FINANCIAL REFORM. 
 
 POUNDS SHILLINGS & PENCE 
 APPEAL 
 
 ljiiSTNES« MEN OF ENGEANI). 
 
 Bi' J, GROSSMITH. 
 
 j'iilcrcfinnt. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 STRANGE, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 
 1849. 
 
 Price Twopence. 
 
\%vvq £ 
 
 Ci, \ vV 
 
 
 MOTTBAM 
 
POUNDS SHILLINGS AND PENCE APPEAL 
 
 BUSINESS MEN OF ENGLAND. 
 
 I uNDEETAKE to pi'ove the following propositione :— 
 
 1. That in consequence of excessive TAx.moN, these, out of 
 
 EVEET SIX days’ LABOUE IS ADSOEBED BY THE STATE. 
 
 2. That a teadesman making £1000 a-year, and living up to 
 
 THAT AMOUNT, PAYS £500 IN TAXES. 
 
 3. Man’s laboue, whether tradesman or artizan, is doubled 
 
 BY taxation. 
 
 4. In addition to the natural, there is eequired an artificial 
 
 capital, in the PROSECDTION of trade for the GOVERNMENT, 
 EATHEE than for THE INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 5. That feom competition in goods of equal value with those 
 
 OF other countries, England is driven to artificially 
 
 HIGH PRICES BY TAXATION DESTRUCTIVE TO OUR FOREIGN COM¬ 
 MERCIAL ENTERPRISE. 
 
 6. That this taxation is not only needlessly excessive in 
 
 AMOUNT, BUT UNJUST IN PRINCIPLE, AND THAT THESE EXCESSES, 
 AND THIS INJUSTICE, ARISE FROM THE LEGISLATIVE EXEMPTIONS 
 IN FAVOUR OF THE LANDED INTEREST. 
 
 7. That these real grievances, one and all, arise from the 
 
 ABSENCE OF A FAIR REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM. 
 
 1. T/iat in consequence of excessive taxation, three, out of every six. 
 (lays' labour is absorbed by the State. 
 
 It has now grown to be a matter of policy to make scruti- 
 nous inquiries into the cause of tlie morbid action in trade—into 
 
4 
 
 the increased and alarming difficulties and uncertainties which im¬ 
 pede commercial progress—to discover the cause, and to set about 
 in good earnest to remove unequal burdens wherever we find them 
 to esist. Is it not prudent for every man of business to work in 
 the light, and not in the dark r and is it not therefore highly essen- 
 rial that sufficient time should be appropriated to the due considera¬ 
 tion of the laws which govern us ? How few laws have we that do 
 not concern us in our hourly business engagements! Taxation 
 stares ns in the face in aU our movements, while its indirect action, 
 and the power of habit, have deprived us of the power of discern¬ 
 ing them. Difficulties may be crowding upon us daOy and hourly 
 through excessive taxation, and yet we spare no time for withdraw¬ 
 ing ourselves from this all-absorbing pursuit of business, though by 
 this very negligence we have allowed the burden to accumulate,— 
 until more than half the business man’s time is actually taken up in 
 earning the amount of his direct and indirect taxation. 
 
 Examining into the cause of that excessive anxiety and uncer¬ 
 tainty attendant upon the progress of commercial pursuits, I shall 
 prove the cause to exist in the inordinate taxation of this country. 
 Business is now rendered a fi/e and death struggle, by aristocratic ex¬ 
 tortion. I find that one-half of our anxious toil, so fatally encroach¬ 
 ing upon health, arises out of the burthen of taxes. Every trades¬ 
 man is actually working boo days in every week to meet his oicn 
 personal share of taxation, and all who employ labour, and give 
 credit, work one day more in the week, by taking their quota of the 
 taxation of that labour, and by the losses from bad debts, the 
 result of the crushing weight of taxation. Hence the small pro¬ 
 portion of persons entering trade who succeed, compared with the 
 unsuccessfol and struggling multitude of traders. The losses from 
 had debts, amount to £51,450,000, which I shall prove, for the most 
 part, to he the result of great taxation, thus forming another day in 
 the week lost to the tradesman.* 
 
 I now prove from the following computation, that in England man 
 
 * See ilr. "William Hawes’s calculation, as President of the Committee of 
 Bankruptcy:— 
 
 1st The gross amount of debts proved an¬ 
 nually in the Court of Bankruptcy . . . £7,000,000 
 
 The gross amount of debts settled under 
 deeds of composition and assignments, is , 70,000,000 
 
 -£77,000,000 
 
5 
 
 works three days in the week for his taxation, and I shall afterwards 
 sustain the proposition that in point of fact he works nearer FOTtb. 
 
 The income-tax shows but imperfectly the whole personal and 
 entailed incomes of Great Britain, 
 
 Which amount in round numbers to ... . £200,000,000 
 
 But knowing that many of these re tons ai'e below the 
 
 actual income, I now adduce an approximate income, 
 arising out of trade and labour only 
 Farmers and nurserymen . . . 250,000 
 
 Averaging £200 each per annum . . . 50,000,000 
 
 Gardeners and agrieultoul labourers . . 1,000,000 
 
 One-sixth of which are constantly out of 
 employ, which we deduct from the . 1,000,000 
 166,666 
 
 Leaving of employed lahom'ers, at £20 a-year 833,334 16,666,680 
 
 Trade and manufacture labourers . . . 2,000,000 
 
 One-third of which are constantly out of 
 employ. 666,666 
 
 Leaving, at £45 a-year .... 1,333,334 60,000,000 
 
 Merchants, Bankers, and Capitalists, at £500 
 
 each per year. 200,000 100,000,000 
 
 Servants and labourers, not agricultural . 600,000 
 
 One-third of which are out of employ; 
 leaving, at £20 a-year . . . 400,000 8,000,000 
 
 Mines, quan’ies, non and other works, and 
 railroads, the approximate incomes of which 
 
 amount to. 5,647,315 
 
 The total amount of incomes arising out of trade and industry £240,213,995 
 
 The average dividend received on bankruptcy 
 estates is 3s. in the pound, or upon £7,000,000, 
 
 a sum of.£1,050,000 
 
 The average dividend on estates settled under 
 deeds of composition, is Ts. in the pound, or on 
 £70,000,000 a siun of.£24,500,000 
 
 £25,550,000 
 
 Net loss by bankruptcies and insolvencies . £51,450,000 
 
 “ This is exclusive of the losses by non-tradefs in the Com-t of Insolvency, 
 and all losses in minor courts, and a vast amount of debts never claimed, on 
 account of the law-expenses and delay in obtaining a remedy.” 
 
