Page images
PDF
EPUB

because the "members of the House of Comtory answer. At this time the necessity for mons are, or because they are not the repre- that answer is daily becoming more urgent; sentatives of the people; because they are or inasmuch, as the burthens which they are because they are not returned by indepen- told are necessary and unavoidable. The dent electors, that they have suffered the privations to which they are obliged to subpublic money to be thus shamefully squen- mit; and the prospects to which they must dered and misapplied? Misapplied, I add; now look forward, are such that the stoutest because we may reasonably be allowed to heart may well be appalled. The statement doubt whether some considerable part has of accounts now brought officially before the not been applied directly and indirectly to public eye; as it cannot be disproved, so it the purposes of corruption, and the purchase is in itself the most convincing, the most irof secrecy and indennity.-Looking, then, refragable argument in favour of that mea to the enormous evils which have arisen sure which the real friends of the constitution from the want of control, let us ask, is have long seen, to be indispensible to the there any possible mode but that one which safety of the country; of that measure which has been suggested; viz. the freedom of all our most able statesmen have at some election? Is it not indispensible that the re- time of their political life supported, recompresentative should feel a consciousness that mended, and enforced. Their subsequent he is sent to act as the honest agent of his deliberation of that principle is itself the constituents; and that on their good opinion strongest proof of the absolute necessity of of his conduct, he must entirely depend? the measure. It is needless to add, that I To what, then, is the opposite principle, viz. allade to a reform in the representation of of indifference to the good opinion of the the country; that one only measure, which constituent to be attributed? Is it owing to (I assert it fearlessly, and in defiance of sothe idea prevailing, that à very great majo- phistry and misrepresentation) would secure rity of the nation have no power of control the public from future malversations, and whatever over those who are styled the re- eventually save it from total ruin and destrucpresentatives of the nation? Is it owing to tion. It is the only effectual, constitutional the knowledge that by far the greater part of preventative of abuse of every kind, and of those who pay their money in the shape of every degree, in the management of the pubtaxes of every denoniination which the in- lic affairs. Without this other hundreds of genuity of man can devise, have no more millions will be squandered, (if, indeed, they power of inquiring into the management of can any longer be raised from the exhausted it, than a subject of the Grand Seignior, or a pockets of the country) other defaulters will native of Olabeite? When a Political In-blaze forth in insulting splendour.-Burquirer seeks the awfully majestic reprepresentative body of this great nation, emphatically stiled "The Commons of Great "Britain in Parliament assembled," 66 presumed to emanate from and to be identified with the great mass of the people; touched by their every grievance, and sympathising in all their natural and honourable feelings; does he find such a representative body to exist? Does he not "find" from the most indisputable authority that a decided majority are returned, not by the collected voice of those whom they appear to represent, but under the private patronage, or by the inmedia e authority of 154 individuals?"-Does then the representative believe (or rather does he brow) himself to be totally independent of the great majority of the nation? And, does he, therefore, ridicule the idea of responsibility, except to those by whom he is really returned. These, Sir, are questions to which it behoves the British public to obtain a satisfac

[ocr errors]

* Second letter to the high sheriff of the county of Lincoln, by I. Cartwright, Esq.

thens, such as human nature can scarcely sapport, will be heaped upon a sinking nation, to furnish forth the ostentatious profusion of public depredators. Frequently, Sic, have we been told in the high-flown language of oratory, that we must look

[ocr errors]

our dangers manfally in the face." We do, Sir. It has never yet occurred that Britons could fear a foreign foe. But, were I to allow myself to enlarge-a little on that expression, (so frequently trumpeted forth, on every proposition of a new tax) I should say that there are dangers, to which we must look forward, more frightful and alarming, than myriads of foreign invaders, and hosts of open foes. We must encounter; nay, we must overcome (or inevitably perish as an independent nation) that countless mul itude of frauds, abuses, and peculations, (under whatever form or name disguised) which must otherwise bring speedy destruction on the land. No nation governing itself by fair and free representation can ever be lost. No nation ever yet recorded in the annals of the world, has been able long to bear up under the debilitating consequences of corrup

tion. The page of history resents us a pic-|
ture, awful in the extreme. Let but tie
contributors to the enormous sums pow
raised upon the nation, be identified with
the electors Let, by this means responsibi-
lity be established. Then (but not ill then)
economy shall succeed to profusion; ba-
nest management to fraudulent peculation.
Then, Sir, having baffled at home this hy-
dra which would destroy us, shall we be
enabled to defend our native land, and our
constitution. (the best existing in the world
when well administered.) Then may we
bid defiance to hosts of armies, led on by
tyrants, and themselves slaves!-I re.nain,
-CUSTOS.
Sir, &c.

[ocr errors]

CLERGY NON-RESIDENCE.

