interest in all the idle and coarse jokes in which it may have pleased the humour of Mr. Colman to indulge.

The wag promises us some more volumes of Random Records, and we promise not to read them, as we prefer reserving ourselves for Grimaldi's Commentaries,' or, the Secret History of Richardson's Merry Andrew.'

ART. VIII.-On Financial Reform by Sir Henry Parnell, Bart. M. P. 8vo. pp. 310. Murray, 1830.

IF the late Finance Committee whose announcement awakened so much expectation-whose labours elicited so many useful facts, and whose extinction caused so much disappointmenthad led to no other public service than the production of this volume by its chairman, that Committee was not instituted in vain. The work is a striking monument of the zeal, industry and talents of the author, and an evidence of remarkable aptitude for the honourable situation which he was called on to fill. It has thrown out many important suggestions of which a wise government will hasten to avail itself, and has put into the hands of the public invaluable materials, by which to estimate at their true amount the professions of friendly dispositions, towards economy and reform which now and then fall from the lips of the great state authorities. Sir Henry Parnell is an excellent example of a new order of statesmen; statesmen less disposed to dazzle a deceived and delighted auditory by the fine and flighty coruscations of eloquence, than to fix in their minds those quiet truths, those arithmetical and logical deductions, which keep constantly in view the cheapness and the goodness of that machinery which is called government. He has learnt that, though within the honourable House, the honourable occupant may feel a far deeper interest in the personal jarrings of any two of its members than in the fate of nations, or the questions which concern the whole of the human race, without that honourable House, a very different estimate is formed of the duties of the Senatorial office. Weary of the squabbles of parties struggling for power, awakened to a conviction that the weight of the burthen and not the name of the driver, is the real question for the poor suffering beast, the people, they, the people, have seen the confusion of the different aristocratical factions with uncommon content, and know that this chaos of sinister interests only leaves a surer, a safer, and a straighter way for those few public men, increas

,"the

ing, however, daily, "who have made unto themselves a law," law of useful, individual, independent exertion; and who keep in their eye the great maxim that it is their duty to provide the greatest portion of national felicity, at the smallest rate of national expense; Sir Henry Parnell's book is from beginning to end, an application of this important principle. It would have been a gratification to transfer in a complete analysis, had space allowed it, the whole of its contents to these pages; but the topics of the volume and the name of its author will undoubtedly secure for it a great portion of attention-and the meed of public approval will doubtless encourage and cheer Sir Henry onwards in his career of efficient usefulness. He may be assured that his exertions find their recompense now; and will have their triumph hereafter. The power that resists improvement is weakening; the power that demands improvement is strengthening from day to day, and the chinks in the rotten old edifice of corruption not only evidence its tottering character, but let in the light to guide and to encourage those who are engaged in endeavouring to remove the rubbish which has been gathered up by time.

No book ever appeared on financial topics, bearing with it a greater claim to attention than this. When, on former occasions, such productions have emanated from any part of the ruling few, their motives and interests must have been hostile to the exposure of abuses; if they have come from any of the subject many, their means of information are necessarily limited. But here are the statements and suggestions of an able, disinterested, and pains-taking man, grounded upon evidence of the highest official character. This volume may be received as that which would have been the Report of a Finance Committee composed of those to whom alone such inquiries ought to have been delegated. It shows in all its departments how little has been done, how much remains to be done; and it gives to that discontent which before was the vague murmuring of imperfectly instructed opinion, the irresistible evidence of dates, figures and facts. Sir Henry's volume naturally branches into the two great departments of Income and Expenditure, and it closes by summary suggestions of practical reforms. In gathering together, condensing and arranging his various and complicated data, Sir Henry has shown most commendable diligence and skill, and we can hardly do better than rapidly glance over the different chapters, referring to the volume itself for their arithmetical details which are, in all appropriate cases, diligently given.

It is certain that the demands of the revenue must be sup

plied by those who have property, and not by those who have none. The great mass of the labouring poor, can only be enabled to pay an increased rate of taxation by an increased rate of wages, so that, after all, the means of taxation must be furnished by the wealthier classes; and it follows that the farther taxation is removed from capital, and the more indirect its operation, the greater must be the cost of its collection, or in other words the greater must be the sum lost in gathering it together; and the greater the gross amount required for the services of the state. Nothing can be more unequal than the pressure, nothing more expensive than the collection, of revenue from the great masses of population. If the labourer is to pay one shilling, the capitalist will have to supply him with much more than one shilling, in order to make up for the waste and profits of capital while passing upwards and downwards through so many hands; downwards from the capitalist to the labourer, and upwards again from the labourer to the tax-gatherer. The ultimate saving to the community by a system of direct taxation would be incalculable. The waste of labour and of wealth consequent on the cumbrous machinery of indirect taxation; the impossibility of tracking the consequences of its operation; the quantity of corrupt instruments which its numerous agents necessarily places at the disposal of the executive, all make it extremely important to the public prosperity that the public revenue should, as far as possible, be collected by an immediate application to capital in the hands of its possessors. It is under the covering of indirect taxation that monopoly with all its miserable consequences is allowed to stalk over the land. It is only because the evil is not discovered in its natural hideousness that a bread-tax in the shape of Corn-laws, or a tea-tax in the form of an East India Company's charter, is allowed to carry on its inordinate exactions. Let the wants of the state be supplied from the property of its members, without any circumambulations. If, for the public service, the people are to be burthened with fifty millions of taxes, let it be openly and directly taken from them, and let them be relieved from the abstraction of fifty millions more, which is to be accomplished by the concealed operation of restriction and prohibition for the benefitting of the few and to the boundless prejudice of the many, for as Sir Henry very properly says:

'If the effect of the corn laws is, at least, to raise the price of corn five shillings a quarter, this advance on the quantity annually consumed, taken at 50,000,000 quarters creates a charge on the public of 12,500,000l. a year. If the protecting duties on East Indian and foreign sugars advance the price of sugar only one penny a pound,

this advance on the quantity annually consumed, namely, 380,000,000 pounds, is a tax on the public of 1,500,000l. a-year. If the East India Company's monopoly makes the price of tea (exclusive of duty) double what it is at New York and Hamburgh, as is the case, it imposes a tax of at least 2,000,000l. a-year in the form of increased price; and the monopoly of the timber trade enjoyed by the ship-owners and Canada merchants, costs the public at least 1,000,000l. a-year; so that by these monopolies and protections, 17,000,000l. a-year are taken from the pockets of the people, just as if corn, sugar, tea, and timber, were taxed to that amount, and the produce paid into the Exchequer.'

Sir Henry's views of the prospects of the country are by no means discouraging; and it is clear to us that with the due husbandry of the resources of the state, and the removal of the barriers which prevent labour from finding its fit outlets, there is no difficulty in our financial situation which may not be ultimately overcome. The simple fact, that the national income at this moment probably exceeds three hundred millions, proves that an energetic effort to diminish the amount of the national debt, accompanied by a real economy in the disposal of the Public revenue, would relieve the country from the inordinate pressure of taxation-without any of those fictions and frauds, which have been so long and busily palmed off on the world, as remedies for national complaints,-frauds, it cannot be too often repeated, which might shift the existing distress to other shoulders, but would only ultimately aggravate its amount, and leave the Parliament which should propose and the People which should adopt such short-sighted projects with stained reputation-broken strength-and a yet darker futurity.

Sir Henry objects, and with great reason, to the taxes on raw materials the amount of which exceeds six millions sterling. This species of imposts is an impediment to production, and attacks the earliest development of industry. It is a great hinderance to foreign commerce, and a great oppression upon native labour.-Nor are the taxes raised on manufactures, the nett produce of which amounts to nearly two millions, less objectionable. Of the gross sum collected in this way, nearly half is returned in the shape of bounties and drawbacks, making the cost of collection and return a pure waste of the public resources. Attached to these taxes are all the annoyances produced by the constant surveillance or espionage of the excise system, while some of them, as, for example, the tax on paper, have an evil moral influence by increasing the price of books, maps and other instruments of instruction, or, in other words, by throwing obstacles in the way of knowledge, whose consequences are injurious alike to the virtue and the happiness VOL. XII.-Westminster Review.

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of the commonwealth. Their effects on the prosperity of the manufactures themselves are equally instructive. Take glass bottles as one of the manufactures selected for taxation. 1793, when the tax was 4s. per cwt., the average of four years was a production of 881,000 cwts.-In 1825 with a tax of 8s. per cwt. the same average gave only 697,000 cwts. and this, notwithstanding the great increase of the population.

It is now pretty well understood, that the imposition of an inordinately high duty is the offer of premium to the fraudulent trader, and it is also certain, that an extravagant taxation of any article will occasion, not a profit, but a loss to the revenue. There is in all things a restorative principle which at some point or other checks mischievous legislation. The common interests, if they cannot flow in the channels marked out for them by restrictions and interferences, find in the evasion of the laws an outlet and a protection. In countries where fiscal regulations prevent the introduction of foreign enjoyments, the smuggler is considered as a public benefactor; he is the chivalrous and heroic adventurer, by whose toils and perils the happiness of the community is provided for. A contrabandista in Spain, for example, is a generous Rob Roy, without any of the stains of violence upon him. There is no error more frequent, nor more fatal in the calculations of governments, than the supposition that excessive duties can be friendly to large revenues. A low duty not only shuts out the smuggler from the competition for a portion of its amount, but it extends consumption at the same time. Sir Henry has gathered together a multitude of facts demonstrative of this proposition,-one will suffice.-For four years before 1798, the duty being 8d. per lb., the average consumption of tobacco was eight millions of lbs.-In four years to 1829, with a duty of 3s. per lb., the consumption-i. e. the consumption which pays duty-has fallen to four millions. Had the duty been lowered, had it even been stationary, there is reason to believe, the consumption would not have been less at the present time than 16,000,000 lbs. The motive to smuggling, of course, rises with every rise in duties, and at the present moment, it appears that no less than 700,000l. per annum is spent in the attempt the vain attempt to prevent the introduction of contraband goods.

As the powers of legislation are almost exclusively vested in the landed aristocracy, it was to be expected that they would obtain for their monopoly the greatest protection, and visit their foreign rivals with the highest rates of duties. And such has been their conduct. Except in a few articles competition is shut out, and the difference between the English prices and the average