6 
 
 Making, in round numbers. 240,000,000 
 
 Our temporal and spiritual taxation, amounts to . . £80,000,000 
 
 £80,000,000, is one-third of the industrial income of 
 England and Scotland.£240,000,000 
 
 Hence, we amve at one-third of the amount of our weekly labom 
 for taxes only; as two days in the week are one-third of that week 
 of six days’ labour, so eighty millions are one-third of two hundred 
 and forty millions. The other day is made up by the employer’s fur¬ 
 ther participation of taxed labour and losses from bad debts,* making 
 altogether three days in the week, or one-half of his whole time and 
 exertion; or, in other words, a man making one thousand a year, 
 and spending it, pays five hundred thereof for taxes. 
 
 There is also the delegated and local taxation, by companies and 
 commissioners, the amount of which has lately been stated in Parlia¬ 
 ment to be £20,000,000 annually, arising out of our excessively-paid 
 official Government. These lordly functionaries are too well paid tc 
 work, to exercise scrutiny and control over a system peculiarly liable 
 to abuse. Englishmen attend to their own immediate business well: 
 but they leave their greatest matters to be managed by an unbusi- 
 ness-like aristocracy, who neglect their duties, and leave these dele¬ 
 gated powers to exercise an uncontrolled perversion of the system to 
 whatever extent their own interest might suggest, without noticing 
 their accumulating peculations and growing recklessness: thus leav¬ 
 ing them utterly destitute of those vigorous checks which the 
 national interests require. The-Englishman’s assiduity is thwarted 
 and its advantages neutralized by this national oversight. What do 
 we say now to the man of business who, in attending to the minutim 
 of his business, neglects his accounts, and, while working hard, finds 
 himself heavily in debt, and his affairs embarrassed ? Why, we say 
 that TTian did not exercise his mind on the most essential part of his 
 business; or, in other words, he neglected the grand pivot upon 
 which his business turned, and the leverage upon which the 
 machinery depended. The analogy is strictly correct in relation to 
 the conduct of the great body of English tradesmen towards the 
 nation; they neglect their Government expenditure and finances, 
 and, while-toiling and persevering, they find themselves in debt and 
 
 * 40,000,000 taken from tlie 51,4-50,000, stated to be the result of taxation, 
 amount to one-sixth of the 240 millions, the industrial income of England. 
 
7 
 
 embarrassment, and more than one half of their hard earnings, more 
 than one half of their close application to business, go to bolster 
 up their too-little questioned Government. 
 
 It will be seen, that, in proving our taxation to absorb the fruits 
 of three days’ labour in the week, I have taken care to be within the 
 amount in naming eighty millions as England’s temporal and 
 spiritual taxation; so that if any one has succeeded in persuading 
 himself that the £9,165,438 (the church revenue), is not a tax, there 
 are the twenty millions of local and delegated taxation left as a wide 
 margin. Or, for any person who has worked his mind into a belief 
 that the poor’s rates, amounting to £6,180,765, are, for the greater 
 part, an unavoidable amount, and that this must exist under any 
 Government, I beg to remind him that “ there are more things in 
 heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” Had we 
 not such an unnatural burden of taxes—a burden so absurd and 
 ridiculous—our manufacturers would not be in so unnatural and 
 wrong a relation to all other less-taxed countries;—employment, 
 with half the amount of taxation that now exists, would be more 
 generally obtained, and on terms far more advantageous both to 
 employer and employed. Our employers of labour now cannot suc¬ 
 cessfully work, because labour is taxed too highly; whilst foreign 
 merchants cannot now buy our manufactures, because we are not in 
 a position to produce sufficiently cheap. Thus the stagnation of our 
 commerce is to be traced to taxation, and the excess of unemployed 
 labourers augments our poor’s rates, and bids fair to beggar our 
 country. Instead of which, were our taxes fairly adjusted, and the 
 rich aristocrats made to take their due share of the taxation of the 
 country, our increasing population would be a source of wealth; for 
 labour is the fundamental source of wealth; and, in a well-organized 
 country, an increase of labourers born on the soil, is a source of 
 sterling wealth. Our country is not, alas! well organized, and, 
 therefore, labour is redundant, and our poor-rates £6,180,765. 
 
 Much has been said about attractive labour; but when employ¬ 
 ment becomes abundant, varieties of employment increase with that 
 abundance, adapted to all tastes and diversities of talent. Lessen tax¬ 
 ation, and work becomes more pleasurable, and, therefore, more attrac¬ 
 tive—who likes to work three, or four days in a week for nothing? 
 
 I now advance to my second proposition 
 
2. That a tradesman making a thousaml a year, and living up to 
 that amount, pays £500 in taxes. —Lea\ing further points to be illus¬ 
 trated hereafter. 
 