SIR-To say that I esteem your Register as far superior to every periodical publication of the day, would be but faintly to express my admiration of it: nor would you, I believe, consider such an assertion, as any very flattering compliment. I shall, however, venture to congratulate you on the success that has attended its publication; and to say, that I feel an honest pride in reflecting that it has placed you in so independent a situation. Pursue, Sir, the same course of undeviating rectitude, in your political conduct, and a grateful country will ever remember you with that esteem, which you so justly prize, beyond all the riches, and "all the honors of this world!" I entertain so high an opinion of your liberality, that I believe you will not value my esteem the less, although I confess that I differ from you on two subjects of very considerable importance: I mean the Slave Trade, and the Residence of the Clergy. If a few observations, on the residence and pluralities of the clergy, shall be deemed worthy of at place in your Register, I shall be much obliged by your inserting them. When you proposed a tax of 20 or £30 a year on every .clergyman that did not reside on his benefice, I am suspicious, that you had not given the subject, so full a consideration, as it merits. Was residence insisted upon with the severity that you seem to wish, I think that it would be productive of many evil consequences? I am certain that you cannot desire to see the clergy less learned or worse educated, than they are at present: but a severe prohibition of pluralities and non-residence, would, necessarily, have this effect. That, living is added to living; and prebend to prebend; and, that the most illiterate, and useless. of the profession, are selected as the objects of such munificent new aids, is undoubtedly, a serious and crying

sin; but, by bestowing preferment in this manner, the patrons abuse a trust, vested in them, for far different purposes. Are you acquainted, Sir, with the amount of the sum necessarily expended in the regular edu cation of a clergyman? He must exercise the most rigiu, economy, (and, at a time of life, when economy is but little thought of), to compleat his education for less than £1000! And this large expenditure arises from the state of society; as, the habits of the clergy, will necessarily alter, with the habits of those around them. There are some exhibitions and scholarships at the Universities, but of very small value, as most of them have never been raised since their institution, by the original founders, and benefactors of the colleges. Let us, by way of elucidating my intended argument, suppose the case of a clergyman, who has expended £1000 (probably all that he is worth in the world) preparatory to his entering the church; this enables him to undertake the cure of a parish in the neighbourhood of his birth place: perhaps be also opens a school; and, by every exertion of his industry, contrives to support his family in some degree of respectability; yet, he cannot save, out of his little income, a pittance, even sufficient, to place out his children in any trade or profession. Much less, can he indulge the most distant hope, of leaving any thing behind him, when he dies! He has now a small living given him, at a great distance from his place of abode. He can, therefore, lay by, let us say, £50 a year, for the benefit of his family: he now no longer sighs at the sprightly sallies of his children: he does not, in solitude, brood over the inevitable misery of their destiny: hope brightens his prospects: he now fulfils his duty with pleasure and alacrity: he lives contented in his humble sphere; and dies in peace with man, and full of expectation from his God! Would you, Mr. Cobbett, take 20 or 301. a year, from such a man as this?--or compel him to reside? And yet I have drawn no uncommon case; there are many, even in the narrow circle of my acquaintance, who exactly answer to this description! A person, possessed of two small livings, is often in the same predicament. But, you ask, how is the church of the Non-Resident Clergyman to be supplied with regular duty? To this I reply, that there are a great number of young men, who come to our Universities absolutely and literally from the plough: they come to Cambridge, chiefly from the northern counties; and they are enabled to live there by the refuse of the fellows

table, and by the exhibitions and scholarships, that I mentioned above: their rusticity of manner never wears off, nor receives the slightest polish; and, a stipend of 701. a year in a country village, will procure luxuries for them, to which they have never been accustomed. But, I will ask any unprejudiced man, if he imagines that the church would be improved, a religion benefited, if all the clergy were composed of such men? And of such only would the church consist, were the system you propose adopted. Now permit me to offer a remark, on the propriety of a resident curate, and two services, in every parish. I certainly wish that some regulations were made respecting this; but to insist upon it invariably, would not be productive of any good. In country villages, there are many of the people, (wives of labourers particularly and female servants of families), who can never attend the church in the morning: if you insisted in this double duty they would never hear a sermon; whereas, when the service is alternately in the morning and afternoon, they have the same opportunities of hearing sermons with others. It must be remembered, that no clergyman is compellable by the statute, to preach more than one sermon in a day, and that in the morning. If you would make an innovation in this ordinance, you should reflect on the injury, that small vicarages, in large towns, would sustain; where the afternoon, or evening lectureship is often an emolument of very serious consequence to the clergyman. I shall not dilate on the necessity of holding out superior rewards, as a stimulus to talent; nor on many other arguments, that · present themselves to my mind. I am fearful, that I have already trespassed too long, upon your time and patience.- -I am, Sir, &c.-PHILECCLESIAS.- -June 11, 1806.

