fifty per cent. above the average of the four preceding years; thus, the average price of wheat for these four years, was 53s. ; and, in 1795, it was 81s. 6d. In consequence of this sudden rise, great distress was occasioned among the rural population; and to alleviate this distress, the magistrates of Berkshire fell upon an expedient, which was quickly adopted in other counties, and which has been attended with the most pernici.. ous results. They issued tables, showing the wages every labouring man ought, in their opinion, to receive, varying with the price of bread, and the number of his family. Thus, it was generally assumed, that every labourer should have a gallon-loaf of standard wheaten bread, each week, for every member of his family, and one over—that is, four loaves for three persons, five for four, and so on. Suppose that the gallonloaf costs 1s. 6d., and that the average rate of wages is 8s. per week; then, an industrious unmarried labourer will get 8s., and he is not entitled to any parochial allowance: but another, who has a wife and four children, is entitled to seven gallon loaves, which cost 10s. 6d., and as his wages are only 8s., he draws the difference, 2s. 6d. weekly, from the poor-rates. labourer has a wife and six children, and, consequently, requires nine gallon-loaves, which cost 13s. 6d., so that he receives, weekly, 5s. 6d. from the poor-rates. Neither is it of any consequence whether he be an industrious man, who is, consequently, in full employment, or an idle, dissolute vagabond,

A third

whom no one will employ.

Whether he work or be idle, he is sure of obtaining 13s. 6d. a-week, as the number of his family entitles him to the value of nine gallonloaves. In this manner it is a matter of indifference to the labourer what is the rate of his wages, and their amount is, consequently, reduced much below what it would be, had the poor-rates not existed; and we are therefore justified in concluding, that if the poor-rates had been lower, the wages of labour would have been higher, and that a great part of the sums now expended in the support of the poor, would have been consumed in the payment of higher wages to the agricultural labourers. But, further, the poor-rates act directly in keeping down wages. In the late Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners, there are numerous instances of wages being paid in part out of the poor-rates. Thus, in the parish of Ewhurst in Essex, it is stated, that the farmers turn off their men, or refuse to employ them at fair wages, thereby causing a surplus fraudulently; they then take the men from the parish at reduced rates, paid out of the poor-rates. In the parish of North Melton, Devonshire, an agreement is mentioned as having been made between the farmers and the vestry, to pay the paupers 7d. a-head, the rest of their wages to be made up out of the rates. It is added, that the farmers used to pay a larger proportion of the wages.

We take no notice of the effect the present absurd administration of the poor-laws has in giving a factitious stimulus to population; but it

is evident, that as a labourer with a family is in a much better condition, as far as his right to relief from the poor-rates is concerned, than an unmarried man, population must be increased at a greater rate than it would otherwise be, and the price of wages must be reduced, while the poor-rates are increased by a redundant rural population.

But what is the cause of the great increase of the poor-rates within the last half century? Why, nothing else than the high price of food occasioned by the corn-laws, and the mismanagement of the poor-rates by the landowners themselves. We have seen how the sudden rise in the price of grain in 1795 gave an accelerated movement to the increase of this burden. The connexion between the price of grain and the amount of poor-rates can be shown at all times; but we shall take a period when the fluctuations in the price of grain were considerable.

We might bring the table down to the latest period, and we would find the same general result shown; that as the price of grain rises, poorrates increase, and as the price of grain falls, they diminish. It could hardly have been supposed, considering the number of disturbing causes in operation, that this result could be so uniform as the above table proves it to be. To say nothing of the prosperous or unprosperous state of our manufactures, there is a cause which is always powerfully operating to counteract the general rule. When the price of grain is high, farmers are in good spirits, and they set about actively improving their farms, by making roads, drains, new buildings, and numerous other operations. These operations give employment to many labourers who might otherwise be a burden on the poor-rates. When the price of grain falls, improvements are put a stop to, and the farmer confines his operations to the mere tilling of the soil, by his ordinary farm servants, and thus the number of people employed by him are quickly reduced one-third or one-half. connexion between the price of grain and the amount of the poor-rates, however, only holds good when periods near each other are taken

The

into view, for the maladministration of the poorlaws by the landowners continually tends to encourage immorality, idleness, and crime, and to the spread of a vicious pauper population throughout the land.

