The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-10-22 00:00:00

an average."

It can hardly be said, with any respect for truth, that
there is at present a settled and efficient government in
England. At any rate it is tolerably clear that the ad-
ministration of which Lord GREY is the head is not that,
government. The KING and his Ministers are entirely
rnled by the_politicalnions. The tax-gatherer is hunted,
out of society as wolves were in the olden times. The
laws are openly violated by these political associations.
The whole revenues of the country appear to be under
their controul ; and they have only to resolve that a.cer-
tain tax is oppressive and ought not to be paid, and the
tax in question is immediately repealed. In their hands
the silly but good-natured and half innocent Lord AL-
THOR P is no more than a sheep..dog under the lash of a
drove of butchers. " Holloa !" shouts blue-sleeves, and
the dog runs. " Down with the taxes !" shout the unions,
and down the taxes go. Verily we are in a most pro-
mising condition altogether !
The ministerial journals are commanded to announce
that the house and window duties. will be forthwith abo-
lished. In fact these taxes are no longer to be collected
in London. ln many, pacts of that vast "wen" their
collection'has ceased.. .The commissioners, assessors,
collectors, and their legion of clerks, are all ruined men,
Their occupation is gone, and the union flag waves over
the gin-shOp in celebration of the victory gained by the
mob over the government. LOrd FITZWILLIAM and Mr.
WILLIAM BROUGHAM, now are you avenged ! You set
the example of resistance, and now it is brought home
to the contemptible ministers whose supporters, if not mi-
nions, you are.

As a matter of course, we of Liverpool and the country
generally, from the Needles to the Orkneys, must come
in for our share of the spoil. If the collection of these
taxes has ceased in London, it must also cease in the
provinces.. It will never do to pillage us while the peo-
ple at head quarters are allowed to go scot free. The
crAlectors, therefore, need not trouble themselves to call
for any arrears—that point is settled.

The assessed taxes produced—we use the past tense
for the sake of accuracyabout five millions per annum.
The arrears must. amount to little short of. three millions
.more. The interest of the colonial. gift of twenty mil-
lions will be from seven to eight hundred thousands addi-
tional. The payment to the Bank of England, and the
contingent payment to the East India Company, are se-
parate items, 1%14,11 we shall, for the sake of distinctness,
dismiss from the present estimate, for this also extra rea-
son, that the account is alarming enough without them.
Here, then, is a dead loss 'to the government of five
millions for ever—nine millions to be provided for in
1834—and nearly six millions per annum in perpetuity.
How is this deficit to be made good ? Where is so much
money to come from ? We should like to have half an
hour's conversation with. Lord ALTIIORP on this subject,
in order to convince him what a tremendous blockhead he
must be if he fancies, or imagines, or flatters himself, that
he has the power to impose a property tax, or effect re-
ductions equal to the deficit. The thing is impossible.—
The bare mention of a property or income tax at the pre
sent moment would produce a convulsion from one end
of the kingdom tothe other. Besides, be it borne in
mind, an income tax can be resisted as well as a house or
window tax. An income tax is not paid by the wealthier
classes, for it is added to rent, and presses upon the mid-
dle and lower classes. It is notorious that when the late
income-tax was in force, the owners of small houses and
small farms, with tenants at will, almost invariably added
ten per cent. to their rents. This ten per cent., there-
fore, upon shops and houses, would be found to be a hea-
vier burden, or, as the unionists would say, a more into-
lerable nuisance than the assessed taxes now virtually re-
pealed. The mobocracy and. scutnocracy would conse-
quently be up in aims against the new impost before it
was six months in operation... For, remember, my
Lord-AtTnOne, they have -the power to do what they
please. The scum wills it, and the GREYS must obey.—
To think, therefore; of an income tax, is, in our very
humble opinion, a clear..test of insanity.
As to any further stretch of economy, that is entirely
out of the question. The revenue already suffers from
the paucity of officers in all-its gre-at. departments. Let
us take the Liverpool Custom-house for an example. Its
business is managed in a way that would disgrace a Jew
pedlar's shop for the sale of old Clothes. Its most re-
sponsible officers are nearly worked to death. There is
not an ,adequate number of officers or clerks in any one
department. The whole establishment appears to be un-