Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-12-02 00:00:00

sition. I dare_ say there will be some newspaPeri i

,e two •or three

-perhaps half-a-dozen in London the day after to-morrow,
who will tell us that this is a most irrational and
nerhans a revolutionary proposition. (Laughter.)

You -will find the rich—even some rich men, but
I am happy to say I believe not a great many
amongst the trading classes—doubt the principle
we are now upholding, and think it would be perni-
cious to the country. You find amongst the landed
proprietors, who are always less informed upon these

doubtless, *oTri selfishiiess

but in pinny others, I

believe, it arises purely from an entire ignorance of th(
uments upon which our position is based

facts and c

this nature.

'wenty years ago, gentlemen nc

numerous than the council of four association, began an

agitation wi

regard to the question o:

the Corn Laws

Many of you have still almost- ringing in your cars
the predictions which were' ventured on and put forth
with regard to that agitation. There were some great
men in the country—at least one duke—who gave the
country full notice that he should leave the country if
any such measure as that we advocated was carried
(Laughter.) In fact, we all expected if anvbod

to see -a
duke hereafter, he woad be obliged to go abroad
to get a glimpse of him. (Laughter.) But what did
happen ? This has happened -. That probably twice as
much corn and cattle have come into the country
during the last thirteen years since the repeal of
the corn laws, than almost anybody expected,—
not less than something approaching to twenty millions
sterling per annum in value. These dukes are not gone.
(Laughter.) The land is more valuable than ever it was
—(hear, hear)—the class of farmers is higher—(hear,
hear)—there is more capital laid out upon the land—(hear,
hear)—and millions of your countrymen, to whom the
law denied the commonest rights of freemen—who were
then suffering periodical starvation of the bitterest kind,
are now living in a degree of comfort to which, in all
previous times, they were unaccustomed. (Loud cheers.)
Well, then, am I not entitled to say that the landed pro-
prietors,—noblemen and gentlemen of England, many of
them so unwilling, as I believe, to do an unjust act—is
it not fair for me to say that on this great question they
were wholli, mistaken. (Hear, hear.) Let us
go a little further, When the income-tax
was laid on for the purpose of enabling cer-
tain considerable changes in the tariff to be made,
there was great dislike to that tax. There are very good
reasons for disliking it, apart from that for which we
dislike' all taxes—because they take our money. But
many persons dislike it because they do not like the
object for which it was imposed—namely, to make ap-
proaches in the direction of free trade. And yet now,
—evehioybwohdoy
olavuhofiknndowa smaannywthb knows—i don't
ytcbairnegwfrohort hhiseis
own discovery and his own thought—l will undertake
to say he knows that the imposition of the income-tax
the amendment of the tariff, which was. mostly
done under Sir Robert reel's government, has been'
bodyprod of theaetive not
labouringonly peopleof grea
at advantagendthe
cnmine
tor:ia classes
hgre at
no
ga
e
of this country, but it has actually increased and given
additional security to the riches of the lauded proprietors.
(Hear, hear.) So, now, this seheme which is put before
the country by your association—ridiculed by some as a
dream, an imagination of a lunatic, scoffed at by others
as a democratic and revolutionary movement—the time
will come when every sensible man in England will
admit that the carrying out of these great principles has
proved to be an additional step in the salvation of the
poor, and to have conferred additional blessings upon
these who are fortunate enough to be rich. (Applause.)'
But we cannot conceal from ourselves that there

if you are saying

ytiaina. for the poor you mean something afitur

doing now,-without b
Presented, or calumnic

A. man canno
lit having. I (

a from t

s I read it

iine when Mr. Rintont

had the Spectator, compared with the present, and the
gentleman, whoever he may be, who manages the
economical department of that journal. Having read
an article from the journal he referred to, to the effect,
that whatever a man's income was, either he or his de-
pendants, by purchasing taxed commodities, paid their
relative proportion to the taxes of the State, Mr. Bright,

