Progress of the Public Debt and Taxes.

The annual income of a nation consists of the united produce of its agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. Taxes are a certain proportion of the annual income levied for the public service. In other words, they are a certain proportion of the income of the labourer, the farmer, the merchant, and manufacturer, abstracted for the use of the government. The portion of income the different classes can appropriate to this purpose, without creating national poverty and misery, is limited. If taxation be carried beyond this limit, the necessaries of life of the labouring classes will be abridged, the profits of trade and agriculture will be so far reduced, that capital will diminish, or cease to be employed, or transferred to countries where it will be more productive. England, in the privations of the people—the protracted stagnation of industry, only interrupted by transitory gleams of prosperity—the embarrassments of the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing classes—the emigration of capital—and the inability of the farmer, unaided by the artificial high prices produced by corn-laws, to cultivate the soil—exhibits all the evils of a country suffering from the pressure of overwhelming taxation.

Some, indeed, contend that taxation has no share in producing these calamities. The fallacy of this will easily appear. Taxation being a certain portion of the income of every individual, the evils it produces will be obvious, by considering the different effects produced by this portion of the annual income remaining in the hands of individuals, and being paid to government. In the former case, the income of every individual would be increased, the labourer and artizan would have a greater command over the necessaries of life; the profits of the farmer, merchant, and manufacturer augmented; their capital increased, consequently commerce and the means of creating employment extended. But this is not all; supposing public burthens reduced, there would be fewer placemen, pensioners, collectors of taxes, soldiers and sailors to be supported. These classes might be returned to the plough or the loom, and occupied in the pursuits of commerce and the cultivation of the earth. There would be no want of capital for these undertakings. The abolition of taxes would create capital. In short, the general effect of a reduction of taxes is this: the power of production and consumption, or, in other words, the quantity of employment and the means of subsistence are augmented.

It is a favorite dogma with some, especially those who live on the public, that taxes return to those from whom they are collected; which is about as good as the defence of a housebreaker, who, convicted of carrying off a merchant’s property, should plead he did him no injury, for the money would be returned to him in purchasing the commodities he dealt in. But it may be asked of those who maintain this position, in what manner are the taxes returned? Certainly, taxes are paid in money; this money is again paid to the servants of government; these again pay it to the cultivator of the soil and manufacturer; and in this manner, it may be said, that taxes return to those from whom they were collected. But on this latter part of the operation it must be observed, that before either the cultivator or manufacturer can re-possess himself of his portion of the taxes, he must part with a certain quantity of his commodities in exchange; so that tax-paying revolves itself at last into the industrious giving a certain portion of their produce for the maintenance of government.

Here is the true source of the privations and embarrassments of the country. The portion of every man’s produce levied for the support of government, of pensions, placemen, sinecurists, and standing armies, has invaded the funds necessary for the comfortable subsistence of the labourer, and for carrying on the trade, commerce, and agriculture of the kingdom.

Having alluded to the general effect of taxation, let us consider those measures by which the present enormous load of debt and taxes has been incurred. The principles on which government has been conducted have not varied since the Revolution of 1688 to the present time. The wars waged have generally commenced for trivial and unattainable objects,—and these objects have generally not been attained; under pretence of guarding against distant and improbable dangers, the country has been involved in present and imminent ones; passion and pride, rather than any views of national advantage, have been the actuating principles of government; and as they engaged in war rashly, they persevered in it obstinately, and rejected more favourable terms of pacification than they were afterwards under the necessity of accepting. In short, our wars have been wars of ambition and oligarchical selfishness, of pride, folly, and despotism, originating in, and carried on by, the corrupt state of the representation. Let us endeavour to give some idea of the cost of these parliamentary wars from the Revolution, as evinced by the increase of taxation and the National Debt.