 This is sufficiently evident firom the foregoing figures; and hence 
 I need only remark that, had the merchant to write a cheque for that 
 amount of £500 yearly, instead of paying it imperceptibly in the 
 shape of indirect taxes, so cunningly laid on that they elude the 
 eye, though they weigh down the energy, this appalling amount 
 would be startling enough, and men would he ready to denounce 
 both the infamy of our present wasteful expenditure, and the 
 suicidal folly of the people’s tame submission to it. It is evident, 
 then, that if £20 be the weekly expenditure of £1,000 per annum, 
 and half that amount is absorbed by taxation; £10 goes to the 
 Exchequer, which is to the meek what £600 is to the year. 
 
 3. Man's labour, whether tradesman or artizan, is doubled by tax¬ 
 ation. 
 
 Why, but for this extravagant and enormous taxation (man’s 
 labour being more than actually doubled in every week’s toil), he 
 could do that in half the week (or in three days) which now requires 
 the whole week. However desirable it undoubtedly is for business 
 to close at an early hour, the principle can never be carried out in 
 the fece of this immense drawback by taxation; the only barrier to 
 early closing, and to the restriction of the hours of labour to eight, 
 is England’s taxation. On this account our policemen have long 
 and dreary nights; and are too many hours on duty: on this 
 account, also, our sailors and soldiers have too many hours of weari¬ 
 some duty, in all seasons, at all times. 
 
 K further proof be required that the tradesman works more than 
 three days in the week for the taxes, it will be found in the fact that 
 out of the £56,949,000—the Government taxes upon the country— 
 £47,398,000 out of that amoimt is obtained from the industrious 
 part of the community,—while the property of the country only 
 pays £9,551,000; so that four-fifths of the taxes are paid by the 
 working and commercial classes. We find, therefore, that, in¬ 
 stead of tradesmen having to take their quota only, out of the 
 entire income of Great Britain, they have taken the excess to which 
 their industry is taxed beyond that of the holders of permanent and 
 other property, which is actually five to one!! 1 This proves that 
 
the tradesman’s labour for taxes is enormous, and that our labour 
 is more than doubled by taxation, and that nearer four days 
 in the week tradesmen and labourers work for their. Govern¬ 
 ment only. This is more than tradesmen can be expected to submit 
 to: it is straining the bow too tight. However kind-hearted and' 
 generous John Bull has always been, there is a time, also, for him 
 to make a stand; and when he finds that these incumbrances on 
 our industry are undermining our physical strength, and that anxiety 
 is engendering disease in our very bodies—dyspepsia, hypochondria- 
 cism, and insanity; when he discovers that he must be just before 
 he is generous; and that his own trading citizens have a claim upon 
 his sympathies, and justice a claim, no less real, upon his protec¬ 
 tion, he will be awakened to the danger in which his own interests 
 are also Involved, and avert the impending consequences of these 
 anxieties and commercial distractions. Our very morals, too, are 
 impaired by the strong and severe test the honest trader experiences 
 in struggling against the burthens and competition in which his 
 sinking fellow-tradesman’s embarrassments involve him. Too often, 
 in the efibrt to save himself, the man grasps at straws, and dis¬ 
 honestly realizes upon his creditors’ capital, by selling for less than 
 cost, in order to withstand the torrent which bears against him. 
 Two evils result from the one bad act; the creditor is robbed, and 
 the honest brother tradesman forced into a ruinous competition. 
 This is one of the many results of our oppressive and unequal taxa¬ 
 tion, which crushes the very vitality of our commercial system,—the 
 very energies, physical and moral, of commercial industry;—and 
 which, if persisted in, will destroy even emulation itself, and the 
 young honest aspirant will be degraded into a -victim of cunning 
 and knavish selfishness; despair will breed indifference, indolence, 
 and immorality, which are ever the signs and forerunners of the 
 downfal of empires. 
 
 For those who will patiently go with me a step farther, I with¬ 
 draw the curtain which mantles political injustice, and give them a 
 view behind the scenes. 
 
 Having shown that our taxation is excessive, I will now disclose 
 its multiform modes of undermining action; which I have only 
 space to do briefly. In addition to the foregoing incomes arising 
 out of trade and industry, the incomes arising out of ownerships 
 of land and tenements amount to £94,810,599, but only yield to 
 the revenue, beyond its share of the income-tax, £1,214,000, 
 
10 
 
 instead of £18,962,000, which it ought to yield, were the 4s. in the 
 pound obtained, according to its present value. 
 
 This landed' income, then, of £94,000,000, contributing to the 
 revenue only £1,214,000, must he seen to bear no proportion to 
 the taxation imposed on trade, industry, and convertible property : 
 we therefore show the per centage which £1,214,430 bears to the 
 £94,810,599, which we shall find to be about one-and-a-quarter 
 per cent., while trade and industry pays, at the least, sixty-five 
 per cent, of its hard earnings into the Exchequer.* 
 
 This calculation would show, that nearer four than three days are 
 the result of all the consequences of taxation, direct and indirect. 
 
 This shows us forcibly what England has come to ; that her taxes 
 bear no relation at all to her entire income, but are all absorbent, 
 and wholly subversive other common resources; and unless we have 
 large retrenchments, national bankruptcy must ensue. I have now 
 proved that which Mr. S. Gurney said (who is an authority), that 
 unless England retrenched, national bankruptcy must ensue. 
 
 4. In addition to the natural, there is required an artificial capital 
 in the prosecution of trade, for the Government rather than the 
 individual. 
 
 Men of commerce have to toil in mind and body to find the in¬ 
 creased amount of capital, which the taxes and duties compel them 
 to obtain for a Government, unprecedented in the history of the 
 world for its extravagance and useless expenditure! The artificial 
 capital employed in commerce is the result of the heavy weight of 
 taxes. The natural capital of the country, how'ever great, is not 
 sufficient to supply the heavy demands of Government. This has 
 given rise to an immensely-depreciated currency, the penalty of 
 which labour has had and stiU has to pay. Hence the necessity of 
 an additional circulating medium. The country not having the 
 value itself, sufficient for the unnatural demand of Government, a 
 representation of value was employed, and paper issue became neces¬ 
 sary to the taxation ; but not to the country without the taxation. 
 
