in the amount of annual interest, 
 the sum of £2,857 upon each million ; or no less than £2,188,462 of 
 annual taxation upon the whole debt; and will reduce the amount of the 
 principal debt by the sum of £428,571 in each million transferred from 
 the present three per cents, to the proposed four per cents. 
 
 Let us next extend the calculation to the whole debt; which, whether it 
 be transferred in one year, or gradually in forty years, will not affect the 
 principle of the proposition. 
 
 The following calculations were worked according to a return given in 
 to Parliament for 1835; and, although the Debt has been augmented 
 
since that return, still the proportionate decrease will he in the same ratio. 
 We find the debt for that year detailed as follows: 
 
 Species of Stock. 
 
 
 1 bought at 
 
 Would require, 
 
 ; sterling money, 
 
 Three per cents. 
 
 495,069.671 
 
 £ 
 
 ; 70 
 
 j £ 
 
 1 346,548,769 
 
 Three-and-a-half per cents. 
 
 247,178,521 
 
 
 197,742,816 
 
 Four per cents. 
 
 1,615,384 
 
 i 90 ; 
 
 1,453,845 
 
 Five per cents. 
 
 1,462,935 
 
 1 100 
 
 1,462,935 
 
 Total . 
 
 745,326,511 
 
 i 
 
 547,208,365 
 
 The Interest paid on the nominal Debt . £23,641,098 
 
 Proposed fonr per cent, on the reduced amount 21,888,334 
 
 The Interest paid on the nominal Debt . £23,641,098 
 
 Proposed fonr per cent, on the reduced amount 21,888,334 
 
 A saving of . . 1,752,764 
 
 Add deduction of one-fifth Interest on the 
 Terminable Annuities . . 400,000 
 
 Ditto, Total Interest on Exchequer Bills . 600,000 
 
 Total . . £2,752,764 
 
 Let us suppose the entire funded Debt now reduced to a single deno¬ 
 mination of four per cent., the management would be much more simple, 
 and would allow of an immediate reduction of taxation of £2,752,764. 
 There would now he required only twenty-two millions for the interest and 
 gradual reduction of the Debt. The operation and result of this measure 
 would then be according to the following Table: of which the 
 
 First Column contains the date of each half-year’s operation. 
 
 2nd Column. The amount reduced from the fluctuating nominal Debt 
 to the fi.xed real Debt. 
 
 3rd Column. Interest at four per cent., gradually diminishing. 
 
 4th Column. The surplus, gradually increasing, being the difference 
 between the twenty-two millions provided for the interest, and the de¬ 
 creasing yearly interest absolutely required. 
 
 5th Column. The amount gradually reducing, 
 
 * * * In January, 1852, it would be desirable that the interest be re¬ 
 duced to three-and-a-half per cent, j this would allow all fundholders two 
 years to consider if they could place their capital at better interest. The 
 four years following are therefore worked at three-and-a-half per cent. 
 
 * • * Again, in 1856, the interest may be reduced to three per cent., 
 which is the present value of money, and the fundholder will not suffer, 
 because he will receive a full equivalent by the reduction of general taxa¬ 
 tion, and the consequent diminution in the price of almost every article 
 he may require to purchase. 
 
Calculation of llio gradual Eeduction of tlio Funded Debt, when the wbolo shall he converted into a new FOUlt 
 FEB CENT. STOCK of fixed Value—devoting, for the first Two Tears, Twenty-two Millions iior Annum; 
 and, subsequently, only Twenty Millions of Taxation for the Interest and Bcduction. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reduced Debt. 
 
 Interest at Four per Cent. 
 
 Surplus. 
 
 Remaining Debt. 
 
 Jan. 1850 . 
 
 £547,208,365 
 
 £10,944,167 
 
 £55,833 
 
 £547,152,532 
 
 July „ . . . 
 
 547,152,532 
 
 10,943,050 
 
 56,950 
 
 547,095,582 
 
 Jan.1851 . 
 
 547,095,582 
 
 10,941,911 
 
 58,089 
 
 547,037,493 
 
 July „ . . . 
 
 547,037,493 
 
 10,940,749 
 
 59,251 
 
 547,978,242 
 
 Jan. 1852 . 
 
 546,978,242 
 
 9,572,119 
 
 427,881 
 
 546,550,361 
 
 July „ . . . 
 
 546,550,361 
 
 9,564,630 
 
 435,370 
 
 546,114,991 
 
 
 546,114,991 
 
 9,557,011 
 
 442,989 
 
 545,672,002 
 
 July „ . . . 
 
 545,672,002 
 
 9,549,260 
 
 450,740 
 
 545,221,262 
 
 Jan.1854 . 
 
 545,221,262 
 
 9,541,371 
 
 458,629 
 
 544,762,633 
 
 July „ . . . 
 
 544,762,633 
 
 9,533,346 
 
 466,654 
 
 544,295,979 
 
 Jan. 1855 . 
 
 644,295,979 
 
 9,525,179 
 
 474,821 
 
 543,821,158 
 
 July „ . 
 
 543,821,158 
 
 9,516,869 
 
 483,131 
 
 543,338,027 
 
 Jan. 1856 . 
 
 543,338,027 
 
 8,150,070 
 
 1,849,930 
 
 541,488,097 
 
 July „ . 
 
 541,488,097 
 
 8,122,321 
 
 1,877,679 
 
 539,610,418 
 
 Jan. 1857 . 
 
 539,610,418 
 
 8,094,156 
 
 1,905,844 
 
 537,704,574 
 
 July „ . 
 
 537,704,574 
 
 8,065,568 
 
 1,934,432 
 
 535,770,142 
 
 Jan. 1858 . 
 
 535,770,142 
 
 8,036,552 
 
 1,963,448 
 
 533,806,694 
 
 July „ . 
 
 533,806,694 
 
 8,007,100 
 
 1,992,900 
 
 531,813,794 
 
 Jan. 1859 . . .I 
 
 531,813,794 
 
 7,977,206 
 
 2,022,794 
 
 529,791,000 
 
 July „ . 
 
 529,791,000 
 
 7,946,865 
 
 2,053,135 
 
 527,737,865 
 
 Jan. 1860 . 
 
 527,737,865 
 
 7,916,067 
 
 2,083,933 
 
 525,653,932 
 
Bate. Reduced Debt. Interest at Four per Cent. Surplus. Remaining Debt. 
 
 Jan. 1861 . . . £523,538,740 £7,853,081 £2,146,919 £521,391,821 
 
 „ 1862 . . . 519,212,698 7,788,190 2,211,810 517,000,888 
 
 „ 1863 . . . 514,755,901 7,721,339 2,278,661 512,477,240 
 
 „ 1864 . . . 510,164,399 7,652,466 2,347,534 507,816,865 
 
 „ 1865 . . . 505,434,118 7,581,512 2,418,488 503,015,630 
 
 „ 1866 . . . 500,560,864 7,508,413 2,491,587 498,069,277 
 
 1867 . . . 495,540,316 7,433,105 2,566,895 492,973,421 
 
 „ 1868 . . . 490,368,022 7,355,520 2,644,480 487,723,542 
 
 „ 1869 . . . 485,039,395 7,275,591 2,724,409 482,314,986 
 
 „ 1870 . . . 479,549,711 7,193,246 2,806,754 476,742,957 
 
 „ 1871 . . . 473,894,101 7,108,412 2,891,588 471,002,513 
 
 „ 1872 . . . 468,067,551 7,021,013 2,978,987 465,088,564 
 
 „ 1873 . . , 462,064,892 6,930,973 3,069,027 458,995,865 
 
 „ 1874 . . . 455,880,803 6,838,212 3,161,788 452,719,015 
 
 „ 1875 . . . 449,509,800 6,742,647 3,257,353 446,252,447 
 
 1 „ 1880 . . . 414,636,643 6,219,550 3,780,450 410,856,193 
 
 „ 1885 . . . 374,175,536 5,612,633 4,385,367 369,788,169 
 
 „ 1890 . . . 327,218,770 4,908,281 5,091,719 322,127.051 
 
 „ 1895 . . . 272,723,524 4,090,853 5,909,147 266,814;377 
 
 „ 1900 . . . 209,479,568 3,142,194 6,857,806 202,621,762 
 
 „ 1905 . . . 136,082,374 2,041,236 7,958,764 128,123,610 
 
 „ 1910 . . . 50,901,945 763,529 9,236,471 41,665,474 
 
 July „ . . . 41,665,474 624,982 9,375,018 32,290,456 
 
 Jan. 1911 . . . 32,290,456 484,357 9,515,643 22,774,813 
 
 July. 22,774,813 341,622 9,658,378 13,116,435 
 
 Jan. 1912 . . . 13,116,435 196,747 9,803,253 3,313,182 
 
 July. 3,313,182 49,698 9,950,302 
 
 Jan. 1913 .... Surplus remaining of . . £6,637,120 
 
96 
 
 After the year 1860, in order not to dazzle the reader’s eye with too 
 many figures, only the result of each year is given down to 1875; then, 
 in order to bring the whole calculation into one view, the result of only 
 every fifth year is given down to igiOj when, to exhibit the then rapid 
 deduction, each half year is again given. 
 
 In 1852, when the interest should be reduced half per cent., two mil¬ 
 lions of annual taxation may bo remitted, devoting in future only twenty 
 millions of taxation to the interest and reduction of debt. From the 
 year 1856, until the Debt be all paid off, the interest might remain at three 
 per cent., which we now find a fair rate of interest. After this period I 
 have not proposed any further reduction of taxation arising from the 
 savings on this fund—because some of the life and other terminable an¬ 
 nuities would be falling in—which, in I860, will amount to nearly FOUR 
 MILLIONS; consequently that amount of taxation should be imme¬ 
 diately reduced. 
 
 From our annually increasing greater strength of political position 
 —for freedom from debt gives real influence and strength, whether to 
 individuals or empires—all other nations would be extremely cautious of 
 insulting or picking a quarrel with us; therefore, a considerable dimi¬ 
 nution of expenditure might be accomplished in our army and navy 
 estimates, and in some of the civil departments. By the increase of 
 revenue, which would certainly arise, from a much more prosperous state 
 of foreign commerce, a further surplus would undoubtedly arise, which 
 would allow ministers to reduce the public burdens. And further, by an 
 examination of the Table, it will be observed how very desirable it is that 
 the revenue should greatly exceed the requisite expenditure; since, 
 during the ten years from 1850 to January 1860, the reduction is only 
 £19,470,500. But, in each ten years following, it is reduced as follows :— 
 From 1860 to 1870 . . . £48,188,154 
 
 „ 1870 „ 1880 . . 64,913,068 
 
 „ 1880 „ 1890 . . . 87,417.873 
 
 „ 1890 „ 1900 . . 117,739,202 
 
 ., 1900 ., 1910 . . . 158,577,623 
 
 Remaining three years . . 50,901,945 
 
 Thus, although only the same amount of annual taxation is devoted to 
 the interest and redemption, yet the reduction of the debt proceeds, each 
 successive year, in a greatly accelerated ratio. In the year 1913, there 
 would be not only a surplus of more than six millions remaining of the 
 twenty annually provided; but those twenty millions of taxation should 
 then be immediately taken off entirely. 
 
 (To be continued^ 
 
 SteveiM & Co., Piinton, Bell Yard, Temple Bar. 
 
REDUCTION OF TAXATION, 
 
 No. 7, 
 
 OP A SERIES OF LETTERS—PRICE THREEPENCE EACH— 
 
 ADDEESSED TO THE LANDOWJJEES AND FAEMBES; THE MANH- 
 PACTHEEES AND TEADESMEN; THE MBECHANTS AND SHIP- 
 OWNEES ; AND TO ALL OTHEE TAX-PAYERS OP THE UNITED 
 KINGDOM-COMPEISING THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF A PEACTICABLE AND EQUITABLE MEANS 
 OF PAYING OFF THE 
 
 NATIONAL DEBT; 
 
 THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ONLY EEMEDY FOR THE 
 PRESENT EVILS OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO PREVENT 
 THE RECURRENCE OF SIMILAR EVILS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 By Britannicus. 
 
 LONDON : PDBLISHED BY FRED. PITMAN, PHONETIC DEPOT, I, ODEEN’s 
 
 SELLERS. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 50. Meatifl of preyenting the price of Stocks ever rising or falling more than 
 ONE per cent, above or below par, which mil prevent the Gambling in the 
 
 funds, so destructive to all legitimate commerce.-51. Refutation of the 
 
 objection, that “it is not honourable for the Jfation to purchase up its own 
 debts, at a discount of 10 or 20 per cent.," by a reference to the established 
 law and practice of the Lords of the Treasury.-52. Declaration of Minis¬ 
 
 ters that, in order to carry out any effective measure for the benefit of the 
 Nation, they must always he assisted by the pressure from without—the 
 
 PUBLIC VOICE.-58. Evil effects to our home Commerce, by so many of 
 
 the English Fundholders being induced, by the excessive taxation of this 
 country, to expend FIVE or SIX MILLIONS of English gold in foreign 
 countries.-—S-l. Fallacy of the opinion—that any faith has hitherto been 
 kept with the fundholders. The contrary fully proved. 
 