in continuation, said—That is just the sort of stuff that
was talked twenty years ago about corn. They also said,
in opposition to Gen. Thompson's measure, that although
the corn was scarce and dearer, that somehow or other
everything else was made dearer, and in the general shuf—
fling of the cards, and the scuffling through the country,
and the rapidity of the changes everybody was a great
deal better. But here is another newspaper, which is
one of great authority on these questions, and which has.
also taken up the matter—l refer to the Economist.—The
speaker read an article from the Economist of the 19th of
November, asserting that the higher classes bore all the
cost of national sudden emergencies, such as war, so far

that all the heavy, grinding, and painful
taxation of a war was paid by them ; and' that this must
be borne in mind when they came to estimate the expen-.
diture of ordinary years. He then said, the Economist
does not appear to consider that the eight or nine and
twenty millions paid by the national debt is any portion
of the grinding taxation of wars. When the 'Russian

not the Economist know that at the same tim

and in

the very same session, the descending duties on tea and
sugar were arrested by a special act ; but at the con-

tax, they left the war duty on sugar and tea. (Hear.)
In November, 1858, the paper from which he had -
this extract advocated the policy of Sir Robert

the re-adjustment of . the charges upon the
people, to, lighten those on the poor and
increase those" on property. Now, at least forty or fifty
million'weieraised by indirect taxation. The war income-
tax., was repealed nearly two years ago ; two 'millions or
more of the permanent income-tax was given up in the
• present year; but the war su.f.,rar and tea duties still
4 o'riSt. So far from the financial policy of Sir Robert

Peel being extended, the House. of Commons has delibe-
rately abandoned every instrument by which it could
be defended or extended. I have now only one
extract to read to you, and I have done for the
present with our friends of the press. He read an
extract from the Times of the 23rd Nov., referring to a
speech which he had made, and denounced thaprineiples
he had expressed as the most mischievous and untrue.
that had ever been uttered by a public man in a free
country. gr. Bright said, will the meeting believe that
the Times refers to some calculations which appeared in
the Economist, and which the writer said were made in
consequence of the dangerouS tendencies of my state-
ments, whereas those very calculations was published in
the Economist of the 15th January last—(laughter)—so
of Sir Robert Peel to the present
put
it upon the wealthy. It does
e
tt
tai that
ea lwtrhi
writer
et r was
imagined me r y somethingr
fabricated
eenrc taxation
afi
tctehifih:en_nrt
financial
sicusi
pay:nuloe
oantl authori-
tative ota.trhi
hois
slightest foundation whatever. (Applause.) And what
is more, after just quoting the Economist newspaper, he
dieewerhpeoaselereitoed
tendency
Eaeldidoapaxawtpyrei
appear
arsne
rhq, t
classes
r(teat shorsam:s ybet
cos
theteel
rilaaitatnat
tidtinomst the
ene
r
two ago, I don't knoW how long—the authorities at
calculations to show how much the
Somerset House did give to the Chancellor of the
upper classes consumed—how much the middle classes
consumed, and how much what they called the working
the i
m
or poorer classes consumed of the articles of tea and
sugar; and the conclusion was this—of the articlea theeooror
country, of
sugar, the upper classes classes consumed 221 per cent. ;
that is,
ry
coltuahstes
eosf upperocno ne s
uclmahundredclasses
s 3 consumeB pounds
pounds, consumed 2 2and the pounds,p
thep
38 per cent •,00rer classes
44 and working or
classes 49! pounds ; of the nrticlethoef tea,mid middle
ee
caulpsi. e
upper
classes
s
was made, or where the line was drawn, and
therefore we are not able perfectly to say whether
it was right or wrong ; but if we take their calculation,
let us see how is the matter of taxes with regard to this
nation ? Take the article of tea now. In that article
pe r consumed
cent. - notper know e n
how this calculation
t"
the upper classes use, according, to his calculation,
£922,000 Worth a-year-LI ought to say pay taxes
to that amount, as the calculaiion is made upon the
taxes,. The whole tax is £5,271,000, and the pro-
portion of the upper classes is 022,000; the proportion
the middle classes is £2,000,002, and the proportion

of the Dom

sses £2,245,000,

Of sag