 * I have not deducted the amount of £1,214,000, which to that amount 
 contributes towards the taxes of £80,000,000; neither have I deducted 
 the amount which that property pays tow.ards the Income-tax: having 
 left a wide margin for such matters, in that of the dcleg,ated and local 
 
11 
 
 As with nations, so with individuals; the artificial capital ds hecesr 
 saty to taxation of the individual, but not do-the individual 
 wiilioutth taxation. The great first duty, of everyman of business 
 is to rouse himself , from that indifference which has allowed these 
 taxes to accumulate upon him, and has permitted an unscnipulous 
 aristocracy to malm easy invasions upon his already crippled energy. 
 This has grown now to he an urgent business consideration.- Shall 
 we have om' labom' doubled by reckless legislators, and continue -to 
 work three or four days in the week, instead of one, for a Govern¬ 
 ment which could be rendered more efficient to-business memat-a 
 cost of a third of its present expenditure? It is, -therefore, 
 saved, and not time lost, to look into the laws which govern us as 
 individuals. 
 
 5. That from competition with other countries in goods of equal' 
 value, England is driven to artificially high prices from unnecessary 
 taxes, ivhich are destructive to our foreign commercial enterprise. 
 
 If there be no incentive to action in the power of sympathy for 
 our fellow-man, there is a line of policy which commerce dictates as 
 the only means of avoiding that which threatens the destruction of 
 this nation. England’s greatn'Oss must encounter a speedy ddwnfal 
 if this line of policy be not readily enunciated, and reductions of 
 taxation become the distinguished propagandism of the day. That 
 line of policy is a careful and unflinching inquiry into the natural 
 resources of all the other nations of the world; weighing those 
 resources in a just balance with our own. In order that we may 
 accomplish this, let all the wisdom and experience of the past be 
 brought to bear upon this subject; let geography, geology, chemistry, 
 and agriculture,contribute their shareof facts to the investigation; in 
 flne, we need an inquiry which shaU embrace the entire subject, 
 together with the local and available facilities, and the commercial 
 relations of nations. It wfll be found when such inquiry-is'insti¬ 
 tuted, that God has provided other nations of the earth with greater 
 natoal resources for-the production of a certain species of wealth,— 
 such, for instance, as precious stones, drugs and spices, ftuit and com, 
 cotton and silk, &c.; but by a grand master-stroke of infinite wisdom 
 while He has furnished those nations with greater natural re- 
 sources in theboioels and surface of then respective localities, at 
 the same time, God has provided Great Britain with greater physical 
 energy, rendering her capable of a more enduring enterprise, and 
 
12 
 
 persevering activity, which is more than an equivalent for the disad¬ 
 vantages consequent on her peculiar position. Besides which, by 
 most nations, the line of policy pursued is specific, when compared 
 with the broader and more general policy which has recently been 
 affirmed and adopted by the English nation. 
 
 England’s policy is vast, and comprehends mercantile operations 
 with the whole world; our narrow confines drive us far and wide, 
 and, having the commercial locus standi, England wiU become the 
 emporium for the whole world, the manufacturers and shop-keepers 
 of the earth. We want now only to be governed by more com • 
 mercial statesmen. 
 
 A mercantile nation must not leave the management of their 
 a ffai rs in the hands of the aristocracy, whose scions know nothing 
 about commerce, but hold it in utter contempt, and are too indolent 
 to learn, and too well paid for doing nothing. England is wrong in 
 her fiscal arrangements, which we wiU now investigate. This inquiry 
 will enable us to comprehend the international policy—the false 
 position we bear in relation to other less-taxed countries. As with 
 individuals, so with nations; he who is encumbered with mortgage 
 or embarrassing debts, or heavy interest on his capital, must cer¬ 
 tainly be oppressed thereby; so, comparatively, is that nation which 
 is inordinately taxed, placed in a wrong or disadvantageous relation 
 towards other countries not so encumbered. 
 
 6. That this taxation is not only needlessly excessive in amount, but 
 unjust in principle; and that these excesses, and this injustice, arise from 
 the legislative exemptions in favour of the landed interest. 
 
 This burden, felt to be more grievous as it approaches poverty, 
 arises &om the political error of removing the burden of taxation 
 from the shoulders of the possessors of land, as held by feudal and 
 military tenure, to the shoulders of the people; through the bargain 
 made between Charles IT. and the aristocracy, by which war became 
 to them alone, instead of a source of expense, a most profitable 
 game. The amount spent since that fatal error in wars, and interest 
 upon it, amounts to the meredible sum of £3,383,022,500. This 
 shows us how we are to expect protection at the hands of the 
 aristocracy. They are conservative to themselves, but destruc¬ 
 tive to the nation:— 
 
13 
 
 The war of 1688 lasted nine years, and cost at the time £36,000,000 
 Borrowed to support it, twenty millions; the interest on 
 which, in 152 years, at 3| per cent., amounts to - 186,400,000 
 
 The war of the Spanish succession lasted eleven years, 
 
 . 62,500,000 
 
 Borrowed to support it, thirty-two and a half millions; 
 
 the interest, in 127 year's, amounts to - - - 114,462,500 
 
 The Spanish war ending 1749, lasted nine years, and cost 54,000,000 
 BoiTowed to support it, twenty-nine millions; the 
 
 interest, in 102 years, amounts to - - - - 103,530,000 
 
 The war of 1756 lasted seven year's, and cost - - - 112,000,000 
 
 Borrowed to support it, sixty millions; the interest, in 
 seven years, amounts to ----- - 161,700,000 
 