To the Landowners and Farmers; the Manufacturers and Tradesmen; 
 the Merchants and Shipowners; and to all other TAX PAYERS of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Gentlemen. 
 
 I HOPE that I have now rendered my proposition so intelligible j have 
 proved that the operation would he both just and easy of execution; 
 and, when compared with what has taken place in regard to the National 
 Debt during the last thirty-four years, that the result must prove so bene- 
 cial to the nation at large, and really to the fundholders themselves, that 
 it appears astonishing it should never previously have been proposed and 
 carried into operation. Yet, in examining it over and over again, I can 
 see no contradiction, nor any reason to change my calculations, since pur¬ 
 chasers of stock in the present day are paying above £90 sterling for three 
 per cents., and in the articles in the London journals we read that money 
 can easily be had, on good security, for three per cent. The only valid ob¬ 
 jection, therefore, which I believe can be advanced against this proposition 
 is, that it is much too favourable to the fundholders, since, by paying them 
 ofif at the rate of £70 for £100 three per cent, stock, they will receive a bonus 
 on the original investments of full ten per cent. This bonus, in con¬ 
 sideration of the greater part of the stock having changed proprietors, at 
 an advanced price, since the original loan, the public may be so generous 
 as to grant; and, by giving four per cent, interest in the new stock, you 
 are offering, during two years, actually one per cent, above the present 
 market price of interest. But, in consideration of the annual saving of 
 more than two millions sterling of taxation, which the nation will make 
 by this transfer, they may easily he reconciled to accord this also. 
 
 Further, I propose, that when this new stock is once created—as the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer should always be responsible to the public 
 creditor for only the precise sum of £100 sterling—if peculiarly favourable 
 circumstances should raise the market price beyond £100, say £101, he 
 may still continue to sell to any amount, let us say £1,000,000, at £101; 
 this will realize a profit of £10,000. A portion of the original debt may 
 then be paid ofif to the amount of £1,010,000, which, in strict justice, 
 should always he done in regular succession, as inscribed in the great 
 book; the commissioners being, however, bound always to give SIX 
 months’ notice of their intentions to pay ofif, not in the public gazette, 
 which may never be seen by the parties concerned, but to the individual 
 fundholders themselves, when they may receive their preceding dividends. 
 On the other hand, should any unfavourable circumstances produce a 
 depression of these new funds, say to £99, a bargain, equally favourable 
 to the public, may be made by the commissioners purchasing in the mar¬ 
 ket any stock that mag he offered for sale at that sum. Let us again take 
 
the sum of one million, which will equally realize a saving to the nation 
 of £10,000. The fluctuations of fractions may always be left for the 
 speculators to profit by. 
 
 Thus, by the commissioners alternately buying and selling at favour¬ 
 able epochs, and preserving an equality in the funds, those changes, so 
 ruinous to thousands, as inducing numerous bankruptcies, therefore so 
 detrimental to honest merchants and tradesmen, cannot take place; at least, 
 not to the same amount, or with the same facilities. None of those de¬ 
 structive panics could possibly occur: they would be stifled in their very 
 birth. The money market would be preserved in an equable and whole¬ 
 some state; and every transaction of the Commissioners, whether at a rise 
 or fall, must produce a saving to the nation. 
 
 But some gentlemen having the organ of benevolence greatly excited in 
 favour of the fundholder, and insensible to the two millions of destitute 
 operatives, and to the thousands of bankers, merchants, manufacturers, 
 tradesmen, and farmers, who are hovering on the verge of bankruptcy, 
 have said to me, “ Surely this is not perfectly honourable, to purchase up 
 your own debts at a discount.” But if the stock be offered in the market, 
 and the seller be satisfied with the amount he receives, of what conse¬ 
 quence can it be to him whether his stock be purchased by the National 
 Commissioner for the benefit of the public, or by an individual for his 
 own profit ? In this respect I am proposing no new principle: it is 
 already the law of the land, and has been practised at the Treasury to the 
 amount of eighty-three millions since 1815. I am only proposing a more 
 extended and efficient operation of an acknowledged law, and which may 
 prove really beneficial to the nation, instead of the present inefficient 
 practice. For what have been the duties of the present commissioners ? 
 Whenever the phancellor of the Exchequer declared a surplus revenue, 
 they were employed to lay out a few thousands in buying up the National 
 Debt at £70, £80, or £90, for £100 stock, at a discount varying five, ten, 
 or twenty per cent, according to the market price. And from 1793 to 
 1815 no less an amount than £284,581,731 stock was redeemed at an 
 average of £64 for £100 stock, or 36 per cent, discount. Now, whether 
 you buy up your debts at ten, twenty, or thirty per cent, discount, the 
 principle is surely the same; and, if by the consent of the creditor, must 
 be perfectly just. 
 
 If the demoralizing and destructive gambling on the stock exchange 
 cannot he altogether prevented, it is the duty of the legislature to eheck 
 it as much as possible. It is a vain boast that Christianity is part and 
 parcel of the law of the land, and that we pride ourselves on our national 
 morality, in having abolished lotteries, and passed laws against petty 
 gambling houses and little-goes, when we still suffer and encourage the 
 existence of a lottery and open gambling house, a thousand times more 
 injurious in its consequence.s, and more demoralizing to the mass of the 
 
100 
 
 nation, to wanton in luxurious magnificence on the stock exchange. Let 
 us produce one out of several similar instances. On the examination of 
 the afiairs of a great stock speculator, who committed suicide some years 
 since, it was found that, during the preceding year, he had been pos¬ 
 sessed of an ample fortune of £700,000; hut at the period when he 
 destroyed himself, in consequence of some unfortunate speculations, or 
 rather gambling bets on the prices of funds, he was £300,000 minus no¬ 
 thing: and the bankruptcy of many of the country bankers maybe traced 
 to the same source—gambling with money entrusted to their charge. 
 Another well-known example occurred some years since, in the case of an 
 eminent banker at Norwich, possessing a well-ascertained rental of £15,000 
 per annum, of some of the best land in the county, as well as being 
 receiver-general of the county, a situation estimated worth £2000 per 
 annum. It was well understood that this gentleman several years pre¬ 
 viously had enjoyed some valuable shares in different loans, by which he 
 had netted some eighty or one hundred thousand pounds; and numerous 
 persons who had accumulated money unfortunately thought, that if lodged 
 in his hands, it would he as safe as in the Bank of England; but he never 
 informed the public when, subsequently, he suffered losses of twenty, 
 thirty, or fifty thousand pounds at a time, by other stock speculations; 
 so that, on his decease, which occurred suddenly, it was discovered that, 
 notwithstanding his vast landed estates and other property, his debts ex¬ 
 ceeded his assets by some hundred thousand pounds. There immediately 
 followed such a state of distress as has seldom occurred in that county, 
 among numerous families heretofore living in the receipt of handsome 
 independent incomes. And it is well known that the temptation which 
 the gambling house of the stock exchange holds out to the clerks of 
 bankers, and to other persons temporarily entrusted with sums of money, 
 induces them to gamble with it; and, to make up their frequent losses, 
 numerous forgeries are committed. Such are some of the blessings which 
 the public derive from the erroneous management of our National Debt 
 permitting such fluctuations. 
 
 Perhaps some of you, gentlemen, may still entertain doubts of the 
 practicability of this proposition, and feel inclined to ask “ where, and 
 from whom, could the Chancellor of the Exchequer borrow the 
 £800,000,000, or rather the reduced amount of 547,000,000 1 ” I must, 
 therefore, request you to recollect, first, that this new loan would have no 
 resemblance to those loans which were borrowed during the war, chiefly to 
 be sent out of the kingdom, either in bullion or in warlike accoutrements, 
 to subsidize the continental powers, and to enable them to bring their 
 troops into the field, in order to curb the power of Napoleon. On those 
 occasions, many millions were required to be paid up immediately, or at 
 short definite periods; and your Chancellor oJT the Exchequer, threatened 
 by a mutiny in the fleet or the disorganization of the army, unfortunately 
 
101 
 
 thought that there was no alternative, but to have recourse to the great 
 contractors, and leave immense profits to them for gathering up tlje 
 capital in detail from the country bankers, merchants, and other indi¬ 
 viduals, who had been accumulating gold for that purpose. Greater pan 
 of these loans were never to return to the country. A portion was lent, 
 or given, to the Emperor of Russia: first, to bring his armies against 
 Napoleon; and, subsequently, (as our poor British ancestors were served 
 by their Saxon allies,) to turn those arms against ourselves; first, by cap¬ 
 turing our vessels and sweeping our trade out of the Black Sea; and, 
 finally, out of the Baltic, as soon as he had built and disciplined, by the 
 aid of our British captains and admirals, a few more ships of war: for we 
 no longer possess such fleets as in the days of Howe, Jervis, Duncan, and 
 Nelson j and, unfortunately, our National Debt, and the decline of our 
 commercial navy—formerly the grand nursery for our ships of war— 
 would totally prevent us from again fiiting out such fleets for the pro¬ 
 tection of our commerce, and to sustain our national honour. But, on 
 the present occasion, the money is neither to be sent out of the country, 
 nor would it be required at any definite period; therefore the subscriptions 
 may come into the exchequer by hundreds and by thousands, instead of 
 by millions; and by immediate contract with the individual lenders, 
 instead of undergoing all those filings down and per centages, giving 
 such enormous profits to the contractors and monopolists, to the great 
 and permanent injury of all the industrious classes, and destructive to the 
 best interests of the country. 
 
 By the parliamentary document, inserted in page fiC, you will find that 
 the debt and interest, and consequent taxation, regularly decreased from 
 the year 1817 to 1831, with some slight fluctuations; but, since that 
 period, they have greatly increased, notwithstanding our Reform Bill. 
 Yet, during 'the former years of this latter period, you were frequently 
 congratulated on the flomrishing state of the corrntry in a surplus revemre. 
 A little dust was thrown in your eyes. Gentlemen, when you were com¬ 
 plimented on your own successful exertions in agriculture, the arts and 
 sciences, manufactures and commerce, and in thus swelling the amount of 
 the revenue; and you totally forgot to examine whether this immense 
 fruit of yorrr exertions was emplo)’ed in the most economical manner for 
 your advantage. Trtrly, Gentlemen, if jmu wish to avoid a national bank¬ 
 ruptcy, and all its usual accompanying horrors of civil war, it is high 
 time that you should Inspect a little more minutely and accurately your 
 national accounts. For the time has now arrived ivhen, by a combination 
 of occun-ences, and an accumulation of evils, some effective proceeding 
 must be commenced; and the POWER is in the hands of THE 
 ELECTORS OF THE EMPIRE, because they possess the power of 
 returning not only the individual representatives, but the whole of the 
 ministers. 
 
102 
 
 During the short ministry of Sir Robert Peel, in 1834-5, a relation of 
 the right hon. Premier was nominated by his Majesty to the situation of 
 Secretary to the Treasury; and another right hon. gentleman to the post 
 of Master-General of the Ordnance; to hold which situations it is requi¬ 
 site to be members of the House of Commons; but the electors of 
 Deronport and of Perth put their veto upon these appointments, and 
 the right hon. gentlemen were consequently superseded. In fine, did 
 not the voice of the nation, at that period, by returning a majority of 
 reformers, put a veto upon the appointment of the entire ministry, and 
 oblige his Majesty to re-appoint the Reform ministry 1 
 It has also been repeatedly stated by our most talented statesmen, that, 
 in order successfully to carry through any reform, even “ Ministers must 
 be assisted by the pressure from without.” In this sentiment, a late 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer coincided, when, replying to a depntation 
 that wmted upon him relative to the equalization of the land-tax, he re¬ 
 marked, "To accomplish this, however desirable it may be, would require 
 some pressure from without.” The same sentiment has repeatedly been 
 expressed by the leading members of the Cabinet, who so frequently rest 
 their opposition to any motion, which may be brought forward by any in¬ 
 dependent member, on the want of a strong publio opinion being expressed 
 on the subject. They continually explain as well as ofificial language will 
 allow them, “ Here we are, ready to act, if the nation force us;” or, as 
 was happily observed by Mr. Fox, M.P., at the great Anti-Corn Law 
 meeting— 
 
 “ When the wind blows, then the Mill goes. 
 
 When the League blows, then the Peel goes.” 
 
 As an encouragement to your exertions, and a proof that the power 
 exists in the tax-payers of the empire of indueing the Government to pay 
 deference to their opinions, when generally expressed, 1 may further call 
 attention to the events of 1848. When, on the 18th of February, the 
 Premier brought forward a resolution for the sanction of the House of 
 Commons, to increase the income-tax from three to foe per cent., the 
 proposition was received with much opposition by the House; and, as 
 soon as the report of the debates spread over the country, public meetings 
 were held, remonstrances made to the individual members, and petitions 
 forwarded to the assembled Parliament against this additional burden— 
 not only from the various constituencies and parishes in the metropolis, 
 hut from Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and 
 numerous other towns of Great Britain. The Scottish Press very forcibly 
 expressed, “Look to your members; the constituencies ought to awake, 
 and to have their eyes fixed on the votes of their representatives. If they 
 support the Minister in carrying this odious proposition, let them be 
 marled menj and let the indignant rejection of them at the next election 
 
103 
 
 prove that the electors have too high a sense of what is due to themselves 
 to allow their feelings to be insulted, and their pockets picked, by their 
 own representatives.” Now, Gentlemen, I advise you to ponder well 
 upon this; and “ go and do likewise.” 
 
