The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-02 00:00:00

economical department." (A laugh.) But the Spectator
says, howiod ticket; are imposed they are borne in Some-
thingslike an equal percentage by the entire body of the
producing and consuming classes, whatever their incomes
may be. Well, just shell staff as that was talked twenty
years ago about. torn; it was always urged, in crppesi-
_don to General Thompson's illustration that though the
corn laws made bread dearer and scarcer, somehow every-
thing else was dearer in pforiottion, and thus by a: gene-
ral shuffling of the cards, -combined with the effect of
the exchanges, nobody was injured, but was in fact a
great deal betta °tin oorisaquertee. cLaughter and cheers.)
Another newspaper, of great atthoiett on these questions,
has now taken up this matter and treated It itith gravity.
1' refer to the Beenetii, Iyhich. oil the 19th of November,:
says, "That the. higher clagleg bear the cost of meeting the
sudden emergencies of the Country, so fit:' Am that cost is
met by taxation and not by loans. Now, wheti it le said
that the war titeation is chiefly paid by the ",higher classes,".
and that the loft et eltlesee in comparison scarcely pay at
all, this circumstance shOuld'be borne iii niltid in estimat-
ing the respective burdens of poor and rich in tinite of peace
—viz., that the kites ordinag and extraordinary mnst.be
considered together. The ..&" anomist,
seem to remember that the 28 or 29 Millions a-year paid for
the national debt is any portion of the grinding taeation of
war ; the however, does not
writer alludes merely to, the fact that when the
Russian war broke otit sit inereased income tax was im-
posed, but does he not know that at the same time in the
very same session the descending duties 'ofi lea and sugar
cwoenrceluasriroesnteodrtbhys..wa sr the al
vaecrty
firer a rt
hl i
thing
e nt thle ht tat
e ag
tuthree
did was to repeal the war income till, while they have left
ape
the war tea and sugar duties till this mometit To show
that. I have no bad authority for what I state, I go Ina to
the. _Economist itself. in its issue of the 18th of November,
185'3, the writer there says, that " otte. of the chief aims of
Sirslt.. Peel's policy was to re-adjust, on Wise primiples,
the taxation of the country, 'lightening the pressure Upon
labour, and increasing the charge upon 'property." How
far have those principles been acted upon .of late.? What
is the present tendency of Parliament in reference to taxa-
tion ? The reverse of that which was established by Sir It.
Peel. Every step that is taken is in the direction of relief
to property; at least 40 out of 60 millions are raised from
indirect taxes. The war income tai was repealed nearly two
years ago; two millions more of permanent income tax
have been given up in the present year. The war tea and
sugar duties still exist. So far from• the financial policy of
Sir Robert Peel being extended, tho!llotiee of Commons is
deliberately engaged in reversing it by abandoning the in-
strument by which it can alone be maintained or extended.
(Cheers.) Only one more extract, and I have done for the
present with our friends of the press. The Times of the 23d
November, referring to my having Stated that there was
something essentially mean and singularly cruel in the way
in which. the taxation of thi4 country has been and still is
levied, remarks that " a more mischievous untruth was
never uttered by a public man in a free country," and then
they eo on to observe, "-When this letter first appeared wo
remarked upon its mischievous character, and its obviously
dangerous tendency also naturally attracted the attention of
official persons. Some calculations have consequently been
made, and their results were printed in the Economist, froth
which we yesterday transferred them to our columns."
Now, will the meeting believe that, although this writer
says these calculations were made inconsequence of the dan-
gerous nature of my statements a fortnight before having
been brought to the notice of official authorities, these very
calculations were actually printed in the Economist on the
15th January last ? (Cheers.) SO far as this matter of fact
goes, the whole theory of the Times about the anxiety of
official persons relative to the dangerous nature of these
statements, 8114 to the necessity for calculations to be made
to dirabuse the public mind, is merely something this autho-
rita.tive writer has intagined or fabricated, there not being
the slightest foundation in truth for it ; and, after reading the
quotation I have just made from the Economist; I maymen-
tion.that the Times dare say that "The whole tendency of
financial legislation, from the time of Sir R. Peel to the pre-
sent day, has been to decreaSe the pressure upon the indus-
trial classes and place the weight of taxation:on property."
