The Press. — London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

MAY 9, 1857. with no income-tax commissioner to make them afraid. Now, the new voters whom a five-pound franchise will call into existence belong not to the income ridden tenth, but t 3 the nine-tenths who have never felt the incidence of direct taxation. Unknown to them is the hardship of paying in the slump live, ten, twenty pounds, or upwards, to the collectors ; they have never been subjected to the odious inquisition into their private businesses, so essential an incident in direct t isation ; and they have never felt the painful conscientious scruples consequent upon filling up the schedules. But not only are they quite exempt from the oppression of the income tax, it is demonstrable that they benefit from it in no inconsiderable degree. The interest of the national debt must be paid, and the expense of the national establishments defrayed ; and if the income tax is abolished, the deficiency in the revenue must be made good by indirect taxa tion, which, to some extant, would fall on the new voters. Therefore, the new voters would be losers . by the abolition of the income tax. And even 'suppose the unlikely case, that owing to peace and prosperity the revenue of the country is sufficient without additional taxation to meet the current ex• penditure and to leave over and above a surplus equal to the present income tax, it would still be the interest of the five pounders that the income tax should be retained and the surplus accounted for by the reduction of other indirect taxes. The fact is, the five-pounder has heard too many speeches of ten-pounders against taxing the fool of the people not to be fully alive to its injustice, and he has read too many ten-pounder treatises on political economy not to be gully satisfied of the superiority of direct over indirect taxation. No, he will say or think, we have got on the scientific track at last, by great pains, a good deal of sophistry and no little injustice, and is all this to go for nothing, and we the majority of the electoral body ! No ; henceforth our states men will rather try as much as possible to carry out this just and salutary principle, and by raising the rate and assessing income's down, say to 501., pro vided that does not bring in the five pounders, ren der it possible to still further relieve from taxation the food of the people. C. rn, no doubt, is the staff of life, and to tax it is sacrilege and blasphemy, but tea and coffee are hardly less sacred. Beer is no longer a luxury, but the daily drink of the hard labouring poJr, and tobacco is consu ned more largely by the five-pounders than by all the rest of the nation. It is hardly necessary to point out that the same line of argument leads somewhat farther. It is the interest of the nine-tenths of the population, and of the legislating five-pound voters, to increase the income tax by raising the rate and dr3oving within its scope all those richer than themselves, until a sufficient revenue be raised to allow of the abolition of indirect taxatiol altogether. They will then enjoy the benefit of Government and of untaxed tobacco, tea, and malt liquors, at the expense of the richer classes of society. _ _ _ I am aware it will he said that the present Parlia ment, being elected by an anti income-tax interest, will never agree to its perpetuation, but who are to twee to their perpetuation under a lowered fran chise. As a constitutional consequence of such a measure you must have a new election ; and the five-pounders are wide awake, and will take care to return delegates pledged to support their interests, just as the ten pounders do at. present. And the worst of the matter is, that the five pounders, in point of numbers, are entitled to say they represent the country in a less farcical sense than the 900,000 who now constitute the electoral body. To take the " sense of the country" will have some meaning when the appeal is made to three or four millions of voters. Let the ten pounders, therefore, consider, as they value their incomes, as they hate income teL com missioners, and as they feel profound indignation at the injustice of the schedules, whether it, would not be as well t ► coalesce with the Conservatives, and if, in order to ke , p hustings pledges, a five-pound Iran chise must be adopted, to tack a graduation clause to the nex Reform Bill, and thus maintain in some de tree the balance of property and education against a population. If they don't, not only may they expect a perpetual income tax, but the five points of the people's charter. J. A. G. LORD PALMERSTON AND THE PEERAGE. