The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-31 00:00:00

»T 7,1

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN 4
Sra,—A Correspondent in your valuable and inde-
pendent column of the 26th instant (signed " A
Constant Reader"), talks of taxing house property—
windows, forsooth-,-as one of the items. Now, I
should opine from this, that matters to the east of us
are not quite so bad as what I have been led to sup-
pose ; but, with regard to our neighbourhood I can
inform your " Constant Reader" that at least one-
fourth of our house-property-men are already in a
state of insolvency ; and another of the visitations he
has so disinterestedly and kindly suggested of a house
duty and an additional duty on windows, will send
another' fourth quickly after them. _ _

Rents hereabouts, 'N'ithin these ten or fifteen years,
have decreased one-third, and in many instances to
one-half—for what is house property after all ? Is it
as good as a tradesman's capital, who has an oppor-
tunity of shifting it about in various ways is—a
grocer or an ironmonger, for instance; but not so a
house, where it is once put there it must stand; -but
let the owner beware how he builds it careful
not to admit too many air holes, which may be mis-
taken for windows; many of us, striving to make
our domiciles healthy and comfortable, have, alas! to
our cost, now cause to repent of our folly. But
what, Mr. Editor, shall we say of such legislation ?
Shall we be considered a sane people some two hun-
dred years hence ?
The injustice of such suggestions of your Corres-
pondent are too flagrant to be thought of. Property,
protected by legislation for certain classes, is becoming
tyrannical, and many now begin to ask themselves
questions about the franchise; and I begin myself to
look - with less hostility on the code drawn up of
Chartism. The middle class are grinding down to
paupers, and without we soon lighten the burden and
place it on stronger shoulders, the exhausted, but pa-
tient - camel, will sink and die. Could not your Cor-
respondent have resorted to those great balls of wealth
which the Corn-laws have assisted to form ? Let
them apply the legacy duty to those immense aggre-
gations of freehold lands, which we see weekly pass-
ing-from sire to son without a farthing tax, while a
poor, industrious tradesman's savings for his family is
mercilessly visited, because, forsooth, it has the bas-
tard taint of personal attached to it! To be brief,
Mr. Editor, I cannot resist this
.opportunity of ex-
pressing my thanks and admiration of your powers in
the untiring energy displayed in your liberal, just,
and independent columns, with respect to that -ob-
noxious and suicidal Corn question ; and I am quite
certain that it is mainly owing to your enlightened
and able remarks, and persevering exertions, that we
owe the first step, and I hope it will prove a beneficial
one, to the final demolition of this national incubus.
I beg to subscribe myself, yours respectfullyy, •
A DEVONSHIRE NAN.

LONDON:
TIIURSDAY MOPNING, MARCH 31, 1842.

The Corn-law seems almost forgotten, while
public attention is wholly absorbed by the more
pressing interest of an income tax, from which
therell be, by all wlrise incomes arc above
150/, a year, no.escape but by evasion and fraud.
of unappropriately, however, is the "Report
of the Statistical Coinmittec of the Anti-Corn-law
Conference". 'published, because as the people
feel or fear the pressure of the income tax, they
ought to be reminded that the necessity for it
grows from the Corn-law. The complaint of the
Government is that the revenue does not equal
the expenditure. It is quite certain that the
revenue depends mainly on the number of
people, and equally eel tam that the Corn-law,
during all the years it has been in existence, has
every car shortened the supply of food, and
prevented a considerable increase of people. It
has prevented, therefore, a correspondii.44 in-
crease of revenue, and ilas begotten the Ministe-
rial necessity ibr now levying an income tax on
the middle classes.

It must no tbe supposed that an increase ofpeople
carries with it a corresponding increase of expense
aid a corresponding extension of the duties of
,
Government. One Sovereign, one Cabinet one
Commancler-in-Chtef, one Board of Admiralty,
one series of tribunals, can as easily perforce
all the duties of governing 20,000,000 people as
10,000,000. Nor does the increase of PcoPle at
Lome require any corresponding increase of a
fit et or army, the augmentation in both of which
being chiefly th fruit of - foreign possessions.
Fut moreover it is well ascertained that pau-
lerism and crimes decrease in proportion as a
ni.tion is prosperous, and increase in proportion

as population is stinted in its food and comes to
a still stand. Consequently the Corn-law, by
lessening the supply of food, and checking the
progress of population, both augments the ex-
penses of Government caused by pauperism and
crime, and prevents the increase of the revenue.
We are pleased, therefore, to see the publica-
tion which now appropriately directs attention
to the effects of Corn-laws, inducing poverty and
want, and now creating the Ministerial necessity
for an income tax.

