The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 27, 1844.

LORD J. RUSSELL AND ti SPECIAL
BURDENS."
(From the League.)
The last discussion of the session arose in conse-
quence of a speech delivered by Lord John Russell
on the condition and prospects of the country. In
that speech the Noble Member for the City of Lon-
don returned to the question of " special burdens" on
the land. In the debate on Mr. Villiers's motion, Sir
Robert Peel confined his "special burden" complaint
to the single " burden" of maintaining the poor; but
the Noble Lord has discovered two other " bur-
dens," the county rate and the malt duty, which, in
his opinion, entitle the agriculturists, that is, the land-
owners, to peculiar consideration on the part of the
Legislature. It is pleasant to find the question of
protection to agriculture, or, to speak more correctly,
of protection to rent, placed on some ground which
can be understood and fairly grappled with; and we
feel grateful to our opponents when they show us
their points of defence.
From the importance attached to the question of
county rates, one would be led to imagine that this
impost was one of a very heavy and grievous cha-
racter ; and that, although raised from the land, it
was appropriated to objects in which proprietors of
the soil had no interest, and that over its expen-
diture these ill-used individuals had no control.
Now, what are the facts of this case of suffering
and injustice inflicted on the owners of the
soil ? The county rate is a burden laid upon all land
-and buildings, and is, for the most part, expended in
the maintenance of roads and bridges, and in the pro-
secution of various classes of offenders against the
laws. The amount of the rate is fixed by the
magistrates in each county, and in their hands
is the control of the expenditure. The magistrates
are generally landowners, and, if there be any
want of economy and care in the disbursement
of the amount collected, they are wholly responsible
for it. The entire amount of county rate collected,
in 1842, for England and Wales, was but 703,5261.,
England paying 666,977/., and Wales 36,549/. ;
and this sum was levied on land and buildings
spread over more than thirty-seven millions of acres,
averaging not more than 4id. per acre, and being
not more than 31d. in the pound on the annual
value of the property assessed. But in what coun-
ties is it that the county rate appears as a very large
item of expenditure ? Middlesex pays not less
than 87,715/. ; the West Riding of Yorkshire,
49,592/. ; Lancashire, 41,328/. ; Surrey, 32,543/.,
that part of the metropolis on the south of the
Thames causing Surrey to stand so high on the
list. The amount paid in 1842 in these four coun-
ties wag 211,178/., or very nearly one-third of the,
amount paid by the whole of England. Lancashire
alone paid 41,3281., whilst the whole of Wales paid
but 36,5491. From this it is clear that this " special
burden" is not special at all, but general, and
shared in by the towns and the manufacturing as
well as by the agricultural districts ; and unless it
be assumed that land ought to pay no taxes, and
that owners of land are a class of so sacred a cha-
racter as to be entitled altogether to exemption
from taxes and all other inflictions to which man-
kind in general are subjected, we know not how
any sane man can regard the county rate as any
ground for the existence of the corn-law as a
means of compensation to the class of landowners.
In the discussion of the question of the food mo-
nopoly, there have been adduced many reasons for
its continuance—some fraudulent, and others simply
ridiculous; and this of the burden of the county
rate is about the most absurd of all. What is the
value of land without roads and bridges, and who
are so much interested in the punishment of offen-
ders as the owners of property ? How many in-
stances are there in every county, of the value of
land being prodigiously increased by the forming of
roads and the opening of new markets for the produce
of the land ? To dwell upon these points would be to
assume a want of common capacity on the part of our
readers ; and we confess we cannot persuade ourselves
that Lord John Russell was in earnest when he ven-
tured to speak of the burden of county rates as one
entitling the landowners to tax the food of a whole
nation and to inflict the evils of famine upon multi-
tudes of their fellow-countrymen. The landowners
would do well to inquire if county rates are not
greatly increased by the " burden " of prose-
cuting and punishing a class of offenders who are
made so by laws enacted by landowners to provide
sport and amusement for themselves and their
