The Express.
London, England, 1849-12-07 00:00:00

erveiso.

oirrentrice MAILS.
The netts us Mensines, to the MtsUnmans de , t Egypt,E
pt
Ceylon, Isdis. Iffeng.Kong, Sc., will to na
again, Dee. 7.
no nails tot British North America avi
Dn.d the Usitini
ads. will be suds ap is the evening of 14.
TM Wat India Mails, 'sen and isclu
ding Barainds, Unsung,
Mow Headline, Now Orkin*. end biszico, ding
then ler Medan. St. Jnas•ss Niceness. New Oranede,
ChM awl Pars, will he dispatched is Dee. 17.
The snit wells fn Lisbon. SPaiZe "d ("rata!' will be
esedie ap on D.*. 17.
The Coy
f Gibraltar, Melts, Owes, the lonian Island
ligy s,
pt, Coyle.,a Lula, and Chine. ne &Athenian', will
be sada up on the soning at Dec 20.
The sails fey Medrirs. the Braila, and Banos Ayres,
will be seeds up on Jan. 4.
____------

OW WATZ7 AT LONDOVILITTiIL. _ _
T 0.......
1..•-••••• ,ff.-11ATAITA• 11/M. • •••• •••

..,---_
r DAY, DECEMBER 7.

LONDON,

Tama have been large and frequent meetings of
We throughout the empire, some of the civic, some of
the agricultural class, each met to consider the burdens
tender which they labour, the best mole ot equalising
and alleviating them, and of a caring a due measure
el &nitro% and eneervieion over the levy and over the
employ of our national revenue.
The first and ueiversal question is, who is to pay
the taxes? In what manner and measure are they
to be nista ? And it is euri .itis to observe the
different ways in which the different elm= answer
these questions.Tbe civic and the mercantile chases, in their meet-
ing% are unanimous in the opinion that the public ex-
penditure is too large, and might be »trenched. The
mirricultural leaders in the country, wi h the excep
t= of a v;y few stray she p, do not allow that there
is a soldier or a salary too much. All the leaders at
agricultural and tont meeting% in fact, look for place,
and would not lessen or dry up. that great source of
profit. tr Lone tiro expered,fere is their motto, which
the fiumers are fools enough to e oho.
Thee are seine of the agriculturists, indeed, who,
though reluctant to prune one branch of ministerial
prodigality, stilt drop hints that the debt is hes”.,
and that the payment of its interest might be modi-
dispensed with. So dishonest a proposal would
fied or
be hooted in any assembly of civic reformers.
Such being the differences as to the amount and
the requirements of expenditure, there arise others as
tothe modeof meeting meetings,g for their. The agri-
culturists at all their and through all their
organs, make the cue sweeping declaration that they or
their interest should pay none of the taxer. They have
no objection, indeed, to pay in the first instance their
share of taxa to the collector, but this is only on the
*audition of having the same made goodional anrim, to be
d returned
to them in the shape of an sddit
levied by them on all they produce. Their payment
of their Aare of taxation they call the burdens on
land, and they demand protection to cover and relieve
them of these burdens, that is, to render them of the
whole population taz-free.
Civic politicians, to do them justice, utter no views
massunreaeonable a kind. Although the immense
of indirect taxetion falls on the cocsumers of
their class and of their employ, they demand no
sweeping measure to relieve them at the ex
taxateonpens of
others. They ask merely the repsal of iedire et i
or of thst portion of it, which burdens the fleet neces-
saries, the morals, and comfort and cleanlinets of the
poor. And they demand the bu
deficiency to be met by
peace and retrenchment,not by flinging the rden aril
others. Let any impartial observer decide which of these
policies is the most moral, the most honest, the m-st
disinterested, the most safe, the moat anti-revulut ionary.
Yet the worst of the protectionist policy is not so
much, perhaps, its injustice, as its insfuffitheciency to
o
attain the end proposed. The aim o
tory politicians in this country has all along been tc
base government upon large masses of property, and
then to set the government to legislate so as to
exempt all this mass of property from hurthens.
The landowner was to pay a due portion of taxa-
tion, but be was to get it back by a law enabling him
to charge the tax on the consumer. The merchant
and manufacturer was asked to do the same, to pay
keavy,taxes upon his capital, his industry, his raw
material, and to indemnify himself by surcharging all
those who were his consumers. The result of this double
play, as far as the greet interest interchange of the
country is ease.» ed, was for one to centrali-e and
nullify the other. The burthens flung by both classes
of producers on the consumers were flung back by all
of those who were not poor and trodden under
foot. Bat in the final s ttling
rater all
of accounts
none were really rtlieved. For,
there is no paying taxes save out of property ; and
when prope:ty shirks them, it is like the flinging
of a boomerang, it comes back with redoubled force
upon the hand which launched it.
The important point, however, of all these fine mani-
pulations and legerdemain of protectionism must
inevitably have been the annihilation of foreign com-
merce, and the consequent destruction of one of the
most fertile sources of accumulation, profit, con-
sumption, and tax-payment. The property of the
country, therefore, by the protectionist scheme of
shifting its hatchet», would in reality have doubled
these barthens by the diminution of the general ability
to meet them.
We fear, however, thet we have been much too
seriously discus-ing a question which is raised at
present mere in a shape to provoke laughter than argu-
ment. Mr. Disitaltht, at Newport Pape% emulat-
ing Mr. Commies desire to sive ten millions to the
country, has come forw,ud with a prop to
osal add
ten or eleven millions to the budget. he member
foe Bucks would take bait of the locsl epos-
ditare, immemorially charged upon the landx, add
its amount to the rent of the landlords, and
compel the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQVES to pro-
vide for it eat of the common fund of general taxa-
tion. To the five or six millions which the CHAN-
CILLoR of the EXCUTAAULN would have thus to provide
for, were to be added about as many more millions
to establish a Sinking Fund as a kind of succarsal to
California in making money plentiful and cheap,
in the present scarcity and dearness of that commodity.
Having thus provided increased rental and cheaper
emoital LT the agriculturist, Mr. Dtsaseut's gene-
realty towards him is not exhausted. All these
bonuses to land are to be created by a still greater
berme, viz., an import tax on corn, and meat, and
cotton, being a still further allev'stion and exemp-
tion of rent, a still further grinding at.d pinching of
the industrious and labouring classes.
We can conceive these pretensions put forward by
Sancho P.inza to the people of Barataria ; or, to be
more serious, by some new WILLIAM THE CO:IOCE-
ion. of Norman extraction, to the Aoglo-Saxons,
afters second thrashing of them in Sussex. But we
promise the modern Milkier the bard and herald
of the feudalist camp, who has blown this defiance
from Newport Pagnell, that his friends must buckle
on armour, and out lance in rest, to enforce each
laws, for the English would take up their old cloth-
yard shafts to reset them.