The Statistical Report is preceded by an ad-
dress from Mr. H. ASHWORTH to the Executive
Council of the Anti-Corn-law League, which al-
most at its commencement contains the following
passage :

It is a truth which no Christian will be prepared to
deny, that the Almighty hath provided and promised
that by the sweat of man's brow the earth should yield
an abundance of food for the support of his creatures, to
maintain them in health and strength; we have there-
fore a right to assume that no law of man, or class of
men, should deny to any other man, or class of men, the
full enjoyment of their just and necessary portion—and
that if such a law has been made by man it is contrary to
the law of God.

Under these impressions, I do not scruple to designate
the Ministerial measure, or any other contrivance inter-
posing between the choicest gifts of an all-wise Provi-
dence and the toiling hands of his people, a device no less
wicked than cruel, and unworthy of men professing to be
Christian rulers.

It is now no longer within our power to administer
compensation to those who have suffered by the errors of
the past, and the country is too much enfeebled to bear
their repetition.
You will form some idea how efficiently the sliding
scale has answered the design of its originators in sus-
taining at a high price the food grown at home, and in
excluding, at a cheap rate, the corn of other countries,
from the following outline of its operation during the
whole period of its existence, from July, 1828.
There have been entered for home consumption,
14,787,990 quarters of wheat, and out of that amount
12/52,562, or 84 per cent., were not admitted till the
price had been raised to above 70s. per quzsrter, although
it is probable that, under a free trade, the same pur-
chases would have been made abroad at little more than
half the money, and the paytentp effected by exports
of British manufactures, yieldintg employment and
profit, instead of an export of gold, deranging our cur-
rency for years together, and thereby inflicting other and
grievous hardships.
If we come to a proiimate calculation of the real loss
inflicted upon the country by this system, estimating the
difference of price betwixt this and other countries at 20s.
per quarter, which I am told is much under the mark,
and taking the consumption of this country at one quarter-
of wheat per head per annum, now generally admitted,
we find that upon our population, 26,500,000, the ann ial
loss will be
Taking also our consumption of
other agricultural products,
which are equally "protected,"
such as animal food, barley,
oats, rye, potatoes, cheese,
butter, milk, &c. &c., and re-
ducing them to their equivalents
in wheat, they will be equal to
another quarter of wheat for
each person, forming a second
sum of 20s. per quarter

Making a total of £53,000,000 a'year.
Such an annual burden must necessarily have pressed
down the people, and wasted our national strength. It is
certainly a large slaughter to be the work of ONE mono-
poly, but you will judge of its certainty and efficiency
by the following outline of its mode of operating.
The writer then proceeds to illustrate, in de-
tail the manner in which the Corn-law system
limits our trade, lessens the value of property,
and indicts grievous injury on the working
classes. We quote some of Mr. AsitwonTn's
observations on this bead :

But by far the largest amount of real suffering falls
upon the working classes, and as the same results are
common to all our manufacturing towns, allow me to
adduce instances from the case of Bolton, with the cir-
cumstances of which I am specially and particularly ac-
quainted.
You will have perceived, by the returns made, that
the deterioration of condition falling upon this class in the
town of Bolton, in the diminished amount of their earnings,
has been computed at the sum of £201,600 a-year,
and in the additional cost of their food 118,960 „

£320,560 a-year.
or more than 1,0007. for every working-day, an amount
far beyond the power of charitable aid to alleviate ; and
if the poor-rates were increased to the extent of one
woek's loss in the 52, they would be deemed too bur-
densome for the generality of rate-payers.
The working population arc a noble-minded people ;
their dread of pauperism, and their sacrifices to avoid it
are strikingly shown in the extent to which they have
pledged and sold their furniture, and even their clothing,
as you will perceive by the returns. Amongst 5,305
persons their houses contain only two seats for every
three persons ; there are 101 persons for every blanket ;-
53 families wholly without beds ; and 609 families with-
out "a change of linen ; their food is deficient, their phy-
sical strength is wasting, and the rate of mortality is
rapidly increasing.
By the return of the Bolton Poor Protection Society,
it appears that during the month, ending January 22,
-Mere were 0;137 person relieved, whose income did,
not average more than lld. per head per week,
If we deduct from the earnings of these the sums they
pay for fuel, &c., there will' be left for food probably not
more than lid. per clay, or less than 11d. per head per
week, and it may afford you; as it did myself, a painful
curiosity to discover how 90 small -a sum could be ex-
pended in the support of a fitmily.
It is now becoming a question how long the employers
can continue to carry on their l'asiness under this in-
creasing pressure. •
_ •

