Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 421, November 1850Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 421, November 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
We have thus shown, we hope clearly enough, the dependence of revenue
upon produce; a very important point, but one which is apt to be
lost sight of in consequence of our complicated arrangements. People
used to talk magniloquently, and in high-sounding terms, about taxed
corn, and we have had ditties innumerable to the same effect, more or
less barbarous, from Ebenezer Elliott and his compeers; but neither
orator nor poetaster ever condescended to remark that the sole reason
why duties were levied on the importation of foreign grain, was
the existence of other duties to an enormous extent, directly and
indirectly levied by Government from the British grower. Relieve the
latter of these burdens, and he does not fear the competition of the
world. But so long as you tax him who is, on the one hand, your largest
producer, and, on the other, the best customer for your manufactures,
you cannot, in reason, wonder if he demands that an equivalent for
his taxation shall be imposed upon foreign produce; so that the
economical law, and not less the law of common sense, which provides
that the consumer shall pay all charges, may not be defeated--in
other words, that his trade may not be annihilated altogether. We
have seen articles, intended to be pungent and satirical, about the
farmers "whining for protection." The writers who use such language
evidently intend to insinuate that the British agriculturist is a poor
weak creature, unable to cope with foreign tillers of the soil--more
ignorant than the Dane, more idle than the German, less active than
the Polish serf, and not near so handy as the American squatter.
If they do not mean this, they mean nothing. It is not worth while
replying directly to such paltry and contemptible libels, but we may
as well remind these gentlemen with whom the "whining" commenced. It
began with the manufacturers, who have been whining for heaven knows
how many years, that bread was too dear, and that they were forced
to pay high wages in consequence. The papermakers are "whining" at
this moment for a reduction of excise, and the nasal notes of a good
many newspaper editors and conductors of cheap and trashy periodicals
are adding power and pathos to the whine. No spaniel at the outside
of a street-door ever whined more piteously than Mr Cardwell is doing
at this hour about reduction of the tea duties. He is absolutely not
safe over a cup of ordinary hyson. There are whines about hops, whines
about sugar, whines about window taxes, whines about cotton, and all
Ireland is and has been in a state of perpetual whine. In short, if by
"whining" is meant a complaint against taxation, we apprehend it would
be difficult to find a single individual who, in the present anomalous
and jumbled state of finance, could not advance sufficient reasons for
uttering a cry. The only way to remedy this is to reconstruct the whole
system. Let this be done on principles clear and intelligible to all
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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