The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-03-28 00:00:00

TO ADVERTISERS.

We beg respectf

Tortant

LIVERPOOL

ONLY

the attention of

eers, and others,.

STANDARD

+TOW THE

NEWSPAPER

PUBLISHED WEEKLY ON TUESDAY,

hat day by the thousands

3lanafacturers and others attending

THE TUESDAY'S

MARKET IN

MANCHESTER

The STANDARD is taken at c

11 the Newsrooms

and respectable Inns in that town and the

surrounding m

facturiny district

A SECOND EDITION is published at Half-past
Two, in time for the North Mails, containing the
MARKETS, and any news of importance that

may arrive in the course of the morning

Ebt Eibtrpool &tanbarD.

TUESDAY

MORNING

IRCH 28, 1848

'THE fact that a most powerful set is about to
be made by the British public against inequality.
of taxation, is sufficiently apparent. It is prover-
bial amongst us, that, so long as we are in a thriv-
ing condition as a nation, we do not scrutinise
very strictly the weight of the burthens which we
have individually to carry. Like other animals,
when well fed, John Bull does not cavil much
against the carver at a single dinner, who helps
him to a bone instead of solid meat; but the same
John Bull, when subjected to the dietary of a
union workhouse, is remarkably tenacious as to
the fair dealing towards him of the carver. When
in good case, he never thinks whether he does
more or less than his full share of work, as com-
pared with the rest of the world,—whether he
ploughs or sows, or spins or weaves, more than
ought to be required of him; but put him upon
short commons—stint his meat, or his drink, or
his sleep—and John becomes a rather obstreperous
being. He is in the latter case just now. He has
lately been put upon short commons; he feels, in
consequence, his constitution slightly debilitated;
he has been urged to enter himself as competitor
in a race, for which he had taken no previous
thought to prepare himself ; and, very naturally,
he is now asking himself how it is that one leg
should be compelled to drag after it a heavy boot,
whilst the other is encased in cordovan; or why
one shoulder should have to carry the top weights,
whilst the other is let off at a feather. John Bull
is uneasy. He has got hold of a very decent case
of grievance; and he is a personage of this sort,
that, when fairly convinced that he has right on
his side, he is not easily turned away from the
maintenance of that right.

The tax-paying public have imbibed, and very
justly, the notion that they are paying unequally
towards the maintenance of the institutions of our
country. We do not refer to the income tax parti-
cularly, although of that we may have to speak
elsewhere. The notion in question, which the pub-
lic have got into their minds, is, that we have
adopted systems of raising revenue in moments of
emergency, based less upon principles of fairness
and equality than upon the question how, most
easily, -such revenue might be brought into our
exchequer. We have also remitted taxes, less with
respect to their unfair pressure than to the amount
vihich they brought in, and their relation to what
We could spare. We are beginning now to think
that the time has arrived at which we may honestly
enter upon the inquiry as to what ought to be the
reasonable expenditure of our government, and how
it may be met most consistently with the good of
the people. We are in the position of a man who
has borrowed improvidently—given Jew's interest
upon post obits ;—and now, knowing the extent of
his resources, wishes to pay his debts honourably,
but yet to protect himself from the usurious exac-
tions to which be has submitted. We have made
large remissions of taxation ; tried many experi-
mental notions. We have adopted a new fiscal
policy. We have now to determine at what ex-
per

f taxation

that new policy is to be main-

iained ; how much, for instance, we are willing to
pay forfree-trade. The demand of the British public
is, in short, for a system of taxation intelligible in its
character, and equal in its pressure; and to secure
this they see that they must commence de novo.
Pulling down here and patching there will no
longer do. The edifice must be reconstructed
throughout.

The- extent to which this feeliiig has spread, and
the rapidity with which it is assuming the character
of imperative requiiement, appear at present to be
very indistinctly appreciated, as well by the govern-
ment as by parliament generally. Yet very signi-
ficant evidence was afforded, during the desultory
conversation which took place in the House of
Commons on Monday night, of its existence amongst
the people. It is true that on that occasion it only
took the form of an earnest appeal from all sides of
the house for a committee of enquiry and a modi-
fication of the Income Tax. The government were
informed, both by members who had voted with
them and against them, in the recent divisions,
that they were enduring a pressure from their con-
stuents, which they felt it impossible to resist.
Bbt the same reason will be found to influence
them whenever the possibility is mooted of dealing
with any other direct tax. The Window Duty is
only endured because at present we can discern no
substitute for it, and are unable to spare the revenue
which it brings in; and, as impeding our efforts to
improve the sanatory condition of our population,
the public feeling against it is, increasing every day.
The duty on tea is one of the most objectionable
and impolitic which could be imposed, restricting
our commerce with a most important empire, and
withholding from the people an article which has
become essential to their comfort ; yet our present
government dare not venture upon its modification.
Tobacco has become absolutely necessary, or is re•
garded as such, to the comfort of the mass of the
labouring poor ; yet we cannot spare any portion
ch it produces. Against these
ndividually, a powerful agita-

revenue

ther in

tion is fermenting in the public mind; and it is
becoming more evident every day that we can only
remove or lighten their pressure by means of a ge-
neral remodification of the system, by which our
revenue is raised.

But there is even a still wider question, with
which a government possessing foresight ought to
prepare to deal. We have a heavy local taxation,
the pressure of which the changed circumstances
of the community are rendering intolerably unequal
upon some classes. For an example of this need,
we go beyond our own town ? The merchants of
Liverpool no longer live in Liverpool. Even their
clerks are fast getting beyond the reach of the
overseers and their collectors. Every one, whose
id him fast down to the loco-
our warehouses, and our

avocations do not

lity of our busy str

dOcks, is looking for his country cottage or his
villa, or, at all events, escaping over the boundary
which separates the heavily rated townsman from
the suburban resident. The omnibus has effected
a great portion of this change. But the railway is
about to do more. For a penny a mile a man may
be transported
_in as little time, to a place ten or
twelve miles away from the bustle, and smoke, and
filth of our crowded streets, as he could walk to a
distant nart of the town itself; and the migration
to suc • --1- onnfined by the want of

h places

dwellings suitable for occupation. In the mean-
time, the taxes are left to be met by the shopkeeper
and the tradesman, who is, as it were, adfixus glebce,

-compelled to remain in his heavily rented shop
or house, and to assume an additional share of the
burthens which those differently circumstanced
have been enabled to throw off. This rapidly in-
- alteration in the location of our popula-
-this withdrawal of capital and wealth from
their fair contribution towards the burthens of the
place from which they draw their increase—must
be met by a change in our system of local taxation.
We have no other course left open to us.
The whole subject, however, must be dealt with
promptly. It is one which is full of difficulty, we
readily admit. But the position in which the bulk
of the community are at present placed, is one

creasing

which renders it imperative in any government to

uffering from die-
_
prdered trade, when industry is prostrate,_and_even
C i
apital can barely maintain itself, tt is dangerous
Wallow impressions of injustice of any description,
9n the part of the ruling powers, to rankle in the

men

public mind. To-day we are exclaiming only
against imperfections in the machinery by which
we are taxed. To-morrow we may be found ex-
claiming against taxation itself, or against the insti-
tutions which it is imposed to support.