A suspension of busin,s is immediately followed by
the pledging and selling of workpeople's clothes and
furniture, and a rapid progress to a state of destitution.
The additional cost of their food, within the last five
years, has occasioned pressure to this class accompanied
by an uneasiness which has manifested itself in political
excitement, demanding a wider extension of representa-
tive power. I witnessed an example of this, about a
year ago, at a Corn-law meeting, where the work-
people denounced the free-trade question'as an agitation
lbr a reduction of their wages, and appeared to have
become persuaded that the pressure they felt arose from
the arbitrary dealing of their employers. As I ob.,erved
some present wbo were in my employment, 1 called a
general meeting of them to consider the subject.
Having assembled in the school-room, we proceeded to
take the sum of their earnings for the previous year,
1840, and to compare it with that for 1835, which they
called a good year; the amounts appeared so nearly alike
that they at once acknowledged that what they suffered
had not come from any changes in the amount of the
wages they had received. This disclosure startled them,
and caused an investigation of their expenditure, when
it appeared that the outlay of themselves and their de-
pendents in agricultural food, in 1840, had amounted to
18,5001., whilst that of 1835 was only 12,500/., making
a difference of 6,0001. in a•year's maintenance.
A discussion arose respecting this loss, and one of
them charged the shopkeeper with robbery ; another
defended them, and said the shopkeepers could not have
got it, for they were failing on all sides.

The high prices were then traced from the shopkeepers
to the farmers ; but it was admitted that they did not
appear enriched ; so at length, as with one voice, they
called out, " Why, the landlords have got it ;" a conclu-
sion which I left in their hands.

While it is a question amongst the manufac-
turers how long they can carry on their opera-
tions under this system, Sir ROBERT PEEL is to
add to its weight by an income tax. The
landlord's burden is not enough, he thinks; so he
will increase it by an additional State burden.
This may be bold and wise statesmanship, but to
us it looks like that madness which is the fore-
runner of ruin. Those, whether Whigs or
Tories, are the enemies of our future greatness,
and even our future safety, who admit, for one
moment, the necessity of adding to the burdens
now levied by the State on the people. Obvi-
ously the true policy of the country now is to
allow the population to increase, by permitting
them to draw supplies of food from every poisi-
ble quarter, to graciously permit trade to ex-
pand, by removing from it the noxious restric-
tions imposed by stupid, ignorant law-makers,
and so allowing the basis of the national
to enlarge, and the streams which flow ir.'„o- the
national coffers gradually to swell 'd'igger and
bigger. Sir ROBERT PEEO pta goes to narrow
them, to lessen productive employment, to check.
the progress of Po'ettiation, and diminish the
resources of the o.tate.

som a our Correspondents have asked us,
how many crimes the income tax will cause?'
11_:s is a question which our political arithmetic
is quite insufficient to answer. We can see,
however, that every law creating a restriction;-
imposing a tax, creates all the crimes which grow
directly or indirectly from the desire, or from
the attempt, to evade that law. It may be goad
for Sir R. PEEL to talk about' the depravity of
human nature, but, so far as the evasion of the
income tax is concerned„ that depravity is called
into life by him. No *person doubts that a great
many persons will make false returns under the
law; will deliberately state untruths, and will
expose themselves to be summoned before Corn-
missioners, to whom they will reheat these un-
truths,
where they will sometimes be exposed to
shame, and sometimes achieve a guilty triumph.
No person doubts, or can doubt, that an income
tax, therefore, will cause a great number of moral
offences, a vast amount of discomfort, and will
strengthen a great number of bad passions.