Nor is it possible in the consideration of the causes of the increase of pauperism, to overlook another mode, in which the landowners augment the evil. We have only to mention the gamelaws to express what we mean. It appears from parliamentary returns, that from the year 1820 to 1826, 12,000 individuals were committed to the county jails of England and Wales, for offences against the game-laws. Last year there were upwards of 3000. In November, 1831, there were no fewer than 598 persons in jail at one time in England alone for such offences. It is needless to expatiate on the effect of such a system on the poorrates. From what other fund can the wives and children of these thousands of men, imprisoned for joining in the sports of the landed aristocracy, be supported? How much must the county-rates be increased, by the apprehension, trial, and maintaining in prison, of such an army of poachers! The mere maintenance of a prisoner in the English jails, costs L.40 per annum ; and at the time of the return, in November, 1831, some men had been in jail upwards of six years for poaching. We trust, therefore, we have shown that, if the landowners are burdened with a large proportion of the poor-rates, it is nothing but what is just and reasonable. If they must have a high price of grain, high rents, low wages, and the game protected to enable them to enjoy the sports of the field, they must give some equivalent for these advantages and pleasures. That equivalent is the poor-rates; and, instead of grumbling that they pay so much of them, the industrious classes are entitled to complain that the whole is not laid upon their shoulders. By the corn-laws, the people are at once starved and kept in idleness, for they are thereby virtually prohibited for working for the people of other nations, who would not only give them high wages for their labour but cheap food for their subsistence. In as much, therefore, as tithes are not a burden on the landowners, but a separate property in the church or lay impropriator, the poor-rates are the patrimony of the poor; and where is the aristocrat that will prevent them doing what they like with their own? But, farther, poorrates are no new burden. No one can say he purchased his estate on the understanding that it was not to be subjected to them. They have been in full force in England, since the time of Queen Elizabeth at least, and great as their increase has been, it is far from certain, that if we go back for a century or a century and ahalf, that the increase of rents has not been still greater.

THE TITHES.

The next burden which is said to press peculiarly upon land is tithes, which, it is estimated, amount to three millions a-year. Now tithes have been known and levied in England for at least a thousand years, and all the present land

proprietors have acquired their estates under that burden. To complain of being forced to pay tithes, is as ridiculous as for a land-proprietor to complain that his neighbour's field is not his own. When he purchased the estate, he did not pay for the whole of it: he only paid for nine-tenths and to give the landholder the tithes, or, what is the same thing, to allow him to levy a tax on foreign grain, to compensate him for the payment of them, is to give him an advantage at the expense of the community to which he has not the shadow of a claim. But it

is asserted that tithes have greatly increased within the last half-century. This is perfectly true; but they have not increased more rapidly than rent. We have on this point an authority which the landholders will not dispute. The Board of Agriculture sent circulars throughout England, for inquiring into the expense of raising corn for three different periods, 1790, 1803, and 1813; and the following is the result of the averages of these returns, in as far as rent and tithes are concerned, as laid before the Committee of Agriculture, in 1814, by Mr. Arthur Young, then Secretary of the Board of Agriculture.

The third tax which is held out to be peculiar. ly burdensome to the landholder, is the landtax. Many, no doubt, imagine that this tax is levied exclusively on the land; a mistake which the landholders seem very willing to allow to remain uncontradicted. But what is the fact? "In England the land-tax is raised first on personal estates, to the extent of 4s. in the pound, viz., 20s. for every L.100, in money, or in goods of that value. 2dly, On offices and pensions, to the extent of 4s. for every 20s. of yearly income. 3dly, On real estates, including every species of property or income arising out of, or connected

with land."

In Scotland, the tax is levied "On money rent, victual rent, casualties paid by tenants, salmon fishings, and other fishings, whereby there is a yearly profit." In burghs, the rule laid down is, "That every person within burgh, shall be taxed and stented according to the avail and quantity of his rent, living, goods, and gear, which he hath within burgh. By the first, is meant the rent of houses, by the second, the profit of trade, or of a calling, and the last explains itself. Thus, within burgh the inhabitants pay land-tax according to their supposed personal property."-[Hutcheson.]

Now, with regard to the amount of this tax: By the Ninth Article of the Treaty of Union, it is provided, that, "Whenever the sum of

*Hutcheson's Justice of the Peace, Vol. III., p. 9.