 The American war lasted eight years, and cost - - 136,000,000 
 
 Borrowed to support it, 104 millions; the interest, 65 
 
 years, amounts to. 236,600,000 
 
 The French Kevolutionary war, lasted nine years, and cost £461,000,000 
 
 Bor't'owed to support it, 201 millions; the interest, in 
 
 thirty-eight years, amounts to. 267,330,000 
 
 The war against Buonaparte lasted 12 years, and cost - 1,159,000,000 
 
 Borrowed to support it, 380 millions; the interest, in 
 twenty-five years, amounts to. 339,500,000 
 
 — Hampden’s Aristocracy of England. - 
 
 Is not this amount sufficiently alarming ? Will England never 
 awaken to a sense of her national wrongs ? Is it not high time 
 we knew something of the details of this prodigal expenditure, 
 however revolting to us, who have worked hard for these millions, 
 paid for the ostensible purpose of warfare ? These sums have been 
 spent by our kings and princes in their concubinage and debauchery. 
 Our granting subsidies so readily caused them to spend it so pro¬ 
 fusely i their very morals were injured by it—profligacy and sen¬ 
 suality were the characteristic results of those extravagant means 
 which we afforded them. We tradesmen know well that the only 
 way to ruin our sons is, to give them plenty of money in youth, and 
 plenty of time to spend it in, not letting them know that they will 
 ever have to work for it. Yet we have never seen the correctness 
 of the principle as applied to the sons of the aristocracy, whom we 
 seem to expect to become prudent and wise men, fitting to be our 
 future legislators, by magic! 
 
 The royal expenditure since the accession of George III., 
 
14 
 
 amounts to £101,957,807! As men of business, we look after our 
 own expenditure at home, and our balance-sheets must refer to a 
 folio of detailed petty expenditure; but while we have been looking 
 after the pence, we have allowed our millions to be squandered. There 
 is about seven millions of 'money annually squandered in our Com¬ 
 mons’ House of Parliament, without the House having any know¬ 
 ledge of its disbursements; and 120 millions have thus been spent 
 since 1832. Let ns no longer call ourselves men of business, until 
 we have altered this state of things. The old adage is with us 
 exploded—“ Look after the pence, and the pounds wiU look after 
 themselves.” Never was anything so untrue in England. 
 
 But our own extravagance, internally, is not all; for our con¬ 
 tinental subsidies have gone alike to feed foreign profligates, to 
 pay THEir for what they ought to have paid tts. Our hard-earned 
 millions went to foreign licentiates of monstrous sensuality. The 
 Germans, the Hessians and Brunswickers, the Menschen Verkaufer, 
 or man-sellers, as they are styled by their own people, were rapacious 
 beyond all example. The Duke of Brunswick had an annual 
 subsidy of £15,519. The Landgrave of Hesse Cassel had £12,281. 
 But we paid these great powers to our own injury. We paid the 
 Austrians ftom two to four millions, and Russia we subsidized at the 
 rate of from two to three millions a year. In 1799, we were paying the 
 Emperor Paul £112,000, with which he repaired his fleet, swxpt our 
 merchantmen out of the Baltic and Northern Seas, and made a 
 league with Sweden and Denmark to do all possible mischief to our 
 trade and people.* 
 
 Such was the application of English money—such was the 
 ridiculous expose we made to the world. Too purse-proud to refuse 
 any demand which foreigners begged of us, too profuse to ensure 
 and look after the way in which om money accomplished its pur¬ 
 pose. Unlike men of business, we were indifierent to our squan¬ 
 dering government, which was too greedy in taking advantage of 
 our apathy. 
 
 Our money even went towards the extinction of Poland; for we 
 had no sooner paid the King of Prussia £2,200,000, than he imme¬ 
 diately made peace with the enemy, and the money went for the 
 slaughtering of our own troops, and the final partition of Poland. 
 Our reckless ministers, obtaining money so easily, allowed any 
 
 * See “ Knight’s History of England,’’ xol. viii. 
 
15 
 
 amount of fraud to be practised, not even looking after the good or 
 evil it was to promote. 
 
 I have heard it said that all this was done with the willingness of 
 the people of that age; but I do aver that it was'the assent of 
 ignorance. The cloud which enveloped the proceedings of the 
 government deluded the people, and they thought they saw in the 
 horizon the dawn of a brighter day. The aristocrats, Whigs and 
 Tories, were playing the profitable game, and they charmed the 
 merchants with promises of a brilliant future, and their talisman 
 was a depreciated currency; and, however strange it may appear 
 that men should be charmed by that which terrifies them generally, 
 it is no less strange than true that merchants, finding themselves 
 able to count more pounds sterling during war than they could 
 count prior to it, fancied they were better off; forgetting that one 
 pound would purchase no more then than one shilling would 150 
 years ago, when 20s. would purchase a bullock, £20 being how the 
 purchase price for the same—Is. to Is. Gd. was then given for a 
 sheep, which now costs 20s. to 30s. All this was fine fun for ofS- 
 cials and placemen, who took care to raise their salaries equal to the 
 depreciation of currency, but who knew well they would not have 
 them reduced, however great the reduction of commodities which 
 has been taking place, more especially within the last ten years. 
 
 We may prove to them, and Mr. Cobden may show' them, how 
 much more money will purchase now than in the time of war-prices. 
 But he is not listened to; their strongholds of primogeniture, entail, 
 electoral corruption, and limited franchise, are their impenetrable 
 bulwarks, w'hich have defied ages, and even dare to defy this en¬ 
 lightened age of the nineteenth century. 
 
 In order that the English mercantile operations shall he nations 
 ally reproductive, all those impediments must be removed which 
 prevent the realization of a profit to the nation. 
 
 No individual, in this day, can calculate upon extending his trade 
 at higher rates of prices than his neighbours, for the same-quality 
 of goods; if he does, however extensive his connexion, there will he 
 a gradual undermining and decay—resulting in the ultimate extinc¬ 
 tion of his trade. 
 