BREWING TAX.

SIR; I was much pleased to observe, you had not left unnoticed, in your last Register, the intended tax upon private brewing; the many evils of which you justly appreciate, and, independent of that, I am of opinion, the end of this tax will be completely defeated with respect to revenue, the great object in view. In the first place, private brewing will in a great measure be done away, which will put an end to those malsters serving private families, and the consumption of malt thereby greatly diminished; for, I must take leave to observe, that the private brewer uses from to 12 bushels to the hogshead, whereas the common brewer does not make use of

:

more than from 4 to 5 bushels to the same quantity of beer in this instance, alone there is a loss to the revenue of from 4 to 8 bushels; the same in proportion will be the loss in duty upon hops; the private brewer using no other article in his beer than malt and hops, and a much larger quantity of the latter in proportion, than the common brewer; the injury done to the hop-growers will also be severely felt, particularly in Surrey, that country's growth being finer, and in much greater demand by the private brewer than any other. It may perhaps be answered, that the common brewer will make up this deficiency to the revenue, by the increase of quantity he will sell in consequence of this act upon which a strong doubt arises. The tax may be productive for one year, as those persons who have already their home-brewed beer, must commute for drinking it, or what is worse, suffer an exciseman to enter their houses; but it will not be so a second year; their stock being exhausted, they will not replenish it, but give up their last proud boast of regaling themselves, and friends, with home-brewed old English strong beer. Indeed I have no doubt but thousands of families in the kingdom, will endeavour to adopt some beverage or other in lieu of the beer they will otherwise be compelled to take of the common brewer, who, having no competition to mind, will deal out any article he pleases to his customers. It is

matter of astonishment that the enormous duty upon malt has been paid with little or no grumbling; it being now very little short of 4s. 6d a bushel, and has been sold in the last year at 13s. 6d. ; yet has the private brewer strained a point not to relinquish this almost only pride left to an Englishman, which, if the present bill should pass into a law will totally exclude him from.-In fact, every person that I have heard speak upon the subject is indignant at it. The comforts of the peasant, and the various description of labourers will be entirely done away; for be assured, those masters who were in the habit of allowing this little comfort to the exhausted and almost famished frames of their labourers, will for the greater part relinquish the practice; and, instead of seeing the poor peasant going cheerfully to his labour at sun-rise with his wooden bottle of home-brewed beer to refresh him in his arduous toil till sun-set, water must be the substitute; and in many places a difficulty to procure even that; this alone ought to have some weight to prevent such an act passing. As it respects the revenue, I have been informed by a malster of this place,

whose whole concern is serving private families, that the duty he pays in the maling season, is from 1,000 to 1,2001.; and I know several others who pay nearly the same sum, and serving the same description of persons. Such immense duties from persons apparently in a small line of business, is, as I before observed, owing to the much greater consumption in proportion of the private brewer, to that of the common brewer, together with a much larger proportion of hops: depend on it, this will be severely felt by the revenue even in the next malting season ; but carry the idea farther ; when the present private stock is out and no more replenished; when families will have no reason to commute and will endeavour to find out some other beverage; when either from disgust, or necessity, they will have disposed of their brewing utensils, and rely on it, that once done, they will never be 'enabled to replace them, from the very great advanced price of copper, cooper's work, &c. I say, to carry the idea on to these things, and the mischief to the revenue is incalculable; to say nothing of the very great injury to the landed interest. Barley will be a mere drug; at present, the common brewer (I may almost say) is the barometer of the market, and will be entirely so when the competition ceases that now exists; my information upon this head, I am confident 'may be depended on. Another description of persons ought not to be forgotten, I mean the cooper; whose bread will be taken from him. In a word, there never was perhaps a tax involving in its train so much mischief, not only, to the comforts of the people in general, but defeating the very end it was ineant to answer, and when once effected, it will be too late by any alterations or repealing, ever to restore that branch of the revenue to its present great and beneficial standing. Indeed, sir, as you justly observe, it will go nearly to the breaking up of housekeeping; completely destroying the hospitality of the higher classes of society, and excluding the middling from their real and necessary comforts.--Since my writing the above, I see my Lord Henry Petty intends abandoning the excise, and making the whole liable to assesment; that alternative would have been otherwise generally resorted to had the former not been given up; I sincerely hope, when his lordship reconsiders the many difficulties that will attend the enforcing this act; the almost certainty of its ultimately decreasing, instead of increasing the revenue, added to: which its extreme unpopularity and the injury it will do to the middle class of the

people, and still more to the lower orders, that he will altogether abandon it.—I am, Sir, most respectfully, your very obedient humble Servant, W. D.-Close, Salisbury, June 4, 1806.

ASSESSED TAXES.

