1849.1850.
Mileage on 6257 miles,L.2302L.2247

—Times.

which is a fall of L.55 a mile in the midst of our boasted prosperous export trade.

Such are the advantages, in consideration of which the nation has embarked on a course of policy which so evidently, and in so many ways, threatens our independence. It is class government which has done it all—the determination to make the sovereign worth two sovereigns, and a day's labour to the poor man worth one shilling to him instead of two, which has induced dangers in every quarter, which threaten the existence of Great Britain. Why is it that we are constrained—though Government are perfectly aware of the danger, and the Duke of Wellington has repeatedly pointed it out—to have a military and naval force evidently incommensurate to the wants of our vast empire, and unable to defend it from the hostility which our foreign policy does so much to provoke? Simply because we have surrendered the government of the country to a moneyed oligarchy, who are resolved, coute qui coute, to cheapen everything, because it enhances the value of their realised wealth, and because the measures of that oligarchy have cut down Queen Victoria's income from £100,000,000—as it might have been, and is now, in real weight upon the country[16]—to £50,000,000; just as they have reduced the income of the poor needlewomen from 9d. a-day to 4-1/2d. Why is it that we are constrained, openly and avowedly, to abandon our colonies to their own resources? Only because the cheapening system and Free Trade have so paralysed and weakened our resources, that, like the Romans, if we would protect at all the heart of the empire, we must forthwith abandon its extremities.

Why are we evidently and undeniably losing the empire of the seas, by the rapid and portentous increase of the foreign and decline of the English shipping, in carrying on our own trade? Only because freights must, it is thought, be cheapened as well as everything else; and the independence of the country is a trifling consideration to a fall of a farthing in the pound, in the transport of some articles, for the benefit of the Manchester trader. Why are the West Indies utterly ruined, and the annual importation of slaves into Cuba and Brazil doubled,[17] and discontent so universally spread through our colonies, that beyond all doubt, in the first reverse, they will break off from the mother country, if not previously thrown off by it? Merely to carry out the dogma of Free Trade, and lower sugar, watered by the blood of the slaves, a penny or twopence a pound to the British consumer. Why have we brought 7,000,000 of our people, in three years, to depend for their daily food on foreign supplies, and put ourselves entirely at the mercy of the two states from which nearly all that food comes? Only to enrich the Manchester manufacturers, and appease the cry for cheap bread, by enabling them to beat down the wages of labour from 1s. 6d. to 1s. a-day. Why are poor-rates—measured in the true way, by quarters of grain—heavier in this year of boasted prosperity than they were in any former year of admitted adversity? Because, in every department of industry, we have beat down native by letting in a flood of foreign industry. Why are 300,000 industrious citizens annually driven into exile, and Ireland threatened with a depopulation the most rapid and extraordinary which has been witnessed in the world since the declining days of the Roman empire? Because we would lower wheat from 56s. to 39s. a quarter; and thereby we have extinguished the profits of cultivation in a portion of our empire containing 8,000,000 of inhabitants, but so exclusively agricultural that its exports of manufactures are only £230,000 a-year. It is one principle—the cheapening system—devised by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy, and calculated for their exclusive benefit, which has done the whole.

Is there, then, no remedy for these various, accumulating, and most threatening evils? Must we sit down with our hands across, supinely witnessing the progressive dangers and certain ultimate destruction of the empire, merely because the measures inducing all these perils are supported by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy who have got the command of the House of Commons? We are far from thinking that this is the case; but if we would avert, or even mitigate our dangers, we must set ourselves first to remedy the most pressing. Of these, the most serious, beyond all question, are to be found in our unprotected state,—for they may destroy us as a nation in a month, after some fresh freak of Lord Palmerston's has embroiled us with some of the great European powers. In regard to other matters, and the general commercial policy, the danger, though not the less real, is not so immediate, and experience may perhaps enlighten the country before it is too late. But it is otherwise with our external dangers: they are instant and terrible. The means of resisting them are perfectly simple—they will be felt as a burden by none; on the contrary, they are calculated, at the same time that they provide for our national defence, to mitigate the greater part of the domestic evils under which the people labour.

Government tell us that they have a surplus of L.3,000,000 this year in their hands. We hope it is so, and that it will not prove, like other surpluses, greater on paper than in reality. But let it be assumed that it is as large as is represented. That surplus, judiciously applied, would save the country! It would raise our armaments to such a point as, with the advantages of our insular situation, and long-established warlike fame, would prevent all thoughts of invasion on the part of our enemies. It would give us 100,000 regular troops, with those we already have—100,000 militia, occasionally called out—and 25 ships of the line, with those already in commission, to defend the British shores. It is true, the continuance of the Income Tax cannot be relied on—nor should the country submit to it any longer; for a tax which is paid exclusively by 147,000 persons out of 28,000,000, is so obviously unjust, that its further retention is probably impossible. Additional direct taxation upon the affluent classes is obviously out of the question, for the chasms made in the incomes of those depending on land, who pay three-fourths of it, are such that it would prove totally unproductive. What, then, is to be done to uphold the public revenue at its present amount, or even prevent its sinking so as to increase instead of diminishing our helpless and unprotected state? An obvious expedient remains. Imitate the conduct of America and Prussia, France and Russia, and all countries who have any regard either to their national independence, or the social welfare of their inhabitants. Lay a moderate duty upon all importations, whether of rude or manufactured articles. In America it is 30 per cent, and constitutes nearly their sole source of revenue: in Prussia it is practically 40 or 50 per cent. By this means nearly half the tax is paid by foreigners—for competition forces them to sell the articles taxed cheaper than their ordinary price, with the addition of the tax. It is spread over so vast a surface among consumers, that its weight is not felt; being mixed up with the price of the article sold, its weight is not perceived. We pay in this way half the taxes of America, Germany, and all the countries to whom we chiefly export our manufactures. Let us return them the compliment, and adopt a system which will make them pay the half of ours. The whole, or nearly the whole, of the Income Tax, which now produces L.5,400,000 a-year, would by this change be spent in increased purchases in the home market, and sensibly relieve its sinking state. This change would at once obviate our external dangers—for it would enable Government, without sensibly burdening the country, to maintain the national armaments on such a scale as to bid defiance to foreign attack. We shall see in our succeeding paper whether it would not, at the same time, be an effectual remedy, and the only one that would be practicable, to the most serious part of our domestic evils.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] "We have now lying before us both the printed and manuscript copy of the petition of a valued friend (the late Rev. W. Howells, of Long Acre) against the bill for granting to Roman Catholics the privilege of paralysing the hands and obstructing the labour of Protestant statesmen. At page 92, in the Memoirs of that eminent man, published by his friend and executor, Mr Bowdler, our readers will find that petition speaking with little less than prophetic voice of the confusion and misery certain to follow a measure which every Protestant, in proportion to the clearness of his views of Divine truth, must consider a downright infraction of his allegiance to his God.

"We quote three of the clauses in the petition alluded to, and we ask whether the fears therein expressed have not been fulfilled to the very letter:—