The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-12-22 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL FINANCIAL REFORM

ASOCIATIO.V.

ANTI INCOME TAXATION AGITATION.
At the weekly meeting of the Council, on Thursday, the agi-
tation now on foot for the immediate reduction of the income and
property tax, and its total repeal, at the period at present fixed
bylaw, was referred to,as a subject both of regret and alarm to all
consistent advocates of free trade doctrines and sound principles
of taxation. Extracts from very judicious articles in the Blus
trated London News, Atlas, and Belfast Mercantile Journal,
reference to the movement, pointing out its retrogressive ten-
dency, were read, and an address from the Council, to the
middle, commercial, tnanufactuting, and industrial classes, was
agreed upon. The address admits the grievances popularly
complained of, and oven points out others to which little or no
allusion has been made; but it protests against the popular
demands, as involving an abnegation of the commercial policy
inauzurated by the late Sir Robert Pool, and cootenda that the
people, whilst insisting that the injustice which distinguishes
the Income and property tax, as at present leveed, shall be
redressed, should also demand a thorough revisal of our fiscal
system, and the substitution of a tax on income and property,
equitably adjusted and fairly levied, for duties of customs and
excise, which now press so heavily on commerce, manufactures,
and industry, which are so expensive in collection, and which
are productive of so many evils, social and moral, as well as
fiscal and commercial,

DI.,COUNT ON PREPAYMENT.
A correspondence on this subject was laid before the council.
The question now stands in this position : —Mr. Amos, the
surveyor, says that the right to claim discount on prepayment
of the tax for the whole year, is, practically, a dead letter,
because the first assessment is not nut until payment for the
first half of 'the year is overdue, he being, obviously, under the
impression that the privilege, whether it be worth much, little,
or nothing, was intended for all persons who chose to avail
themselves of it. The Receiver General, on the other hand,
holds that it applies only to persons who arc assessed by the
Special Commissioners, and the difficulty which seems so
conclusive to Mr. Ames does not occur to him at all. In
view of these official discrepancies, and after a careful study of
the act and its latest alteration, the gentleman who raised the
question contends that the Receiver General is wrong : upholds
Iris own right to pay the whale year's charge to the Receiver
General, and to be allowed discount for the half year not yet
due; and, by way of bringing the question to a point for legal
decision, he means to submit to a distraint, threatened by the
collector, for the half year due on the 20th of September last,
he having tendered payment for the whole year to the Receiver
General. Lest, however, he should be wrong in his opinion,
and the Receiver General right in his decision, he means to
make all sure for next year, by claiming to be assessed by the
Special Commissioners.
WASTEFUL DISPOSAL OF GOVERNMENT STORES.
The following beautiful specimen of official thrift and inge-
nuity was laid before the council as authentic : There is a ship
now in Liverpool, which carried a cargo of rum to Balaklava,
with orders to return in ballast. The war having ceased, and
the rum not being required for the troops, it was sold at Con-
atantinople at the rate of fivep-nce per gallon, or thereabouts,
and the vessel returned to England in ballast, as originally
intended. The quantity thus disposed of is said to have been
800 puncheons, or about 85,000 gallons, the worth of which
in England, at the present moment, would, probably, be about
ss. per gallon. Of course it never occurred to the official
mind that all the labour and expense of discharging cargo and
taking in ballast might have been avoided, and soma £17,000
saved in tho purchase of a similar quantity of spirits, simply
by bringing the rum back to England ; or if it did, the
official instructions must have been the insuperable
obstacle in the way, when common sense dictated tho
possibility of such a course of proceeding. An
article in the Times of Tuesday, and the letter of a corres-
pondent on the following day, were cited as exposing in gross
the system of this most improvident transaction is but a sample.
From these it appeals that vast quantities of stores for camp use
and other purposes,—many of them at ticks likely to last till
wanted again, such as carts, waggons, saddlery, tools, tin and
copper utensils, boots, waterproof fabrics, &c. Others—the very
same articles which other government departments are buying
at full prices, —are now being sold off by the army authorities
in the most wasteful manner, principally to dealers and others
who surround the arsenals and dockyards ; this, too, at a time
when war has been declared against Persia, and there is no
knowing how soon hostilities may again break out in Europe !
According to the-correspondent, the system, almost from time
immemorial, has been this :—each year estimates for every
article are presented; contracts for these articles to the amount
voted are entered into; and at the end of the year all the articles
that remain on hand are sold off by auction, often at a tenth
part Of the original cost, just to clear the way for fresh estimates,
votes, and purchases of articles precisely similar to those which
have been sold. An instance is stated in which a dealer made
purchases at a government sale, afterwards contracted wiih
government for the supply of similar articles, and then actually
sold back to government the very same articles which he had
bought from government, but at five times the price he had
given for them at the government sale ! Commenting on this
wanton waste, the Times says: " Let the economists, who have
been accustomed to wage war against Grand Falconer and
Gold Stick, turn their attendee to a field more worthy of their
prowess. Let them deal with millions instead of hundreds of
pounds, with expenditure which weighs down and almost
crushes the nation instead of trifles which no man cares seri-
ously about." On this it was observed that, if the
sneer were meant for the financial reformers of Liver-
pool, as it probably was, it touches them not,
for they have not confined themselves to battling with such
" unconsidered trifles" as gold sticks and grand falconers ; on
the contrary, they denounced the shameful waste going on in
army, navy, and ordnance at a time when their censor was
contending that our military system was all but perfection. It
is to the Times that the charge of inconsistency applies, and
that much more recently than at the period alluded to. In
that paper of Saturday the 13th inst., there is an article on the
income and expenditure of 1856, the pith of which is that" the
warlike expenditure, though immense," was much less, com-
paratively, than that of 1815 ; that " the charges of collection
of the revenue, though forming a large item, do not seem dis-
proportionate or symptomatic of a bad system ;" that " tire coat
of the whole civil government of this old, grand, and aristocratic
realm" (which, oddly enough, the Times sets down at
£1,695,052 only) is no such Breit matter after all ; that the
cost of law and justice (£3,192,420) is " a mere trifle when
compared with the disbursements for Balaklava and Crimean
campaigns ;" and, in fine, that whatever we pay for civil
government, it forms but a very small sum compared with
what " a great nation must sacrifice to the insatiable demon of
war." The meaning of all this seems to be that, on tire whole,
our financial affairs are quite as well managed as we can reason-
ably expect then] to be, and that.we cannot rationally grumble at
the cost ; yet, a few (lays after this apology for things as they
are, the Times twits " economists" with warring against grand
falconers and gold sticks, and paying no attention to " expen-
diture which weighs down and almost crushes the nation !"
DIFFU-lON OF USEFUL INFORMATION.
Since the meeting a correspondent has sent the following :
" Copies of all the income tax books in Scotland lie at the
Stamp-office in Edinburgh, open and patent to forty or fifty
clerks and porters, NOT ONE of whom is sworn to secresy as
required bg the act: Nis wonder the incomes of various
individuals are known and talked about ! Are there any
unsworn clerks in the Liverpool office ?"
•
--
An article in the ,Sport shows the remarkable progress
which horse racing has made in France since 1833. From
that year up to 1840, the number of horses that were
entered for races in all France was only 59, and the amount
of stelae was only 75 000 f ; but from 1841 to 1848, the
number of races was 125, and the amount of stakes 131,0001;
and from 1849 to 1856 the. races were 140 in number, and
the amount of stakes i.59,000f. In the first period the
numer of owners of horses was only 24, in the latter it
was 48.

