Britain, that little room remains for the true principles on the subject; but fortunately, like a beacon, it shows what rock should be avoided in the course. A system of direct taxation would not be far from just, which in every respect was precisely the reverse of that which at present exists amongst us. I. The first thing to be done is to equalise the succession tax, lay it equally on land and personal estate, and lower it to the whole one-half. Five per cent in succession to strangers; two and a half to relations; and a half per cent to parents or brothers, alike in land and money, would probably augment the produce of the tax, and certainly greatly relieve a most meritorious class of society, the representatives of small capitals. II. All direct taxes should be levied equally on landed and personal estates, and, subject to the distinction aftermentioned, equally on professional income, as on the fruit of realised capital. This rule should apply to all local or parochial, as well as public burdens. The effect of it would be to let in, as taxable income, in addition to the £2,666,000 now derived from land, a sum at least as large derived from personal estates or incomes. It would therefore lower this most oppressive tax, supposing its absolute amount diminished one-half. The same would be the case with land-tax, highway rates, church rates, police rates, &c. They would all be lowered a half to the persons at present burdened with them, and that simply by the adoption of the just principle, that all fortunes in the same situation should be taxed alike for the general service of the state, and that the commercial classes who create the poor, and are enriched by their labour, should contribute equally with the landed to their support. III. In levying the income-tax, a different rate should be imposed on income, according as it is derived or not derived from realised capital. If it is so, it should be taxed alike for all direct taxes. But if it is derived from annuity or professions, a lower rate should be adopted. If the property tax is 5 per cent, the income tax should not exceed 21 per cent; whatever the one is the other should be a half of it only. This modification of an impost now felt as so oppressive by all subjected to it, would go far towards reconciling the numerous class of small traders-the great majority in all urban constituencies, to the change—to its continuance, VOL. III. 2 R and also justify its extension to all incomes above £50 or £100 a-year. Without this extension it will inevitably degenerate into a confiscation of property above a certain level. IV. Stamps or conveyances, or burdening of property, should be the same, and not higher, on personalty or landed estates. For the additional security of the latter, the borrower pays amply in the greater expense of the law deeds. requisite to constitute effectual securities over real estates than over stock or movable funds. Stamps on bills, &c., which are advances for a short period only, should be rated at a widely different scale from that adopted in permanent loans. But there is no reason why securities over real estates should require to be written on paper bearing a higher stamp than those over personal effects. V. The present system of the assessed taxes should be altered, so as to make it include all classes alike, and not, as at present, fall twice as heavily on the inhabitants of the country as those of towns. This may be done best by making these taxes a certain proportion of the value of the house inhabited by the party, as rated for the property tax —perhaps a fourth or fifth part, abolishing all other assessed taxes. This would reach all classes alike in town and country; for whatever may be said as to doing without an establishment in town, no one can do even there without a house. And the rich misers who live in a poor lodging, and spend nothing, would be effectually reached in the heavy property tax on their funds wherever invested. VI. To obviate the innumerable frauds daily practised in the concealment of professional incomes, especially by small traders, a power should be given to the commissioners in all cases where they were dissatisfied with the return of professional income, to assess the party for income at five or six times the value at which his house is rated. On this principle, if a lawyer or physician lives in a house rated at £100 a-year, he would pay on £500 a-year as income; if he occupied one rated at £2000, he would be taxed on £10,000. If the tax on realised property was 5 per cent, which it will soon be, that would just subject the professional one to 21. Perhaps it would be better to adopt some such general principle for all cases of professional income, and avoid the requiring returns at all. In some cases the above plan might be adopted as a substitute for the income-tax, or rather as a mode of levying it on professional persons. Those whose income is derived from land, the funds, or other realised property, would be entitled to exemption or deduction, upon production of the proper evidence that they were rated for the property tax at the higher rate. VII. Ireland should pay the income and all direct taxes, at least on land, bonds, and other realised property, as well as the assessed and other direct taxes, just as Great Britain. Nothing can be advanced, founded either in reason or justice, in favour of the further continuance of the present most invidious and unjust exemption of the wealthy proprietors or bondholders in that country. Any exemptions in favour of its infant industry would