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—At a meeting at which I was present, where there were assembled two commercial members of Parliament, a county member, an Irish Catholic representative, and a Scotch political economist, it was admitted that a common ground of attack ag,ain , t Conservati,m by the Liberal commercialists in this and any future Parliament would be based upon the abrogation of the law of primogeniture. It was the demand and the consequence of progressive action. The Scotch political economist quoted the authority THE PRESS. of the late Sir Samuel Bomilly, who bad proposed that the law of bend tary control should not hold good against the legal debts of the late possessor. The commercial members complained of marriage settlements interfering with the recovery of claims against the estates of debtors, adding that the trading community would not for the future give support to members who were not favourable to the liability of property for the satisfaction of bankruptcy and in solvency debts. The peerage was not to be barred from the operation of the proposed Act, although all concurred in opinion that sooner or latter it would have the effect of undermining the Upper H tuse. This is fair ant open at any rate. Thee members are supporters of L trd Palmerston's Government. I inclose my card to prevent mistake. ISSIiEL. SLAVE AND FREE LABOUR. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—Your having thought my observations on Mr. Olmsted's book, " Our Slave States," worthy insertion, has induced me to again trouble you with a few remarks on his "Journey Through Texas," in which there appears a want of consistency also in his argument that free labour is more economical than slave labour within the tropics. He tells us, at p. 414-15, that— The cultivatable area of the State is estimate , ' at over 100,000,000 acres, about 20,000.000 of which is called good cotton land, capable or prcolucing nine million bales: and that the growth of wealth is in almost nothing else than stares, and each crop must go on to be capitalised in more labour; anti that the sugar lands in Texas are estimated at 7.100,003 acres, and capable of prockcing three times the amount now consumed in the United States, and should the ilaport duty be maintained, and Cuba with its irre• sistible tropical advantages remain under foreign dominion, and steady development of produce will go on. In looking attentively through his vrark, I find the average of the statements he gives of the production of cotton per acre, in the various localities men tioned, to be about 1 bales of 400 lbs. the bale ; consequently Trait; is capaple of producing some 30,000,000 bales of cotton ; and as the yield of sugar per acre in Louisiana, where the land is not so good as that in Texas, is stated to lan about 1,000 lbs. to the acre, these 7,000,000 acres in Texas would pro duce 3,100,000 tons of sugar. The United States an I Canada are estimated to consume annually 800,000 tons, and the imports of sugar into the Unittal States to amount to 250,000 or 300,000 tons; and, with such immense resources to be yet developed in Vexes by simply capitalising the profits in more labour, it certainly does appear not a little greedy in our Yankee competitors to be coveting Cuba also, particularly as we are told, at page 423, " that within the limits of Brazoria and 3latagordes are some of the finest , oils in the world," and a field near Lexington was pointed out to Mr. Olmsted "that had been cultivated in corn for sixty year, without manure, and that its produce was still forty bushels to the acre with meagre care." At page 51 an old negro informs Mr. o:mstad that— They had ten or eleven hands, tine% as they taw, and that his master could sell sixty to seventy bags of cotton ; besides which they made all the corn and pork they wanted, and something over, and raised some cattle.. . . Sixty bales of cotton were w )rth 3,0J0 dots.; and that last ye ir the crop w to lar.zer still and when asked what people Itvinl in such a rough style did with so mitch money, replied, " They buy mare negroes, and enlarge their plantations." The average of the production of cotton per hand, as I collect from seven statements, six of which give from 7 to 10 bales of 400 lbs. each, and one 4 bales, through bad luck, may therefore be safAly taken at 7 bales to the lb.; and at page 20.3 Mr. Olmsted gives a statement of the cost of production and profit on cotton cultivation on a large scale—to wit : Dolars . Land, 1.000 'errs. bot.ons, at 611 17, l 000 W prime able held hands at %WO d015...50.000 50 ditto halt hands at COI dole.. —.30 000 SO ditto quarter hands at 900 dole. 15.000 - 95,600 Houses and furniture 4,000 Quarters and overseer's house l.OOO Mules and tools Capital outlay 120,0(10 Annual production at 4 bales to the hand of 450:bs ea.:ll = 15.Q.4001b5.. at 8 cents. Increase of Blares at 5 per cent., or 05,000 dole 4,75U 17,423 Deduct annnal expenses 1 OM dole. Interest on 120,00 J dole. at 8 per ct. 9,600 " 10.600 Profit Now, I make 150 hands, at 4 bales to the hand of 450 lbs. each, amount to 270,000 lbs., which at 8 cents would realise 21,800 dols., and with the in crease of slaves 28,350 dots, and d'ducting interest and expenses, leave a profit of 15,750 dols., instead of 8,822 dols.; but, as it is stated in various parts of the book that the average produce is 7 bales of 400 lbs. each to the hand, and that they often plant more 455 than they can pick, and which in the " K to Uncle Tom's Cabin " is stated to be about L5Ol is per hand per day on the avera g e, I think we may fairly take the 7 bales of 400 lb s. each as the truth. In this case, then, the net profit would be 23,0a0 dots., or more than three times the amount given in the