The North Cumberland Reformer. — 1893-04-27 (Carlisle, Cumbria, England)

WILLIAM. Are there not immense sources of private revenue that almost entirely escape the attentions of the tax collector? The present sources of Imperial revenue are, we think, some of them of a far more reprehensible character than is the Income Tax. We wish most earnestly to see the revenue from the deathdealing drink traffic very materially diminished—not by the lowering of the duty scale, but by the large falling off of the trade. We believe that the practical ox tinction of this particular fountain of exchequer supply would result in the opening up of numerous other and purer springs, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would soon be in a position to ask the co-operation of the House of Commons in devising new means of expenditure, and new channels for surplus. For this happy time we, however, must wait with more or less of patience until the Veto Bill has become law, and its great message of right and liberty has become instilled into the enlightened intelligence of the people. In the meantime, it is well to remember that a deficit does not necessarily mean a less. The deficit means an increase of expenditure. This increase has largely come about through the larger demands of the educational system that we have tardily, but at last with some thoroughness, adopted. It has also come about through our improved and extended Postal and Telegraph departments. The nation's advantage, enrichment, and comfort, as represented by these departments, far more than compensate for a deficiency of a million and a half of money in the Treasury. But is the penny addition to the Income Tax the only or even the best available channel by which to equalise the two streams of finance? The balance must be maintained; but the great landholders ought to be the first to bear the necessary pressure. The Income Tax presses most hardly upon the class that is least able to bear that pressure. The few shillings a year addition marks the difference between the hardship and extortion. Perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not had time to deal exhaustively with the problem that he has had to face. He intimates as much, and promises other, and quite different schemes of adjustment for the next Session. With this, perhaps, we must be content. But it is disappointing. There are sources of expenditure that we wish to see modified. We think the naval and military expenditure is a worse than useless waste of national resources. That over thirty millions of money are being sunk every year in the maintenance of a murder system in Great Britain is a sad commentary upon our boasted Christianity, and our costly Church organizations. The Government have always been too easily led by the military magnates, whose ceaseless cry is for more war preparations, more menaces to fling in the face of other nationalities, more reckless expenditure of money and of men, for the maintenance of the lurid glory and false honour that are associated with their unchristian and barbarous calling. The energetic and persistent efforts of these military autocrats to introduce conscription into this country will never, we gladly believe, have a ghost of a chance of success. The manhood of the nation is too free, and too proud of its freedom, to permit the cruel heel of military despotism to plant itself upon the national neck as is done in Germany, for instance, to-day. But, the gradual, and insidious introductions of military influences and training into our public schools, and other public departments, are the indications of what would be, and of what will be, unless the watchful eye of the public keeps perpetual guard over the liberties of the people. That our national resources should be swallowed up in the useless, and uncivilized departments, that exist only in the interests of the autocrats of war, is a matter into which the growing democracy of the nation will have to inquire, and doubtless will enquire with some critical I keenness. The time of universal peace is not yet; but the British nations, and the great English speaking populations of the world ought to be in the fore-front of the Peace propaganda, instead of fearsomely holding back until, after some gigantic war, the exhausted nationalities of devastated Europe are forced into a league of peace by the expediency of hard necessity. There is something of cowardice that is unworthy of our free religious claims, in the hesitancy to be first in th: practical sphere of disarmament.