 What was the result of this movement?—On the 28th of the same 
 month, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced to the honourable 
 House, “ I am sorry to say that the proposal which Government made to 
 increase the income-tax has not been well received.” (Hear, hear, and 
 laughter.) “ I must admit, that from all quarters of the house, and from all 
 parts of the country, we have received the most unequivocal demonstra¬ 
 tions of the disapproval of the increase of two per cent. I still think that 
 the proposal was one which it would have been for the benefit of the 
 country to submit to. But I must say, on the part of Government, that 
 IF THERE IS ONE SUBJECT UPON WHICH THE REPRE¬ 
 SENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO DICTATE 
 TO THE GOVERNMENT, IT IS UPON SUCH AN OCCASION! 
 I have therefore to announce, on the part of the Government, that we do 
 not mean to press the resolution which implies an addition to the income- 
 tax. I think, then, that when the Government make this concession to 
 the popular will, as expressed by the representatives of the people in this 
 house, they will not refuse to renew the income-tax at its present amount 
 for a period of three years. I will only further state, that it is the inten¬ 
 tion of the Government to abandon the proposed increase of the income- 
 tax, and to ask for its renewal at its present amount for three years. 
 Whether the emergency can be met by a diminution of expenditure, or 
 by a change of ta.xation in some other way, is for the future consideration 
 of Government.” 
 
 Mr. F. T. Bahing remarked: “ I believe that the country will be 
 exceedingly grateful to the Government for the course they have taken, 
 and that they have exercised a wise discretion in giving way. The 
 
 COUNTRY HAS A RIGHT, WITH RESPECT TO TAXATION, AS ON ALL 
 OTHER SUBJECTS, TO HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY OF EXPRESSING AN 
 OPINION.” 
 
 The preceding page ought to be framed and glazed, and suspended in 
 every breakfast-room in the Kingdom, to be read and imbibed when the 
 mind is most vigorous, as the Palladium of British Liberty. 
 
 Are, then, the great interests of all the other classes of the nation to 
 continue to be sacrificed to those of a few wealthy speculators of Change 
 Alley, because you are too supine to exert that pressure? Or, having 
 once proved your own power and now enjoying the benefit, will you con¬ 
 tinue your exertions further to increase your individual as Well as the 
 national prosperity ? 
 
104 
 
 When your representatives are once elected, and the ministers ap¬ 
 pointed by the sovereign, there is a certain polite etiquette established, 
 to which it is necessary to conform, in making your wishes kno^vn to 
 them, by petition to the congregated body of the honourable House; 
 otherwise, the whole erapbe would be in a state of confusion and 
 anarchy. But, when the candidate is soliciting your vote, you possess 
 the absolute power of making a bargain with him upon what subjects he 
 is to e.xert himself; therefore, one pledge, and one pledge only, should 
 be demanded of every candidate:—“ Will you pledge yourself to exert 
 your voice, all your power and influence, to amend the regulations con¬ 
 cerning the public hinds, and to reduce the National Debt and Taxation ? ” 
 But this pledge should be signed and sealed by the candidate; 
 because so many of these gentlemen possess very short memories, and 
 explain away all the essence of what has been given by the reporters, as 
 promised by tbe candidate on tbe hustings. For, if you iviU trouble 
 yourselves to reflect duly on the subject, and to view it in all its bearings 
 upon the prosperity and peace of the kingdom, I feel assured you will 
 soon be coniinced that, if you gain this one point, all the minor reforms 
 will follow as a matter of course. When the electors of Ireland, taking 
 their cause into their own hands, persisted in returning a Catholic to 
 Parliament, they not only gained the victory for themselves, but the 
 mere agitation of that question eflected the repeal of the Test and Cor¬ 
 poration Acts, in favour of aU the other Dissenters in the kingdom. 
 And the latter body—who during so many years had been in vain strug¬ 
 gling to attain these objects, at a great loss of time, money, and friend¬ 
 ships during their election contests, and had almost given it up as a 
 hopeless task—one morning awoke; and, on reading tbe newspaper, 
 found themselves free from their chains, almost ivithout having heard, 
 for a long time, a hammer or a file at work to sever them. 
 
 Associations ought instantly to be formed, which should be the stand¬ 
 ing auditors of the national accounts; or, rather, the sphere of the opera¬ 
 tions of your chambers of commerce should be greatly enlarged: and 
 whenever government require information on commercial subjects before 
 their committees, some member shoidd be elected, who should go forth, 
 not merely in his own strength and e.xperience, and biassed by his own 
 commercial interests, but furnished with the deliberate opinion of the 
 majority of the associated members. And the representative for the 
 town or county, if on the committee of the House, for which information 
 may be required, should be furnished with a list of such questions as 
 it would be most useful to ask; if not on the committee, he might pass 
 over the list to some friend named on the committee. 
 
 By the report of one of these commercial bodies we find them fully 
 awake to this important duty. “ Report of the Directors of the Chamber 
 of Commerce and Manufacturers of Greenock, for the year ending 
 
106 
 
 February, 1841.—In reviewing tbe proceedings of the Chamber for the 
 year just terminated, your Directors have the satisfaction of assuring 
 their Constituents that they have kept a watchful eye over such of the 
 proceedings in Parliament as might he calculated to affect the trade and 
 manufactures of the country; as well as over such occurrences in the 
 commercial world, in regard of which the influence of the chamber might 
 be deemed useful; and that influence has been frequently and successfully 
 exercised in procuring redress of abuses, in promoting improvements, 
 and in effecting the more harmonious and efficient working of regulations 
 under which commerce is conducted.” 
 
 You must be well aware. Gentlemen, that ministers have a great multi¬ 
 plicity of affairs to attend to. Besides their minds being intently occupied 
 in imagining the most ingenious and effective means of raising the great¬ 
 est amount of taxation, they have to arrange their forces, physical and 
 intellectual, for the wordy war; to prepare themselves to make long 
 argumentative speeches, not only to amuse and convince the members 
 within the House, but to administer to the appetite of the public, and to 
 prepare replies for numerous questions during almost every evening of 
 the parliamentary session; further, not merely to provide for their own 
 dinners, but to attend to thousands of applications from their supporters, 
 not only for the sohd joints, but for the fragments of the loaves and fishes 
 which the collection and subsequent expenditure of these fifty millions of 
 annual taxation afford. 
 
 Besides, how can one Chancellor of the Exchequer correctly examine 
 and check the accounts which are written by twenty, or perhaps by one 
 hundred clerks; he, therefore, stands continually in need of your assist¬ 
 ance. We witnessed not long since, in the case of the forgeries of 
 the Exchequer Bills, that our whole staff of six Lords of the Treasur)', 
 one Chancellor of the Exchequer, four Tellers of the Exchequer, one 
 Comptroller-General, and a Chief Clerk, were all unable to find out and 
 prevent a regular system of forgery of Exchequer Bills during several 
 years; which, as there were always some three or four hundred 
 THOUSAND floating, must, according to the calculation of the editor of 
 the Times, have amounted to many millions. Yet, similar forgeries could 
 not have gone on, rvithout being discov'-ed, in any well-regulated bank 
 or commercial house in the kingdom. But, unfortunately, the honour¬ 
 able and highly salaried gentlemen, whose names are before the public as 
 their responsible servants, have so much other employment, and so 
 many objects of pleasure, that too often the most important financial 
 transactions are left to clerks with small salaries, large families, and con¬ 
 sequently great temptations. There ought to be a more equal division of 
 labour: every public servant should have a salary to place him, if pos¬ 
 sible, above temptation; and the public should take care that their paid 
 servants perform their allotted ivork diligently and faithfully. 
 
106 
 
 There now arises another most important benefit, which would be de¬ 
 rived by the industrious portion of the nation from this transfer of the 
 funds and the gradual repayment to the fundholders of their capital. It is 
 clearly ascertained, by the police returns of the French Government, that 
 in addition to the numerous British travellers who pass over to France 
 daring the parliamentary vacation, there are generally upwards of sixty 
 thousand British residents in that country, and several thousands in Italy, 
 Belgium, Hamburgh, and Germany; the great proportion of these 
 families are fundholders: this produces a very serious evil to the commerce 
 of this country. The Foreign Quarterly Eeview, and Mr. M'Gregor in 
 his evidence before a committee of the House, agree in stating; that the 
 annual drain of gold from this country, to pay those fundholders, amounts 
 to more than Five Millions sterling. Thus then we have five millions 
 of annual taxation sent over in gold to British residents in foreign coun¬ 
 tries, who do not contribute one shilling towards the relief of our own 
 poor, towards the encouragement of our own manufacturers, or to any 
 other national benefit. This amount is, therefore, truly a tribute from 
 this country paid to France. Now, if by a change in the funding system, 
 and by a reduction of the prices of the necessaries and conveniences of 
 life in this country, these fundholders can be brought back to expend 
 these five millions in the encouragement of our own industrious popula¬ 
 tion, surely that five millions expended in our own towns would be nearly 
 equal in beneficial results to double the amount of foreign commerce. 
 Not only the manufacturer and merchant, but the wholesale houses, 
 retail traders, and farmers, would all be benefited. 
 
 Now, since it has been found, on different occasions, that the circum¬ 
 stance of sending out from the country one or two millions of gold to pay 
 for the extra quantity of provisions received from foreign countries, in 
 consequence of the failure of the crops at home, has had the effect of 
 compelling the Bank of England to raise the rate of discount to five or 
 even seven per cent., and that the bankers in the sea-ports and manufac¬ 
 turing towns, from the same circumstances, have occasionally raised their 
 discounts to ten per cent., producing numerous bankruptcies,, stopping 
 many manufactories and other mercantile operations, and reducing thou¬ 
 sands of our industrious artisans to want and misery; what, then, must 
 be the deteriorating effect of thus exporting annually from FIVE to SIX 
 MILLIONS of Gold ?—for it must all be sent in gold. These absentees 
 will not receive tbeir incomes in manufactured goods; for they can procure 
 all they require of French manufactures at a cheaper rate. But this 
 enormous drain of gold does not excite public attention, because it is not 
 suddenly called for to be exported in a few days; it is sent over in 
 comparatively small sums, day by day, and week by week, during the 
 whole year: yet it is no less a canker, working its poisonous effect 
 throughout the whole mass of our manufacturing and otherwise indus- 
 
107 
 
 trious population; reducing wages and profits; increasing the poor rates; 
 multiplying vagrancy, destitution, and crime,- and gradually reducing 
 Great Britain to the unfortunate situation of our sister kingdom, in con¬ 
 sequence of her absentees. 
 
 Much of these five or six millions is expended, either directly or indi¬ 
 rectly, in paying the taxes to support the military forces, to build and 
 equip the steam war frigates of a country with which, however smiling 
 and peaceable our relations may at present appear, we enjoy little better 
 than an armed truce; for France is a volcano periodically smoking and 
 emitting sparks, and ready to burst into flame and furious eruption, over¬ 
 whelming those English families who too incautiously confide in the de¬ 
 ceitful calm, and perhaps involving all Europe in war. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, we must consider the grand, and, I believe, the only 
 objection to all I have proposed. The speculators of the Stock Exchange 
 would fear that such a change would greatly dry up the sources of the 
 enormous profits of the bulls and bears, and loan contractors; for from 
 what sources, and by what means, have these gentlemen amassed their 
 millions, but at the expense of all the industrious classes of the nation ? 
 And yet, truly, they are all honourable men. They fly their pigeons, and 
 work the telegraphs, between Paris, Hamburgh, Vienna, and London; and 
 procure letters to be written from various parts of the continent, and even 
 inserted in foreign journals, diligently transmitted to England, with fabri¬ 
 cated important intelligence of battles and revolutions j of marching of 
 troops and political changes, and rumours of coming wars: they pay 
 handsomely for these things to be printed in the English journals, and to 
 be circulated; alternately to raise or depress the market, accordingly as 
 they wish to buy or sell; themselves pulling the cords behind the scenes; 
 and the deluded public frequently applauding them, because they are rich 
 and honourable men. 
 
 These gentlemen are quick-sighted enough to foresee that, should such 
 a plan, so equitable to the public tax-payers, as I have proposed, be car¬ 
 ried into execution, they would no longer enjoy the same facility of making 
 such enormous profits as they have hitherto done: they would, conse¬ 
 quently, set every engine in their power at work, in order to prevent its 
 adoption ; and, certainly, their gold would not be spared to engage men 
 of talent to write against it, and they would pay liberally for the insertion 
 of their own views in many of the periodicals. 
 