Tne Corporation of London did itself rest honour
yesterday. It gave its t. thank-offtring the best
possible shape of a practical benefit to its industrious
poor. On the motion of Mr. Alderman 8AL0110145,
carried by a majority of 3 to 1, it was resolved that
oit be referred to a committee to coeside• the pro-
pristy of the Corporation erecting baths and wish-
bones. within the City for the use and convenience of
the labouring clews resident therein." We under-
stead that two sets of baths and wash-houses are
• contemplated : cos in the ward of Aldgate, the
other in the new street leading from ridgeHolborn-bre
to ClerkentrelL A greater advantage could t
conferred upon the metropolie. and we heartily con-
gratulate the citizens that, even although late, their
representatives in the Corporation have adopted this
rosoltion.
Ina thus disposing of a portion of the City
funds the Court of Common Council are not em-
. barking in any speculation. It is now es-
. 4. tablisbad beyond cavil that baths and hun-
t- ? dries in London are adkapposting institdioss.
~..From thd•lit of January to the 27th of Octobsc, in
pemmeat yea', them were upwards of 100,000
Whits in the Baths at' Otralston-equare. Ia the
liaetbee-in-th&Fields baths there were, during the
sine period, nearly 170,000 bathers. The amount
ineshred freer the bathers alone, at these establish-
mints, was 3,8001. The =penes of supplying the I
baths is estimated at between warbalf and tiro-&ieds
se the wont *aged for Shay so that a Mallow