Statement of the Gross Produce of Taxes in Great Britain for the Year ending 5th January 1830, chiefly paid by the Industrious Classes.-Annual Finance Accounts. £1,163,861 Spirits, (Foreign) ... £2,813,768 Windows, .... Bills of Exchange, 711,829 Receipts,. 2,024,418 Corn, grain, meal, Tea, 3,321,721 and flour, Coffee, 485,448 Eggs, 22,189 Sugar, 5,453,027 Tallow, 147,085 Malt, 3,834,480 Tobacco and Snuff,.. 2,245,611 Hops, 245,024 Wines of all sorts,... 1,356,819 Beer, (ceased, Oct. .... Thus, on a gross revenue of £54,902,199, the sum of £37,972,496, is levied on necessaries, and does not in the least touch the luxuries of the great, unless the articles of wines, snuff and tobacco can be considered such. Except these, all the others are articles of daily use and consumption, and the taxes on them operate like an income-tax, augmenting in the exact ratio of every individual's unavoidable expenditure. This monstrous state of our fiscal system is solely owing to non-representation, and consequent monopoly of political power by the aristocracy, which has enabled them to throw the public burdens on the industrious orders. Those who are the source of the wealth of the community, and who defray the charges of the general government, have no efficient control over its administration; nay, are often not treated with ordinary courtesy, and by an usurping oligarchy, considered, the inferior orders, little better than an ignorant rabble! E SECTION VIII. INCREASE OF THE PEERAGE. THE members of the Upper House, succeeding to legislative functions by bereditary right, and are exempt from the salutary influence which controls the deliberations of a representative assembly. Their interests are purely oligarchical, and severed from the general interests of the community. It cannot, therefore, excite surprise, that any augmentation in a body of exclusives like this-separated from the mass of society by education, by family pride, by privilege, and usurped power-should be viewed with dislike and apprehension. Other reasons render an increase in the aristocratic branch of Parliament inimical to general feeling. It has been ascertained that the nobility afford a striking illustration of Mr Malthus' theory of population.* Possessing in abundance the comforts and conveniences of life, they are placed in those circumstances most favourable to a full development of the procreative principle, and it is a singular confirmation of the doctrine of the enlightened writer, that noble families are actually as prolific as those of the United States of America. Peers are mostly marrying men. After visiting the European capitals, and committing a few follies and eccentricities, they usually settle down at about twenty-five or twenty-eight years of age, and the results, on the average, are a progeny of five children, or about twenty-five per cent. more than other people. The eldest inheriting the estate, the rest would be destitute, were not the parents, by means of their vote and borough-interest, able to quarter them on the public. Hence it is, that the people contemplate, with no agreeable feelings, any addition to the peerage; knowing that, in consequence of primogeniture and entail-laws, another family will be thrown upon them for support, and that their own chance of honourable promotion in the army, navy, civil departments, or other branch of national service, is impeded by new rivals, with whom exists no prospect of equitable competition. Having explained one or two of the popular objections to an increase of the Peerage, we shall briefly notice the extraordinary augmentation it has undergone during the reigns of George III. and George IV. A creation of Peers generally takes place on the accession of a new family, the commencement of a new reign, or when an unpopular measure is to be carried. On the death of Elizabeth, the Peers only amounted to fifty-six. James, being the first of a new dynasty, raised the number to one hundred and five; and Charles I. to one hundred and thirty-five; Charles II. created fifteen dukes, (six of whom were his natural children,) one marquis, thirty-earls, three countesses, two viscounts, and twentynine barons. At the Revolution of 1688, William III. to ingratiate himself with the great families, raised eight powerful earls to dukedoms created eighteen earls, three viscounts, and nine barons. Anne increased the peerage to one hundred and seventy. The accession of the Hanover family rendered new creations necessary: George I. either created or elevated no fewer than forty-nine Peers. George II. left one hundred and eighty-four. It is evident that the great increase of the Peerage was in the reign of George III. being more than doubled. In 1777, a batch of Peers was drafted from the Commons into the Lords, to effect a ministerial majority. This expedient was frequently resorted to by Mr Pitt. In 1797 ten Peers were made. He nearly created the order of marquisses: he made ten marquisses in England where there was but one, and nine in Ireland, where there was none- all men eminent, of course, for their services. Knighthood was still more profusely lavished. In short, he was as prodigal in wasting the honours of the Crown as the money of the people, and for a similar purpose. The Peers created during the reign of George III. have been classified as follows: George IV. added sixty-four members to the Upper House. In this number are included individuals who have been raised to the Peerage, or in whose favour an abeyance has been terminated, as well as Peers of Scotland and Ireland who have obtained English baronies. No notice, however, is taken of Scots Peerages, which have been recently restored, nor of the creations of Peers of Ireland; of claims to English Peerages which have been admitted, nor of elevations of English Peerages to higher honours. The average rate at which Peers have been created during the last two reigns, has been about four per annum; and was the same rate of increase to continue for the next century, it would double the existing number of Parliamentary Lords. The total number of individuals who sit in the Upper House is 402, and are as follow: The title of Duke was first conferred by Edward III.; that of Marquis by Richard II.; and that of Viscount by Henry VI. The last is the only title originally merely honorary, and to which no duties were annexed. The above description is the present state of the House of Peers; it is almost supererogatory to remark, that any, or even the least addition to the Peerage, would be mischievous in the highest degree. It is an institution which is overgrown already, and requires reform almost as much as did the People's House of Commons. If Peers could maintain themselves by any lawful vocation, when once they happen to squander away their fortunes, their honorary titles might be put up with-but the contrary is the case when once they come to be without funds, they are quartered upon the community as sinecurists, state-paupers, or on the army half-pay list. A number of other circumstances might be adduced to prove that an increase in the Peerage would be calamitous to the country, and confer no good even on the individuals themselves,-but the foregoing will suffice. And now, let the Peers remember that the eyes of twenty millions of free-born Britons are intently fixed on them, let them take heed to their actions, both in their legislative and individual capacities-let them ponder well the consequences of exerting a factious opposition to the measures of a Reformed House of Commons! Once more, therefore, we beseech them to take warning in time.* SECTION IX. REFORM FORTY YEARS AGO. Now that we have attained the great measure of Parliamentary Reform; a measure which it has cost more than half a century of almost constant exertion to secure; we are bound in gratitude to look back to the labours of those who, in times of peril, promoted the good cause, and suffered martyrdom for the preservation of our liberties. The exertions and sufferings of Thomas Muir have again See Black Book. |