The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-04 00:00:00

TAXATION.

Mr. COBBETT rose to make a complaint on be-
' half of the working classes both of England, Scot-
land, and Ireland, of impartiality in regard of taxation,
a complaint, on their part, that heavy stamp duties and
auction duties were imposed upon them, while the richer
part of the community escaped. Before he proceeded in
his statement, he desired to make an observation or two
on the reflections that had been thrown out against him
from time to time, on the assumption that he desired to
set the poor against the rich. If a man in that House
was never to say the poor were ill-treated—if lie was
never to put forward the claim of the poor against
the rich, then indeed would that House prove to be con-
stituted of the representatives of the rich and not of the
poor. He complained that of eight millions of taxes,
raised from the pockets of the people (including
the costs of collection), a very small portion indeed were
paid by those who were able to pay them, and than
which nothing could be more unjust or more calcu-
lated to give dissatisfaction to the working classes. The
taxes were placed on the poor by design, as well an
for a permanency, to which he had always objected.
What he had to submit to the House would be in
the shape of resolutions, which were long, but they were
drawn from Acts of Parliament, and not from statements
which might he referred to the errors of assessors. These
Acts stated who should pay and who not, and, unless it
could be shown to him that these Acts did not exist, or
that he put a different construction upon them from what
they ought to bear, then he would say to his Right Hon.
Combatant (Mr. S. Rice) th;;L his (Mr. C.'s) resolutions
were unanswerable. His first resolution was a prelude to
the rest, and was in tb;:se words :
" Resolved—That an impost which, according to the
letter of the law imposing it, is made to press with greater
weig
in
weight
tOeno men, on man,
class
otronon of one
class
a sms eon iof
, mesn, properlythanon
other
speaking, not a tax, but a confiscation, and the law
posing it is, if properly defined, a penal law, such as were
the laws imposing double taxes on the Catholics of Eng-
land, and on the Quakers of the United States of America;
and that, when one part of the community is compelled to
pay a tax, from which another part of that same commu-
nity, having the same or greater means, is wholly exempt •
ed, there is a clear and undeniable confiscation ; and that,
if such confiscation be inflicted without crime committed
by, and proved upon,
the party on whom it is inflicted,such confiscation is an act of tyranny."
Ur. Johnson wrote a very celebrated pamphlet under
the title of " Taxation No Tyranny," and he stated truly
that taxation was no tyranny when each part of the com-
munity paid a fair proportion. That certainly was no
tyranny. But if he could show that the poor paid one
hundred—five hundred—nay, one thousand times more
taxes than the rich, would not that be oppressive tyranny ?
The Noble Lord (Althorp) had, when first he came into
Office, proposed a tax on the transfer of Stock, and be was
so ; but somehow or other the Noble Lord
ed away from so just a tax. The Funds were
u
they gave almost a solid freehold to
taWrisilgsaehsi rrtferh
idinby the law; gtoeitinng
possessors, and if the transfer of such a property had
been taxed, justice would have been done. The next reso-
lution was :

46 That, by the Act of Parliament passed on de 11th
of July, 1815, being chip. 184 of the 55th of Geo. 111.,
and by the Act passed on the sth of August, 1822, being
chap. 117 of the 3d of Geo. IV., imposing certain duties