and adds to it his own industry, he gets from 10 to 15 per cent. Now, if you leave the proportion undisturbed, what is it that forms the encouragement to lay out money in trade and manufactures, but the improved produce derived from industry? This is the incentive which enflames enterprise, and stimulates ingenuity. Allow that order, under which your commerce and your arts have risen to such an unexampled height of prosperity to remain undisturbed, and you preserve that incentive, that encouragement, and that reward, on which industry depends. I much doubt, indeed, whether any table which the honourable gentleman could form from all the new political lights which he ever received, could lay the foundation more secure or more permanent for arts, commerce, and every kind of exertion, than that on which they have grown so great, and flourished so long.

There is another argument of great authority, which gentlemen employ; an argument which, for some time past, I have seen much insisted upon in some of the newspapers-that this was a tythe, and that all tythes are unfavourable alike to industry. The argument has no application to the present case. The tenth, which this bill imposes, is a tenth of the clear profits after the expenses of labour have been deducted. The more I have thought upon this particular subject and upon taxation in gene ral, the more am I convinced not only of the futility, but the danger of any attempt, by the distribution of imposts, to make any difference in that order which the nature of society has already established. It is necessary to observe the arrangements which have been already formed, and to accommodate the proportion of taxes to the classes of property which have already been marked. To proceed beyond this, is to dissolve all established principles, and to overthrow the fabric of society which time and the progress of accumulation have reared.

Another curious inference may be drawn from the observations made against the hardships incurred by persons possessed of life estates, of temporary ones, and of those who receive the rewards of laborious employments. It happens singularly enough, that the public offices held under government, uniting in their

nature profits derived from labour and temporary estates, are included in the operation of the bill. Now, Sir, these gentlemen who oppose it, have proposed on former occasions, as a great resource for the national expenditure, that all those offices should be made to contribute largely to the public service-I do not mean sinecures, for they wished to suppress them. The calculations furnished this night are not more exact than those of the honourable baronet on that occasion; the references certainly were not those of the board of agriculture, [a general laugh]; but the honourable baronet had made the prodigious discovery, that if all the public offices were placed on a reduced establishment, and others suppressed, the sum of ten millions would be saved to the public. I was highly pleased with the project, and sincerely wished for the execution of it; but I was always unfortunately stopped in every attempt I made to go on with it, by finding that the entire expenses of the public of fices only amounted to one-tenth of the prodigious saving which was so confidently held out. The honourable baronet's attention has been taken up with agricultural studies and military tactics, or he might have known, that a committee appointed for the express purpose, had made a very different calculation. We have already had a committee of finance, which has discharged the important duties attached to it in the most satisfactory mauner-a committee which, except that the honourable baronet was not a member of it, is perfectly to the mind of every gentleman in this house, and many of its suggestions for Economy and regulation have been carried into effect with great advantage. From this digression, however, into which I have been carried by the subject of offices, I now return.

I was stating with how little favour the honourable gentleman and his friends formerly considered annuities for life in the case of laborious offices; let us now see how their old opinions tally with their new, namely, this branch of income was most obnoxious to taxation, now it is to be most favoured. The honourable gentleman does not think that a great increase of taxes on consumption would be more advantageous than a general tax

1

on all income. Is the inequality or the hardship greater now than it was, or than it would be, should taxes on consumption be increased? If not, then the honourable gentleman is only quarrelling with this tax, because it is not so unequal as the former mode of contribution had been. This plan, which is more general, more comprehensive, which embraces a great deal of property which formerly eluded taxation, and, by conse quence, distributes the burden more fairly, is considered inadmissible. But I am told, that a large sum within the year cannot be raised by encreasing the existing taxes on consumption. What is the consequence? Does not the honourable gentleman compel us to resort to the more expensive expedient of raising money by loans, instead of adopting a plan more extensive in its effect, while it provides for the redemption of what it is necessary to borrow, without that load of permanent taxes, which the funding system renders indispensable? But, it is said that a tax on capital is preferable. Was it not proved, however, that from the state of landed property, not more than one-third of it is now in the hands of persons who could be called upon to contribute, so that two-thirds would be placed wholly out of reach for any purpose of present exertion? What is the great object of the measure before the house? Is it not to raise within the year, from what constitutes the means of individuals within the year, such a proportion as is deemed necessary for the exigencies of the state, and the magnitude of the present crisis? Do you wish to avoid burdening the public with a loan? What advantage would you derive from it, however, if individuals mortgage their estates? Would not the aggregate of private loans encumber the mass of national wealth as much as if the nation contracted the obligation? The object then is to make the annual means of individuals applicable to a supply within the year.