 No nation, therefore, can calculate upon extension of foreign ex¬ 
 ports at higher prices than other nations: it must soon fail upon such 
 a fallacious policy. England’s capital and talent, with industry so 
 exemplary, together with its commercial priority in 1847, attained 
 
16 
 
 to an export trade of £60,111,082: a formidable amount, but not at 
 all commensurate with the resources of the country. 
 
 Were the taxes of the country reduced to moderation, England 
 could manufacture cheaper than the whole world. A reduction of 
 taxation would also be an advertisement for other foreign countries; 
 they know well they cannot buy of us now to half the extent they 
 otherwise would, because they would be paying our excessive taxa¬ 
 tion, which must be laid upon our taxed industry—therefore, upon 
 our productions. Foreign merchants know that England must be¬ 
 come less a market for their purchases, the longer this extravagance 
 in Government is persisted in. This is a plain pounds-shillings- 
 and-pence consideration for us tradesmen. 
 
 All cmmtries are beginning to understand that, in paying for 
 foreign produce in gold they are paying for it in produce, for inter¬ 
 national demand and supply and the monetary rates of exchange 
 uphold this commercial interchange, and that country only will be 
 shut out of this commercial pale ultimately, which is so heavily- 
 taxed that it can neither manufacture nor produce low enough for 
 any foreign market. 
 
 To longer maintain protection on corn, I consider an impossibility, 
 and needhardly be mentioned. The farming interest is now known 
 to be but a sectional part of the great interests of the country. The 
 manufactories of one article, cotton alone, is equal to all the agri¬ 
 cultural labour employed, which only amounts to 1,207,989 out of 
 the population of Glreat Britain. The farmer must have protection 
 in other ways than that of duty on corn. Give him tenant-rights, 
 leases, to enable him to profit by the land be improves, and a pros¬ 
 perous and increasing body of manufacturing and commercial con¬ 
 sumers. 
 
 A remarkable instance of the validity of my remark, that manu- 
 fectnring prosperity improves the position of the agricultural dis¬ 
 tricts, is seen at this time (August) in the counties of York and 
 Durham, where all the staple manufactories are in full work—wheat 
 averaging at present, at least, ten shillings per quarter more than 
 in the southern counties of Hampshire, &c., where there is little or 
 no manufacturing enterprise. 
 
 Let the farmer have a repeal of the malt and hop duties ; destroy 
 the game-laws: these reforms would afford substantial relief; they 
 are perfectly practicable, and no honest man can say they are 
 chimerical or impolitic. 
 
17 
 
 Sir Robert Peel said in the House- on the 6th July last, in answer 
 to D'Israeli, “ that if the legislature required more to be paid for .an 
 article at home than it could he got for abroad, it was an interfer¬ 
 ence with capital.” 
 
 For further proof of the fallacy of protective duties, I refer you to 
 Sir Robert Peel’s excellent speech on that occasion. 
 
 Unfortunately, honesty is not the characteristic of the present 
 English legislature; the sale of Crown lands for mere nominal 
 amounts: one estate, worth £5,000 per annum, sold for £200 ; 
 another, that of Putney’s property, let for £12 16s. a year, worth 
 £2,047 per annum, and, last of all, sold for £600. The embezzle¬ 
 ment of church property, and the frauds and mal-appropriations of 
 the Woods and Forests, prove that the men entrusted with the peo¬ 
 ple’s property, are not honest, and utterly unworthy the continued 
 confidence of the country. 
 
 Is it right that during eleven years of profound peace, an increase 
 of nearly £8,000,000 should have been imposed upon us, i.e. 
 £5,214,364 in our naval, military, and ordnance expenditure ? In 
 1836, we expended in those departments £12,125,702, and in 1848, 
 £18,207,852. Had there been honest men in office, making no 
 provision, in the shape of appointments at home and abroad, for 
 their sons, out of the people’s purse, this increase would not have 
 taken place. Why are not rich men and placemen taught to keep 
 their own children, as tradesmen do ? 
 
 Were it not for the sons of noble lords, we had no actual need of 
 an increase in our miscellaneous expenditure of £2,160,688 within 
 about the same time, or fi-om 1834 to 1848 ; and all these imposing 
 additions of extravagance have been heaped upon us during a time 
 of commercial depression, panic, wretchedness, and starvation, in 
 England and the sister country. 
 
 If we desire to avert these ruinous encroachments upon our 
 livelihoods, we must give an expression of our sentiments by 
 uniting and co-operating in one grand, struggle to obtain an eco¬ 
 nomical and progressive Government. This country is at present 
 greatly indebted to Sir Joshua Walmsley for the zealous and patriotic 
 spirit with which he presides in the councils of that valuable asso¬ 
 ciation—that uncompromisingexponentof Government abuses—“The 
 National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association,” of which 
 any person, dissatisfied with the present state of the country, may 
 become a member, at the minimum cost of 1«, per annum. • , 
 
 
18 
 
 Unless there be a public demonstration of the feeling of the 
 country against the excessive taxation, we shall continue increasing 
 as before, and Lord John will have the effrontery to say again, the 
 country requires no reform ; and attempt again, as he did last year, 
 in an increased income-tax, to impose f3,346,o00 as another excess 
 
 of expenditure over our revenue, enormous as it already is, showing 
 us on that occasion the use of resisting en masse their unblushing 
 attempts to make further demands upon our industry. 
 