 Therefore all the other inhabitants of the kingdom must remain as the 
 Hebrew slaves of these Egyptian taskmasters—the lords of the London 
 Stock Exchange; unless the land-owners and farmers, the manufac¬ 
 turers and tradesmen, the ship builders and merchants, and all the 
 
other tax-payers of the nation, arouse from their apathy and supineness 
 —make themselves acquainted with their true interests—and attempt to 
 emancipate themselves from this bondage. 
 
 But—if you can once clearly see your real interests, and in spirit and in 
 truth WILL to free yourselves from the eiil effects of this mismanagement 
 of your finances, and from this oppressive taxation—you possess a power 
 among yourselves fully to accomplish it. A power which, if brought 
 vigorously, simultaneously, and perseveringly into action, would easily 
 counteract all the arts, and overwhelm all the active agents of your task¬ 
 masters. This power resides not merely in the extensive landowners, the 
 opulent merchants, and the master manufacturers; but also in the congre¬ 
 gated bodies and improved intellect of the members of the various literary 
 and scientific institutions, town councils, agricultural and other associa¬ 
 tions of various denominations; and, above all, of the various chambers of 
 commerce, and the Financial Reform Associations, which are now, fortu¬ 
 nately, in a state of formation in numerous towns in the kingdom. These 
 are all intelligent enough to discuss the question, and to decide upon the 
 best plan to be adopted. These various bodies have now the power to 
 force the adoption of what they may resolve upon, if they will act collec¬ 
 tively and unanimously for the public good on this one grand question, 
 and not be quarrelling among themselves about minor objects, serviceable 
 merely to different class interests j because they possess the power of re¬ 
 turning the House of Commons, therefore virtually of appoiuting the 
 Ministers. 
 
 If any gentleman should for an instant imagine that there is anything 
 unjust, or any breach of faith with the public creditor, in the proposition 
 that I have brought forward, allow me to direct attention to the manner 
 in which, by the present system, the national faith is kept with 
 the fundholder; because great misconception exists in this respect. Is it 
 not a fact, that the prices of the stocks are continually fluctuating, chiefly 
 at the will of the well-initiated speculators, who are playing with them to 
 their own profit, with as much certainty as the gamblers who possess 
 loaded dice, and who pluck the young inexperienced pigeons. Indepen¬ 
 dent of the general rise caused by the £63,000,000 brought into the market 
 by the Lords of the Treasury, towards the redemption of the debt, other 
 circumstances have caused their occasional fluctuation from £58 in 1816, 
 to £96 in 1825. In 1817 they had risen to £S4. Let us then suppose that 
 any person—either for himself or as a trustee for a minor, or otherwise, 
 having the amount of £4000 to place out at interest—wishing to pre¬ 
 serve the capital UNTOUCHED AND ENTIRE for a given period—and, 
 confiding in the so much vaunted guarantee of the public funds, purchased 
 into the three per cents, in 1817, at £84, and again required to withdraw 
 this capital in 1820, when, in consequence of the agitation caused by the 
 trial of the Queen, the funds having fallen to £64 and a fraction, be 
 
109 
 
 would find his £4000 reduced to £3048; because,'in the first instance, his 
 £4000 would purchase, at £84, no less than £4762 of stock, which, resold 
 at £64, would produce only £3048—being a loss of £952 ! 
 
 Let us take the same amount in 1825, when the stocks were at £96, 
 and during the Bank panic fell to £74; his £4000 sterling would now 
 purchase only £4167, which he must sell for only £3083—thus losing 
 £917, or nearly one quarter of his capital. Again in 1838, the three per 
 cents, rose to £95; but, in consequence of the demand for gold required 
 to be e.'tported for the purchase of foreign corn, and increased by the war 
 cry of the French minister and his satellite journals, they fell to £86; this 
 same sum, entrusted to Government security, would purchase £4210 stock, 
 which would be again sold for £3621 sterling—a loss of £379. Is this, I 
 inquire, KEEPING FAITH with the fundholder? Of course some 
 other parties must gain, but it is too frequently the old e.vperienced gam¬ 
 bler who gains, and the confiding bond fide fundholder who loses his pro¬ 
 perty. I have previously e.xplained how the fluctuations in the stocks are 
 occasionally produced. 
 
 Again, it has been objected, that we have no right to tax the funds; 
 and a celebrated statesman, Charles James Fox, in the debate on the xVs- 
 sessed Tax Bill, in 1797, asserted, “No minister has yet been blind or 
 abandoned eni igh to tax the funds.” (Heor,/rear.) But when this same 
 statesman was called to conduct the vessel of the State, and found it 
 necessary to raise the steam, he then “ believed that the interests of any 
 peculiarly privileged class must yield to the public necessities;” and he 
 felt no hesitation whatever, not only in approving of the tax of five per 
 cent, laid on the dividends by Mr. Pitt, but further, of increasing that 
 tax to TEN per cent. 
 
 In a report of a speech to the electors of Tamworth, by the late First 
 Lord of the Treasury, we read, “The interest of the National Debt must 
 be provided for, and the only way to lighten the burden of that debt is, 
 ‘ to increase the number of shoulders which might bear it.’ ” Now, as 
 the shoulders of the manufacturers and agriculturists, who have hitherto 
 borne so much of the burden, are rapidly diminishing in power to sup¬ 
 port it, and as the shoulders of the fundholders have been, until the 
 recently imposed income-tax, the only shoulders in the empire that, 
 during the last thirty-four years, have not borne any portion whatever of 
 the burden; by what means can the number be increased, but by laying 
 a portion on these fundholders ? Further, have ministers the right to 
 discriminate what species of property or income will bear taxation with 
 the least injury to the general interests ? If they have, I inquire. Is there 
 any species of property which ought so justly to be taxed, and which 
 would so much conduce to the general interests of the nation, as that 
 property which, from being untaxed, is contributing five millions sterhng 
 annually to increase the commercial interests and political power of rival 
 
110 
 
 nations; to enrich their manufacturers, to build their ships of war, and 
 fit out their armiesto the deterioration of the commercial interests, and 
 to the enfeebling the political power of Great Britain ? 
 
 Indeed, the principle of the right to reduce the interest of the funds 
 has been acknowledged and repeatedly practised; for the interest of the 
 fire and four per cents, and of the capital inrested by the savings’ banks, 
 have all been reduced; but from the manner in which these transfers 
 have been made, at the suggestion and for the profit of the stock specu¬ 
 lators, and especially from the debt being of fluctuating value, 
 instead of being made a fixed value, these transfers have increased the 
 debt instead of diminishing it. 
 
 As a proof how successful our Lords of the Treasury are in mystifying 
 the public accounts, so that very few persons seem to comprehend the 
 financial proceedings of Parliament, we frequently hear, not only every 
 person whose income is more or less derived from the public funds 
 exclaim with indignation at the mention of lowering the interest, but 
 numerous public writers and members of parliament have strenuously 
 asserted that it would be the greatest injustice and a breach of national 
 honour to touch the funded property—that it would be nothing short of 
 downright robbery to lessen the interest. Even the right hon. the Chan¬ 
 cellor of the Exchequer, in his expose of the Budget for 1848, Feb. 28th, 
 slated“ I may just obsen'e that it is notorious to every body that there 
 are various items of the annual e.xpenditure which will not bear deduction, 
 and which are rendered permanent by Act of Parliament, and over 
 WHICH the House cannot exercise any control 1 It cannot, 
 
 FOB EXAMPLE, EXERCISE ANY CONTROL OVER THE AMOUNT OP PUB¬ 
 LIC DEBT!!! ”— {hear, hear) —“ taking the whole amount of interest pay¬ 
 able for the public debt, it will amount to £28,530,000; this is a large 
 item, which clearly cannot be touched by the Government!! I ” 
 
 I would take leave to inquire of all those gentlemen—To what period of 
 the annals of our parliamentary proceedings their researches have ex¬ 
 tended ? If they have made due research, they seem again totally to have 
 forgotten what is the established law of the realm, and the practice of 
 parliament. Do they not know that, in the year 1822, by the advice of 
 the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the honourable House did judge 
 themselves competent to exercise such control, and did touch this “large 
 item,” to the effect of reducing no less than £149,62?,825 of the five per 
 cent, stock to four per cent.; thus deducting twenty per cent, from the 
 income of all the fundholders of that stock ? At that period there were 
 dissentients to the amount of £2,794,318, who were paid off at par; that 
 is, at £100 sterling for the £100 stock; though that stock was in the 
 market previously worth £125. The remaining five per cent, stock was 
 converted into £157,109,218 stock at four per cent., with a bonus of five 
 per cent.; or giving £105 new four per cents, for £100 five per cent, old 
 
Ill 
 
 stock. No\y, although the rate of interest was lowered, still the debt was 
 increased by £7,481,393 to £157,109,218. 
 
 Again, in 1826, the four per cents, to the amount of £70,105,403 (after 
 deducting six millions for the dissentients, who were paid off at par; that 
 is, £100 sterling for £100 stock) were converted into three-and-a-half per 
 cent, stock without any bonus to the creditors or increase of the debt. 
 
 Again, in 1830, the four per cents., to the amount of £151,021,728, 
 were reduced to three-and-a-half per cent, stock; and, by way of an 
 additional bagatelle for the Stock Exchange gentlemen to sport with, the 
 amount of £474,374 were re-transfebred to a new five per cent, 
 stock, the subscribers receiving £70 five cent, stock for every £100 four 
 per cent, stock; thus this portion of stock, which had been reduced in 
 1822, from five to four per cent., with a bonus of only £5, was now 
 REFORMED into a new five per cent., with the reduction or loss of £30 
 in each £100 to the individual proprietors. 
 
 Extract from the offcial notice at the Bank .—“A new stock to be 
 created, bearing an interest at the rate of three-and-a-half per cent, per 
 annum. All holders of new four per cents., who shall not signify their 
 dissent, shall have for every £100 new four per cent, annuities, £100 in 
 the new three-and-a-half per cent, annuities. The said new three-and-a- 
 half per cent, not to be liable to redemption until 5th January, 1840. 
 Books to be opened at the Bank of England from Monday, April 5th, to 
 Saturday, April 24, for receiving signatures of persons dissenting, persons 
 not signifying their dissent within this period to be deemed to have 
 assented. Persons not signifying their dissent rvithin the period specified 
 to have the option, during one month from the day limited, to subscribe 
 to a NEW five per cent, stock, receiving £70 of such stock for every £100 
 of the NEW four per cents, held by them. Persons signifying their dis¬ 
 sent to be paid off in such order, at such periods, and in such manner 
 AS PARLIAMENT MAY DIRECT.” The dissentients were only to the 
 amount of £2,649,366. 
 
 In 1834, the amount of £10,622,911 four per cents, were again reduced 
 to three-and-a-half, without any dissentients. 
 
 Again, in March, 1844, the three-and-a-half per cents, were reduced to 
 three-and-a-quarter. The then Chancellor of the Exchequer stated, that— 
 “ The time was favourable, because there was a larger amount of capital 
 seeking employment than at any former period. The stock he proposed 
 to deal with was £250,000,000, of four different species, created at differ¬ 
 ent times, and of different amounts. With three of these stocks PAR¬ 
 LIAMENT HAD AN UNFETTERED RIGHT OF INTERFER¬ 
 ENCE, either to pay off the principal, or to reduce the interest; but with 
 the fourth part, created in 1818, amounting to £10,000,000, there were 
 two conditions coupled; namely, that six months’ notice should be given 
 of any intention to pay off, and that it should be paid off in sums of 
 
112 
 
 £500,000 at a time. In any plan to be adopted, every principle of honour, 
 as well as of expediency, required that the interests of individuals should 
 be considered as well as those of the State; and no present saving to the 
 country should be effected by laying a burden on posterity. In time of 
 war we were justified in throwing a portion of the burden on those who 
 were to succeed us; but such a principle was not honest nor honourable 
 in a time of peace. He, therefore, proposed that every holder of three- 
 and-a-half per cents, should receive an equal assignment of three-and-a 
 quarter—the interest of which to be three-and-a-quarter for ten years to 
 come, Oct. 1854; after that period, to be reduced to three per cent., and 
 to be guaranteed from all further reduction for twenty yeabs, till 
 1874. The annual saving will immediately he £625,000; and, in 1854, 
 will amount to £1,250,000.” The resolution was carried UNANI¬ 
 MOUSLY. Here are abundance of precedents for the present Chan¬ 
 cellor, which the hon. member seems to have forgotten. This arrange¬ 
 ment, until 1854, with the holders of the £10,000,000, will not interfere 
 with my previous proposition; because, undoubtedly, the holders will 
 voluntarily purchase into the proposed four per cent. 
 
 Recapitulation. 
 
 Yeora. 
 
 
 
 Interest. 
 
 Saving. 
 
 1822 
 
 Old 5 per cent. 
 
 149,627,825 
 
 £ 
 
 7,481,391 
 
 £ 
 
 „ 
 
 New 4 ditto . 
 