With all deference to Sir ROBERT PEEL, we
must assert that this is a most serious considera-
tion. Though no man may be able, either be-
fore or after the enactment, to state in a tabular
form, with as much accuracy as he can state the
annual number of births and deaths, the exact
amount of crime caused by the income tax, yet
the awful certainty that it will cause a great
many crimes should make any man, not callous
to all the better feelings of mankind, pause long
before he inflicts it on the community.
It would be a curious inquiry, could it be ac-
curately followed out, to ascertain in what pro-
portions the crimes which now infest society
grow from the natural evil disposition of the
ruled, or from the unwise restrictions of the
rulers. One thing is quite certain, that in
proportion as Government has gone on making
restrictions, and so enlarging the number
of offences•—making actions crimes by law,
which nature never forbade—so the number
of offences and of criminals has increased. It
is, in fact, a disgrace to this country that,
abounding as it does with all the natural ele-
ments of social happiness, and endowed, as our
people are, far beyond the average, with wealth-
creating skill, poverty and crime have rapidly
increased, and are still increasing. This must be
the fault of the governing bodies, because they
undertake to prevent and limit crimes, and be-
cause they make those restrictions which are the
parents of numerous offences. Although we
cannot ascertain the exact proportion in which
crimes grow from the natural disposition of the
ruled, or the increased restrictions of rulers, still
we are thoroughly convinced that these do pro-
voke a great many offences, and consequently
they ought to be enacted as sparingly as possible.
How many villages on the sea coast have been
demoralised by smuggling cannot be told. How
many families will be corrupted by familiarising
their chiefs with the practice of making false
4tatements under the income tax cannot be
guessed at. How many sad crimes have, within
our own recollection, had theirsource in the game
laws cannot by any skill be ascertained. They
have equally provoked criminality in the game
preservers, though that the laws do not punish, as in
the poachers. It is enough for us to know that
such laws, and the laws which the smuggler
corrects, have caused great,criminality, to induce
us to call on religious men, on all men interested
in promoting the morality of the people, to re-
sist Sir ROBERT PEEL in now passing a law that
will cause as many, if not as odious crimes as the
duties on foreign spirits and the game-laws.
Every evasion of the income tax, every false re-
turn which may be made under it, every moral
offence which it may indirectly cause, will all be
due to Sir ROBERT PEEL, and may all be
most assuredly prevented—stifling more crimes
than the police and the courts of law—by not al-
lowing Sir ROBERT PEEL to carry his scheme
into effect.

He says he must have money. Must the Go-
vernment then demoralize society ? It is consti-
tuted to promote the moral, as well as the phy-
sical well-being of society, and when its plans
for raising a revenue become incentives to crime,
we arc entitled to conclude that the Government
itself is in error, if it be not a complete failure. It
must not have money at the cost of many crimes.
The income tax will he inquisitorial, unequal,
unjust, a perpetual blister on the people, but, over
and above all these, it will be the parent of much
criminality, and will thwart the efforts of educa-
tionists and philanthropists for the improvement
of the people. This is, we apprehend, another
and a strong ground for resisting it, on which all
the clergy, all the members of the Society of
Friends, and all those who have struggled to
ameliorate the condition of society ought to take
their stand. Its pecuniary evils, and its physical
evils are great, but they do not, in our judgment,
equal its moral evils. A crime-engendering law
is a dreadful pestilence.

What the Tories want in wisdom they supply
by impudence. Because their opponents ob-
jected to their impenetrable silence on their pro-
jects, those opponents are now taunted with
_opposing the Tory measures. As the opposition
required, in the interest of the country, to know
the Premier's intentions, they are accused of
faction, because now that they do know them
and disapprove of them, they do not hasten to
pass his measures. If this be good logic, it will
only be necessary for a Prime Minister to with-
hold his measures till the last week of the ses-
sion, to procure their passing by acclamation.
The longer he delays his measures, and the more
clamorous his opponents become, the more cer-
tain will he be of success, let him propose what
he will,

Again, the Tories call Sir ROBERT PEEL'S
-Midget the poor man's budget, and ask compla-
cently, would he like to have his coffee and his
sugar taxed instead of seeing the middle classes
taxed ? This is marvellous, considering that the
Whigs offered to reduce the tax on sugar, and
the Tories would not let them. The Tories, in
fact, accuse the Whigs of increasing the burdens
of the people, when they were only prevented
from lightening them by the factious conduct of
the Tories. We are at a loss which most to ad-
mire— their love of falsehood or their unabashed
impudence.

The ward of Farringdon Without yesterday
did its duty, and set an excellent example to
-every other part of the empire. Why should not
Lambeth, Finsbury, Marylebone, and all the
towns of the empire do as the ward of Farring-
don has done ? . A little present exertion will
save the people money, time, and comfort here-
after. It is a mark of barbarism. not to take
counsel from experience, and avoid evils which
uur forefathers have- felt, though we have not.
To allow the past and the future to be wholly
swallowed up by the present, is more like a
savage than a civilised man. The income tax
was a curse, and it will be a curse; but because
it is not now felt, Dien will not take rational
means to prevent it being inflicted on them.

THE SUN, LONDON, THU RSD AVI FX,ENIN