-
A REASON.—At a distribution of prizes in a German
village, a little girl, seven years old, whose parents had just
been turned out of their lodgings because they had failed to
pay their rent, was asked by the rector. " Have you studied
sacred history, my child ?" " les, sir." "Do you know
the history of the creation ?" " I know that God made
all." " Why were Adam and Eve turned out of Para
disc The child hesitated a moment, and then fixing
her eye on the examiner, replied, "Probably they were
turned out because they could not pay the rent."—American
Paper.
NEWSPAPER FEUDS AND TROUBLES AT WREXHAM.
THE LAW OF LIBEL,—The gentlemen of the long robe
are likely to have ample opportunity, at the spring assiz:s,
for the discussion of the libel law, there being no less than
three actions to be tried in connection with parties in.:the
town. The first is an ection brought Wir. John Lewis, the
magistrates' cl,-rk for Wrexham, against Mr. Joseph Craven,
brewer, as the author of the letter which appeared iu the
Wrexham Advertiser of the 6th inst., headed--" Wanted,
a Paid Magistrate's clerk," and commenting upon Mr
L.wis's interference in a case of assault before the magistrates
on the 24th inst., Owens and Daughters against Morris and
brother-in-law. The second is an action brought by Mr.
Lewis against the proprietor of the Advertiser, for what
appeared in that paper a week or two since, at which Mr.
Lewis took umbrage, and a writ has consequintiv been
issued. The third is an intended action by Mr. Daniel
Jones, cheese merchant, against the proprietor and publisher
of the Tf rexhamite newspaper, for some lines of a satirical
character which appeared in that paper, and which Mr.
Jones considers most unprovoked and personal, and designed
to bring him into ridicule. These lines were signed
" Numper Wan." An apology has subsequently been oft red
to Mr. Jones through the Wreahamile, but Mr. Jones
considers an apology from the publisher iwufficient. Pre-
liminary meetings of the friends of Mr. Craven and the
proprietor of the Advertiser have been held, and a subscrip-
tion is about to be made to indemnify them against any cost,
in'th• matter.