friends. How much of the county rate in Norfolk,
Suffolk, Buckingham, and other agricultural coun-
ties, is expended in maintaining a police force to act
as gamekeepers, and in punishing poachers ? The
landowners and magistrates in those counties can
give some interesting particulars on this point; and,
if they had a particle of decent shame about them,
they would be the very last to have this question
breught before the public eye. But suppose we
grant that the county rate is a " special burden" on
the land, and how far is it repaid by the corn-law ?
The county rate of 1842 amounted to 4id. per
acre in England and Wales. To compensate the
landowners for this grievous burden, how much
should the corn-law give them in return ? The
tax of 4id. per acre surely cannot require a pro-
tecting duty of 20s. per quarter on the importa-
tion of foreign wheat, nor yet of a fixed duty of Bs.
as proposed by the late Government in 1841, nor
even a " moderate fixed duty" of any amount
above lid. per quarter, supposing each acre to pro-
duce equal to three quarters of grain. Let it be
remembered how small the whole sum of this
" burden" is—that it is paid on buildings and ma-
nufactories as well as on land—that it is levied by
the county magistrates, generally proprietors of
land, and that it is expended entirely by them—
that it is applied chiefly to the maintenance of
roads and bridges, without which land would be
almost valueless and to the prosecution and
punishment of offenders against the laws made for the
security of property, and largely on account of of-
fences against the game laws made by landowners to
provide amusement for landowners—that it only
amounts to 4id. per acre throughout England and
Wales ;—let all this be remembered, and then imagine
the amount of credulity the man must be blessed
with, who believes this "burden" to require a
Corn-law to compensate for it ; or the as-
surance or ignorance cf a statesman who can
bring forward this " burden" as a ground for the
continuance of a tax upon the chief article of
human subsistence. It is indeed amazing with how
much coolness these pretences are put forward, as
if the owners of land were the only men who
became acquainted with tax-gatherers. The 700,0001.
collected in county rate is about as much as the
tax levied on cotton, the raw material of our most I
important manufacture. For the county rate the
landowner gets roads, bridges, security for property,
value to land ; for the cotton-tax, what do those en-
gaged in the cotton-trade receive ? They have this
tax laid upon them, not to provide roads, and bridges,
and markets, but to go to the general taxation of
the country, and to hang upon them as a dead weight
in the fierce competition they meet with in every
market in the world. To what a wretched condition
are our landed proprietors reduced when they can
stoop so low as to ask for the perpetuation of a bread-
tax on grounds so contemptible as this.
Of the malt duty we have little to say, except
that we deem it in itself an unwise impost, inter-
fering with the carrying on of an extensive depart-
ment of trade, and we would willingly see it abo-
lished. But as a. ground for maintaining a tax on
bread, it is not less foolish than that based on the
payment of county-rates. The landowners have
made a law to 'tax malt, by which beer is made
dearer to the consumer; the demand for barley is
thus, to some extent, lessened, and in this way the
tax is injurious to the landowners; but as respects
price, it is only injurious to tho boor-arinlrpr_ Thu
landowner has no pity for the consumer; it is not for
him he wishes the tax repealed ; but he has great
compassion for his own class ; he proposes, therefore,
to tax the beer-drinker's bread'to repay himself for the
injury he suffers from having taxed the beer-drinker's
beer. If the landowners don't like the malt-tax, let
them abolish it; but in the name of all that is just,
don't ask the people to give up the consumption of
bread because they have already been put upon short
allowance of beer.

From our hearts we pity any man of ordinary in-
telligence who steps forward to defend the corn-law.
The fraud is so glaring and so wicked that no man
can stand in its defence without damage to his cha-
racter and his influence; and that Lord John Russell
should volunteer as its champion is a wonderful and
a sorrowful passage in the history of one of the
most distinguished families in the ranks of the Bri-
tish peerage.

THE LONDON GAZETTE.
(THIS EVENING.)

OFFICE OF ORDNANCE, AVG. 26.
Corps of Royal Engineers—First-Lieutenant C. F.
Skyring to be Second-Captain, vice Coddington se-
conded; Second-Lieutenant J. W. Lovell to be First-
Lieutenant, vice Skyring; Aug. 16.