The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-19 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19.

IT would be unfair to tax Mr. DISRAELI'S speech
with much severity. l'olities, according to him, form
the peculiar produce of Buckinghamshire. All that
is set forward in that speech is certainly very raw
produce, uncombed, unseasoned, and flung in a rude
state for the agricultural mind to feed on. Before
no other audience c,,uld a public man venture to place
Fuchtlagrant self contradictions. Tothissameaudience,
with the URIC face and in the same hour, Mr. DISRAELI
declared that agricultural wealth in England was but
one-third of the whole wealth of the country, and
consequently entitled but to bear a smaller portion of
taxation ; and a few moments after he declared that the
agriculturists were by, far the greatest employers and
feeders of the industrious poor, and consequently that
their influence was, and should be, paramount. In
other words, when the landed interest is asked to
pay taxes, it pleads being a miserable minority;
when claiming to govern and to monopolise, it as-
sumes the character and the rights of the vast ma-
jority. One moment Mr. DISRAELI drags it forward
in rags and in lin•tna pauptris ; the next he intro-
ducea it in ermine, dispensing wealth and wielding
power.
A similarly light-fingered way of dealing with
words and argument is the wonderful assertion that
land is raw material, and therefore not to Le taxed
Ly enlightened financiers. The raison for not tax-
ing raw material is that such enhancement of
puce immediately enters into the price of the
commodity, and even multiplies at each mani-
puhition. But the political economists. of even
'J'oryism, tell that the rent of land does not enter
into price. The greater part of land has always
yielded a surplus produce beyond tho expense of
cultivation, and a share of this surplus produce has
always been, not merely claimed, but rightfully pos-
sessed, in all countries, and more especially in Eng-
land, by the state time out of mind. A portion of
the runt of the land has belonged to the state,
and another portion to the church, lions the
Conquest down. it may be a question of eon-
sideratien of how much the claim may be,
but ali. Drumm.' might as well warn the parson off
the ground, and deny him his tithe or the composi-
tion for it, on the plea that it was a tax on raw ma-
terial, as to set up landlord's immunity from state
charges upon his rent for such reasons.
Great allowances, however, must be made fee a
protectionist chief who comes forward to re-
commend to a chosen band of agriculturists
the abandonment of the idle dream of pro-
tect ion, and the placing their future trust in
seeking indemnity for a remission or change in local
taxation. The great nevessity of these politicians is
to keep in repair that old Chinese wall, built up to
separate the agricultural and commercial interest&
The levelling of this wall would be the destruction of
the antiquated party, in which Mr. litseseu has
enlisted. And hence his care, in abandoning this wall
of crumbling brickwork, to throw up another as
speedily:and as effectually as time and circumstances
will allow.
We fully join Mr. Disavel.t in the desire, that
protection being slain and buried, all interests should
meet in a solemn inquiry into their several burdens,
1.1) as to merge all into one common and equable sys-
tem of taxation. Protection ut an end, farmers and
other manufacturers and traders are precisely in the

some boat and the same position. 'We only 'class re-
maining apart arc the landlords, and the sooner we
have a free and full discussion and settlement with
them the better. If the landed interest really support
burdens which they ought not to bear, let them he
relieved. But we presume that no rational man
can consider property in the rent or surplus pmduce
of land, inherittsl for generations with a variety of
charges and subtractions—no one can consider such
property in the same light as profits derived from
uidustry, created hut a few years back out of no-
thing, tam of men's skill and liable to change, to
disappear, or to increase with it.
Over and over again has it been shown, that in
taxation, whether local or general, the weight
on real property, that portion which is levied on
houses, the immense proportion of which are occupied
by the non-agricultural classes, has universally aug-
mented, whilst that on land has porportionately
decreased. Last year a heavy tax, capable of,
fearful augmentation, was placed exclusively
on :the saute species of property, without any
stipulation or understanding whatever that
this was to lie considered when the in-
mate-tax was to be re-distributed. Year after year
some of the old burdens, mortgaged as it were upon
land, have been removed, or only so much left, as
would leave to the possessors of land the control and
authority without the fiscal burden. The whigs
mid their present Chancellor are but too willing to
lend themselves to these unperceived and gradual
sacrifices to the landed interest. But the champions
will not be content with anything gradual, or indeed
any scheme that they themselves do not father, and that
will not only till the pockets of the class, but help
their leaders to power. Hence the extravagance of
their demands; and the necessity fur increased vigi-
lance on the part of popular constituencies and
leaders.

If such questions are to be decided in parliament
as at present constituted, the landlord interest will I
infallibly carry some measure of outrageous compen-
sation, even though they dare not re-impose protec-
tion. Fur let it be recollected that at the commence-
ment of Met session Mr. Gtxtistoxx himself prof-
fered his aid to the ultra-conservatives to procure for
them compensation in the lightening of their peculiar
burdens. on condition that they would abandon pro-
tection. Mr. Disasxu, in Bucks, comes forward
half way to meet Mr. GLADSTONE; in other words,
to reconstitute the old tory party, broken up by the
idiosyneracy of
What is most to be desired, in order to meet and
defeat them schemes of individual ambition, is to
procure a free and full inquiry into the whole nature,
scope, and condition of our taxation, and whilst this
is going on, to carry such a measure of electoral re-
term as would return a pirliament truly representing
the people of England, with their various tendencies
and interests, so that ajust and satisfactory compro-
mise might be arrived at between all.

We ventured the other day to take a general view
of the present position of the farmers, to make some
suggestions far a sort of rural stock-taking and ar-
rived at the conclusion that there is nothing in the
present state of agricultural affairs to dishearten or
discourage the English husbandman who conducts
his business with energy and prudence. Indeed
there is nothing in the business of husbandry, of
itself, to distinguish it from any other avocation over
which variations of season and the uncertainties
thereby produced have a considerable influence.
The farmer would naturally hire a certain quantity
of land furnished with ascertained conveniences
for its cultivation for a definite time, and for the
use of such land he engages to pay an =Ra
yearly rent. It would be assumed that he makes
his calculations of outlay and returns over
the proposed period of his occupation, in which
calculation enter all the contingencies to which his
business is liable from variation of sca.on, change of
prices, and the like. And in all this there is neither
nivstery nor difficulty.
"But the trade of farming in This country is subject
to two peculiarities, which constitute its main ditti•
cultiea, and very serious one,, they are. The first
consists in the opinion, which has been fostered
among farmers, that they can be and arc entitled to
be guaranteed by some legislative action prices for
their commodities higher than, but for such .4 protec-
tion," they would bear in the world's market; and,
secondly, they seldom obtain complete possession of

their farms, and have never that control over their
t, land, which would enable them to carry on
their business to the best advantage. Hap-
pity fur British husbandry and i:s follows:a, t&
spar= of protection to agricnlnre has beet
,• exploded, and the mischievous illusions and
visors which malted from it are being aratidaly,
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