be cheerfully acquiesced in by all the rest of the empire. We have thus laid before our readers a just and reasonable system of direct taxation, from which the landed interest, now so unjustly oppressed, would derive great relief, simply by doing equal justice to them and the other classes in the state. The amount of injustice which such a system would remove, may be accurately measured by the amount of resistance which the system we have now advocated would doubtless experience, just as the injustice of the exemption from direct taxation enjoyed by the nobles and clergy of old France was measured by the obstinate resistance they made to an equalisation of the public burdens. Men cling to nothing with such a tenacity as unjust privileges and exemptions. But the changes we recommend have one lasting recommendation-they are founded on obvious justice. They go only to levy all taxes alike on all classes, in proportion, as nearly as may be, to their ability to pay them. And we implore the Conservative body, with whom we have so long acted, to consider whether it would not be far wiser to unite their strength to convince the country of the justice and expedience of some, at least, of these changes, than to follow the example of the Free-traders in urging the repeal of the malt-tax, which could only be followed, as no addition to the indirect taxes is to be thought of, by a vast increase of the income-tax, two-thirds of which would fall on the land itself. MACAULAY [BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, APRIL 1849] THE historical and critical essay is a species of literary composition which has arisen, and been brought to perfection, in the lifetime of a single generation. Preceding writers, indeed, had excelled in detached pieces of a lighter and briefer kind; and in the whole annals of thought there is nothing more charming than some of those which graced the age of Queen Anne, and the reigns of the first Georges. But though these delightful essays remain, and will ever remain, models of the purest and most elegant composition, and are always distinguished by just and moral reflections, yet their influence has sensibly declined; and they are turned to, now, rather from the felicity of the expression by which they are graced, or the delicate satire they convey, than either the information which they contain, the originality by which they are distinguished, or the depth of the views which they unfold. It is still true that "he who would attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant without being ostentatious, must give his days and his nights to the study of Addison." It is not less true, that he who would appreciate the force of which the English language is capable, and acquire the condensed vigour of expression which enters so largely into the highest kind of composition, will ever study the prose of Johnson; as much as the poet, for similar excellences, will recur to the Vanity of Human Wishes, or the epistles and satires of Pope. But, with the advent of the French Revolution, the rise of fiercer passions, and the collision of dearer interests, the elegant and amusing class of essays rendered so popular by MACAULAY'S History of England, 2 vols. London, 1849. Addison and his followers passed away. The incessant recurrence of moralising, the frequent use of allegory, the constant straining after conceits, which appear even in the pages of the Spectator and the Rambler, are scarcely redeemed by the taste of Addison, the fancy of Steele, or the vigour of Johnson. In inferior hands they became insupportable. Men whose minds were stimulated by the Rights of Man-who were entranced by the eloquence of Pitt-who were stunned by the thunderbolts of Nelsonwho followed the career of Wellington-could not recur to the Delias, the Chloes, or the Phillises of a slumbering and pacific age. The proclamation of war to the palace and peace to the cottage, sent the stories of the coquette, the prude, and the woman of sense to the right-about. What was now required was something which could minister to the cravings of an excited and enthusiastic age; which should support or combat the new ideas generally prevalent; which should bring the experience of the past to bear on the visions of the present, and tell men, from the recorded events of history, what they had to hope, and what to fear, from the passion for innovation which had seized possession of so large a portion of the active part of mankind. The Edinburgh Review was the first journal which gave a decided indication of this change in the temper of the public mind. From the very outset it exhibited that vigour of thought, fearlessness of discussion, and raciness of expression, which bespoke the prevalence of independent feeling, novel yearnings, and original ideas, among the people. There was something refreshing and exhilarating in the change. Its success was immediate and immense. The long slumbering dominion of the Monthly and other reviews, which then had possession of the sceptre of criticism, was at once destroyed. Mediocrity fell into the shade when the light of genius appeared; criticism assumed a bolder and more decided character, when its writers became independent. Men rejoiced to see the pretensions of authors levelled, their vanity mortified, their errors exposed, their pride pulled down, by the stern hand of the merciless reviewer. The practical application of the maxim, "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur gave universal satisfac * "The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted." |