The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-09-25 00:00:00

progress in wealth ani

should remain
internal government and national c

übject to the wl

inconsistency into which the writers arc led by this
anti-landlord bias is most glaring, as an example
will suffice to she%

He states, page 8

" From the period of the Conquest to the sitting of the
Long Parliament, in 1643, the expinses of Government
were in a great measure defrayed by the lands of En-
gland, which were held expressly on the condition of
making those payments. It was owing to this that the
holders of land offered, during the interval of our history,
such determined resistance to the imposition of new
taxes, and that, aided by the burgesses, whom, by itiner-
ant lecturing, they impressed with the idea that their
interests were likewise at stake, they wrought upon the
weakness of John to concede that they themselves be the
judges of the necessity, and hence the quantity, of taxa-
tion. To this cause, also, do we trace the absence of
national debt, or anticipations of revenue for state pun-
Lich would have tended to enhance the Price

poses, v
which they bad to pay for the tent
and to materially diminish the amour

of their possessions,
t of their enjoy-

men ts.

Surely this can he no great crime in the land-
owners that they sternly resisted the imposition of
new taxes ; and that they wrung from the monarch
one of the dearest rights of Englishmen, that the
right to impose taxes should be in the people
alone! This state of things, however, they inform
us was altered at the commencement of the Com-
monwealth :

" At that ti

a still fur'

r change took place. The

landowners, haring become the sale legiilators, pa-
triotically freed themselves from the lien which the
State had upon their properties. The collection of the
feudal dues was discontinued, and the weight of taxation,
which should constitutionally have been sustained by the
land, was transferred to the products of industry ; and
commerce and manufactures, which had been springing
up from imperceptible beginnings, and had during the
period referred to, swelled into streams of considerable
magnitude, were subjected to-the inconveniences and re.
atrictions imposed by the Excise, and to the augmented
annoyance and pernicious effects of the Customs."

We are certainly not aware that, at the time of the
Commonwealth, the landowners became sole legis-
lators. So far as our acquaintance with history
serves the very contrary was the case ; the great
proprietors having been ousted from their seats to
make room for adventurers from the middle classes,
the tools of th
men we hav

)rewer of Hu

To these
mmencement of the

Ingdon

to attribute the

system of direct taxation, which our Essayists

condemn so strenuously,

We fancy that the -statesmen of the Peel and
Cobden school will not thank the Confederation

for the_ following expose of the juggling system

years. The writer is dilating upoii the subject of
the several reductions which have been made in
taxes upon various articles :

k.s the burden, however, has merely been

.em oved

alteratic

another, the reli,

.11ass of producers to
lien short of expects-

n fact

the 1

lessened

been increased. From 1830 to the present time, various
taxes have been repealed, which annually yielded in the
aggregate a little over £20,000.000 and a quarter; whilst,

including the Property
nually £9,000,000 and

nd Income Tax, whiet
a quarter, leaving an apparent
)f the country of £11,000,000 a-year.
paid into the Exchequer, in 1831,

nalance in fay
But the

,t the country me in

IX MIL

This is undeniably

)Ns a-year for the fiscal amend-