 157,109,218 
 
 6,284,216 
 
 
 1826 
 
 Old 4 ditto . 
 
 70,105,403 
 
 2,804,216 
 
 1 350,597 
 
 
 New 3i ditto. 
 
 70,105,403 
 
 2,453,619 
 
 1830 
 
 Old 4 ditto . 
 
 151,021,728 
 
 6,040,869 
 
 1 
 
 
 New 3J ditto. 
 
 150,344,051-1 
 
 j- 755,110 
 
 
 5 per cent. . 
 Old 4 ditto . 
 
 474,374 / 
 
 5,285,759 
 
 1 
 
 1834 
 
 10,622,911 
 
 424,916 
 
 1 53,116 
 
 
 New 3i ditto. 
 
 10,622,911 
 
 371,800 
 
 1844 
 
 Old 3i ditto . 
 
 250,000,000 
 
 8,750,000 
 
 } 625,000 
 
 
 New 31 ditto. 
 
 250,000,000 
 
 8,125,000 1 
 
 
 
 Total Annual Saving- 
 
 £2,980,845 
 
 Savings’ Banks.— The Commissioners paid to the Trustees of 
 Savings’ Banks, from 1817 to 1828, at the rate of 3d. per £100 per day; 
 i. e., £4.11s. 2d. per £100 per annum; and, from 1828, only £3.16s. per 
 
 (To be continued.) 
 
 Steveni & Co,, FiiaUis, BcU Yaid, Templo Bor. 
 
ElSaUCTlON OF TAXATION. 
 
 No. 8, 
 
 OP A SERIES OF LETTERS—PRICE THREEPENCE EACH— 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE LAEDOWNBKS AND FARMERS; THE MANU¬ 
 FACTURERS AND TRADESMEN; THE MERCHANTS AND SHIP¬ 
 OWNERS ; AND TO ALL OTHER TAX-FAVERS OP THE UNITED 
 KINSDOM—COMPRISINO THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF A PRACTICABLE AND EQUITABLE MEANS 
 OF PAYING OFF THE 
 
 NATION AXi DEBT; 
 
 THE MOST EFFECTIVE AND ONLY REMEDY FOR THE 
 PRESENT EVILS OF THE COUNTRY, AND TO PREVENT 
 THE RECURRENCE OF SIMILAR EVILS FOR THE FUTURE. 
 
 By Bi-itanniciis. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 55. Fallacy of the opinion—that the National Debt is a safeguard against revolu¬ 
 tion. Contrary fully proved by reference to history.-56. Defective educa¬ 
 
 tion of the youth of the richer classes, to prepare them for performing their 
 duties as Members of the two Houses of Parliament in this great Commercial 
 
 Nation.-57. Declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, “ that Indirect 
 
 Taxation has reached its utmost limit of productiveness.”-58. Necessity of 
 
 taking timely warning from the example of the fall of numerous dynasties and 
 some ancient commercial states, not to neglect "the handwriting on the wall.” 
 
 -59. Numerous means of advantageously employing any money released 
 
 from the funds.-60. General benefits to be derived by the foregoing plans, 
 
 if carried into execution.—Conclusion. 
 
114 
 
 To the Landowners and Farmers; the Manufacturers and Tradesmen; 
 the Merchants and Shipowners; and to all other TAX PAYERS of 
 the United Kingdom. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Thus, it is true that the annual saving of interest amounted to 
 £2,930,845, but we see by the transactions of 1822 that the debt was 
 increased by more than seven millions, for which we are now answerable; 
 so that no real good has accrued to the nation, and very great injustice 
 was committed towards the holders of the five and four per cent, stocks, 
 because the holders of the three per cent, stock were left untouched.. The 
 successive Lords of the Treasury either committed a great injustice, or a 
 very gross miscalculation—injustice, because at different epochs they 
 reduced the income of, or laid a partial tax upon, the individual holders 
 of the FIVE and foue per cent, stock, since the trifling saving of interest 
 at such distant periods of 1822, 1826, 1834, and 1844 had no effect upon 
 the reduction of taxation and the fall in the price of provisions, for the 
 slight savings were speedily engulphed in some new expenditure; whilst 
 the holders of the larger amount of nearly £500,000,000 in the three per 
 cents, were not only left untaxed, but the value of their stock was aug¬ 
 mented full thirty per cent.—and why i Because it was chiefly ladies, 
 country gentlemen, retired tradesmen, and trustees of minors, who pre¬ 
 ferred the sound of a greater interest of four or- five per cent, for their 
 capital, without sufficiently calculating that if they were to receive five 
 per cent, they must pay £100 sterling, whilst the purchasers of three per 
 cent, would pay only £60 sterling; therefore, the more e.xperienced, cal¬ 
 culating speculators seldom or never invest their money in any but the 
 three per cents., except with the prospect, or at least the hopes, of running 
 up the price of the stocks and selling to a profit; and, unfortunately, it is 
 these gentlemen only whom the Chancellors generally believe can give 
 them any sound advice concerning financial measures. 
 
 If Government had reduced the interest equally on the whole of the 
 £800,000,000, and then have reduced the taxation in proportion, it would 
 have been perfectly just, because every fundholder would have 
 received an equivalent by purchasing the same amount of necessaries, 
 comforts, and even luxuries, at a rate more reduced than the amount of 
 the reduction of his interest in the funds. As, for example, if a new tax 
 is imposed on any article to the amount of 4s. in the pound, the dealers 
 must increase the price to 5s. or 6s. in the pound, in order to recompense 
 them for the greater outlay of capital, particularly if the article has to go 
 through several hands—the manufacturer, the wholesale merchant, and 
 the retail dealer,—the price is increased in proportion: the same takes 
 
115 
 
 place in any reduction of duty, and although the 4s. may not immediately 
 he reduced to 6s., the competition of sellers in the market will soon 
 effect it. 
 
 Acquitting, however, the Lords of the Treasury of any wilful injustice, 
 it must he allowed that they committed a gross miscalculation. They 
 seem to have proceeded on the idea that the proprietors of three, four, and 
 five per cent, stock had lent equal sums of money to the nation for each 
 £100 stock; and, therefore, it was unjust to the nation that they should 
 he paid those various rates of interest for the same nominal amount of 
 stock, seemingly forgetting that they had aU lent nearly equal sums of 
 money; and, pretdously to the partial reductions, were receiving an equal 
 or proportionate amount of interest, because the proprietors of the three 
 per cents, had only advanced £60 for £100; hut the proprietors of the 
 four per cents, had lent £80; and those of five per cents, had given £100 
 sterling for the same nominal amount of stock. And, as I believe, in 
 every instance £100 sterling was given for £100 stock in the five per 
 cents.; by the Government first reducing the five to four per cent., and 
 subsequently to three-and-a-half and three-and-a-quarter, and refunding 
 a portion at five per cent., when they allowed only £70 in the new fives 
 for £100 of the new fours, they thus really deprived every fundholder of 
 that stock of no less than £30 in every £100 sterling; in addition to the 
 loss of £25 of capital, according to the previous market price, in each 
 £100 stock included in the former conversion. Disguise it as they please 
 by any special pleading, this is the real fact; whilst, at the same time, by 
 leaving the holders of the three per cents, unscathed, and by their 
 other financial measures, they actually raised the property in the three 
 per cents, from £60 to £90. Was this keeping faith with the fund- 
 holders ? 
 
 It may be replied, in palliation, that it was all done with the consent of 
 the proprietors of the stock; therefore, there was no injustice, volenti 
 non fit injuria. But they had really no option, for how, in a moment, 
 could the sum of £150,000,000 be invested to any profit! and they were 
 only allowed three weeks to decide; and the few who did dissent, and 
 received their £100, were glad, soon after, to re-invest the same in the 
 new stock; since it would not fructify in their iron chests,; but, in the 
 interim, they had the pleasure of “ doing what they liked with their own.” 
 The dissentients were at first paid by the Bank of England, who received 
 exchequer bills for the amount, wdiich subsequently were occasionally 
 converted into three per cent, stock, sometimes sub sihntio; of one 
 example of which Mr. Hume complained when bringing forward his 
 motion concerning the savings’ banks;—“ Many honourable members 
 were not aware that the Commissioners of the Savings’ Banks could add 
 to the funded debt without coming to that house; yet such was done in 
 October, 1836, when/onr mi'i/ions were added to the funded debt, and that 
 
116 
 
 House knew nothing of the matter. This was effected under the 50th 
 clause of the Act, which was little known.” 
 
 What the Government ought to have done, in 1816-17, in justice to 
 both the fundholders and the country, was, to have opened a new loan for 
 the amount of the whole debt at five per cent.; this would have fixed the 
 various stocks at the average prices at which the money had been lent, and 
 which was then the market price of the day—£60 for the three per cents., 
 £80 for the four per cents., and £100 for the five per cents.—and have 
 at once reduced the nominal defat of £800,000,000 to £480,000,000 
 BEAL debt, and would have allowed them to reduce the interest subse¬ 
 quently, at an equal ratio upon the whole stock, without any partiality, 
 favour, or afiection j hut this would not have suited the speculators, who 
 are daily making their haiwests by the complexity and mystery which 
 envelops all our fuuding transactions. Truly, ye genuine children of 
 honest John Bull, ye do pay most enormously, and suffer most severely, 
 for your ignorance in these matters, and for your confiding simplicity in 
 the financial wisdom of your successive Lords of the Treasury and Chan¬ 
 cellors of the Exchequer. 
 
 It is perfectly impossible that this debt can ever he paid off, without it 
 be made, as I have proposed, a fixed tangible debt, for there is at present 
 no impediment to the three per cents, rising to the price of £200 for £100 
 nominal stock, and therefore the real debt mounting from £800,000,000 
 to £1,600,000,000. Thus, the more the nation is taxed to pay off the 
 debt, on the present principle, the deeper and deeper must we sink in 
 debt. 
 
 That the National Debt is the great influencing cause of all our com¬ 
 mercial and agricultural distress may seem strange doctrine to the general 
 declaimers in favour of the funding system, who boast of the immense 
 wealth of England, and exclaim: “ We can take no great harm, nor find 
 much trouble to raise the taxes; look at the immense capital of the fund- 
 holders alone, and their income of nearly £30,000,000.” In reply, I have 
 frequently inquired, “ But where is all this immense eapital of which you 
 boast ? is it in land, or houses, or shipping, or where ?” “ Why, in the 
 Bank of England; is it not Not one shilling remains: it has all been 
 dissipated in powder and shot; in the shattering to pieces and sinking in 
 the ocean some hundreds of magnificent vessels; in the burning of 
 numerous towns and villages—desolating whole districts of country; in 
 giring to one man in a thousand—wealth, and honour, and title; and to 
 the other nine hundred and ninety-nine—^wounds, and mangled limbs, 
 and premature death; causing widows, and orphans, and accumulated 
 
 Let the politician and the historian describe in the most eloquent and 
 spirit-stirring language; let the poet and piuntergild and beautify these 
 events with their most brilliant colouring—such are the real facts. Yet, 
 
117 
 
 strange as it may appear, many, otherwise persons of good sense, have, 
 remarked: “ But do you mean to say that the money paid into the funds 
 is neither in the Bank nor in the National Treasury? Since all the 
 capital of £800,000,000 is thus dissipated, whence arises the immense 
 income of the fundholders ?” This income has a very magnificent appear¬ 
 ance to the lodging-house and hotel keepers, and the tradesmen of the 
 continent, from whose voices, “ My lor’ Anglais” so frequently resounds; 
 hut it resembles the apples on the shores of the Dead Sea, hrilliant and 
 beautiful in the exterior, hut bitter dust and rottenness within. These 
 splendid incomes are all derived from the extra toil and severe depriva¬ 
 tion of all the labouring classes in the kingdom, not only of the comforts, 
 hut of a portion of the necessaries of life. It is difficult for all those per¬ 
 sons who confine their visits to the handsome streets and squares of our 
 chief towns, to the splendid docks and rail-road stations, to the magnifi¬ 
 cent baronial castles and deer-parks, to the delightful country mansions 
 and ornamented villas, to understand this; but, let them enter the 
 crowded courts, narrow lanes, and dark alleys; ascend the garrets, and 
 descend into the cellars, of any of our manufacturing, or any other large 
 towns, where honest industry and squalid poverty, uniting in the same 
 persons, are lying on an earth floor, with hut scanty covering to protect 
 them from the inclemency of the seasons. Then may they judge whence 
 the splendid income of the fundholders is drawn. I mean not the slight¬ 
 est imputation on the fundholders themselves; merely as fundholders, 
 they are not to blame. Not only our legislators, hut the whole country, 
 are to blame for not exerting themselves to amend such a state of 
 affairs. Even in the country cottages, the happy rubicund face, the con¬ 
 tented air, and stalwart limbs, are rapidly disappearing among the over¬ 
 worked and half-fed peasantry of the kingdom. If the farmer expects his 
 horses to plough an acre of land, or the hunter wishes to be borne 
 gallantly through a two-hours’ chase, they do not stint their steeds to a 
 half-measure of corn; neither can their labourers perform their labour 
 with profit to their employers, without they also receive their full measure 
 of food. They may pass their twelve hours at their work, but they have 
 neither the spirit nor the physical force to perform it efficiently. I do not 
 expect that, by any legislative measures, poverty and misery can be 
 banished from the land; but we ought all to contribute, as much as is in 
 our power, to a better state of things. For, if some means be not adopted 
 in order to better the condition of the labouring classes, the fundholders 
 in a few years will look in vain for either interest or principal. 
 
