The Express.
London, England, 1849-09-01 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 1, 1849.

the qualities of wantonness and waste. It briees in
less than (with few exceptions) any other imposition ;
and it keeps down more of industrial and com-
mercial energy than any other invention of the trea-
sury devil, be it what it may—and that is saying a I
good deal.
The malt tax hurts the corn-growers, and the hop '
duty aggravates the depressing influences against
which the gardeners of that precarious plant have to
contend. The excise on soap Wares the manufac-
threes of that article; and the exorbitant rate of the
customs levied on tobacco stimulates fraud on the re- ,
venue among a particular class. But the smugglers
of tobacco bear at worst but a small proportion to the
community at large ; the amount of capital invested
in soap-boiling is doubtless far inferior to that em-
Dloyed is other branctes of domestic trade; hop•culture
Ifs, &ACT peculiar to hasedczin euuutito
and as for the corn growers, it may always
be contended, if not persuasively, at least plausibly,
that the malt tax falls in reality on the consumer and
not the producer and so that it is the shopkeeper
and artisan, not tho farmer or landlord, that has
really some ground to complain of the extra penny
which the malt tax adds to every pot of beer.
But no dexterous shuffle can possibly enable a
chancellor of the exchequer to show that the inci-
dence of the advertisement duty is limited or circum-
scribed. AU kinds of industry and every species of
trade is injuriously affected by it. Country and
town, importer and employer, merchant god
broker, bookseller and mercer, all equally feel
Ps niggard, pinching, and repulsive operation.
The smaller the capitalist the more oppres-
sively works this miserably mischievous exaction.
The small trader is obliged to think twice ere he
ventures to tell the unheeding world of his where-
, abouts and what he can do. The speculative haber-
dasher on a grand scale, puts aside at starting so
' many hundreds or thousands for advertising; but the
hard-toiling, frugal, cautions man, who begins with a
moderate stock in a third-rate street, 'and seeks only
' such gradual extension of his business as is com-
patible with steadily paying his way, he cannot ven-
ture to giva himself the only chance of makieg him-
. sill known which the progress of the pofforfory art
has in modern times lett open.
A high duty on advertisements is a direct rand an-
blushing tax in favour of large capital at the expense
morlemte and struggling industry ; and every dory
is high or low in proportion to the pr os which the
thing taxed would bring if the duty were removed.
It is notorious that in this respect the advertisement
duty is the heaviest because the most utterly undiscri-
! minating in existence. The servant out of place, the
• widow in distress, the famished scholar who would be
willing to go as tutor in any part of the
country, the quiet family who desire to receive
one inmate on moderate terms for board and lodging,
the chandler whose house was burned three mentos
I ago, and who wishes to inform his old customers
where his new pr.:mils:3 are, the milliner who has
moved to a better situation, and who could sell
twice as many bonnets if the public would only re-
, member that her new "fashionable rooms" are at
No. 63, New Exquisite-place,—each has to pay as
much,—and in proportion therefora about twenty
r times more than the County Fire Office, or the
. Oriental Steam Packet Company, for their
• stereotyped annour.cement. In l•kc manner, and by
the same most iniquitous, cruel, and unproductive
• system, the speculator on a great ecale is enabled to
stifle all the more qulekl; and sorely the modest
humble dealer; and as the blind rule of an equal
duty, no matter what length 11 c advertisement be,
applies universally, the hardship and injustice de-
r scends gradually towards poverty and need, gather-
ing weight and intensity as it descends.
Turn it as yin will the same blighting and
baleful aspect is betrayed. We hear a gnat
i deal about stimulating Iti.h industry, anti de-
. velophr.' Irish cnterprltc, yet here is a tax
which brings into the exchequer from Ireland
leas in the year than has been contributed out of the
6 same exchequer fur the soN.ort et the unemployed
poor in that kingdom, erery week during the list
three years! Yet whq is the taz upon ? Not upon
the inert property, the Lxurious expenditure, the
absentee rental, the ecclesiastical spoil of the country,
but upon those classes in especial who are anxious to
do for themselves, end to add whet they can to the
stock of interprise, trade, and employment, by which
alone the d=c, wing multitude ef paupers can be
reduced, if not absorbed.. . _ . -

,
As a hindrance to the diffusion of knowledge
through the instrumentality of perialir 11 publications
of every description its operation has long been felt
and understood. No government heartily desirous of
seeing the mass of the populati an made habitual
partaken of those intellectual advantages which the
wealthy few enjoy, would retain each a barbarising
impost for en hour. Her., again the essentially
monopolisieg spirit of the tax demonstrates its sordidl
power. The great organs of opinion, the daily pressal
the quarterly journals of criticism, or the weekly '
epitomes of news puhlkhed in the metropolis,
cons-le themselves with the conviction that at all
events they are indispensable, and that advertisers
can never omit them. But tho provincial press of
every degree, like the Loser wades, plundered
and cheated all the more prossly. It cannot bout
the same wide circulation yet the advertisement in
its columns pays just as much; or if the thrifty ad-
vertiser, in consideration of the difference of impres-
sions that exhibit his pleteesions er his want, &ter-
mires on a London paper, he denies himself the
chance of a local notification. Thus in one way or other
ronatbedy is sure of being injured, and injured without
countervailing recomi.enee of any sort or description.
Finally, the revenue itself suffers by the mainte-
nance of this Oitul and paltry exaction. Were it
abolished altogether there cannot be a doubt that the
increase of hilliness all over the country would amply
compensate for the nominal lose. Books, periodicals,
local newepipers, with their long attendant train of
useful occupations, would at once be multiplied.
There would probably be leis gin emiumed ; but
there wool bbe more paper made, more type
founded, end more printers, bookbinders, cloth-
workers, and other vain h'e artificers, perma-
nently and remucentively employed. Every trade
and walk of laborious life would have more fair pray
o:mpetition with the foreigner in a thcasand minor
branches of industry would bee-me more easy and
profi'able. The CHANCELLOR OF TIIE EXCHLQ :ER
would lose 100,000/. a year, which is cow extorted by
an unparalleled combination of oppression wad in-
justice ; but he would gain in augmented consump-
tion of sager, tea, coffee, and tobacco, before the fitst
year's experiment was ote.