Egregious Wilkins! surely long shall stand
That future fabric of thy cunning hand;
For how can we refuse

To deem that stable which is built upon a Mews?
If any doubt it,

Let them ask thee about it,
Let them ask thee;

And thou at once wilt candidly assure 'em
That 'twill outlast the future's self, and be
A "Monumentum paulo-post-futurum !"

Important Wilkins! thou shalt make
As little in his fame

As name;

And when

poor Wren

Thou comest forth in pompous power, lo!
Let Jones, discomfited, cry" In I go !"
And as for Vanbrugh,

Pooh!

Thy genius its distilled contempt shall spirt on
All modern claims that would thy lustre sully;
Shall make Nash, Soane, and Co. seem artizans of folly,
And Burton
Melancholy !

To speak thy merits, thou canst call

The groaning echoes of St. George's Hospital:
And is there not the splendid London U-

niversity, to make thee deathless, too?

Then march thou on, exempt from doubt or fears,
Despite the envious crowd's irreverent jeers.
Go, Wilkins, go, and, 'mid the nation's raillery,
Erect thy front, and raise the "National Gallery!"
Some may declare the act" constructive treason,"
A scaffold-sacrifice of sense and reason:
Others in coarser fashion may revile it,
And worst of hodiernal humbugs style it:

But thou shalt sneer at all such foes: the sorest 's
A fool to brave thy power-and the mildest
Will melt to acquiescence, when thou buildest!
Or, at the very worst,

If the town-storm should burst,
Thou hast a refuge in the "Woods and Forests!"

D.

THE FINANCIAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

BY R. MONTGOMERY MARTIN*.

PART FIRST.

THE historic scroll of nations is pregnant with this remarkable truth -Political revolutions have their origin in oppressive or unequal taxation! To illustrate the axiom by example would be superogatory; every page of past events is a lesson, and the feelings of the present are a warning to future generations. It is singular, however, notwithstanding the obvious, and, indeed, indispensable utility of financial science, how little it is understood, or has been attended to, in England; particularly among a commercial people, naturally eager for gain, attached to liberty, and peculiarly tenacious of the rights of private property. The apathy of bygone years is now being superseded by an earnest desire to examine minutely this highly important branch of our social system, on the right administration of which the happiness or misery of a nation is so intimately dependent consequently it is necessary that the public mind should be possessed of a clear, and, as far as possible, brief elucidation of facts, in order that a sound judgment may be formed on a subject interesting in the strongest manner to the weal of every individual in a free state.

Within the brief space necessarily allotted to an article in a periodical, it would be impossible to demonstrate at one view the complicated nature of the British financial system. Happily, however, the subject is properly divisible into several distinct branches, each of which, although forming a separate topic for consideration, becomes in the aggregate a sectional whole.

In soliciting public attention to the following series, the writer would beg it to be understood that no political principles are mixed up with his financial statements; he is disposed to believe that whether Whig, Tory, or Radical be in the ascendant, an anxiety for the benefit of their common country is the predominant motive for action, and the slightest knowledge of human nature would impel to the belief that the rich can never derive the full benefit and enjoyment of wealth, so long as the mass of human beings, who are the main stay of that wealth, are sinking and perishing from want. To expose, therefore, the evils of the existing system of finance, and to propound for consideration a better, because a juster system, is a benefit to the rich as well as to the poor, the immediate advantages being greater (while the permanent fruits are equal) to the former than to the latter; and as regards the governing and the governed, it must be equally obvious that, in the present pounds, shillings, and pence age, no party can long hope to hold the reins of authority but by the adoption and execution of sound financial principles.

Financial science may be divided into two great heads-TAXATION and EXPENDITURE ;-the first being the money, or money's worth, paid by every individual in the state, according to the amount of his property, for the protection afforded him by Government; and the second, the

*Author of "Taxation of the British Empire," &c. &c.

outlay of that money by the Executive in providing for personal security and private rights. The preliminary questions, then, on the first great head for consideration are the amount of taxation, whence derived, and by whom paid. Reserving details and fractional divisions of sums paid into the Exchequer for subsequent pages, the following table will be sufficiently explicit for this prefatory part of the subject.

Taxation of the United Kingdom in 1832; whence derived, and incidence thereof.

The first column of the foregoing table enumerates, collectively, the articles taxed; the second shows the aggregate amount of money levied in 1832; and the third proportions the distribution of the same over the leading divisions of society*.

The principal feature in this abstract is, that the greater part of 50,000,000l. a-year is levied on the articles or necessaries consumed by the people: hence it is obvious that the taxes are raised from the necessities or comforts of the population, and not according to their means, but to their wants. Thus, the first sound principle of finance is departed from, which ordains that "nothing can be more just in theory, or more equitable in practice, than that every man should be taxed according to the amount of his property, and for the protection afforded him by Government.”—(Lord Althorp's Speech in Parliament, 30th April, 1833.)

