The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-05-27 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

obtain that definite weight. He deals with us on the
principle of barter values, while we ought to deal among
ourselves on the principle of taxation values. (Hear. hear.)
But how will this affect our manufacturers in their export
trade ? In our proposed paper money wages will rise,
and therefore prices will rise. Will not then this en-
hanced cost of production drive our manufacturers out of
the markets of the world ? By no means ; for the price
will be a nominal rise expressed in taxation money, which
will depreciate exactly in the proportion that taxes are
imposed. Take a case. Our manufacturers create goods
worth X 30,000 in our paper money ; but if that paper
money is excised or depreciated by our taxes, it will not
fetch in the markets of the world 7,500 ounces of gold,
but only 5,000 ounces. This is true ! but when the ma-
nufacturer brings his 5,000 ounces of gold to this country,
they will purchase £30,000 of our national money, so that
he can still compete abroad with foreigners, as he now
competes, selling at the cheap barter level. He is indeed
greatly benefitted; for under the present system he must
sell cheap both at home and abroad ; but under the sys-
tem proposed, he would sell cheap abroad and dear at
home. This would ensure high profits to the employer,
and high wages to the employed. (Loud cheers.) Mr.
Duncan then explained the difference between 'VALUE
and PRICE. Value expressed simply the labourcondensed
or embodied in commodities; price denoted any act of
government or of society which added to the cost of pro-
duction without adding to the value of the product.
Thus if .v represented value and y represented taxation,
then ar -;- y was the expression of price. If „v denoted
four pounds and-si denoted two pounds, then six pounds
was the price that the commodity ought to sell for in our
'market ; for if the producer could not raise his price to
this level, he could not recover the tax he had advanced
to the government, in the shape of customs and excise;
and if he is disabled from doing so, then ail taxation must
rest permanently on the labour of the country, while the
propertied classes would be exempt from all fiscal bur-
dens. Let'ns apply this principle to free imports. If the
foreigner is wholly untaxed, he can sell for simple value,
that is, for four pounds ; what then becomes of our pro-
ducers, who require six pounds, since they have paid two
pounds of taxation ? If they continue to compete, they
must lose two pounds on all they sell, and to persevere'in
this would make them bankrupts; but if they ceased-to
compete, then they must abandon 'business, and cease 'to
give employment to our labourers. if ft be objected 'that
the foreigner does pay aente tax to his own government,
the answer is, if he pays two pounds on a commodity
whose condensed value is four pounds, then he will not
compete in our market, in which case free trade and free
impart becomes a nullity.; but if he pay a less tax than
two pounds. thin he has an advantage over more heavily
taxed producers, and his advantage is our loss. (Hear.
hear.) Why does government punish a smuggler ?
Because if he can sell without paying the tax, he
injures the fair trader 'who does pay the tax ; and
Government affixes pains'and penalties to smuggling that
this unjust competition -may not injure the holiest trades.
man ; yet in utter violation of the moral principle here
involved, the ports are' thrown open to the untaxed fo-
reigner, who is actually invited, nay encouraged, to ruin
our fair traders who 'contribute to the burdens of the
state ; while the British smuggler, when detected, is se-
verely punished. This freetrade cheapness makes the
incomes of the idle rich go further, for as prices fall, the
purchasing power of fixed incomes rises. Thus our pre-
sent legislation appreciates wealth, and depreciates labour:
it augments the dividends of the fundholders, and reduces
the wages of industry. (Cheers.) Mr. Duncan then
pointed out several of the contradictions-and absurdities
of what is called " Free Trade." Thus, the duty was
taken off raw cotton because it was the raw material of
manufacture, but when the refuse or -sweepings of the
cotton-mills is converted into paper, the paper is liable to
a tax of 300 per cent. Our graziers are not allowed to
extract the saccharine properties of barley by any malting
process to enable them to fatten their-cattle, but they are
compelled to `compete with the foreign grazier who mey
malt his barley. We tax
.soap 100 per cent., and spend
vast mines to promote sanitary reform, withholding from
the poor the-means of cleansing their' bodies. We pro-
fess a desire to promote trade, and put a tax on adver-
tisements which are the best means of attracting trade.
We pretend to be anxious for popular education, and tax
the paper -on which books are printed. In a word, our
professions and our practice are directly opposed. (En-
thusiastic -applause.) The lecturer then examined the
question of direct taxation, which'he contended was al-
together impracticable. With the cost of collection, we
require a srevenue of 60 millions:: the present property_
and income-tax at three per cent. yields five millions.;
thereforato raise 60 millions, the tax must be raised to
36 per cent. But if trades and professions are exempted,
' and the whole revenue were raiseclfrom realised property,
the tax- must be raised to 70 per cent., which would
amount to confiscation. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Duncan
then pointed out the danger to the fundholder from the
°resent 7commercial policy. It was ruining our oclonies
sur -

