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at the aggregate expense of only 50 millions of taxes, instead of 59,212,1647. : So it would; but then, if the interest on the amount collected in taxes to effect either operation be taken into account at 5 per cent. per annum only, (and it is worth double or treble that rate, left with the people for application,) both positions lead to the same conclusion.

In the Resolutions, as well as in the Votes of the House, the 27th Resolution is without the conclusion here printed in italics. At the time they were printed, however, to an advanced period of the session, as well as the difficulty in obtaining the particulars how some of the loans were paid in, it was not possible to complete that part of the calculations; but it has since been ascertained to amount to the sum here stated: viz. about 15,000,000l. ; independent too of the premiums on the Omnium, which, with the exception of two or three loans, was considerable, and may be fairly stated to amount in the aggregate to 12 or 15 millions more, as a bonus to the contractors and original subscribers.-No wonder that the war had its advocates, and the country its loyalists!

The most important feature of the whole illustration, however, remains yet to be developed. On reference to Resolutions 13, 15, 28, note to 31, and Resolutions 35 and 36, it will be seen, that the calculations as to the result of the operations of the Sinking Fund are founded on the presumption of the expenditure for the 24 years, from the 5th January 1793 to the 5th January 1817, having been 1,304,913,0747., and the excess of expenditure over income derived from taxes having been 138,349,0407.:-With the view of explaining the grounds on which this result was obtained, it is necessary to state that prior to the year 1797, no authentic accounts of either Income or Expenditure were published: in that year a Committee of Members of Parliament was appointed to investigate the public accounts, and prescribe a form by which a circumstantial and detailed account should be published annually consequently, for the years 1798 and 1799 an account was presented to Parliament, and ordered to be printed. Though they seem not to have been distributed (as is usual at the present time) to the Members, the accounts, however, such as they are, exist in the Journals Office of the House of Commons; and since that period, commencing with the year 1800, an account has annually been presented to Parliament, of both Income and Expenditure, from which documents the amounts in the Resolutions have been taken. But as no account existed of the Income and Expenditure for the first four years of the war, viz. 1793, 4, 5, and 6, and from replies to repeated applications to obtain the accounts, it was deemed unlikely ever to obtain any; especially as a return made to Parliament, 19th June, 1815, (Parliamentary Paper No. 412) states, that "previously to the year 1798, the public accounts were not made out, or laid before Parliament, in such a collected form as to show the amount of payments made out of the Exchequer receipts ;" and proceeds to state, "that such accounts could only be made up by the several departments in England and Scotland, after much investigation and labor;"-under such circumstances, for the purpose of founding the calculation, it was necessary to hypothecate the amount of Expenditure for those 4 years, at some given sum; and to avoid the possibility of impugnment for assuming an amount merely to make out a case unfavorable to Mr. Pitt's talents as a statesman, it was resolved to go to an extreme point, and the expenditure of those four years was consequently assumed at 150,000,000%.; but since the Resolutions were printed, a circumstantial and detailed account of both Income and Expenditure for those four years has been ob tained from the Treasury, by which the Expenditure appears not to have amounted to 130, instead of 150 millions, reducing the excess of Expendi ture over Income in the 24 years, below 120, instead of 138 millions, Such

being the case it necessarily alters every part of the Resolutions, which deduce conclusions from the data laid down in the 15th Resolution, and alters those conclusions to a degree very far exceeding the simple arithmetical proportion between 138 and 120. But as circumstances have not afforded an opportunity to ascertain the correct result, and as the subject is again likely forthwith to engage the attention of Parliament, and the Resolutions as originally submitted to its notice been deemed sufficient for the purpose for which they were drawn up, viz. that of unequivocally and incontrovertibly proving the fallacy and delusion of the Sinking Fund System, and the urgent and imperious necessity for its immediate abolition, both in effect and name, the Resolutions in their original form are here again submitted to the sober judgment of the intellectual portion of the British Community.

