THE ILLUSTRATED

No. 502.-VOL. XIX.]

SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1851.

Two NUMBERS, 1s. WITH HALF-SHEET SUPPLEMENT GRATIS.

THE NEW SYSTEM OF TAXATION.

THE late Sir Robert Peel was not a man who courted popularity. If what he thought his duty demanded it, he braved odium and censure, the loss of friends, and the bitterness of enemies. All the ties that public men consider the most dear he was willing to sacri- fice to his sense of right and justice. His brilliant and useful life was a continuous record of such high resolves manfully carried out. But it may be doubted whether, on one great occasion, he did not strive to catch the support of the poorer classes, by means which were not in strict accordance with the justice which was in other in- stances the guiding-star of his policy. When he reformed the commercial tariff, and prepared the way for the abolition of the Corn-laws, he extended the principle of direct taxation in a manner which showed the skilful contriver rather than the severely just and conscientious statesman. In imposing a war-tax in time of peace, in order that the poor and industrious might have cheaper food, and that trade, commerce, and manufactures might be al- lowed their natural expansion, it was not necessary to commit a new injustice. It was, perhaps, expedient for the moment but it was neither just nor safe, considered with regard to the future, that in relieving the bulk of the people from some portion of the burden of indirect taxation, he should have placed the whole burden of the direct imposts upon the shoulders of a few. In doing this, he in- troduced a new and dangerous principle, to which it was not thought worth while to make any determined resistance, because the great Minister only asked the innovation for a short and tran- sitionary period, and because the injustice committed against the few possessing more than £150 per annum was felt to be the means of relieving all other classes in the country-those few included among the rest-from still more serious and injurious burdens.

But now, when the whole current of our financial legislation, supported by public opinion, runs in favour of the perpetuation of direct taxation and of the diminution of all taxes that impede the -legitimate and wholesome developments of trade and industry, it be- comes of the utmost importance that Sir Robert Peel's arrangement of the Property and Income Tax should be carefully reconsidered. If he introduced a measure partial in its operation and unjust in its pressure, there is no reason why the statesmen who have followed him should, in admiration of his general policy, imitate him in its flaws, and why they should commit an injustice permanently which he never intended should endure beyond a short and stipu- lated period. But the present Ministry, it would appear, have not only determined to uphold the policy of their illustrious prede- cessor with regard to the arbitrary assumption that no one possess- ing property or earning income of a less amount than £150 per annum should be called upon to pay the property and income tax, but they have extended the principle in another direction. The Chancellor of the Exchequer-beyond all comparison the most in- efficient Minister of modern times-has not clearness of vision to see, or courage to follow out, the real financial policy of Sir Robert Peel, but contents himself with imitating it in its weakest and most objectionable parts. Because that states- man, in an emergency which has passed away, and to se- cure an object which is no longer necessary, relieved of lis- bility to the income and property tax the possessors of £149 194 11d. per annum, Sir Charles Wood thinks it incumbent upon him to relieve from the burden of his new house tax all houses paying a rental under £20 per annum, or six-sevenths of the whole house property of the kingdom. If that be not the reason which has actuated Sir Charles Wood, we confess our inability to discover any other. Nothing can be more ill-judged, more unjust, or more dangerous, than such a course of legislation. If we must have a house tax, and a property and income tax-if the neces- sities of the State are such that the Government cannot dispense with both or either of them, the least that can be done is, that these inevitable evils should be made to press as fairly as pos- sible upon all. There is no class in the country, however humble, which is not directly as well as indirectly interested in the stability of the Government, and in the inviolability of public credit; and there is no class that ought to be entirely relieved from contributing, according to its means, towards that fund of taxation without which the whole social fabric must fall to pieces. The attempt of Sir Robert Peel, in the first instance, and the more glaring and inexcusable attempt of Sir Charles Wood and Lord John Russell at the present time, to affix the weight of taxation upon the minority, within a limit arbitrarily fixed, is unjust and inexpedient. If, while Sir