The main principle proven, it follows that the system of finance now in use is unjust and oppressive, by reason of partial assessment; that it is destructive to commerce, and most specially adapted for the propagation of vice, will be subsequently shown. Previous, however, to entering on an examination of each item of the tax-list, it will be requisite to say a few words on the incidence of taxation, which some well-meaning persons have endeavoured to make a mystery of.

Taxation, in its mode of payment, has been divided into direct and indirect, the first meaning when paid, without any intervening party, into the hands of the Government collector, as in the instance of the house and window taxes; the second when paid on a commodity purchased of a trader, who, having paid the government tax on the importation or manufacture of the commodity, mixes up the tax with the price of the article sold, and charges it, with interest thereon, to the buyer,— for example, sugar and soap. Now, as efforts are being made to persuade the public that indirect is preferable to direct taxation, because the amount of money levied is CONCEALED from the payer†, let us inquire what advantage can the public derive from being kept in the dark as to the amount of cash abstracted from their pockets, except on the maxim of our divine bard,

"He that is robbed, not knowing what is stolen,

Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all."

But the public are no longer in a state of blissful ignorance as to the objects taxed. A tradesman is called on by the taxman of his district for the quarter's house and window tax: he pays it, and receives a receipt, and then proceeds to settle his quarter's bill for groceries, &c. and for every pound of tea he has used he pays 2s. 6d. tax; for every pound of sugar, 24d.; for every pound of coffee, 9d. or 6d. ; and so on through the whole list of his family necessaries. Now, he knows full

.;

The rich are overrated in numbers and incidence. It must not, however, be supposed that the taxed articles which their servants consume should be placed to their account in the scale of incidence: those taxed articles are the produce of the servants' wages, which they would consume, if artizans, in as much, probably in a greater, proportion than they do as servants. The tax, for instance, paid by a maidservant, of 28. on her pound of tea, and 24d. on her pound of sugar, is not paid by her master; it is paid out of her wages of labour.

+ Vide Blackwood's Magazine for August, 1833,

well that it is the same thing to him whether he pay the taxman at his door, or the grocer over the counter: in both cases the money is taken from him by the State or Government, with this addition, that the grocer having previously paid the taxes on the sugar, tea, &c. to the wholesale agent or broker, and the broker to the merchant, and the merchant to the Government, each, in turn, require interest for the money and time thus expended, all of which falls on the tradesman who buys the groceries, in addition to the tax levied by the State: so that, in reality, the consumer of the goods pays more in indirect taxation than in direct, without even the comfort of knowing that the difference does not go to swell the coffers of the Exchequer. On the whole, therefore, it will be seen that it matters little to the tradesman whether the taxman comes to his door and demands his money, or whether the grocer demands it from him when buying his sugar, or the publican on his pot of beer, or the chandler on his soap, or the newsman on his newspaper; and as no wise government can desire concealment, and, indeed, cannot in the present age practise it, direct or open taxation is far, very far, preferable to an indirect or hidden mode of extracting money from the pockets of the people, which none but pickpockets can honestly or conscientiously advocate.

So far with regard to the payer of the tax; as respects the receiver thereof, the argument for direct taxation is equally conclusive. It is an admitted axiom in finance that " every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings to the public treasury*." This is not the case with indirect taxation. Take, for instance, the article malt liquor, and observe the various modes in which it is assessed before it reaches the consumer.

1st. The land on which the barley and hops are grown is taxed.

2nd. The quarter of barley is taxed 20s. 8d. per quarter; and although a quarter of barley might be converted into a quarter of malt, free of expense, owing to the swelling which the grain undergoes in the process, yet the Excise regulations are so onerous, pernicious, and inquisitorial, that a quarter of barley at 20s., with 20s. 8d. tax, is nearly 60s. cost before fit for the brewer. A nearly similar remark is applicable to hops.

3d, 4th, and 5th. When the porter is brewed, the house in which it is prepared is taxed, as is also the house in which it is sold; but before it can be offered for sale another tax is levied on the seller, in the shape of a license. All these sums are paid by the mechanic who drinks the porter; but no more than half the tax paid goes into the coffers of the state, the remainder is an indemnity to the barley-grower, the maltster, the house-lord, the hop-merchant, and the publican, for the trouble incurred and for the outlay of money, for which they exact, of course, interest. Thus indirect taxation is as disadvantageous to the receiver as to the payer.

Little remains to be explained on the subject of the incidence of taxation, the foregoing detail of the porter-drinker explains the ultimate payer, viz. the consumer. It matters nothing whether it be the consumer of a pot of ale, or a pound of sugar, or the tenant of a house, or the feeder on bullocks, sheep or grain, reared on land taxed, or the wearer of taxed goods, or the traveller in a taxed stage, or hackney

* Adam Smith,