L.1,997,763, Ss. 44d, shall be raised by the landtax in England, that Scotland shall be charged, by the same act, with a further sum of L.48,000, free of all charges, as the quota of Scotland to such tax; and so proportionally for any greater or less sum raised in England, by any tax on land, and other things usually charged together with the land." From the land-tax being partly redeemed, the total amount collected for the year ending 5th January, 1832, was only,-for England, L.1,133,222,-for Scotland, L.33,944, —in all, L.1,167,167. The exact proportions paid by the land and by the towns, we have not at hand the means of determining, but we observe that the cities of London and Westminster (not including the county of Middlesex) pay L.186,491, about a tenth of the whole amount, while some extensive counties do not pay L.20,000. In Scotland the tax is collected according to the proportions fixed before the Union'; and we observe, from one of the Scotch Acts, 1690, c. 6, that, of a monthly assessment of L.72,133 Scots, L.4,000 was imposed on the City of Edinburgh, and L.1,440 upon Glasgow,-proportions which show the comparative wealth of these cities at the end of the seventeenth century. Inconsiderable as the City of Edinburgh was at that time, it paid a greater proportion of the tax than the whole county, which was assessed at L.3,183 Scots. To illustrate farther the incorrectness of the assertion that the land-tax is paid exclusively by the landowners, we may take the case of property within the city and property within the county of Edinburgh. Within the city the tax is 2d. per pound, which is levied on three-fourths of the real rental, with another halfpenny per pound for the expense of collection; and it is only by the remarkable increase of the city that it has been so much reduced. The amount of tax on each county or burgh continues permanent,—and, therefore, as houses are built the tax diminishes in proportion. At present the rental of the city is L.406,484, but in 1750 it was only L.25,786, and then the land tax absorbed ten per cent. of the rent. In the county the rate is nearly 3s. per pound, but it is levied on the old valuation taken in the year 1649, which, for the whole county, was L.191,054 Scots; each pound Scots being 1-12th part of a pound sterling, or 20d. What proportion that old valuation bears to the real rental at present we may judge of from the fact, that it appears, from the property-tax returns, in the year 1811, the real rental of the lands in the county, exclusive of the houses, was L.277,827,-so that the tax, as estimated by the real rental, is in reality much smaller on the county than the city. Sir John Sinclair estimates the tax over Scotland at 2d. per pound on the rental, an estimate which it would be easy to show is above the truth.

But where is the landowner who is entitled to complain of the land-tax? Where is the landowner whose ancestors acquired the land he now possesses, free of it? Taxes on land were formerly the chief part of the public revenue, whereas they do not at present form one thirti

eth part of it. In speaking of this tax, Blackstone remarks, "The other ancient levies, (hydages, scutages, and talliages,) were in the nature of a modern land-tax; for we may trace up the original of that charge as high as the introduction of our military tenures; when every tenant of a knight's fee, was bound, if called on, to attend the King for forty days in every year. But this personal attendance growing troublesome in many respects, the landowners found means of compounding for it, by first sending others in their stead, and in process of time by making a pecuniary satisfaction to the Crown in lieu of it. This pecuniary satisfaction at last came to be levied by assessments, at so much for every knight's fee, under the name of scutages, which appear to have been levied for the first time, in the fifth year of Henry the Second, on account of his expedition to Toulouse." That is to say, that a tax of the nature of the land-tax, has been levied in England from the year 1159. Of the same nature with scutages upon knights' fees, were the assessments of hydages on all other lands; and it is equally reasonable for the landowner to assert that the quit-rents, or feu-duties payable to the Crown, or the rents received from the Crown lands, are a tax upon agriculture, as that the land-tax is.

The truth is, that there is not a country in Europe in which the land is so lightly taxed as in Britain. In France, the land pays onefourth of the public revenue, or about ten millions sterling. In Prussia, and in Poland, the land-tax absorbs twenty-five per cent. of the rents; and it is the principal source of revenue in Austria, Bavaria, and most of the other continental States. Although, since the Union, the rental of Great Britain has increased ten or fifteen-fold, the land-tax has never been increased, and hence the burden is at present little more than nominal. If a land-tax, therefore, increases the price of grain, the British landowner ought to be able to undersell all Europe, because in no country are the lands so lightly taxed.