 To THE Fundholdeks. —Since many persons who possess funded 
 property are not sufficiently acquainted with the working of the stocks, it 
 may be necessary to add a few remarks more particularly addressed to 
 
118 
 
 the fundholders. I hope that you. Ladies and Gentlemen, will not 
 imagine that in my previous arguments there is any thing whatever which 
 can, in the least, militate against your true and permanent interests. 
 You must consider that, as your property is of so fluctuating a value, 
 a war with France or America, or a stock-jobber’s speculation, might 
 reduce your £100 stock to an average of £60 sterling; when, in the event 
 of a war, you would be further obliged to pay a tax of at least ten per 
 cent, to support the expenses of the war. Therefore my proposition to fix 
 it permanently at £100, after its conversion into four per cents., would 
 produce a great benefit to yourselves, for the three per cents, which, in 
 1792, had reached £97, fell regularly and rapidly, as soon as the war 
 commenced, week after week, down to £47 in the year 1797, and never 
 again rose to £70 during' the war. In] pages 108, and following, I have 
 drawn your attention to some ruinous changes during the peace; and you 
 may see that, as the funds are at present regulated, you may invest £1000 
 sterling as high as £96, and, after a few months, find your capital, if you 
 require to sell out, reduced to £500 or £600 sterling. But, it my propo¬ 
 sition he carried into efiect, your £1000 would ever remain of the same 
 fixed value, whether in peace or war; and, should any circumstances 
 render money scarce and provisions dear, for whatever further sums you 
 might invest in the stocks, your interest thereon would he raised accord¬ 
 ing to the dearness of provisions; and, in all probability, if my propo¬ 
 sition he carried into eflfect, wars may he prevented, in consequence of 
 Great Britain standing in too imposing a situation for other powers to be 
 tempted to insult or quarrel with us. Again, if subsequently your 
 interest should he reduced, that reduced income would still purchase an 
 equal amount of the necessaries, as well as the luxuries of life, as your 
 previous greater annual income, because the taxes, as well as the prices 
 of provisions, clothing, &c., would be reduced in proportion. 
 
 Again, yourselves and all your family are not likely to remain for ever 
 merely fundholders; and, in whatever way your money be employed, 
 whether in lands, rail-roads, shipping, commerce, or other securities, for 
 every pound which you would lose by a reduction of interest on your 
 funded property, you would undoubtedly gain two from your other pro¬ 
 perty, because it must become so much more valuable. And when you 
 leave any legacies to relatives, you would easily understand in what con¬ 
 dition you place them. I will state a case, to prove the hardship and 
 occasional injustice of the present arrangement. 
 
 A gentleman left by will his property in the funds, to the amount of 
 £22,000, three per cent, stock, to his eldest son, directing him to pay 
 legacies of £2000 sterling to each of his six younger brothers and sis¬ 
 ters ; now, as the stock had, some time previously todhe will being made, 
 averaged more than £90, he supposed that he should leave to his eldest 
 son £7000; hut as, unfortunately, to his eldest son was left the pounds 
 
119 
 
 STOCK, and to tlie younger children the pounds sterling, at the time 
 of the division of the property, political occurrences had caused the three 
 per cents, to fall to £60 j therefore, as the £22,000 stock only sold for 
 £13,200 sterling, the eldest son received for his share only £1200, instead 
 of £6000 or £7000, as it was evident his father had intended. By the 
 change in the arrangement of the funds which I have proposed, such an 
 error could not be committed, because £1000 stock and £1000 ster¬ 
 ling would always he of the same value to a shilling. I mention this, out 
 of many somewhat similar instances, because I well know there are many 
 other persons that have money in the funds, who would be liable to commit 
 the same error, and whose knowledge of the stocks is confined to under¬ 
 standing that they have a certain amount of hundreds or thousands in 
 the funds, for which they receive half-yearly, from their bankers, a certain 
 amount of interest. 
 
 There can be little doubt but that, with the aid of the enlightened and 
 active spirit of our present population, the admirable inventions and 
 newly-discovered mechanical and chemical powers brought into use by 
 our men of science—by the establishment of rail-roads, and of steam power 
 applied to navigation, rendering much land hitherto too disadvantageonsly 
 situated to be worth the cultivation, now rich in remunerating profit—by 
 the rapidly increasing population and wealth of our colonies in America, 
 Anstralia, Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies—the whole of this 
 capital, when returned into the hands of the individual fundholders, 
 might be most advantageously employed by them in commerce, agricul¬ 
 ture, mining, and manufactures. In addition to the frequent sales of 
 land and houses, there are numerous shares to be purchased in the various 
 canals, rail-roads, docks, banks, assurance companies, mines, &c., offer¬ 
 ing numerous eligible means of employing money by ladies and other 
 persons wishing to live at ease, and retired from the daily bustle which 
 shops, counting-houses, warehouses, and factories demand. 
 
 Your own intelligent minds. Ladies and Gentlemen, when once directed 
 to the subject, may suggest to you many other advantages which must 
 result from this proposed reduction of the National Debt. Among 
 others, ample funds would soon be found for the better cultivation and 
 general improvement of the 15,000,000 acres of land now lying waste 
 in this country; and which, without the burden of taxation caused 
 by the National Debt, would amply repay the cultivators and employ and 
 feed many millions more of population; but, at jiresent, the e.xpenses of 
 cultivation are so enormous that they would swallow up, not only all the 
 profit, but a portion of the capital required to be employed. Also for the 
 better employment and reward of tbe starving population of Ireland, 
 who, in their own country, appear to the casual observer almost as idle 
 as the lazzaroni of Naples; because, after they have cut and stacked their 
 turf for winter, dug up and housed their potatoes, they have little else to 
 
120 
 
 employ them for several months than to keep themselves, if possible, 
 sheltered from the inclemencies of the weather, and to brood over their 
 miseries. But, if we observe these same men in this country, we find 
 them among the most industrious and hard-working of our population, 
 performing the most laborious and almost disgusting employments for 
 comparatively little recompense. 
 
 The empire would soon become so flourishing in consequence of this 
 change, that the revenue upon those objects of taxation which would 
 least impede the general commerce would, no doubt, soon furnish a con¬ 
 siderable surplus above the calculated interest required, and which might 
 be applied annually, in the further reduction either of taxation or of the 
 debt, by which all those persons who are merely fundholders, and who 
 should remain in the kingdom, would receive a benefit fully equal to the 
 reduction in their dividends j and those fundholders who are also mer¬ 
 chants, manufacturers, agriculturists, or belonging to any of the minor 
 divisions under these heads, would receive very ample, even double 
 equivalents, by the reduction of taxation on all the other sources of their 
 income, by the consequent reduction of prices on aU the provisions they 
 would require, as well as a better recompense for either their mercantile, 
 manufacturing, or agricultural occupations, and for any mental or phy¬ 
 sical labour. 
 
 But, in order that the operation may be generally beneficial, the amount 
 must be thrown hack into the market gradually, because all sudden and 
 great changes among any numerous body of the population are prejudicial 
 to the general prosperity; but this amount of money brought into the aid 
 of commerce and agriculture gradually, would operate like the gentle rains 
 of heaven in the spring, producing beauty and fertility, and gradually 
 advancing the land to the enjoyment of the delicious fruits of summer, 
 and the abundance of a long-protracted autumn. 
 
 A very erroneous assertion has frequently been made, “That the public 
 debt is a safeguard against revolution.” On the contrary, I think we 
 may gather from all past history, that the greatest safeguard against 
 political tumult is the presenting a plentiful board to eveiy honest, indus¬ 
 trious person in the nation. What, it may be asked, has generally been 
 the inciting cause of revolutions, and the eflfective force of political agi¬ 
 tators, from the earliest history of the Greeks and Romans to the present 
 hour: What gave rise to, and established the power of, the tribunes of 
 the people over the senators ?—A hungry population! What produced 
 the massacres at Paris and VersaiUes ?—The long-continued and yearly 
 increasing suffering of the mass of the people from excessive taxation 
 
121 
 
 and dear read, till bread or blood became the popular cry. What causes 
 so many tumults in Ireland i—Is it not because, during several months of 
 the year, the great mass of the agricultural population have little to do 
 hut to brood and gloom over their miseries, and to plot mischief? Po¬ 
 litical agitators have never been able to excite the population of our large 
 towns, but during a time when there were numbers of unemployed work¬ 
 men. Their great power has arisen from silent manufactories, insolvent 
 tradesmen, and a famishing population. So well did the revolutionists of 
 Paris understand this, that to produce the events of 1830, they persuaded 
 their manufacturing friends to shut up their establishments a few days 
 previously, in order that there might be a number of discontented work¬ 
 men idle in the streets, to employ as “ cats’ paws” and ruthless agents of 
 their political ambition. 
 
 What, again, was the first act of the plotters of the disturbances in this 
 country a few years since i Was it not to turn out all the workmen 
 from the pits and factories, that there might be at least the appearance of 
 immense bodies of rioters to overawe the masters and the authorities ? 
 If, on that occasion, the working classes had been in the receipt of good 
 remunerating wages, all the hired agitators who could have been sent 
 among them by any party whatever would have failed in exciting so wide¬ 
 spread an outbreak; hut their task was comparatively easy, for the minds 
 they worked upon were already rendered susceptible and irritated by suf¬ 
 fering. Men do not give ear to the preachers of discontent and riot, and 
 hazard the loss of comforts they feel that they safely possess. It is in 
 the miserable and famishing tenants of houses destitute of food, fuel, and 
 furniture, that the elements of such insurrections are to be found. 
 
 Other causes of the national distress will undoubtedly be frequently 
 detailed, and different remedies prescribed; but, from having long con¬ 
 sidered the subject, made numerous inquiries after facts, and diligently 
 examined various propositions, the more I examined and the more I 
 reflected, so the more firmly have I become convinced, that all the other 
 remedies which I have seen or heard proposed, must prove ineffectual 
 without you commence by REDUCING YOUR NATIONAL EXPEN- 
 DITURE: and thus, by purifying the original source—the fountain-head 
 of the evil—the minor irrigations which branch off from the principal 
 stream of corruption will gradually, in a great measure, purify themselves. 
 The effects of machinery contending with human labour—of competition, 
 tending to reduce profits and wages-of the corn law's and class legis¬ 
 lation, raising the price of the necessaries of life, have all been amply dis¬ 
 cussed. 
 
 The benefit to be derived from spade labour, home colonies, and a more 
 general cultivation of waste land, depends greatly upon the reduction of 
 numerous taxes. The expense of cultivating inferior land is so enormous 
 as to swallow up, not only all the profits, but, frequently, a portion of the 
 
122 
 
 capital which must he employed; arising neither from the direct taxation 
 on the land, nor from the alleged high rents; but from the thousand 
 minor links of taxation, all augmenting the weight of the chain which 
 impedes exertion—for the less valuable and unproductive the land, so 
 much the more expense of capital and labour does it require to make it 
 productive. 
 
 In rcptard to the relief to be hoped for from greatly increased emigration, 
 if continued upon the present defective system, it may be of benefit to a 
 few hundred capitalists, and a few thousand labourers and citizens, but 
 totally ineffective as a national remedy. Although a considerable stream 
 of population is already pouring forth towards South Australia and the 
 Polynesian islands, still, without the General Taxation be greatly reduced, 
 we have much to fear that this emigration, instead of affording national 
 relief, will become an additional burden for ships of war and the military 
 to protect; and governors, and judges, and bishops to keep them in order 
 and enlighten them. The parent country will have to pay the outfit; and 
 other nations will enjoy the benefit. The manufacturers and merchants 
 of Great Britain will have to drain the swamps and clear away the jungles; 
 and the manufacturers and merchants of those countries, who are not bur¬ 
 dened with sixty millions of taxation upon their industry, will reap the 
 
 You may have the trouble and expense of sending forth your Protest¬ 
 ant missionaries to civilize the savages of those numerous islauds; and 
 your hardy sons, at much danger, to prepare the soil, raise up towns, and 
 create a commerce; and then some other nation may come, as France 
 has already done to your oldest, most faithful, and most Christianized 
 Ally, among those islands, and with the thunder of her cannon, and the 
 flash of her musketry', forced in her Popish priesthood, contrary to the 
 established laws and w'ishes of the islanders—levied a heavy fine, which 
 the British Protestant merchants were, in the sequel, forced to pay—and 
 seized upon those commercial advantages which your previous enterprise, 
 Christian charities, and subsequent industrious exertions ought to have 
 insured solely to yourselves. But Great Britain was silent, or but feebly 
 raised her voice; because her mouth was closed by a padlock of nearly 
 SIXTY MILLIONS of taxation. Even in your own established colonies, 
 your own children, as soon as they can run alone, will go to the cheapest 
 markets to supply their wants. A late return of ships in the Bay of 
 Islands gave—of English, 23; French, 21; American, 56. And a letter 
 from the Cape of Good Hope, in the South American Commercial Adver¬ 
 tiser, stated, that “Foreign manufactures are rapidly superseding the 
 British, although the duty on British manufactures is only three per cent. 
 ad valorem, and on foreign manufactures sixteen per cent.; still, the im¬ 
 portation of foreign goods has greatly increased during the last few years, 
 and the merchants of Frankfort, and of other parts of Germany, are 
 
123 
 
 busily engaged in shipping manufactures for this colony.” It has been 
 well said, that our colonial possessions are the very bulwarks of the great¬ 
 ness and glory of our country—the title-deeds hy which tve hold our rank, 
 as first and chief among the nations; but they will soon cease to be so, if 
 the policy of the Lords of the Treasury forces Great Britain to pay all the 
 civil and military expenses, in order to keep them under our nominal 
 rule, and allow other nations to reap the commercial profits. 
 