 The use of public expression, or the voice of the people, is seen 
 in past history. The fteemen, vassals, and barons of old, united in 
 the demand for Magna Charta, and forced it from king John against 
 his will—^yea, he cursed them while compelled to sign the Charta. 
 Public expression obtained the Bill of Rights. Again, this public 
 demonstration once ejected the bishops from the House of Lords. 
 Our just rights have been always wrenched from the oppressive 
 hands of the aristocracy by public expression powerfully demon¬ 
 strated. All great and good laws have emanated from the people 
 —^in modem times, as well as in times of old. Witness Corn- 
 law repeal, and the partial Reform Bill, mutilated as it was by 
 the Chandos clause. The aristocracy never then even yielded up 
 their close boroughs, which now fill the house with their nominees, 
 enabling them still to continue their iniquitous appropriation of the 
 public money. 
 
 7. That these real grievances, one and aU, arise from the absence of 
 a fair representative system. 
 
 Before we can obtain financial reform, we must obtain parliamen¬ 
 tary reform. There are in the House of Commons 49 placemen, 
 —88 naval and military ofiBcers, 76 patrons of Church livings, 83 
 sons of peers, 57 brothers and uncles of peers, and 45 commoners, 
 who married peers’ daughters ; making 398 men in our House of 
 Commons interested in upholding its present corrupt constitution ; 
 so that the people, instead of having a House of Commons, have 
 but the shadow, without the substance—the name, without the 
 reality. The House of Lords is virtually the House of Commons, 
 and we grossly deceive ourselves if we think otherwise. Engl.vnd 
 wtR xo House of Commons! The men we employ to do our worlc 
 in legislation are the very men that ride over us roughshod. We 
 have 841 placemen receiving from £1,000 to £2,000 a-year each, and 
 
19 
 
 fighting us with our own money. These men return themselves by 
 virtue of their landed interest, and the unequal proportion the 
 electors bear to the members returned. They will frame no law 
 which -would render the voters too numerous to be bribed or cor¬ 
 rupted ; neither will they tolerate a suffrage which cannot be sub¬ 
 jected to secret control*—in plain language, they take care to uphold 
 corruption, knowing it to be the only means by which they them¬ 
 selves are upheld. 
 
 There are thirty-eight constituencies having 6,764 electors only, 
 while there are eighteen constituencies having 289,470 voters; so 
 that forty-three independent electors, in large to-wns, where men are 
 more educated and better informed, are practically declared to be 
 only equal to one elector in pocket-boroughs, where ignorance or 
 interest prevail. 
 
 By separating the independent and honest electoral power from 
 the servile and corrupt boroughs, we find that in England there are 
 190 cities and boroughs returning 321 members, but deducting those 
 boroughs corrupted by freemen, potwaUers, and scot and lot voters, 
 we shall find there are only 27 boroughs, returning 51 members, 
 which are too large for the abuses of corruption and nomination, 
 but they amount to six members less than this number, even if we 
 deduct those under government influence. This again explains how 
 it is that England has no House of Commons, and why Messrs. 
 Hume and Cobden only obtain their fifty and eighty votes on honest 
 raeasm-es, in that misnomer the Commons’ House. Facts prove that 
 the more honest the measure, the greater the certainty of it being 
 thrown out by that corrupt and defiled house. Their recent aban¬ 
 donment of the Bribery at Elections Bill is a fair exponent of this 
 fact. 
 
 But what is more flagrant than all, is the fact that the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire, with a constituency of 36,084 registered 
 electors, returns only two members, and which remains only one 
 constituency to this day ; while there are ninety-five small consti- 
 tuencies, having only the same number of electors as the West 
 Riding of Yorkshire. So that the aristocracy, whose consciences 
 have been so often seared, can have now no conscience at all; they 
 have not only seen, but practised vice so often, that it has become 
 familiar to them; they embrace frauds as rights exclusively to be 
 
 * Their rejecting the bill of bribery at elections proves this fact. 
 
20 
 
 exercised by them. There can be no justice in our representative 
 system, unless these soi disant students of Euclid can prove that one 
 
 is equal to ninety-five. These strongholds of the aristocracy must 
 be broken down, in order that a superstructure of legislation may 
 be erected upon the basis of integrity. There are seventy-five 
 constituencies, averaging only about 333 electors to each constitu¬ 
 ency, every one of which are corrupted and bought. AU these facts 
 go to show that we are worse off than if we had no suffrage what¬ 
 ever, for then the country would be unanimous in the demand for it; 
 but now we are deluded by a base mockery, submitted to through 
 ignorance and an indifference to political inquiry. 
 
 It has become, then, alarmingly necessary that every man should 
 look into the amount of injury heaped upon himself and his coimtry 
 by the substitution of the love of power and gain, on the part of our 
 legislators, for that of honesty and justice. 
 
 Englishmen’s indifference to inquiry into the laws which govern 
 them, has been the soft cushion upon which the aristocracy have 
 reposed and fattened. The cry of protection is the trap by which 
 they ensnare the simple and hard-working business man, upon 
 whom the aristocracy have imposed heavy burdens; grievous to bo 
 borne, “ and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will 
 not move t’nem with one of their fingers,” well knowing that the 
 more they are taxed, the closer the application necessary to pro¬ 
 vide for those taxes, and the less time we shall have for political 
 inqniries. 
 