These remarks apply both to England and Scotland; though in the latter country poor-rates are almost unknown in the rural parishes, and tithes have been nearly everywhere long ago commuted for a small payment. But what is to be said with regard to Ireland, whose members were so eager in the late debate, in opposing the removal of the restrictions on the importation of foreign food? Ireland has neither poor-rates nor land-tax; and if the English landowner is entitled to a protecting duty as it is called, he ought to have such a duty imposed, not only on importations from foreign countries, but on importations from Ireland. It may be very convenient for the Irish landowners to have secured to them, as at present, the monopoly of the British market against foreigners; but if there be any foundation in the statement, that the landowners of England are burdened in a peculiar manner, then justice will not be done, unless the same duty is imposed on Irish as on foreign

grain, while at the same time the impoverished population of Ireland are allowed to import grain without restriction, and without duty, from every part of the world. We hope that before the question again comes before Parliament, the Irish members will consider, whether they can with any decency reiterate some of the arguments they used at the last debate.

THE MALT-DUTY.

But we have not done with what the landowners enumerate among the peculiar burdens on land. Taking the hint from the West Indian planters, who used clamorously to assert that they contributed seven or eight millions to the revenue of Great Britain, because they sent sugar, rum, and coffee, to this country, on which seven or eight millions of duty were paid by the consumers, the landowners claim the malt-duty as a peculiar burden on them. They, it seems, are taxed nearly five millions annually on this single item. If this statement be correct, they are still farther oppressed. If the malt-tax be a burden, so are the duties levied on British spirits; and this will add five millions more to the burdens of the already distressed agriculturist. To these should be added the duty on starch, tiles, bricks, &c.; and then let us see how the account stands.

Now, assuming, with a late writer in the Edinburgh Review, that the whole produce of grain in Great Britain is 42 millions, it will require, to compensate the landowners for their "peculiar burdens," an average duty on all kinds of grain, not of 5s. a quarter, as he asserts, but at least 12s. a quarter, that is to say 20s. on wheat, and on other grain in proportion; and the same amount of drawback, or rather bounty on exportation, for it is proposed to pay the drawback not merely on foreign grain, on which duty has been paid, being exported, but also on the export of British grain.

But let us examine a little more narrowly the bold assumption, that the malt-tax is a burden on the land; that is to say, that it is paid, not by those who consume the malt, but by those on whose lands the barley grows which is converted into the malt. This doctrine gives new and important views of finance, and of the sources of the national revenue. We always supposed that the public revenue of this country had been raised from our own population, but it will be found that the greater part of it is paid by foreigners. Thus, the Chinese produce tea as our landowners produce barley; therefore the tea-duties, some three and a-half millions annually, are contributed by the Chinese tea-growers to support our national expenditure. Our fiscal exactions were

formerly considered to be limited to our own dominions: but not even the Great Wall can protect the Celestial Empire from our excisemen. We tax the Russian for the tar, tallow, flax, and hemp which he sends here; and even the candleduty was paid principally by him. In like manner we tax the Frenchman for his wines, the Italian for his silks, the American for his hides and cotton. In short, there is not a nation in the earth which does not contribute to our revenue; and, instead of being the heaviest-taxed people in the world, we pay scarcely any taxes at all,— the money which we imagine comes out of our own pockets to support our navy, our army, our pension-list, and the other gewgaws of royalty, being in reality the generous contribution of foreigners.

We trust we have said enough regarding the "peculiar burdens" on land; let us now turn for an instant to the burdens imposed on the country for the protection of agriculture; by which expression is, of course, always meant the keeping up the rents of land. Our limits do not permit us to go at any length into the subject, but we will just give a specimen :-Cattle, sheep, lambs, swine, as well as beef, mutton, lamb, and pork, are prohibited to be imported; and bacon and hams pay 28s. a cwt., or 3d. a lb. But this enormous duty is not entirely prohibitory; for from L.1500 to L.2000 a-year of revenue is derived from bacon and hams imported. Let us, therefore assume, that the price of butcher meat in this country is kept only three-halfpence apound higher than it would be, were the importation of cattle, sheep, &c. and of butcher meat free; then these three-halfpence a-pound are a tax levied for behoof of the landowners. Now, it has been found, by careful observations and calculations, that in Paris the consumption of meat for each individual is 86 lbs. annually; in Brussels it is 89, and in London 107: but let us take the consumption of the population of Great Britain and Ireland, at only 80 lbs. each, then the tax on each individual for the benefit of the landowner is 120d., or 10s., per annum; and for 24 millions the tax is L.12,000,000. About 24 millions of gallons of British spirits are annually consumed in Great Britain and Ireland. The duty on spirits made in Scotland is at present 3s. 4d a gallon, while the import duty on Geneva and brandy is 22s. 6d., and on rum 8s. 6d. per gallon. We may therefore assume, without exaggeration, that 1s. 6d. per gallon is paid on each gallon of British spirits consumed, more than if the duties on foreign spirits were removed; hence, from this source we have another L.1,875,000. About two and a-half millions of cwts. of tallow are annually consumed, of which one million is imported. The duty is 3s. 2d. per cwt., which, estimated on the home tallow consumed, is, in round numbers, another quarter of a million. If we add, for butter, cheese, eggs, rice, and innumerable smaller articles, on all of which high duties are levied, another quarter of a million, then THE ACCOUNT OF THE BURDENS

