The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-13 00:00:00

THE WEST INDIES AND THEIR TAXATION

(From the Jamaica Despatch of September sth.)
If a chance exists by which the West Indian planter can
hope to survive the ruinous measure which has first evi-
denced the return to power of a destructive ministry, that
chance rests solely on such a reduction of his expenditqje
as may place him on a footing with the Spanish colonist.
Wages must be brought down—taxes must be greatly re-
duced. If Great Britain determines recklessly to (loom
to destruction a body of loyal 'one who 'have invested
their capital, under the faith of British laws, in the soil of
the colonies, Great Britain must be prepared to pay the
cost of that government which she chooses to maintain
over those ruined colonies. Whence, under present cir-
cumstances is to be derived the amount of revenue neces-
sary to uphold in its present scale the machinery of go-
vernment hitherto provided for by our legislature? They
who profess to believe that the admission of slave sugar
will not be so ruinous as is generally imagined, still admit
that a vast number of estates now cultivated must be
thrown up. Are the remaining estates—those few that
can struggle for an existence amidst surrounding ruin—
are these to bear the amount of taxation, at ail times
grievous, but which has hitherto been divided among so
much greater a number? Perhaps there is no country
under Heaven in which, in comparison to its income, the
public and parochial taxation is so enormous as it is in
Jamaica. The net value of our exports this year hardly
exceeds £1,200,000, and our public taxation, expended in
the civil and ecclesiastical government of the country,
amounts to £400,000, or nearly so—one-third of our pro-
ductive industry is bestowed for the mere purpose of pay-
ing the charges of government. How can this continue
How are we practically to controvert the old maxim, Ex
nihilo Whit fit f How, when the mother country has de-
clared that the staple out of which all our revenue springs
shall be sold also at a rate that will not pay for its pro-
duction—how are we to maintain the establishment of a
Viceroy at a cost of some ten thousand pounds per an-
num ?—how can we support a judicial establishment en-
tailing an annual expenditure of £60,000, including
£19,000 for salaries to to judges ?—how shall we find
means to maintain a police force?—how, in fact, are we
to raise £400,000 per annum out of a beggared population ?
In 1834, the public revenue raised by taxation, amounted
only to £74.000 sterling. and we were not worse governed.
If the expenses of judicature were comparatively nothing,
the laws were administered as impartially, and although
we had not the luau). y of viewing three lavender-robed
judges solemnly seated in banco, justice was not the less
easily and far more speedily attainable. We have now an
array of judges, great and small, whose united salaries
amount to one-fourth of the whole amount of public re-
venue raised in 18:34—and to these we have added an ex-
penditure of some £40,000 for a police force, and we find
crime increased 100 per cent. since that period. Why
should we need greater and more expensive establishments
than we did in 1834? Is it because we have receded in
prosperity—because we are less able now than we were
twelve years ago to bear our public burthens ? Commerce
was flourishing then, and our agriculture had not felt the
blighting effects of the Emancipation Act—we were then
content to take the law from a learned chief justice, who,
on his part, considered his independence sufficiently se-
cured by an annual vote of £2,400 per annum. Mais
nous aeons change tout cela. The public revenue of
£74,000 in 1834 has reached £380,000 in 1816, and we
defy any one to tell us what public good has resulted out
of this enormous increase of taxation. It is manifest
that we can no longer meet it—and it behoves all classes
of the community to unite in resisting the further imposi-
tion of such a burthen upon an impoverished people.
This is a question in which all are interested. The sugar
planter, the coffee grower, and especially the small settler,
the labourer—all are deeply interested in reducing the
burthens which a lavish and inconsiderate legislature have
imposed upon the people. With this view, there should
be meetings throughout the island. Let no member go
down to the House in the approaching session without in-
structions from his constituents on this important ques-
tion. Economy or ruin are the alternatives. It cannot
be said that a reduction of our present expenditure will
involve a breach of faith. When present Establishments
were erected, and present salaries fixed, our position was
widely different. The interests of agricuture, from which
all revenue ultimately proceeds, are now paralysed—who
is to pay the taxation of the country if it be impossible
with the same pressure as hitherto ? Even the import
duty cannot remain at its present amount, supposing that
prudence should admit of its re-enactment at all. The
wages of the labourer must be reduced, and the principal
argument which has been used against any reduction in
the price of labour is, that the high price of provisions
caused by the import duty has rendered a reduction im-
possible, or at least unjust. If we are to be endangered
by free trade from abroad, surely we are entitled to free
trade at home.

We hope, therefore, to find our countrymen up and
stirring throughout the island. A meeting in every parish,
and in every district, should be convened, and a petition
signed by all classes in favour of reduced taxation.
Wherever the burthen can be thrown off entirely, an ef-
fort should be made to do so. The cost of the Executive
Government should be paid by England altogether, and
her increased revenue from slave sugar would enable her
to do this without her being sensible of it. There seems
to be no equitable or just reason why the colony should
pay for a vice-regal establishment, when the means of
making a provision for it have been mercilessly torn from
us by the present government.