 The fact that the aristocracy have nothing to do but to make the 
 laws, and that the tradesmen have too much to do to look after 
 them, has produced all the evils which the country groans under; 
 but how utterly contemptible must the aristocracy become in our 
 eyes, when we find that in every way they have betrayed their trust, 
 and nothing more forcibly proves it than their having exempted 
 themselves from the tax which all holders of land by purchase, not 
 by gift or military tenure, take a share of, in common with those 
 lords, whose estates were gifts or plunders. They do not pay the 
 land-tax according to the improved value of land, but have laid the 
 tax only on the original assessment of William III.' Thus, while 
 their land has been rising to ten times its then value, and taxation 
 has risen from £400,000 to £55,185,000 a year, the land-tax has 
 stood stationary from 1797 at £2,037,627. I ask my fellow-trades¬ 
 man if these be honest acts r 
 
21 
 
 Is it honest, either, that they should have exempted their own 
 entailed estates—'theirpropertyhy descent—\Yhenthey have rendered 
 personal and casual property liable, taking care that property 
 acquired by industry should be heavily encumbered with probate, 
 legacy, and administration duties ? More especially does this in¬ 
 justice become evident from the fact of their, own property by 
 descent having been given them upon military tenure, or with the 
 proviso that they were to furnish the Government with an army and 
 navy, as a consideration for the grants of these immense estates; 
 they have not only ceased to do this, but by another, amongst the 
 many laws they have acquired the power to make for themselves, 
 by the statute 12th Car. 11. c. 24, th.ey threw off this feudal tenure 
 from themselves, and placed it upon trade and industry; they 
 adopted the most expensive of all modes of indirect taxation, the 
 excise, and, knowing that they had committed, and were committing 
 acts of injustice upon the people, they destroyed universal suffrage, 
 thus compelling the people to submit to that which they knew was 
 opposed to the laws of God and man. It was to enforce these un¬ 
 constitutional enactments that universal suffrage was destroyed, and 
 now, for the upholding of the same wrongs, even a limited extension 
 of the suffrage is opposed. 
 
 The weakness of the tradesmen of England is their incredulity 
 respecting the perfidy of their law-makers. We have been too 
 confiding, and now seem reluctant to admit that great men by 
 title only, have been, and are, capable of the meanest actions. 
 Tradesmen having so little leisure, and less inclination, to inquire 
 into the doings of the aristocracy, have brought about that which, 
 as men of business, looking properly after their own affairs, they 
 ought to have seen and altered long ago—i. e., a one-sided and 
 partial legislature. What would the business man say to his son, 
 to whom he had given a prosperous and unencumbered business, 
 but who, from an indifference to its real interests, had allowed it to 
 become encumbered to half the extent of its profits? Would not 
 the father he the first to tell his son, that he had ruined that business 
 by his indifference to his own interests ? But now, our sons might 
 justly say to us, “ Fathers! by your indifference to the government 
 expenditure, taxation now cramps our energies, and mars our wisest 
 undertakings. One-half of the fruits of our labour did you appor¬ 
 tion to State purposes before we were born. You have ruined our’ 
 prospects.” It is no less astonishing than true, that every child 
 
22 
 
 bom in Great Britain enters upon life £40 in debt, entailed upon 
 him or her by the national debt alone, independent of government 
 expenses. Every man with a femily of eight children, is actually 
 £400 in debt. How cmelly oppressive hangs this weight upon the 
 poor labourer, and the needy tradesman! “ Do justice to the 
 afflicted and needy.” 
 
 Let us no longer believe that it is aristocratical strength which 
 upholds this injustice, but know that it is our ignorance and imagi¬ 
 nary weakness that uphold it: let us no longer timidly say that if 
 we support Government, we get its protection; since we now know 
 their extortions, their frauds, and embezzlements, their dishonesty, 
 in every move they make. The wasteful and unprincipled expendi¬ 
 ture of public money, actually to the amount of £3,383,022,500 of 
 Englishmen’s capital, is obtained from the so-called protected 
 tradesmen. Why, no democracy, nor even anarchy itself, could 
 have robbed us of such an amount. Such enokmities must 
 T,F.»n TO ANAECHT, IP AiLOWED TO CONTINUE! Honest trades¬ 
 men must HOW step into the political arena, and avert the impending 
 danger! 
 
 Let virtuous,business-like legislation, the indispensable character¬ 
 istics of a mercantile nation, supersede the misrule of the drones of 
 our corrapt system, who are too fat to work, and too dishonest to 
 be wise. 
 
 Let us tradesmen no longer cringe to, nor confide in a Govern¬ 
 ment of mere aristocrats, who, by their extravagant and unbusiness 
 habits, their unfair and covetous exactions, have proved themselves 
 to possess neither virtue nor business ideas enough for a mercantile 
 nation like England, and they must sink under the strong arm of 
 truthful assailments! Let us make an appeal to the Lords upon 
 their having dishonoured the cause of justice so frequently, their 
 last act being their abandonmg the bUl of Bribery at Elections! 
 Let us appeal to them boldly, as did Pym of old, in Charles II.’s 
 day, and declare such conduct to be an insult to the people’s virtue, 
 —that their attempt to perpetuate corruption has aroused the British 
 nation,—men of business have awakened from their wonted political 
 slumber,—^that they know their wrongs, and intend to' have them 
 redressed. To know all these wrongs, and to submit to, not to alter 
 them, such submission becomes a crime. 
 
 God is not a lover of the extortioner, nor of the oppressor. 
 Infinite Wisdom proclaims the greater good for the greater number; 
 
23 
 
 the very converse of that which now exists by the laws of selfi'sh^i;. ^ 
 men, viz., the greatest wealth to the smallest number; for primo-'l^fc 
 geniture and entail have reduced the holders of the landed wealth of ^ 
 this country, within less than a century, from 250,000 proprietors 
 of land to only 30,000 proprietors. Is the selfl.shness of man to 
 have no bounds in this country ? Is there no better standard by 
 which we can try the actions of men and the laws of men than those 
 old conventionalities, which have become full of extortion and un¬ 
 cleanness ? Yea, we have a God, and that God is love, not selfish- 
 ms; and our line of action is marked out by God. 
 
 “ Deliver the poor and needy,—rid them out of the hands of the 
 wicked.” 
 
 “ Let God’s kingdom now come, and God’s will now be done on 
 earth.” 
 
 London, Sept. 1th, 1849. 
 
 N.B. In my next, I shall produce a remedy for the evils, to an 
 exposition of which the present pamphlet has been devoted. 
 
 S, PRINTBRS, LimR