The Sun.
London, England, 1821-06-13 00:00:00

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1821

gal as an express condition. If all persons, ex-
cepting in special cases, who receive pensions,
and excepting .half-pay subaltern officers, were,
'according to- his Majesty's pleasure, to enjoy pen-
sions and half-pay upon condition of residence in
these-kingdoms, the Pension and -Half-pay List,
amounting to five millions, would be no loss to
the State. The richest consumers -pay the-most•
taxes ; taxers furnish the half-pay ; and the ex-
penditure of •the half-pay internally would sup-
port industry and again contriblite :to the :taxes.
A circulation to
_the extent of these. five millions
would. promote .consumption and. :re-production:
Every million, which instead of being in this man-
ner returned into the common circulation, is sub-
tracted for the purpose of being expended in
Countries not receiving our manufactures, is tend-
ing, froin day to day, to make England, rich and
powerful as she is, feel more and more the evils
of non-residence. Evils which, consistently with
a due regard to the liberty of -British,
cannot b mitigated, but by a reduction of rates.,
and taxes to keep down the expellees of subsis-
tence.

Another important circumstance will then na-
turally accrue. All the expellees of supplies for
the Navy, Army, and Public Departments, will
be diminished. The public expenditure, there-
fore, will be further reduced in :comparison with
the income.
Such might be expected to be the reduction of
taxes, by the combined operation of these mea-
sures ; so much might the growing price of corn
be reduced, that we might again become an ex-
porting country of Corn, and more and more pro-
mote the restriction of our agriculture, manufac-
tures, and commerce in.such salutary relative pro-
portions, as, according to the most solid principles
of political economy, are most consistent with
the natural progress of opulence, and most pro-
mising of permanency. Even in recent years
we have supplied Foreign Countries with corn ;
and if we could reduce materially the growing
price of corn, we might export more considera-
bly. In 1816, the King of FitANcE encouraged
importation by two ordinances in the course of
that year, and many cargoes of grain and flour
arrived in the ports of th south of France, from
Ireland especially, and from England.
The growing price of corn must be somewhat
reduced since 1815, by the fall in the price of
labour ; if further reduced by any improvement
in the system or 'reduction of taxation, the far-

mers, by a constant attention to the average mar-
ket price, might in common times prevent the
importation, by being content to sell corn at such
prices as should, from time to time, keep the
average price below the price fixed by law for
regulating importation.
Time having been allowed for giving effect to
these measures, and should they promote a con-
siderable degree of prosperity, to the Society, it
might then become a proposition better under-
stood, and probably more generally considered as

desirable, that a greater effort be made for the re-
demption of the national debt, by means of a
-property tax to be levied for that special purpose.
Such a tax might be so modified and equitably
adjusted to the actual relative values of the dif-
ferent descriptions of property, and might even
be so freed from inquisitorial power, as to be pre-
ferable to all other modes of taxation. 44 The
land, the trade, and the personal industry of the
subject, which are pledged for the public debt,"
would by such means be the sooner relieved, and
especially the trade and industry of the country,
from those burdens which fetter and depress
them ; and the pressure of which, by repealing
the duties on certain raw materials, and thereby
expanding the freedom of commerce, would bear
less and less upon, every trade and every descrip-
tion of industry.
But if such a tax for reducing the Debt were
now brought forward, before the. National- Debt
be placed in a better train of redemption, the
'first notice of it by authority would only imme-
diately raise the market' price of the Stocks, and
by so doing cause the. Commissioners to pay more
for Redemption Stock; which, in effeet, would
both retard the reduction of the Debt, and occa-
sion an increased expellee to the nation in the
higher prices paid by the Commissioners. _ Simi-
lar effects would, in the first initanci.; be pro-
duced by anticipating the effects of a plan for
redeeming- the Natiuttal Debt, which was -men-
tioned by Mr. RicanDo in his valuable wotk, the
" Principles of Political Economy,- in-ia
plan 'has been ably illustrated by Mr. tlEArft-
FIELI) . Mr. Itume's opinion -of- it will be found

n bis:ESsay on Public Credit, it appearing to
lave been first suggested .by a 1111r.liuTcniNsoN,

about a century ago. Its policy was also urged
by the late Biishop•of LANDAFF. independently
however of its impracticability, though simple

and excellent in theory, we may just take the
liberty of observing, that its operation would be
very unequal. The proprietors of houses and
edifices, supposed to he worth-600,000,0001., and
of goods in shops, warehouses, and in progress
of manufacture, supposed 150,000,0001., after
paying their contribution, in common 'with others,
and half the taxes being at once taken off, such
houses might he built and goods fabricated, per-
haps from 30 to 50. per cent. cheaper. By such
effects they would sustain this additional greater
loss. But the enerA-y of the money rent of land
over the necessaries and enjoyments of life would,
on account of such relief from -taxes, be raised
considerably after their contribution; and as the

value of land depends on the amount and value

of rent, the value of landed property would pro

bably increase by many years purchase. So-the
market price of Stock after one half the 'Debt

were 'redeemed, would rice considerably above

:s present value.

Thus much nray be meUt!ontd;