It is objected still that it is unjust that the man who has an annuity or an income, the fruit of his labour, should pay in the proportion of a man who has the same revenue from fixed property. This objection is altogether a fallacy. A permanent

estate, which is represented as never dying, and, as it were, the property of a man after his death, contributes on every exigency which may occur; the income from labour and industry is extinguished; it contributes but once; it is no longer the property of the same person; while the other, which is considered as the same property, is subject to renewed demands. This reasoning may be thought refined; but the answer is justly applicable in the case where the reason, why fixed property should contribute more, is founded on its 'supposed permanency, in opposition to the fleeting character of the other. How then is it possible to discriminate between the various kinds of property? or to enter into the details which could alone enable you to apply any scale of exemption, without an investigation more oppressive, a disclosure more extensive, than any thing which the bill permits? How much safer is it to submit to those inequalities which are the lot of man, and which it is not the business, nor is it in the power, of schemes of finance to correct! Could we even indulge the wish to correct these inequalities, which arise out of the very nature of society, is this the legislative remedy? Let us then forbear to attempt what is perhaps beyond the power of human legislation to correct. It is an enterprize that would hurry us far beyond our depth, and lead to consequences far more extensive than we can foresee, and might produce an overthrow of all establishments, and all regular order, which it is impossible to contemplate without apprehension. The principle. of argument that goes to remedy this supposed evil, belongs to the school of dangerous innovation which we ought not for a moment to indulge. The consequence of this tax then will be, that whoever contributes a tenth of his income under this bill will have a tenth less to spend, to save, or to accumulate. At the end of the war those who shall have contributed will be no poorer; they will only be to the extent of it less increased in riches than they would have been. The advantages of it are in a particular manner in favour of those on whom it will fall, instead of accumulating taxes on consumption, as it will bring all income to contribute more equally, and include a great deal of

that which, in the hands of those who spend less than their income, escapes contribution altogether. Laying aside the proud idea of the vigour, permanence, and renewing energy which this measure secures, there is one case which, with a view to that class who are really willing to save for the benefit of those for whom they are bound to provide, makes some modification. It is in favour of those who have recourse to that easy, certain, and advantageous mode of providing for their families by insuring their lives. In this bill, as in the assessed taxes, a deduction is allowed for what is paid on this account.

Such is the general view of the merits of this important quèstion. It is one which has engaged much of my serious attention, and I am far from presuming that it has already attained the perfection of which it is capable. The inequalities objected to it are not peculiar to its nature; they arise from our social state itself, and the correction of that order we cannot, as we ought not, attempt to alter. It would be a presumptuous attempt to derange the order of society, which would terminate in producing confusion, havock, and destruction, and with a derangement of property, terminate in the overthrow of civilized life.

The motion for the further consideration of the report was carried;

THE House, pursuant to the order of the day, proceeded to take into consideration the following message from his Majesty relative to an Union between Great Britain and Ireland:

"GEORGE R.

" His Majesty is persuaded that the unremitting industry with which our enemies persevere in their avowed design of effecting the separation of Ireland from this kingdom, cannot fail to engage the particular attention of parliament; and his Majesty recommends it to this house to consider of the most effectual means of counteracting and finally defeating this design; and he trusts that a review of all the circumstances which have recently occurred