' Now, I have shown you that the Economist says exactly op-
posite to that. It does appear that aboat a year ago the
authorities of the Inland Reyenue gave to the Chancellor
of the Exchequer some calculations to, Show how much
the upper, the middle, and• the lower classes consumed
of the articles of tea and sugar, and the result wa's this—
that 'of sugar the upper classes consumed 221 per cent.—
that is, out of every 1001 b. Consumed its the Oountry the
classeser consumed
.2211 b. ; the middle clas es 38 per
cent., and the power classes 395 ; of the, article of. tea, the
upper classes consumed -171 per cent., the middle classes 38
per cent. the working or poorer classes 441 per cent. 'Well,
we don't know at all how this calculation was made, or the
principle on which it 'proceeded, and therefore I cannot
exactly say whether it is right or wrong; but, takiug their
own figures, let us put them to the test :—The upper classes,
according to this calculation, pay in the shape of tea duties
£992,000 ; the middle classes, £2,000,000 ; and the poorer
:classes, £2,315,000 ; the total amount being £5,200,000 and
upwards. Of ,the sugarduties the proportions contributed
are £1,345,000 by the richer classes, £2,227,000 by the middle
classes, and £2,309,000 by the poorer classes. Of the to-
bacco dutiees,the respective' contributions are—from the
richer classes, £956,000; the middle classes,
,£2,076,000;
and the poorer Classes, £2,431,000. Taking these three
articles together on this. calculation the rich pay £3,224,000,
the middle classes £6,351,000, and the poorer classes
£7,139,000. Now, of the whole Customs and• Excise, which
amount to £12,000,000 and upwarde' the proportions,
according to the same scale, are—for the upper claSses,
_£7,350,000; middling classes,' £15,930,000;; poorer classes,
£18,960,000. But you, must bear in mind that whatever be
the consumption of the richer classes, especially of what is
called the upper classes, that far more than one-half of it is
eonsumed, not by what is called "the family," but by the
servants who minister to their wante, and I take it for
granted that whatever is contributed to their maintenance
in their houses represents wages. ' This maintenance must
bo reckoned as wages fOr services, and my Lord This or Mr.
Somebody who may have 20 or 30 servants in his household
is not to put down to his family aXpenditure all the taxes
paid upon articles consumed by those whose services he
pays for partly in food and lodging and partly in money
wages. (Cheers.) And if it were possible by any calcula-
tion to withdraw these large items from what the rich are
said to consume it would Show, no doubt, that upon this
calculation my statement as to the proportion of taxation
paid by the working classes of this country would be fully
.substantiated in every figure. (Cheers.) But new I will
show reasons why these calculations cannot be correct.
Take the article of sugar, forinstante.. The Protectionists
used to say that sugar enough came into the country, and
that anybody could have it awho :could pay for it ; which,
,of course, was a very pleasant thing,'for those who had
money enough in their pockets ,(a laugh)—but what hes
been the result ? In 1833 6ur consumption of sugar was
1,000,000,cwt., whereas in 1859 it was 9;000,000 cwt. Well,
who has consumed all that extra quantity ? 'Were the
richer classes in 1838 stinted 'of sugar ? Was it not on their
tablas morning and evening-for their tea and their' cot Tee,
and to sweeten all their delicacies? Did any of you dine
with a wealthy man and 'find the mistress of the house nig-
gardly with her sugar ? (A. lank) The conclusion is ine-
vitable, that this enormous increase mutt have been mainly
consumed by those Vast-classes of thes people who, under
your old system of protection to the colonies, were almost
wholly debarred from the use of that most necessary and
most wholesome article of fond. Again; take the case of
tea. In 1833 our consumption was 33,000,0001 b. ; in 1857,
the last year for which I have the return, the consumption
had grown to 69,000,0001 b. •, so the same argument applies
here 'also. Into whose cupboards has this increased quan-
tity of tea gone ? Surely not into those of the lords and gen-
tlemen supposed to constitute the upper.classes. Again,
coming to the article.of tobacco. •In 1843 the consumption
was 2'2,000,0001b. of the unmanufactured article. Now, the
upper classes don't often smoke short pipes. (A laugh.)
They use Havannahs at from 30e. to Gqs,
.the lb. Unmanu-
factured tobacco is mainly used by those whom- for want of
a. very apt definition we term the common people of this
-emintry, but I should like to knew where the middle class
begins and where it ends. I hav,e stated that we have re-
ceived, nearly £20,000,000 in annual vallie Of corn and cat-
tle. Does anybody suppose that that increased importation
and coneatatilien has gone into the larders of the rich ?