state. ment. This, moreover, would be independent of the corn, cattle, pork, and something over, as mentioned at page 51 ; and even putting the calculation at only 100 working hands at 7 bales each, the profit would Iss 13.800 dols., or double the amoluit set down by Mr. Olmsted. I am therefore inclined to think that in this representation he has stretched the point a;ainst the labour of the slave. At page 14& I find a report of the wages given for hired labour, viz.:— A lot of nogroes engaged as labourers on the Capitol (Austin), only one of them a poor mechanic, were lately hired for the year at 280 dole. each, the hirer to feed, clothe, dco . &a. . . . A negro cook, the poorest noesible, I was told was hired at 60 dole. per month = 723 doh. a year, at the hotel. Another I heard of hired at 810 dole. a year. A fir-4-rue white journeyman meohani commanded d„ is a month, I found. At page 433 : The ordinary Texan wages for an able field hand ara 200 dole. The German labourer hires for 150 dole., and clothes and insures himself. There are of these cheap Germans in Texas 31,000, according to Mr. Olmsted; and with one wire extract from his book I will take my leave of him. At page 32 3 he says : Near the course of the Cumherland are several furnaces and iron mines. . . . One of these entahlishrnents employs a capital of 700,000 dola., and owns 700 slaves For common labour negr.es are almost exchisively used, because white men do•l't like the work. and won't do it artless they are compelled to. You can't drive thess like you can a nigger. In conclusion, I will q•tnte from Mackay's " Western India." This gentleman was sent to India in 1851, by Manchester, to look into the cotton districts thtre, and report on their capabilities. At page 334 he says : I have before shown that in °Thum" , Yesrs a huspth of land in Broach, which is equal to afinnt half an acre, will produce about 150 lbs. of see I cotton. from which about 50 the, of clean cotton will be produced. h in at the rate of 300 lbs. of seed cotton, and newly 100 lbs of c'eitn cotton, per acre. . . . But whilst the yield of clean cotton in Broach is nearly one.t bird, that of cotton in the southern Maltratta country seldom exceeds oneelourth. And be further adds : No matter to how low a point American prices might drop, they seemed to have in reserve a lower attainaule point sull. I have myself never planted cotton, and am there fore practically unacquainted with the actual yield of clean, or saleable, cotton per acre; but I am under the impression, from the statements in Mr. Olmsted's book, that 1 1 ) bale 4, or some 800 lbs., is about the average quantity of saleable cotton produced on the cotton lands of the Unite I States. Therefore, look ing at the East 'Pala rate of production per acre, as compared with the American produce, coupled with 10,000 miles of extra transit to our markets, I think our political economic dogma of equalising► the duty on slave produce, in order to make the free-grcwers work harder for less money, is likely to recoil upon ourselves, and not likely to produce any Heti-factory results, so long as the United States are able to keep their slave population in abject subjection. That the Yankees will be able to do so very much longer is hardly possible; and when a revolt 'sakes place, as it must, sooner or later (and fearful and bloody will be the struggle, as in St. Domingo), will England then be able to place her hand upon her heart, and say, with a clear conscience, I never fostered slavery ; I never encouraged this savage and debasing syt•m by equalising the duties on its produce? Retribution will come heavy on us then in more ways than one.—Yours, •ir, most obediently, April, 1857. MI OLD JAMAICA PLANTS!: FROM THE LONDON GAZE frE. Tweacinv, May 5. BANKRUPTS.—Tnowts HARRISON, HArrietsham and Maid stow% coal merchant—THow s WARD, Bow t:hurcityard. City, stock manufseturer—TFlOUts FRED. TREED, Wineheater•atreet, Waterloo -town, surgeon HENRY BATESON, liailden-place, Waterloo-road, apothecary- Jons Ficio. Farnham. Surrey, bon- Meker—LUCY OAKLEY, Walsall. Staffordshire. draper —Witt.' %31 SHELDON WITHERS, Mansfield. Notts. miller -- W. P. any, Newport, Monmouthabire, brewer—DAY ID METRICS, Cardiff, Glatnorganahire. bontmaker—KITCRINOM%N GRkVIL, Halifax, grocer —EBESEZER BROOKS, Sheffield. spring knife manufac turer—Wm. SWINTON LAURIE, Liverpool. merchant—WN JONES, Porimadoe, Carnarvonshire. shipbuilder GEORGE Preston, cabinetmaker -James WattwoßlC.Choriey, Lancashire, cotton spinner —.1,4 ninsox STOKER (lOC Anderscn Stokoe, u stated on the 17th ult.), Purhiun, grocer. Friday, May 8. BANKRUPTS.—Wrw Am STEPHENS, Gloneest er, cattle sale=man—HEFßY WHEELER. Derby. painter— THOMAS DAII"Itl, Neath, Glamorganshire, contractor—Taox As BRADLEY, Kidder minster apothecary- -WILLIAM OGILVIE CA MERON. Camomile• au eel, City, expo] t oilman—J...llEs CArr - High-street. South wark, brewer—dAmss Swirr, Milton-road, Gravesend. statuary ma.on--TROMAS STUTELY. Sheerness, builder—Jtmcs SCII - mess. Hatton-garden. wholesale jeweller—WlLLlAM GEORG E Bnoww, High-street, Dart`ord. Kent. clothier—R ,DCRT JAM E S Nonroy, Fleet-street. outfitter—Tnomts RILEY EBYWORTII , Wapping-wall, ale and beer merchant.