 The remedy for many of the evils complained of must commence in a 
 very much improved system of education—not merely for the poor, but 
 for the rich. Whilst so much else has been progressing in the kingdom, 
 the education of those young men who, by their hereditary rank and sta¬ 
 tion in society, are expected to take their seats in either house of legis¬ 
 lature, has been comparatively standing still. Lord John Russell, in his 
 book on the “ Constitution of England,” when speaking of pubhc education, 
 remarks:—“That if the young men, born in the upper classes of society, 
 be still required to devote so much time to the knowledge of the dead 
 languages, it is absolutely necessary that such books as Blackstone’s 
 Commentaries, and some other useful English works, should be trans¬ 
 lated into Latin, and become class-books; and that their English educa¬ 
 tion should enable them, at least, to do a sum in the Rule of Three, and 
 to understand that James the First was not the son of Queen Elizabeth.” 
 
 From the nohle lord’s intimacy rvith the gentlemen of the upper 
 classes, we may receive this as evidence that the general school training 
 of those gentlemen, who may be called upon to vote away annually so 
 many millions of the public mone)’, raised from the excessive labour of 
 all the industrious classes, leaves them ignorant of arithmetical calcu¬ 
 lations, and of some of the most important facts in the history of their 
 native land, because their time is so much wasted in acquiring a minute 
 knowledge of all the deliciicies of heathen mythology; in learning to 
 recite gracefull)', and fully to comprehend the profound morality of 
 Terence; in scanning Greek lambics and Latin Hexameters, and culling 
 nonsense verses out of their Gradus. After having quitted their juvenile 
 academies and high schools, their course at Oxford and Cambridge is 
 nearly as exclusive, and totally unsuited to instruct them in that extensive 
 field of knowledge which the legislators of this commercial empire ought 
 to acquire. Surely, something better is required, even for their own pre¬ 
 servation, if they hope to retain the rank and estates which have been 
 gained by the feats of arms, by the legal knowledge, or commercial saga¬ 
 city and enterprise of their ancestors. 
 
 ^ In conclusion. Gentlemen, let me endeavour to impress upon your 
 ■ minds that the warning contained in the information communicated at the 
 
124 
 
 Manchester meeting, in the reports of every recent traveller, and the con- 
 tinnous intelligence in the foreign journals, all confirming the rapid 
 advance of manufactures on the Continent and in the United States, are 
 not to be neglected.,, You must not forget the superior advantageous 
 position in which the people of that country are placed. They are the 
 producers of the raw material, the manufacture of which has for so many 
 years greatly enriched this country; and are not only generally free from 
 national debt, and, consequently, from any taxation whatever to pay the 
 interest upon it (although they have their private state debts, similar to 
 our own county expenditure); hut, with very moderate duties upon the 
 import of some foreign productions, chiefly for the protection and encou¬ 
 ragement of their own rising manufactures, they have frequently a surplus 
 of income, applicable to the improvement of their internal communication, 
 the advancement of national education, and other public benefits. The 
 commercial embarrassments a few years since, which were chiefly caused 
 by over-speculation in land, by their unshilfulness in conducting banking 
 operations, by the deterioration of our own commerce, by the high price 
 of the British funds, and the general low remuneration of capital, whether 
 in commerce or at interest, rendering money of comparatively little value 
 in this country, and inducing our capitalists to run the chance of higher 
 interest in various American hazardous speculations—are but temporary 
 evils in that country, and will not operate against their future successful 
 ^^valship of our manufactures. 
 
 Let us not then deceive ourselves because we had arrived at so mag¬ 
 nificent an extension of commerce; let us recollect that throughout all 
 history we have found, that those cities and nations who imagined them¬ 
 selves to have arrived at such a state of perfection, of national wealth, 
 population, and power, that they might confidently hope to enjoy public 
 prosperity for a long continuance of ages, were then the nearest their 
 decline—like the fruit that has arrived at its most luscious maturity, is 
 soonest about to decay. Our own nation, upon whose dominions the 
 sun never sets, might be compared, a few years since, to the Roman 
 empire under Augustus; with the whole world at peace, the Christiau 
 religion beginning to dawn, gradually to extend among and render 
 civilized the most distant barbarians; an empire extending over al¬ 
 most the whole of the then known world; hut how speedily after did 
 her decline commence—a decline the more rapid and disastrous from 
 the very extent of her empire; her first reverses caused by the barbarian 
 tribes.,^ And what is the present condition of numerous other ancient 
 cities and empires which have successively fallen—chiefly from unjust, 
 expensive, and disastrous wars—the expenses of the governments exceed¬ 
 ing their revenues—from the too great luxury of the rich, and the too 
 great destitution of the poor,^e5troying all feeling of patriotism in their 
 bre.Tsts-}-thus rendering the empire feeble and defenceless.' These nations 
 
125 
 
 successively neglected the warning held out by their predecessors, each 
 believing that similar evils would not afflict itself. 
 
 What is now the condition of those ancient states which, like our own, 
 arose to grandeur, opulence, and power by successful commerce; Of 
 Tyre and Sidon; of Thebes, with its gorgeous temples and hundred brazen 
 gates; of Babylon and Palmyra; the city of Solomon—the Tadmor of the 
 desert—the emporium of the commerce of the fairest portion of the world 
 —that entire city of palaces, so magnificent that recent travellers have been 
 at a loss to discover the relics of a single edifice which seemed intended 
 for the dwelling of the poor. Yet what now remains of all her splendour ? 
 A mass of gorgeous ruin for the hyena and the wild animals of the desert 
 to make their lair in./Y\'hat does that Tyre which, more than any other 
 ancient city, resembled our London, now present ?—that city of which it 
 is said in sacred history, “ many isles were the merchandise of thy hand, 
 thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the mnltitude of thy riches, 
 and of thy merchandiseto add to whose external splendour and com¬ 
 mercial grandeur all the nations of the earth bore their tribute—“in 
 whose fairs were amassed the gold of Ophir—the precious stones of India 
 —the spices of Arabia—the shawls of Cashmere—the silks of Persia— 
 and the emeralds, the purple, and the broidered works of Syria.” Yet 
 what now remains of all this wealth and splendour ?—A bank of sand, 
 and a barren rock for fishers to dry their nets on! „ All that we know of 
 these cities and nations is—that once they were ! 
 
 --- Then let the eye view, and the mind reflect upon, the numerous silent 
 looms, foundries, mines, and dockyards for building; the squalid features 
 and harrowing details of misery that exist in so many of our cities, towns, 
 and villageslffThe increase of 405,408 paupers during 1848; the annual 
 increase of crime, during the last thirty-four years, from 7898 in 1815, 
 to 30,349 in 1848, in England alone; and then, let us reflect—Has Eng¬ 
 land nought to fear_^ The history of the last fourteen years e.xhihits that 
 there is too much cause to fear the results, when, notwithstanding the 
 last few months have exhibited symptoms of a partially reviving commerce, 
 still, in almost every part of the kingdom, particularly in those towns 
 which, some years since, presented the liveliest picture of industry, 
 wealth, and profitable commerce, we now so frequently witness the con¬ 
 dition of the general population greatly deteriorated, and still deterio¬ 
 rating; trade declining; wages reduced; bankruptcy among numerous 
 manufacturers, bankers, and other capitalists; the capitals of the agri¬ 
 culturists so reduced that, generally speaking, they can no longer aflbrd 
 the same e.xpense of labour to improve their lands, however profitable it 
 might subsequently prove; and, finally, periodical epochs of starvation 
 among the operatives of the towns and the labourers of the country 
 parishes. 
 
 In regard to the agricultural population, the Quarterly Review, even 
 
126 
 
 previous to the abolition of the Com Laws, remarked;—“That an all but! 
 universal change for the worse has taken place, in the condition and ^ 
 habits of this most important class, is a lamentable and admitted fact.; 
 That honesty, sobriety, industry, and contentment have disappeared 
 almost entirely among a body of men once remarkable for their virtues, is 
 a troth which no person conversant with the present state of the country 
 parishes will venture to contradict./ The wealth of the country, the pro¬ 
 ductive capacity of the soil, have been constantly and steadily increasing; 
 while the condition of those who till our fields, of those who, in one 
 sense, may be said to create the wealth, is daily retrograding.” 
 
 At a great count)' meeting at Gloucester, June 9th, 1849, Mr. Bowley, 
 in seconding the resolution, “ That distress prevails extensively among all 
 classes connected with agriculture in this country at the present time,” 
 remarked: “ He could bear testimony to the troth of the resolution, as 
 regarded the condition of the labouring poor.l He had presided for many 
 years over the Board of Guardians of the Cirencester Union, comprising 
 forty-two parishes, and he had never known greater distress among the 
 labouring classes than during the last three months (a period of the year 
 when, usually, farm labourers are fully employed). There were abund¬ 
 ance of labourers willing to work for 6s. or 7s. a week; but, though they 
 ■went from place to place seeking work, the farmers could not emjfioy 
 them, owing to the low price of produce, and for want of capital. Many 
 of the tradespeople of Gloucester had also signed the requisition for the 
 meeting, because they found that, in consequence of the distress among 
 the farmers, their usual sales had fallen off one-half.”,,Therefore they 
 /^would not be able to pay the same taxation as previously^ 
 
 I may now request my readers seriously to reflect upon the financial 
 state of the nation during the last twelve years of comparatively profound 
 peace—for, although the national troops have been engaged in the wars in 
 India, their e.xpences are paid by the East India Company—and then to 
 consider maturely what must be the result, when we find such lamenta¬ 
 bly convincing proofs of the decline of the empire in a continually 
 deficient revenue, and in the expenditure annually exceeding the income, 
 as contained in the following statement of our successive ministers. In 
 /the year 1840, the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared, that, having 
 struggled with an increasing deficiency of the revenue below the expendi¬ 
 ture during the preceding three years. Government had at length aroused 
 their energies; and therefore, in order to avoid such a catastrophe for 
 the futurepie proposed to increase the assessed taxes ten per cent.; the 
 ^customs and excise, with the exception of spirits, corn, anBTEe'post-horse 
 duly, FIVE per cent.; to lay an additional duty of id. per gallon on all 
 spirits; and he expected that, by a MORE STRICT COLLECTION of 
 the assessed taxes, he should also obtain £150,000. The amount would 
 then stand-7- 
 
than £4,000,000 below his anticipation. In addition to this, as the same 
 circumstances went on augmenting the evil, we find the deficiency for 
 1S42 no less than £2,149,885. We further find, in the parliamentary 
 returns, that the 
 
 Total taxation, in 1817, was . £50,805,157 
 
 Reduced, in 1832, to . . 46,877,497 
 
 And again augmented, in 1842, to 54,771,430 
 
 or no less than EIGHT MILLIONS per annum, by the votes of a 
 REFORMED PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The reformed ministry being thus at the end of their resources, and 
 having thrown up the task in despair. Sir Robert Peel, with the most 
 ardent desire, and confident hopes to effect some good, boldly imdertook 
 the task. In his speech, developing his financial plans, he first stated 
 the real deficiency for the preceding years, as he found them on taking 
 office: viz., in the years respectively ending 5th April, he found the 
 deficiency to be, for the years 
 
 1838 . . £1,428,534 I 1841 . . £1,851,997 
 
 1839 . . 1,430,325 1842 . . 2,334,559 
 
 1840 . . 1,457,223 | 1843 . . 2,570,000 
 
 Making, in six years, an aggregate of . £11,072,638 
 
 The new Premier subsequently stated: “ I have now discarded the 
 notion of meeting our financial difficulties by the wretched expedient of 
 fresh loans; I have attempted to carry your conviction with me, that, for 
 the purpose of revenue, WE HAVE ARRIVED AT THE LIMITS OF 
 
