_Note._--The first six items are taken from the Report of the House of Lords on burdens affecting land, and some of them are below the present amounts. The items affecting Scotland are obviously defective. To this extent at least, then, we are justified in correcting Professor Johnston's calculations, and in affirming with certainty that the owner of _real property in Britain surrenders a larger portion of his wealth for the public service than in New York_, or any other State of the Union. Whether the same can be said of the British owner of _personal_ property is another question, which we shall come to by-and-by. So much for the _absolute_ comparison. But then Professor Johnston aims also at proving, that while the rich man is better off here, the poor man is worse--that the "masses" (_i. e._, we presume, those who are dependent on the wages of labour) pay a larger share of the public burdens than the same "masses" do in America. And this, he thinks, is demonstrated by the fact, that the customs duties of America amount to only a dollar a-head of the whole population, whereas in Great Britain they are _three_ dollars--three times heavier. Now, we venture to affirm that, as a contrast between the position of the labouring man on this side of the Atlantic, and that of his brother on the other, this statement is quite a nest of fallacies. In the first place, it proceeds on the assumption (a very common but erroneous one among our Free-Trade authorities) that it is the labouring class who pay the bulk of the taxes drawn in the shape of customs. As this error, however, may be held to affect both sides of the comparison equally, we have next to notice that, admitting it to be the case, the fact of the customs being three dollars a-head in this country, and only one in the States, only shows that the English labourer pays _absolutely_ more than the Yankee, which no one ever doubted. It amounts only to this--that in an old country which has to uphold numerous public institutions unknown in America, and with a public debt to provide for of some £800,000,000 sterling, the burden of this, as well as of all other branches of taxation, is heavier than in the youthful republic, with a national debt of only £13,000,000. In order to draw a fair parallel between the cases as regards the poorer classes of both countries, we must put the question in a different way, and inquire, what proportion does the amount of customs (assumed as representing the poor man's share of taxation) bear _to the whole public burdens_ in the two countries respectively? The contrasted account would then show the matter in a very different aspect from that in which Professor Johnston has represented it, and would stand thus:--