The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-02 00:00:00

FRAOTICADILITE OF DIRECT TAXATION.

The two leading at ticles of the times newspaper, in reference
-to the addresses of the Council on the anti Income
Tax agitation, and the supplementary letter of Sir Joseph
Paxton, were discussed, the Council having, at previous
meetings, been too much engaged with other business to take
the la ter into consideration. The unreasonableness of
requiring from the association a complete and detailed scheme
of taxation, separating all the property incomes, and earnings of
the kingdom, classifying every variety of each, and demonstrat-
ing how a sufficient revenue may be raised from the aggregate
by direct taxation, was commented on by various members.
The Council undertook to disseminate sound views on the
principles and elements• of taxation, to demonstrate the
injustice, oppression, wastefulness, and injurious consequences
of the present system, and to point out the many advantages,
individual and national, which would flow from a better
system, taxing all equally according to their means, instead of
pressing most unjustly on the mass to let the rich go, corn-
paraAvely scot free.
,Apart from the responses which their
manifestoes have elicited from all parts of the kingdom, the
efforts of the Council in this way may be deemed tolerably
successful, when they find the Times so far advanced in its
fiscal studies, or rather so conscious of some impending change,
that it does uot-venture to impugn the principles they enunciate,.
but contents itself with cavilling at details; and when they
find, moreover, that Sir Joseph Paxton, the only correspondent
of the Times whose lucubrations have been permitted to see
the light, admits the justice of those principles, anticipates the
gravest benefits from their adoption, but doubts their prac•
tirability, and therefore calls upon individuals to perform,
gratuitously, a dirty properly belooging to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and other Government functionaries who have
all the necessary information,. or most of it, at command, and
are handsomely paid for their services.
It was felt, nevertheless, that in order to excite such a
national demand for justice as will compel Ministers to do the
work they now shirk, from whatever quarter opposition comes,
and to set about a complete revision of our fiscal system in ear-
nest, it is desirable that the practicability of principles admitted
on all hands to ba Jost in themselves, should bo demonstrated
in detail: With this view, it was suggested that, if.the neces-
sary funds could be raised by public subscription for that
special purpose, three premiums, of sufficient value, to set the
best actuaries and first financial talent in the kingdom at work,
should be offered for the three most complete and satisfactory
solutions of the question, "flow to raise the necessary revenue
by direct taxation, in the manner most just to all classes of the
community, less costly
.in collection, and best calculated to
strengthen and develop() the true courses of national greatness
and prosperity." It was remarked that Sir Joseph Paxton,
who seems to be fully aware of the labour involved in such an
undertaking, has a fine opportunity of proving his sincerity by
heading the subscription list with a donation of £lOO, or what-
ever larger suns he thinks adequate to the importance of the
question at issue, and the interest he takes in its determi-
nation,

As bearing on the subject of prize essays and direct taxation,
two extracts from the mass of correspondence recently received
may be acceptable. The following is from a tradesman in the
north of Scotland, who enclosed a subscription of £1 63, and
had previously recommended the offer of premiums :—" I still
feel confident that if you were to make a bold push, and spread
far and near your intention of giving prizes for the best essays
on taxation, if supported by the public, public meetings and
subscriptions would quickly ensue, acd hundreds of pounds
would flow into your treasury for so laudable a purpose. At
such a momentuous epoch in financial matters as this, you have
no need to fear the want of support. You will he so good as to
send us some of your latest tracts, and a newspaper, with a
not co of your proceedings occasionally, in order to keep the
subject before us, and prevent our relapsing into indifference
as to what concerns every member of the community."
The following ato extracts from a let'er addressed to the
President, by a gent eman of large landed property, who voted
for the fist Reform Bil,, when it was carried by a majority of
one, was amongst the earliest supporters of the Anti Corn Law
League, and has ever been amongst the foremost in all free
trade movements

"Af;er offe!ing you, anil_,the council over which you preside,
my hearty thanks for that address,. which, I l,liove, is the
commencement of the first chap'er of a new era in tho

history of this kingdom, my only object is to express my
earnest desire to co—operate with you by any and all the means
in my humble power, for the greatest of all measures of
financial reform, for the bei:efi: riot only of the nation but of
the whole world. * * * I have been, for some time past,
engaged in preparing the details of a scheme which I was about
to submit to the public, precisely the same as that referred to
by you, so far as yet explained. The collection of statistical facts
in support of the theory assumed, and to show that the scheme
proposed will be as safe in practice as it is sound in theory, is
a work of great labour and difficulty, from the very imperfect
state of the public documents from which alone those facts can
be taken, and from the vast and confused masses in which those
documents, such as they are, are thrown before the public.
"I long ago satisfied myself that the scbcme proposed, being
based upon principles of truth and justice, must be safe in
practice; and all my investigations of facts, from returns
to parliament, and other :public documents, have con-
firmed me in this opinion. I have long ago satisfied myself
that the system of taxation in this country is oppressive and

unjust ; that it is a most ingeniously contrived system of
injustice and deception ; that it extracts from the people much
more than they have any notion of, and inflicts upon them
losses far greater than the amount they pay; that it impairs
the resources of the nation, and thereby inflicts injuries incal-
culably great and irreparable, both on present and future
generations ; and, lastly, that it furnishes governments with
the most formidable weapons of offence (more formidable from
being unseen), against the natural And just rights, or, i❑ other
words, against the liberty, 'prosperity, and happiness of the
people.

" Of all this, and that the remedy for all this, is as easy
and safe as it is simple and true, I have long ago satisfied my_
self; and the only question with me, has been how to make
all this equally clear to others, and especially how to bring all
this before the thinking and the unthinking of this vast com.
munity. You hisve now answered in part, this last question,
and I rejoice to, think that such a subject as this is in such
hands as yours—the representatives of the mercantile interests
of the greatest commercial city in the world. To have been
the pioneer in this march of progress, for the benefit of the
human race, in the four quarters of the globe, and especially of
the people of this country, would have been to me, I ad-
mit, a very gratifying honour; but still, I rejoice to think
that, the merchants of Liverpool, have now trade this subject
their own. lan well content to remain in rcadine's at all
times, to lend my own best help for the advancement of this
great question with the nation."