b _.cure, our maritime supremacy, our general
commerce ; and when our productive classes were brought
down to a bare subsistence by cheap wages, and the em-
ploying classes reduced to a bare profit, the means of
paying the dividends would vanish; and the fundholder,
:g by the general distress of industry, would
hed for his shortsighted-selfishness by the advent
a. national bankruptcy. (Hear, hear, and applause.)
Ac- concluded by repeating that the whole controversy
hinged on the doctrine of employment, and the problem
to be solved was this :—Can trade be expanded, while
money is- always limited, awl periodically withdrawn, by
act of Parliament ? Can free imports give more employ-
ment to our working classes than a protected labour
market-? Mr. Duncan resumed his seat amidst the long-
continued applause of the meeting.
At the conclusion of each lecture, a vote of thanks was
enthusiastically carried to the eloquent lecturer for his
able lecture ; and so efCectual•ly had he anticipated all the
objections to his system, that no question was asked by
any of the several parties present who evidently did not
coincide with some of Mr. Duncan's views.

DR.-CAHILL AND THE :REV. J. B. LOWE

&arm anli ?orttaitture.

TRE PENDULUM EXPERIMENT

This interesting experiment has been successfully per-
formed during the week, at the Sailors' Rome, by the
Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, not the
Royal Society, as was reported. It has been conducted
by J. B. Yates, Esq., the president, and Dr. Thompson,
secretary of the society. The ball is of turned iron, po-
lished, and weighs 36 lbs. : the wire, 45 feet in length, is
suspended by gimbals to a fixed beam. We forbear mak-
ing any remarks upon the experiment, as the apparatus
is not yet considered complete: it will, however, be open
to the public in a few days.

Mr. J. B. Lindsay says, in a letter to the Dundee
Advertiser :—" I paid no attention to this experi-
ment till I saw it stated that it was performed in
presence of Arago. I made then some experiments, but
they did not conduct to the stated result, and no me-
chanical reason appeared why they should do so. Some
weeks passed over. and I saw it affirmed that Arago
believed it. A new set of experiments were entered
upon. I suspended a pendulum with extreme delicacy,
and felt convinced that it would shcw the earth's motion
of rotation, if such a method was capable of doing so.
It has not shown this, but it has conducted to results
no less surprising and interesting. Last week I performed
many experiments, but all the results only showed that
the vibration of the pendulum tended to a parallelism
with the back of a sofa. Various conjectures arose as to
the cause of this, and the troublesome sofa was ultimately
removed. The pendulum, however, moved in the same
direction as before, and a conjecture arose that it might
be the magnetic meridian. On trial it was found to be
so, and, however much the experiment was varied, the
result was the same. While engaged with these experi-
ments on last Saturday evening, a scientific gentleman
called on me and stated that a pendulum which he had
tried did not show the motion of the earth, but seemed to
have a tendency to move north and south. I showed him
my needle, and we found a constant return of the pendu-
lum to the magnetic meridian. The ball of the pendulum
is lead, and the wire is copper, and the only iron about it
is the pivot, but the result is the same with a pivot of
. brass. It does not seem to affect a magnetic needle, and
I am not yet sure that it is affected by a magnet or by a
mass of iron in its vicinity, but further experiments on
this point are necessary. It seems capable of being used

on board ship, and, if "not affected by ^the iron in theNes-
sel, it will have immense advantage over the common
compass, That the pendulum is capable of showing the
earth's rotation I regard as a gross delusion, but that it
tends to the magnetic -meridian I have found to be a
fact."