A conclusion so positive as here drawn, on the face of so many concurrent expressions of approbation in favor of the Sinking Fund System, and in the very teeth of its adoption, and present practical operation in almost every State in Europe, may seem an act of bold presumption; as far however as England is concerned in the question, the Resolutions herewith preclude the necessity of any modification of the conclusion. And although the principle on which the Sinking Fund System of England is formed, under certain circumstances, might be desirable in adoption and correct in prac. tice; it will on that sort of investigation, which all subjects having connection with other subjects require, be found to lead to different results, according to the extent and bearing of the other parts of the Financial System with which it is operating. As a mere point of abstract calculation, it is not intended to deny, but that any given sum, at a given rate of interest, either simple or compound, at any given time, will accumulate to a sum easily to be ascertained; but that is not the question which concerns the people of England: the question which concerns them is,-whether the Sinking Fund System, as proposed to Parliament by Mr. Pitt on the 29th March, 1786, and adopted on that date, was, or was not founded in reason and common sense; and how far its operation for 36 years has been beneficial or prejudicial to the best interests of the country; and above all, how far such a System is applicable to the present day, to existing circumstances, and the peculiar and unprecedented position in which the extraordinary events of the last 30 years have placed her.

Mr. Pitt, on the date above mentioned, stated to Parliament, "That the plan which he had then the honor to bring forward for the purpose of paying off the National Debt, he was proud to flatter himself would entitle his name to be inscribed upon that firm monument he was about to raise to national faith, and national prosperity !"-Let his pride be gratified with the inscription; the enemies to his name, if there be any, need not wish any other chronicle, and his friends surely cannot refuse it; and as an accompanying tribute to the talents of his faithful followers and disciples of the present day, let the contract for the building of the barracks in the Regent's Park be inscribed also.

It was intended to have exhibited herewith a statement in detail, illustrative of the 30th Resolution; but from its magnitude, and the nature of its construction, it proved impracticable to introduce it.

The statement however may be had at Mr. Miller's, 69, Fleet Street," exhibiting the amount of money raised by funding in Great Britain, in each year since 1792, with the amount of nominal capital created thereby, and the amount which has actually been charged for Interest on the portion unre. deemed; also the excess or diminution of the issue of Exchequer Bills withPam. NO. XLII

VOL. XXI.

2 B*

in each year, and the total amount outstanding at the end of each year, with the amount annually charged for interest on the same; amount of income derived from taxes within each year, and the amount of Expenditure, exclusive of the charge on the money raised by funding, or the Expenditure as it would have been had the total supply been raised by taxes within each year: Col. No. 9, showing the additional amount of taxes requisite to have been raised under such circumstances, and a further statement, showing what sum would have sufficed to have been funded had no Sinking Fund System existed," &c. &c. &c.

1

OF

A SIMPLE, ORIGINAL, AND PRACTICAL

PLAN,

FOR

SUPPRESSING MENDICITY,

ABOLISHING THE PRESENT SYSTEM

OF

PAROCHIAL TAXATION,

AND

AMELIORATING THE CONDITION

OF

THE LOWER CLASSES OF SOCIETY.

"PHILOSOPHY holds her heavenly light

To Senates and to Kings, to guide their Councils,
And tead them to reform and bless MANKIND."

LONDON:

VOL. XXI.

Pam.

NO. XLII.

2 C

SKETCH OF A PLAN,

&c. &c.

To the enlightened philanthropist it is unnecessary to dilate on those principles of action by which man is influenced and governed; he knows that the machine of civil society is kept in perpetual motion by the operation of the grand influential principle of selfishness, under its various modifications, refined or abased, by predisposing principles established in the mind. He traces its operation in the higher and lower walks of life, and discerns its effects alike in the natural, the moral, and the political world. The profound statesman appropriates his knowledge of human nature not only to the good of his country, but to the whole mass of congregated man. To his country he feels he owes his talents, his time, and his fortune-to the unfortunate, the active exertions of benevolence; and to the human race unitedly, his good will.

To such individuals the following pages are addressed, and the proposed Plan submitted with the deference due to enlightened judgment and superior talents.

Society consists of gradations, and there can be no society without diversity of rank, talents, fortune, mental attainments, and personal qualifications.

The social contact does not preclude this diversity, but renders its moral existence more conspicuous by pointing out the various gradations more ostensibly than where such contact does not so obviously exist; or rather, than where government has not assumed the rank and dignity of a moral science.

The science of politics is founded on the nature of man; and the means of promoting the ne plus ultra of human happiness is its important and influential basis.

To the mind of sensibility and refinement no subject can be more fraught with pain than the condition of thousands of the human race, groaning under the pressure of want and misery, and

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