VI.

THE RIGHT USE OF A SURPLUS ;1 OR, REMISSION OF

TAXES AN ABUSE OF REVENUE.

IN a progressive country like Great Britain, each successive generation has its special danger to avert, its special reform to establish, its special duty to discharge. In the time of the fathers, one set of mischiefs are paramount and rampant; and practically it may be advantageous that the attention of reformers should be exclusively directed to these, and not disadvantageous even that the national zeal should exaggerate their importance and the perils which they menace. It is in this piecemeal fashion that progress with us has been in the habit of marching; and perhaps it is owing to this fashion that our work is often done so efficiently that it has not to be done over again. But one grave evil attends this system. The notions, the animosities, and the fears of the fathers are frequently transmitted to the sons who live under the reformed régime, and have an entirely different set of dangers to contend against; yet they go on repeating phrases and formulas that have lost their meaning; fighting against antagonists that are

1 Contemporary Review, September 1875.

dead and buried, or at least have become shadowy and insignificant; and pursuing objects that perhaps have already been pursued too far. The prevalent habit of mind, the direction or set of principles and maxims, survive the circumstances which were their origin and justification; and, like all such survivals, become noxious as soon as they cease to be useful. Weapons and tools should be religiously buried when they have won their victory and finished their work. Unfortunately, however, this maxim is little in favour among us; like men who have grown rich by rigid parsimony, but continue the practices of saving and self-denial when ample wealth has converted wise economy into miserly unworthiness, we make an end of our means, an idol of our instrument, and permanent principles out of what were merely the fitting expedients of a pressing crisis or a passing hour.

Now, it appears to me that we are grievously in danger of making this mistake at present in many of our national transactions. We are forgetting that a virtue out of season easily degenerates into a vice, and that the wisest maxims of public life cease to be sound by ceasing to be timely. The stern and vigilant economy, which was worthy of all praise, and was perhaps the first requisite in a statesman in an age when the public revenue was noxiously collected and extravagantly squandered, becomes simply a timid weakness or a bad mental habit, when objects immeasurably more valuable than money are sacrificed or postponed lest money should be spent-even though

Н

the money needed for effecting them is attainable at a moment's notice, without traversing one sound principle of taxation or laying one objectionable burden on the people-nay, when the money is actually in our Treasury, but is given away, almost as a matter of course, as an unrequired surplus.

Thirty or forty years ago the pension list was large, lavish, and not too well fitted to bear investigation; articles of food and first necessity coming from abroad were either entirely prohibited, or so heavily taxed as to be virtually almost inaccessible, and at all events to maintain high prices for home produce; customs duties were levied upon upwards of 500 principal articles of import-many upon raw materials, thus burdening our own industry-many upon foreign manufactures, designed to afford an artificial and mischievous protection to that very industry-many so complicated and perverse as materially to interfere with commerce; others so high as largely to check consumption, and limit the trade which should have paid for them. In short, at that time the whole spirit which presided over the collection of the revenue was so noxious and perverse that British statesmen might well be pardoned for regarding the liberation of trade, the reduction of expenditure, and thereby of taxation, and the cheapening of the main articles of food and general consumption, as about their most pressing functions; and Liberal politicians were almost excusable in considering retrenchment, economy, and repeal of customs and excise duties as constituting

the first, if not comprising the whole, duty of man. They said so daily, and soon got into the habit of thinking so.

But in 1875 everything is changed; the old evils no longer exist; the old language is no longer appropriate. The politicians who persist in wielding the old weapons, using the old maxims, running on the old lines, are like artillery-men who keep pointing their guns and firing away in the same direction as before when their foes have retreated, made a flank movement, and are now menacing their rear. The pension list has been reduced and purified, and jobbery has scarce a hole or corner wherein to hide itself. The principal articles liable to customs dues have been reduced to about five, and those are so levied as to be no longer practically a fetter upon commerce; articles of food, and raw materials, as well as foreign manufactures, can be imported absolutely free; the main proportion of our indirect taxes (nearly six-sevenths) are raised from articles of luxury, and probably I ought to say, of noxious luxury-certainly of luxuries that needy men can well dispense with-namely, spirits, tobacco, beer and wine, and licenses therewith connected. Specially objectionable duties, or those so regarded, such as "taxes on knowledge," advertisement duties, fire insurance, &c., have been repealed; indeed, the entire amount repealed within the last fifteen years has exceeded £37,000,000. In fine, I doubt if a single tax remains which can be fairly represented as either a real fetter upon trade, or an

unfair or heavy burden on the people. The incidence of our taxation is, I believe, as equitable as it can be made; the amount of it is far lighter than it used to be, and, I believe, lighter, too, than that of any other great country with which a fair comparison can be instituted. But this is not all: during the forty

years that this astonishing relief from our burdens has been going on, the wealth of the country-i.e., its power of bearing those burdens-has been increasing at an altogether unprecedented rate; the aggregate wealth subject to the income tax has nearly doubled, and the wages of labour, taking one branch of industry with another, have risen twenty-five per cent. With those few, and as I hold utterly unsound, fiscal authorities who condemn all indirect taxation as objectionable, I enter here into no controversy. others, I apprehend, will demur to the above representation; but we append in a note a few confirmatory facts.1

No

1 Absolute exactitude in the following figures I do not pretend to claim; nor can I enter into the lengthened explanations which would be necessary to lay before my readers all the sources from which these estimates are framed. But any one who is disposed to question, or desirous to verify, them, will I think be satisfied if they will consult not only the annual official returns, but the following works :

Edinburgh Review. January 1860 "Taxation of the United Kingdom" "National Debts"

66

Vages, Earnings, and Taxation of the

Wa

Working Classes of Great Britain " "Pressure of Taxation"

"Political Problems for our Age" The Statesman's Year Book, 1875

British taxation.

By Dudley Baxter.

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Do.

Leone Levi.

,, George Norman.