128 
 
 TAXATION upon articles of consumption; but it is possible to resort to 
 another mode of relieving ourselves from those difficulties. I now make 
 an earnest appeal to the possessors of property for the purpose of repair¬ 
 ing the mighty evil of a deficient revenue.” (general cheering). “ I propose 
 that, for a limited time, the income of the country shall bear a charge 
 of £2. ISs. 4(1. per cent., or Id. in the pound; which will he sufficient not 
 only to supply the present deficiency, hut enable us to make those great 
 commercial reforms which will afford to us the hope of reviving the trade, 
 and of improving the state of our manufactures, and which will soon re¬ 
 act upon every interest in the country. No man can feel a more intimate 
 conviction than 1 do, that whatever may be your financial difficulties, you 
 must so adopt and adjust your measures, as not to bear upon the comforts 
 of the labouring classeswhich sentiment, responding to the feelings of 
 the honourable House, was loudly cheered. But, on the same subject, a 
 writer in the Morning Post of Nov. 8th, of the same year, says“ Fund¬ 
 ing is, in its result, taxing the poor to pay the interest of the funded 
 debt. I know that it is possible so to impose the taxes, as that they shall 
 not fall upon the poor directly ; hut it is not possible so to impose them 
 that they shall not mainly fall upon the poor indirectly. Can you so tax 
 a rich man that he cannot throw the burden off his shoulders ? Those 
 who cannot do so are the poor—they cannot live upon what you cannot 
 tax, and they cannot economise by way of compensation.” Most fashion¬ 
 able people live up to their income ; therefore, how are the proceeds of a 
 new tax on income or property, in the first instance, to be provided for 
 by them ? They discharge a few valets, or other servants, who only run 
 in each other’s way; sell some of their horses, which they seldom or 
 never ride; discharge a few labourers, who have been previously em¬ 
 ployed in keeping their gardens or shrubberies clean j and thus throw 
 an extra quantum of human laboiur into the market, which lowers the rate 
 of wages, and sen'es to fill the union houses, the infirmaries, and the 
 prisons. Perhaps they and the ladies of their families abridge themselves 
 of some portion of their expenditure with the tailor and milliner; but all 
 this, instead of being a privation of any real pleasure, frequently contri¬ 
 butes to their comfort, by lessening their daily cares. 
 
 But when the Lords of the Treasury demand more honey, it is the 
 extra labour of the working bees—the farmers, manufacturers, and all 
 dependent upon them, which must produce it. The unemployed rich, 
 who merely loll on their sofas, saunter over their lawns, or through their 
 parks, or idle their time at the clubs, cannot possibly produce any, nor 
 can they be said really to pay any tax. Among this class no person wiU 
 include such men as the late Mr. Coke, of Norfolk (Pari of Leicester), 
 Mr. Curwen, Lord Western, and many similar men, whose science and 
 prmseworthy example caused many quarters of corn to grow where 
 none grew before;—nor such men as the Earl of Rosse, and num- 
 
129 
 
 bers of our eminent statesmen and other public characters, who labour 
 more assiduously and more efficiently with their minds, and even with 
 their bodies, for the general welfare of the nation, than the men who 
 throw the shuttle, heave the anchor, or drive the plough. But, without 
 labour of some kind, no wealth can he produced. For what is capital ! 
 Is it not the produce of the extra labour of men of science and industry, 
 beyond what is required for their individual suhsistence ! For—previously 
 to the e.xertion of the science of the architect, and the manual labour of 
 the mason and hricklayer and carpenter—of what value were the stones 
 and hricks and timber, that now compose the immense wealth in the 
 streets and squares of London ? Then, ye legislators, if ye wish to con¬ 
 tinue to enjoy the fruits of their labours, ye must not simply so lay on 
 your taxes that they may not immediately press upon the industrious 
 classes, but you must taie them off as far as possible. Ye must not starve 
 the ox that treadeth out the corn, or ye will have no bread yourselves. 
 
 For what was the REAL, though somewhat remote, effect of this pro¬ 
 perty tax ? In the first instance, it was paid hy the landowners and 
 capitalists; but soon, many, even of the nobility and wealthy proprietors, 
 reduced the wages of the labourers who were working in their fields, and 
 parks, and gardens, from 14s. to 12s.; subsequently, to 10s.: and to 
 many of them it is intimated that, after harvest, they rvill be fiuther 
 reduced to 8s. per week. At present, these labourers are as honest and 
 industrious a class of men as any in the kingdom; but is it probable that 
 they can long remain so i Many of them have large families, clamorous 
 for food—frequently six or eight dependent on the labour of one man— 
 who, after paying 4s. per w'eek, at the lowest compulation, for rent and 
 firing, finds he has only 6s., and many only 4s., to provide food and 
 clotlring for his family; or, about one penny per day, for the subsist¬ 
 ence of each individual 1! 1 And this in once “ merry Englandand, to 
 my own knowledge, in one of the most productive counties in the king¬ 
 dom. Can we wonder that there are so many vagrant beggars, and so great 
 an increase of crime ? Who can contemplate, without fearful forebodings, 
 the official returns, exhibiting that the increase in the number of paupers, 
 during last year, was no less than 405,408—and that the convictions for 
 crime have increased from 7898 in 1815, to 30,349 in 1848—for England 
 alone; and, including Scotland and Ireland, the total amount is 73,789: 
 and all these must be supported in unproductive idleness, at more than 
 double the expense of an equal number of persons employed in honest, 
 productive industry. 
 
 On May 6th, the Premier informed us, ‘‘There had been a great com¬ 
 plaint, respecting the depression of trade, for the last three years and 
 more. It was impossible to say that any one of those three years was 
 prosperous. He should be sorry to express any very sanguine expecta¬ 
 tions of the recovery of trade; for, he was bound to say, that the spring 
 
130 
 
 had disappointed his expectations, and had contradicted his hopes of a 
 restoration of trade.” 
 
 By the returns of the subsequent October quarter, we find that there 
 was a frightful decrease in the receipts of the excise department, of no less 
 than £434,831; which, as was observed in the Times, “ tells a more 
 fearful tale of the sufiferings and privations brought upon the labouring 
 classes than any fact or statement which has been previously made public.” 
 Another journal remarked: " How many little comforts are included in this 
 deficiency of nearly half a million 1 ^ow many millions-worth of fire¬ 
 side enjoyments, social smiles, and glees and jokes, and kind words, and 
 compliments, and little hospitalities—that cheer and invigorate the mind 
 that loves to he useful and agreeable! How many opportunities have 
 been sacrificed of drawing closer, and rendering dearer and more delight¬ 
 ing, the bonds of relationship and friendship, all crushed, assassinated, 
 obliterated from the book of life, by this awful deficit of half a mil- 
 .Jion !”^These privations have been, probably, more acutely felt by the 
 class of persons who, from their situation in life, are forced to preserve 
 hvhat is termed “ a respectabl e appearanceand, without which, many 
 1 could not retain certtun situations that produce their "income, nor pursue 
 J theii trade or profession with advantage.' ’ . 
 
 Sir Robert Peel having again resigned the helm to Lord John Russell, 
 and similarly adverse circumstances continuing—of a deficient revenue, 
 and an increasing expenditure,—the Premier endeavoured to raise about 
 THREE MILLIONS more per annum, by increasing the property and 
 income tax from tfiree to Jive per cent.; and, although the general voice 
 of the nation forced him to abandon the proposition, it was intimated by 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the increased taxation would only 
 he deferred until Government could devise some means of raising the 
 required amount upon objects less exposed to general opposition. 
 
 Surely, Gentlemen, ye landowners, farmers, manufacturers, merchants, 
 and all other tax-payers, it is time for you to believe that this National 
 Debt Taxation, which causes so many evils, is as much your own 
 PRIVATE DEBT as any money you owe to your butcher, baker, or other 
 tradesman! Yon must take warning from the dreadful evils caused by a 
 similar gradual increase of taxation, and consequent irritation among the 
 mass of the population—not only in France, but in numerous other states, 
 of which history informs us. Without some remedy be applied, there is 
 great reason to dread, “The might that slumbers in a peasant’s arm.” 
 To avert the domestic and national calamities that must inevitably occur, 
 without some remedy be found out, and immediately and actively admi¬ 
 nistered, new and continued efforts will long be required i but the greatest 
 and most effective at present—indeed, it may be said, the only preventa¬ 
 tive is-the GRADUAL REDUCTION OF EXPENDITURE, AND 
 EVENTUAL ANNIHILATION OF OUR NATIONAL DEBT, and 
 
131 
 
 its attendant enormous and oppressive annual taxation ot THIRTY 
 MILLIONS. 
 
 And wliat patriotic, benevolent, and Christian heart would not desire 
 the long, continuance in strength and prosperity, for many an age, of this 
 country^which is looked up to as the beacon to light the people of other — 
 nations in their course after the attainment of civil and religious liberty; 
 and, if they run upon a shoal, then it presents a haven of safe retreat and 
 r^ge from persecution, imprisonment, and death; which has sheltered 
 both princes and people by thousands, of various"" nations in succession, 
 from France and Holland; Spain and Portugal; from Italy and Poland ; 
 and the benevolence and religious fervour of whose inhabitants have sent 
 forth their fleets and their millions of gold, and their Christian mission¬ 
 aries, to redeem from slavery the suffering African, and to spread the 
 blessings of the Gospel—peace and goodwill—among the most distant 
 and ferocious savages, from pole to pole.' 
 
 Gentlemen,—I have thus brought before your view what I have believed 
 to he a sufficient number of facts to draw y'our attention to the importance 
 of the subject; to justify the calculations I have made, and the conclu¬ 
 sions that I have drawn; to prove that our National Debt, and the 
 unwise and, to the nation, ruinous regulations of the public stocks, are 
 really the primary and chief causes of all our commercial and agricultural 
 distresses; and I hope you may he induced to take the plan I have pro¬ 
 posed into your serious consideration. I pray you to reflect upon what 
 must he the result with any individual merchant, whose liabilities are yearly 
 increasing, and whose profit'or revenue is annually diminishing. Joint- 
 stock companies, corporations, or even nations, must he liable to the same 
 results. Then reflect upon the misery and accumulation of horrors that 
 must result from a national bankruptcy. It has been repeatedly urged 
 in Parliament, by the highest official authorities, that the will of the 
 people must he generally expressed before any public measure of improve¬ 
 ment can be effected. Then, Gentlemen, if, upon mature consideration, 
 you should believe that there is TRUTH, UTILITY, and, above all, 
 JUSTICE, in my propositions, it remains with yourselves to procure its 
 execution. But you must be active, persevering, and unanimous. You 
 must not allow any dispute or contention, about minor abstract or theo¬ 
 retical reforms, to divert you from the pursuit of this one grand and 
 SUBSTANTIAL OBJECT; for, if this he once obtained, all the minor 
 remedies will naturally come into operation. 
 
 The National Debt, under every administration, is the Hot-hed and 
 Nursery of all the Corruptions in the State, as well as of the weeds that 
 empoison our commerce. If your first petitions he unattended with sue- 
 
132 
 
 cess, you must then follow Lord Melbourne’s advice, and continue the 
 agitation, until such a voice be raised that may reverberate through every 
 town and village of the empire—through the whole length and breadth of 
 the land; from Norfolk on the east to St. David’s on the west; from 
 John o’ Groat’s House to the Land’s End—a voice so clear, so explicit, 
 so determined, so powerful, that no single representative, no minister, 
 will dare to resist or neglect. Then, if by your exertions the people of 
 this great empire can maintain life cheaply; that every industrious ope¬ 
 rative and labourer in the kingdom can enjoy a plentiful and wholesome 
 meal to strengthen him for his work; and that not only the necessaries 
 but the comforts of life may be so reduced in price, that a great portion 
 of the 60,000 fundholders and other annuitants and pensioners whom 
 the dearness of provisions and the excessive taxation have induced to 
 reside in a foreign land, where meat, tea, sugar, wine, fruit, and numer¬ 
 ous other articles, are so much cheaper than in Great Britain, be 
 attracted back to their native land, to spend their FIVE or SIX MIL¬ 
 LIONS in the support of our own manufacturers and labourers;—then, 
 with our immense capital, wth all the natural advantages which our 
 mines of coal, iron, salt, copjier, tin, and other metals afford; with the 
 advantages of our insular situation and our rivers; with the added arti¬ 
 ficial advantages of easy transport and communication which our canals, 
 rail-roads, harbours, and steam-vessels have added; with a climate that 
 renders exertion not only necessary, but a pleasure; with the industry, 
 ingenuity, enterprise, and indomitable perseverance, which for centuries 
 have distinguished the general population of this island;—aided by that 
 high reputation for integrity, which our merchants have raised for them¬ 
 selves ;—with the skill, hardihood, and enterprise of our mariners;—then 
 may our natural and manufactured productions go forth into all the 
 markets of the world, fearless of competition and regardless of foreign 
 tariffs and prohibitions—for 
 
 , " Nought can make us rue, 
 
 i V1. C" If England to herself do rest hut true.” 
 
 .. ",. Your sincere well wisher, 
 
 aSn'taiinicus.