ONE story was still current, and very frequently repeated, at the time of my own residence upon the scene of these transactions. It would not be fair to mention it without saying, at the same time, that the Bishop, whose discretion was so much impeached by the affair, had the candour to blame himself most heavily, and always applauded the rebel for the lesson he had given him; but still it serves to show the contagiousness of that blind spirit of aristocratic haughtiness which then animated the Royal party. The case was this:-Day after day the Royal forces had been accumulating upon military posts in the neighbourhood of Killala, and could be descried from elevated stations in that town. Stories travelled simultaneously to Killala, every hour, of the atrocities which marked their advance; many, doubtless, being fictions either of blind hatred, or of that ferocious policy which sought to make the rebels desperate, by involving them in the last extremities of guilt and massacre ; but, unhappily, too much countenanced as to their general outline by excesses on the Royal part, already proved and undeniable. The ferment and the agitation increased every hour amongst the rebel occupants of Killala. The French had no power to protect, beyond the moral one of their influence as allies; and in the very crisis of this alarming situation, a rebel came to the Bishop with the news that the Royal cavalry was at that moment advancing from Sligo, and could be traced along the country by the line of blazing houses which accompanied their march. The Bishop, of course, doubted,-could not believe, and so forth. "Come with me," said the rebel. It was a matter of policy to yield, and his Lordship went. They ascended together the Needle-tower-hill, from the summit of which the Bishop now discovered that the fierce rebel had spoken but too truly. A line of smoke and fire ran over the country in the rear of a strong patrol detached from the King's forces. The moment was critical; the rebel's eye expressed the unsettled state of his feelings; and, at that instant, the imprudent Bishop uttered a sentiment which to his dying day he could not forget. "They," said he, meaning the ruined houses, "they are only wretched cabins." The rebel mused, and for a few moments seemed in self-conflict: a

dreadful interval to the Bishop, who became sensible of his own extreme imprudence the very moment after the words had escaped him. However, the man contented himself with saying, after a pause,-"A poor man's cabin is to him as valuable as a palace." It is probable that this retort was far from expressing the deep moral indignation at his heart, though his readiness of mind failed to furnish him with one more stinging. And in such cases all depends upon the first movement of vindictive feeling being broken. The Bishop, however, did not forget the lesson he had received, nor did he fail to blame himself most heavily,

not so much for his imprudence, as for his thoughtless adoption of a language expressing an aristocratic hauteur, which did not belong to his real character. There was indeed at that moment no need that fresh fuel should be applied to the irritation of the rebels; they had already declared their intention of plundering the town; and, as they added, "in spite of the French," whom they now regarded and openly denounced as "abettors of the Protestants," much more than as their own allies.

Justice, however, must be done to the rebels as well as to their military associates. If they were disposed to plunder, they were found uniformly to shrink from bloodshed and cruelty; and yet from no want of energy or determination. "The peasantry never appeared to want animal courage," says the Bishop, "for they flocked together to meet danger whenever it was expected. Had it pleased Heaven to be as liberal to them of brains as of hands, it is not. easy to say to what length of mischief they might. have proceeded; but they were all along unprovided with leaders of any ability." This is true; and yet it would be doing poor justice to the Connaught rebels, nor would it be drawing the moral truly as respects this aspect of the rebellion, if their abstinence from mischief, in its worst form, were to be explained out of this defect in their leaders. Nor is it possible to suppose this the Bishop's meaning, though his words seem to tend that way. For he himself elsewhere notices the absence of all wanton bloodshed, as a feature of this Connaught rebellion, most honourable in itself to the poor misguided rebels, and as distinguishing it very remarkably