The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-26 00:00:00

with whom commercial dealings occur, and whose
taxation is not a third, perhaps not a fourth, of the
imposts of our own Government, and would just in
that proportion render our trade, home as well as
foreign, more advantageous to others than ourselves.
How taxation affects prices is well intimated in
the admirable definition given of money in the
" Catechism of the Currency," published some
years since. It is there stated that "Money is a
token of value of certain nominal amount, issued by
Government in return for value received, and payable
into the Exchequer in taxes, whence it becomes, of
necessity, a general legaltender." In the "Essay on
Money" this is happily explained, and the origin of
the authorised currency stated in the issue of the
Exchequer tallies. The reality of the addition to
prices, caused by the imposition of taxes, is still more
evident in the different effects produced on articles of
use by direct and indirect taxation. If the maker of
any particular article has been accustomed to dispose
of it for 205., and he suddenly finds a tax of ss. put
upon it, he must, of course, not only add the same
ss. to the price, in order to reap the same reward for
his labour as he did before, but also some-
thing additional, in order to provide himself with
the means for conducting his business, and
pay him for the increased capital employed
in it. This increase and this payment is forced
by the State, which imposes the taxes, in its
promises to pay, issued fcr the articles Which its ne-
cessity demands. Now, so long as these promises to
pay can be rendered available to the general ad-
vantage through a medium by which no loss is in-
curred, so long the country is benefited by the
greater consumption of its commodities ; but the
moment a medium is employed, which possesses a
different value, and which has always a great
tendency to appreciation, and little or no tendency to
depreciation, that moment the monetary affairs of the
country begin to be deranged, and just in proportion
to the introduction of such a medium will the great
body of the people, who are producers, and who have
little opportunity of retaining much, or any of it,
be impoverished. The wealthy will obtain the power
to oppress the poor; capital will accumulate in few
hands; and a condition of apparent affluence will
only cover an inconceivable amount of misery, poverty,
and distress.

The attempt, therefore, to retain a high taxation
with a metallic currency, which has always a ten-
dency to establish natural prices, is neither more nor
less than obliging the productive portion of the people
to pay all the imposts out of their labour ; leaving the
rich to acquire, day by day, fresh power, to occasion
a series of oscillations in the circulating medium,
the slightest vibration of which twinges the heart-
strings of him whose little may in a moment become
a nullity.

It was apparently the oversight of this principle
which occasioned the monstrous mischief wrought
by Sir ROBERT PEEL in carrying out Mr. Hus-
aissoiq's principles of the currency. By the re-esta-
blishment of a metallic monetary standard, he at once
knocked off the taxation-addition from all the
commercial produce of the country, while he
failed to reduce the taxation by which those prices
had been enhanced. Gold became the governing
medium, and contracted the circulation, according to
its natural habitude. The people have to pay high
prices with little money, and the consequence is, that
the taxes have since been paid in the goods, and con-
sequently by the labour of the producers of the goods,
instead of in the money of the State. How terribly
this has acted will be evident by an inspection of the
following table of the proportion of taxation and
prices before, through, and after the war ; and a
greater indication of national loss, and therefore of
individual misfortune, could not well have been de-
vised. We extract from a valuable pamphlet, enti-
tled the " Monetary Policy of England and America."
" Let us take the average rate of prices at certain
successive periods, as they are shown in centessimal
parts, in a very useful set of Tables of Currency,
Taxation, and Prices, for fifty-four years, commenc-
ing in the year 1784 and ending in 1837. In this
work the exact prices of eighty-eight different arti-
cles ofproduce are stated, independent of any particular
duties levied on each. The eighty-eight articles of
produce collectively are thus expressed as to
relative prices, free of duty, at the following periods,
in centessimal parts.

1784 to 1790 lO-
O to 1797 l2l
1798 to 1804 149
1805 to 1811 175 Say pence,
shillings, or
1812 to 1818 lBO
pounds sterling.
1819 to 1825.. 126 1
1826 to 1832.. lO5
1833 to 1837 lO5.

"To the fairness of this statement nothing can be
objected; but it may be urged that, as the taxes (ex-
clusive of property and income-tax) produced in
1805 to 1818, the sum of fifty-two millions per
annum, and the amount now is but forty-eight
millions, a reduction in proportion should be made
in prices for the same period. Let us, then, take off
one-thirteenth (being- the difference) from 175, and it
will leave 162 as the average comparative sum re-
ceived by producers in 1805 to 1818, for those com-
modities which they now sell for 105. It requires,
therefore, an addition of 56 per cent. to our present
prices to return producers the fair amount of their
taxes—to place them in the same relative position as
to taxation which they stood in from 1784 to 1790,
before the war commenced—from 1791 to 1797, before
the Restriction Act was passed—and from 1805 to
1818, when taxation and prices were at the highest.
To this extent are they injured by the return to cash
payments under our present amount of annual taxa-
tion."

In tho eighty-eight articles alluded to are
comprised all most necessary for commercial opera-
tions and social comfort. We think there could not
have been more convincing evidence given of the
anomalous and injurious state of our currency than
this. Alone, it is enough to awaken every man who
has a business to conduct or a family to provide for
to active exertion to correct the evil ; but there is
an almost interminable abundance of testimony
equally strong to show the folly that must be evinced,
and the ruin that must attend upon a metallic stan-
dard under our national circumstances. To Mr.
Hunnkun's notions respecting currency we will
return smother day.