The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-01-08 00:00:00

prrlfort,

coming oppressive and embarrassing. It is a delusion
to suppose that because spread over a wide space such
taxation is not felt. On the contrary it is doubly felt ;

because, being placed upon articles of consumption, it
tends alike to diminish the comforts of the consumer
and to lessen the profit and the demand to the producer

and the trader

The very limited extent to which this injudicious
principle was carried last year by the present Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer will, we venture to say, prove
by its results that it cannot be resorted to in our pre-
sent position without producing disappointment. 'We
may indeed be told that the financial statement just

published, exhibits an increase under the head of
£622,310 for the year; but of this increase we must
bear in mind that £589,095, or within £32,000 of the
whole has been paid during the last quarter. We may
therefore fairly attribute this increase to the revival
which the trade of the country has sustained during
the last month or two, rather than to the additional
per centage imposed by Mr. Baring. In many im-
portant articles there has been an actual falling off.
The duty upon colonial spirits for instance, in the
port of London alone, is stated to be deficient to the
extent of nearly £150,000; and, although a portion of
this result may be attributed to other concurrent
causes—the increase of temperance in particular—yet
the fact that such a falling off is apparent in other ar-
ticles affected by Mr. Baring's measure, sufficiently
shows that increase of revenue to any material extent
is not to be derived from such a source.

Direct taxation, however, it will he urged, we cannot
have in any other shape than in that of a property
tax. To some extent we admit that this is true. To a
modified measure of this description we must come at
last, if circumstances—a continental war for instance

render a large increase of revenue necessary. To

this we must come, or to an increase of the debt of the
country; and of the..two alternatives, we must confess
that we prefer the former. If as a nation we have al-
lowed a set of imbeciles and tricksters to plunge us
into an extensive war ; if, in the frantic pursuit of
phantoms—under the delusive names of " Reform"
and "Liberalism"--we have outrun prudence and
despised the dearly-bought experience of past ages—
we should pay the penalty, and not allow it to he
entailed upon our children. We are well aware of the
unpopularity of such a doctrine; but is it unreason-
able, we ask, or is it unwise ? On the contrary, were
it acknowledged and acted upon, there are few na-
tions, we think, who would allow incapable or dis-
honest statesmen to plunge them wantonly or madly
into war and its consequent expenditure; and Great
Britain would be amongst the last to show this self-
sacrificing spirit.

_ Let us not, however, be mistaken as advocating a
property tax at the present crisis. We trust that the
necessity for such a measure is far distant. To some-
thing, however, of a similar nature we would gladly
revert even now, in the hope of getting rid, in return,
of a number of petty and harrassing imposts, which
we believe to be of serious injury to the commerce of
the country ; and the abolition of which we as firmly
believe would very slightly—if at all—diminish the
amount of our national revenue. Within the last
fifteen or twenty years a reduction of taxation upon
various articles has taken place, to the amount of
eight to ten millions per annum ; and yet, except in
the recent instance of the reduction in postage, no
corresponding reduction in the amount of revenue has
followed. In the case of a great portion of the im-
posts fixed upon for reduction or abolition, the selec-
tion has been, we think, of very doubtful propriety—
founded more upon the principle of pandering to the
popular will than upon considerations either of justice
or expediency; and we are confident that such a modi-

fication of duties—and in some cases an abolition of
duty—might be made upon various other articles as
would, without materially lessening the present re-
venue, give an impetus to manufacturing and commer-
cial industry, which would be attended with the best
results.

On an early occasion we shall return to this subject,
which we regard as one of pressing importance, and
endeavour to point out a few imposts, the removal or
modification of which would, in our opinion, benefit
the trading portion of the community ; and we are in-
duced to do this, because we feel a perfect conviction
that any alleviation of the burthens of taxation to be
derived from such a source, is systematically kept in
the background by our ministerial contemporaries, in
the hope of turning the full tide of popular complaint
to swell the anti-corn law agitation. At present, how-
ever, we cannot afford the space for so important an
inquiry,

If the spirit which once animated the mortal re-
mains, now resting beneath the dome of the Hotel
d'lnvalides, could look just now upon the movements
of his Parisian lolators, what a contemptible opinion
he must form of that most absurd and fickle people.!
But three short weeks ago the very air was burdened
with the cry of " Liberty !" The car which bore the
ashes of Napoleon—of him whose armed heel had
trampled into the dust the living form of Liberty—fed
although it had been by blood shed like water, on the
scaffold and in the field—was welcomed with all the
enthusiasm and theatrical pomp which a nation of me-
lodramatists could pay to a concentration of the heroics.
War, war ! was the universally expressed sentiment of
the French mobocracy; a war of propagandism, of
encroachment, and, en fin, a war of glory. And yet
what do we now see as the conclusion of all this min-
gled Bobadilism and absurdity ? The fierce soldier
has laid down his pike and his musket, and the still
fiercer journalist his pen, dipt in mingled gall and
fury, to witness—the forging of the very chains which
are to hind down their democratic spirits in an endless
subserviency to a dynasty and a regime which is the
very antipodes of that in whose laudation they have so
lately manifested symptoms little short of lunacy !

The fortifications of Paris are to he carried on in

"hot naste," and la jeune France, "pleased with a fea-
ther—tickled with a straw," is watching the progress
of the circumvallation and the detached forts. To
promote what end are these works to be carried on, at
an expense of something like forty millions sterling ?
To protect " la jeune France from being walked over
some fine day, we should imagine. To prevent those
ruthless islanders, in whose honour was raised a few
days ago the cry of " a bas l'Anylais," making a kind
of European Bow-street of the Tuilleries. Not at all.
France—la jeune France"—is able to maintain her own
against a world in arms. But she is anxious—de-
votedly anxious—to enable the King of the Barricades
to repress at the cannon's mouth any little escapades to
which, in her exuberant spirits, she may be tempted !
The revolution of July is to he secured ; and the dan-
cing and fiddling people of Paris, distrustful of their
own discretion, are busy in providing Louis Philip
with the means of perpetuating the only result of that
revolution—the substitution of the absolutism of
stockjobbing and the telegraph in the person of the
head of the House of Orleans, for that of legitimacy
and settled institutions in that of the elder House of
Boi trbon.

We care not how long our French neighbours—or
our Parisian neighbours, for they are the French
nation—may remain in their present Elysium. At
any rate we trust that it may last until " the trap" is
completed. The government of France, so long at
least as it is swayed by Louis Philippe, will do no
violence to the peace of Europe ; and when this
precious scheme of detached forts is perfected, the
" pressure from without" will be in his hands, and will
be too formidable for any mob of journeymen tailors
or even medical students to resist.

The Emperor, it is true, tickled the Parisians after

another fashion ; but his shade, if allowed to contem-
plate the present temper of his worshippers, must per-
ceive that any straw is sufficient. To dictate dis-
patches from " head-quarters at Moscow" or London,
would be, no doubt, very glorious, but very expensive;
and the King of the Barricades can secure his
ascendancy—and Napoleon could have done the same
equally well, had it suited " his genius"—by simply
enclosing Paris in a suit of ornamental artillery, the
muzzles of which could on occasion he turned to
sweep the Boulevards and threaten with bombardment
its purveyors of fashion and cuisine. " Vive la
IDagmelle" we say, so long as we are allowed .to sleep