SIR;I am sensible of the financial embarrassment of the times; times in which the arrogant and insolent pertinacity of our late minister was driven from one proposed object of taxation, in which our present Chancellor of the Exchequer has been already induced to abandon two; in which, as Mr. Fox says of the numerous taxes imposed during the last twelve years, not one has been unexceptionable; in which to adopt a vulgar expression it is evident that we have got pretty nearly to the end of ou financial tether, and I am equally sensible that in such times, and under such circumstances, it behoves every well wisher to his country, not on slight grounds to object to any proposed plan of raising revenue. I should not, therefore, send you this expression of my extreme dislike to the projected augmentation of the Assessed Taxes, if I were not in my conscience persuaded that if carried into effect, it will produce the most mischievous effects to the country. When the triple assessment was abandoned for the Income Tax, Dr. Beeke in his "Observa"tions on the Produce of the Income Tax," p. 149, published the following very sensible reflections. "If the clear income of a land owner, who has neither enlarged or diminished the possessions of his ances"tors, is compared with those of his tenants, or still more with those of the la"bourers on his farms, it will be seen that "the difference is very much less at present "than it was at the close of the last cen

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

wise be.I have stated this a little more at large than I should otherwise have done, for the sake of a short digression on the different pressure of the Income Tax, and by that of increased assessment. "From necessary circumstances, direct taxes in general will be levied on the expenses which are visible; or, to use a "modern metaphor, most tangible. It has

t

66

66

66

[ocr errors]

also been a part of the recent policy of "this country (and, within prudent limits, "it is a very goo policy) to assess several of our direct taxes in a ratio progressively increasing. -But it is also true, that the greater part of our direct taxes are levied on objects more conducive to the accom*modations of a country life, than to those of inh.bitants of towns. A country life requites.many domestic conveniences, “ which in towns are either not at all want"ed, or may be easily obtained, and with "less expense from persons distinct from the family. It consequently, upon the same scale of expenditure, requires more servants, larger habitations, more windows, more horses, &c. &c. &c.It follows, that at present the burden of as"sessed taxes is not really borne in a simply

"

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

rage, amount to much more than one"tenth of the incomes of the former, and "not one thirtieth of those of the latter; "and, consequently, that the produce of "the tax being reduced by both these

causes, would fall greatly below the ge"neral expectation. This is alreidy con"firmed in many instances by comparisons "of the local produce of that tax, and of "the present ten per cent. on income; and "I have little doubt, but that the general <event will verify my conjecture; and "that on a comparison of all towns on the "one part, and of the country on the other,

[ocr errors]

many of the towns will pay more than last year in very nearly a triplicate pro"portion, while the country will scarcely pay more than it did by the former assessment; reduced as that was in a great "many cases by deficiency of income.—I "an not combating the propriety of the

measure adopted last year, if considered "merely as preparatory and experimental; "but I wish to show that any long con"tinued perseverance in the principle of it,

even upon a much less extensive scale, "would ultimately be productive of indis"cribable injury to the whole community."

“ vily on the inhabitants of the country "than those of towns; and, consequently, " on land-owners than other men of property; and taking most from incomes, which though nominally increasing by an augmentation of rent, yet really bear a decreasing proportion to the whole na"tional wealth; and that from circum

[ocr errors]

stances which ought not to be controuled, 86 even if it could be done.-In this view of "the question, the good policy of many of our direct taxes is very disputable. They have a tendency to discourage the resi"deace in the country of those who must pay them; and to diminish the invaluable "benefit of a general diffusion of men of respectability throughout the kingdom. They fail with double force on diminishing incomes, and scarcely affect in any thing near an equitable proportion those " which, from various causes, are increasing with unparalleled rapidity.With how "much greater pressure then must the

66

66

triple assesstant have fallen on the inha"bitants of the country, than on those of town? And, consequently, on landed and agricultuid, than on moaied and trading income? In this way consider "ed that man when first it was pro

It is easy, but perfectly needless, to prove more at large, and to exhibit with variety of illustration the three propositions thus compressedly stated by Dr. Beeke. * 1st. That it is of the highest importance that respectable residents should be diffused over the country. 2.1. That the assessed taxes press much more severely on residents in the country, than on those in towns. And, 3d That the assessed taxes have a strong tendency to drive from the country all inhabitants of property but niere farmers. To these three propositions may be added a 4th; that this disproportionate pressure and expulsive tendency is greatest in the case of those persons who possessing moderate incomes, are (agreeably to the reasons of Agar's wise prayer) the most valuable, and the most important to be retained in the country.I speak of the clergy as well as of the laity. And how lit

* Mach excellent matter on this subject is to be found in the Survey of the County of Salop, (published by the Board of Agriculture) by that most meritorious characterMr. Archdeacon Plymley, now Corbett.

« PreviousContinue »