THERE SHALL BE NO MORE SEA.—A ship is resting ,
on the ocean ;it is the middle watch ; there is not a breath ,
of wind; the sails flap on the masts. The wheel is use- ,
less in the steersman's bands ; there is a great calm ; the
waters are still, as though in expectation of some coming
event. The moon looks down silently on the fair deckof
the stately vessel; alt nature seems to listen ; the sailors
of the watch can no longer tell the story of former dan-
gers; silently they gaze upward at the quiet sky, and
little heed they that their last peril is at hand. Olt ! in a
moment, in a twinkling of an eye, the bright blue sky
hath become black, the face of the golden moon has
changed to blood—a tempest lashes the angry waves ! It
is the last storm. The ocean is writhing in its dying
agony ; the fiat has gone forth and there shall be no more
sea! What of the night, mariner, what of the night ?
Again there is light in the heavens; the blood-red moon
hath passed away ; the streaks of a dawn, brighter than
ever yet illumined the horizon of the once again stilly
ocean, blend with the fires of a burning world. It is
" the last day !" The waters sink ; the dry land appears ;
the dead of the battle and the wreck awake again to life ;
and the ocean-murders which the waters have cover, d, as
with a shroud, are revealed ; the dead are living witnesses
against their murderers. Mariner, what of the morn ?
There is no more sea. Lo! the ships of a thousand na-
vies add their wrecks to the fires of the last day. Their
crews stand before " the great white throne," and the
" workings" of many days shall be a fearful " reckon-
ing." Oh ye whose business has been in " the great
waters," ye who have gone " down to the sea in ships
and seen the wonders of the Lord," have ye glorified
Him ? Ye who have staggered to and fro like drunken
men in the storm, and been at your " wits' end," when
He hath, in answer to prayer, said to the waves " Peace,
be still," have ye praised Him ? Praised Him in a life
devoted to his service, from whom cornetts help ? Has
Christ been the anchor of your souls? Has your com-
pass pointed Zion-ward ? Alt! ye who now walk the
deck in the pride of seamanship, remember such will be
the questions, master and mariner, captain and ship's
company, must answer to their own souls and unto the
judge of the whole earth," at the " last day," when
there shall be " no more sea."—The Last Day.
limit EVICTIONS.—Those who have never known
what it is to have anxieties as to a provision for them-
selves or their families, a want of reflection may lead to
the commission of acts that their better judgment would
tell them was wholly indefensible.
" The wounds I might have healed !
The human sorrow and smart !
And yet it never was in my soul
To play so ill a part.
But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart I"
And so it is but too often : when it is considered that the
small holding of the poor occupier stands between him
and beggary, though the possession may seem insignifi-
cant, and the provision a poor one, we cannot wonder at
the tenacity with which he clings to it ; his wants are few
and easily satisfied ' • his patience and his natural light-
heartedness make his condition bearable, insupportable as
that condition must otherwise be. In the beautiful lan-
guage of a young poet—
" The shelter that kept out weather and winds
Had the magical name of home ;
A w rd that is dearer to v.riglish minds
Than palace or lordly dome.
There were garments rude, and homely food,
Fora little loving band;
And a wife was there. once young and fair
To clasp the horny hand,
And bless it—through God—that its strength could give,
Not store for old age..but the weans to live !
For the poor have hearts, and 'tis thought they know
A feeling of joy from one of woe."
Let us for a mom nt suppose ourselves in the place of the
evicted tenant. We see those most dear to us—and the
affection of the Irish peasant for his family is proverbial
—threatened with absolute ruin, for the sake of carrying
out some projected improvement : and how should we feel
towards him who made the happiness of his fellow-crea-
tures of such little account, that he prefers the improve-
ment of his land, accompanied by our misery and wretch-
edness, to the attempt at the improvement of the same
land, accompanied by our happiness and prosperity ? We
straitly must regard him as heartless and tyrannical. It is
humiliating to us as men, that so little value should beset
on our happiness ; it is humiliating to us as Christians,
living in a Christian country, that the precepts of that
Gospel which we profess to believe, should be thus openly
violated, and that we should so far forget one of the two
commandments on which hang all the law and the pro.
pla is—" thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." But
by a righteous retribution, misdeeds, even in this world,
by whomsoever perpetrated, brig their own punishment
along with them. The carrying out of the clearunce sys-
tem reacts upon the very improvement it is intended to
advance and obstructs it. The tenant who is permitted to
remain must feel that it is not from any regard to himself,
but probably from his being more wealthy, or having a
better house than his poorer neighbour, that he is allowed
to enjoy it; and though he will not be sorry to get an in-
crease to his farm, yet he will, and he must, feel the wrong
that has been inflicted on another; he will know that the
same thing may hsppen to himself, should, at a future
time, fresh measures of improvement seem to require his
removal ; his exertions are paralyzed, for he knows that
immutable as the truths of eternal justice are said to be,
they have no existence for him. The frame of society at
large is shaken by such acts, the social ties are broken,
the links that bind man to man are severed, the observati-
ons of the moralist and the philosopher, on the mutual de-
pendence of man upon his fellows, is felt to be a mockery
and delusion, and the very name of improvement becomes
associated with human suffering, its track marked by roof-
less dwellings and starving children—its history written in
the tears of the widow and the orphan.—Dublin Univer-
sity Magazine.