All this enorriinns increase of consumption, caused by the re-
-moral of prohibitions, the extension of trade, and the doub-
ling of our exports, proves:to -md mind that the calculations
which have been made for the chancellor of,the Excheqiier
are not to be relied upon, and that the statement which I
made in my letter is substantially correct. But let us now
look at the line which has been drawn between the middle
and the working classes. An attempt has been made to set
up the middle class as a sort of squire to the knight of the
upper class. It is to fight for the upper class against the
ivorkingclass. Sltch'was the tone taken by Mr. Disraeli
and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton in, the debates last session
on Parliamentary Reform. Lot us see where tho middle
class orris and where the working class begins. Two gen-
tlemen I have nained assumed that under the Reform Act
of 1832 the middle class is r„ presented ; they admitted that
the working class is not. ,If the franchise stops at £lO and
includes the whole middle. Class, it follows that those who
occupy houses beloW £lO belong not to the middle .and
upper classes, but to the working class. Now; Mr. New-
march, the Secretary of the Statistical Society, who has
paid profcund attention to this subject, says that in England
and Wales 60 families out of every 100 live in houses under
,the value of £6 ; 15 in houses between £6 and £lO, and 25
in houses above the value of £lO. It thus appears that 75
per cent. of the population live in houses under the value of
£l9, and only 25 per cent. in houses above the value of £lO.
lled Mr. Newmarch taken Scotland and Ireland into his
calculation he would have found that 80 families out of
every 100 livo in house Sunder the value of £lO. If' that bo
aosand I have no doubt of it myself, no sensible roan can
come to the conchision that 80 per cent. of the population'
do not consume more of all those heavily taxed articles of
food which I- have mentioned than the remaining 20 per
cent. No fewer than 24,000,000 'of peeple live in houses
under the value of £lO, and only 6,000,000 occupy houses
above that value. Will any man,' with the slightest know-
ledge er the slightest power of reasoning; pretend to say
that 24,000,000 people do not consume more tea,
sugar, and other similar articles than 6,ooo,ooo—even cree
di ting the latter with the consumption of those servants who
live in their houses and ministerto their wants ? The bur-
den arising from direct taxes upon articles of first necessity
imposed upon individual families belonging to the working
class is very considerable. A friend recently ascertained for
me what was the consumption of those articles by the fami-
lies of 18 of his workmen, who are of the very elite of the
working class in Lancashire, intelligent, living in excellent
houses, above the average in many respects, and earning
about 355. per week each. .As proof efaheir superiority, I
may state that their consumption of beer, spirits, and tobacco
islery small indeed. The eraount bxpended on those articles
must be considerably larger in familiet whose incomes are
much less, yet the result of the inqairy sheared that the in-
direct taxes which those 18 workmen paid upon tea, coffee,
sugar, ale, spirits, and tobacco rmounted to fram Is. 3d. to
is. 6d. iu the pound. In the 'case of nine of them, whose
wages were only 21s. per week, the payments amounted to
ls. Bd. in flip pearld, or 31 per cent. upon "their whole earn-
ings. Many articles of consumption are left out of these
calculations, which, perhas s, ought to be included, such as
periodical failures in the demand for labour; but yet it
shows how severely our system of indiiect taxation presses
upon men who have toil every day and hour of their lives,
and -whose condition at the best is one of small comfort and
much privation. Is it not fitting, I ask, that we, the more
fortunate middle and upper classes, should say to our
rulers that we are' willing to contribute to the necessary
expenses of the State, but that henceforth we shall never
consent to any law which shall impose restrictions upon
'the freedom of trade, and allow the tax-gatherer to lessen
the little comforts which a working man can by his indus-
try secure for his family ?. (Cheers.) I stated in my
let,ter that our present system of taxation was mean and
singularly cruel. I have no_objection to retract that ex-
pression, so far as it refers to those supporters of the system
who are ignorant of its consequences and who fear the
Change which we propose. Ido not think so badly of any
class of my countrymen as to' Suppose that if they knew at
all the facts of the ease, if-they had so thoroughly examined
the matter as the gentlemen around me havo done, they
a quid not for a moment continue a system which can be de-
monstrated to be most unwisevand• especially injurious to
the ereat body of the working people. (Hear, hear.) What,
is the change we propose? lam net about recommend
that tho Chancellor of the Exchequer should immediately