The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-22 00:00:00

LONDOIV, FRIDAY, JAN. 22, 1869.

The taxation of the United Kingdom is unques-
tionably a subject which interests us all, and very
often when the public has been vainly appealed to on

grounds of reason, humanity, or justice, its attention
has been successfully aroused by an argument ad-
dressed to the taxpayers. Taxes are never popular,

and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, even in the
richest country in the world, has often an ungracious
task. Just now economy is the order of the day,

but we apprehend that although the British taxpayer
will find a very satisfactory diminution in the nominal
number of clerks, deputies, and other official super-
numeraries, there will be very little actual decrease in
the ministerial demands upon his purse and his pa-
tience directly and indirectly.
It was certain then that Mr. DUDLEY BAXTER'S
paper on the taxation of the United Kingdom, read
the other evening before the Statistical Society,

would attract a fair share of attention. Mr. BAXTER

says that we all pay taxes, but scarcely one of us
knows how much we pay, and how the money is

taken ; he therefore endeavours to fathom some of

he secrets of taxation and to allot the share each in-

dividual has of the burden. He begins by dividing
it into four beads, taxes on income and capital ;

licenses or taxes on trades and professions; :axes

on food and stimulants ; and lastly, rates or local
taxes. Tliese four points correspond with four great

controversies, and as a general rule we may conclude

that wherever there is heavy taxation there is
controversy. The sum total of our taxation,
according to Mr. BAXTER, is about £83,000,000.

The total amount of all taxes on income and pro-

perty is £17,671,000, of which 3 per cent. is paid out
of income and 1i out of capital. Mr. BAXTER'S
theory on this point is that taxes levied on capital
ought to be applied to the reduction of the national
debt ; they ought not to be devoted to the current
expenditure, because they diminish the capital of the
country. Coming to the consideration of the taxes
on trades and professions, Mr. BAXTER informs us
that it was a maxim of Government in the olden

days that dealers in taxable commodities must them-
selves be taxed for selling articles of such increased
value, while dealers in untaxed commodities might
escape. To this distinction must be ascribed the
licenses imposed on wine merchants and tea dealers,
while ironmongers and drapers needed none. After
an analysis of the total of £4,869,000, or more than
per cent. on the gross income of the nation, raised
by these taxes, our staiistician proc,eds to subdivide

the taxes on food and stimulants into three parts. 1.
Taxes on necessaries, which consist nowadays of the
shilling duty on corn, producing £870,000. 2. Taxes
on semi-necessaries, such as tea, coffee, sugar, sago,
&c., which produce £9,470,000. 3. Taxes on alco-
holic liquors and tobacco, which yield the enormous
sum of £29,120,000. Taxes of this class return

£89,560,000, or nearly half the actual taxation of the
United Kingdom. This view of the subject naturally

gives rise to very serious considerations, more espe-
cially as we apprehend that Professor LEONE LEVI is
right in objecting to Mr. BaxTliat's division of the
expenditure among the three classes of the commu-
nity. Unfortunately there can be no question that
the sum which the working man pays to the Exche-
quer, through the medium of the taxes on alcoholic
liquors, is altogether out of proportion to his income.
Of course, we are speaking of the working men
as a class, to which there are honourable
exceptions. Professor LEVI, on examining this ques-
tion, declares his conviction that if the working men
would be but sober they would pay but little to the
revenue. He attributes the increase of pauperism
and crime throughout the country to the excessive
consumption of spirits among our working classes,
and, although this is one cause among many, there is
some truth in the charge. Mr. BAXTER admits that
there is a wide margin left after all his calculations.
lie tells us that the result of his examination tends
to show that the actual distribution of taxation in the
United Kingdom bears upon men of temperate habits
in nearly the following proportion :—A wealthy man
with £lO,OOO a year pays £960 ; a professional man
or tradesman with £5OO a year, £52 ; a workman
with £7O a year, £5. But besides this portion of
the taxes, which provides for temperate indulgence in
alcoholic drinks, there is a residue of taxation —more
than £10,000,000—derived from these drinks sufficient
to supply 15 additional gallons of beer, and nearly
two-thirds of a gallon of proof spirits per head to
22,000,000 persons" This, adds Mr. BAXTER, is the
liquor fund of the intemperate, which it would not be
fair or possible to allot in averages over the population.
It is the fine on intemperance imposed by the State.
If, however, it were possible to divide to each class
of the community its share in this vast aggregate, we
apprehend that the result would considerably affect
the percentage of 7 per cent., which Mr. BAXTER
allows for the pressure of taxation on the work-
ing man's income. The system of taxation does not,
in Mr. BAXTER'S opinion, bear unjustly on tem-
perate men, but the victims of the gin palace
make a dark side to the picture. " Out of their fully
the nation draws ten millions of money—an eighth
of her whole revenue, almost sufficient to support her
army, more than sufficient to support her destitute
poor." We may add to this the question how much
this revenue of ten millions costs the State in the
form of pauperism and crime? We may very much
doubt whether there would be much profit out of
this important contribution to the revenue if we had
the power to trace accurately the relation between
cause and effect. No Legislative enactment will suf-
fice to repress this growing evil. We must, in the
first place, amend our workmen's homes, both in town
and country, for the thronging population of the
city, and the scanty supply of cottages in the fresh
open fields, tend to the same result. So long as we
bap the present fearful system of over-crowding, of
close air, foul smells, bad and insufficient water, and
all the attendant evils, moral and physical,
we must inevitably have our gin palaces
crowded, and our latouring population
suffering in mind, body and estate. Physical
and moral degradation go band in hand, and
the exhaustion consequent upon the vitiated atmo-
sphere, and the depressing surroundings of the man,
whose frame is wearied with constant toil, is a more
powerful agent than any temperance missionary can
hope to be.

If we could provide more rational amusement for
the masses, if we could open cheap and entertaining
reading-rooms, lecture-rooms, ranoramas, or dio-
ran is views, concerts, and public readings, we should
be doing something towards redressing a monster
evil. All such entertainments should be made at-
, ractive and interesting, such as a man without much
preliminary knowledge, or a special taste for study,
can really enjoy and not have too much of the di-