Somersetshire; and Chaplain to the cal, and Member of the Royal MeRight Hon, the Dowager Lady Ba-dical Societies of Edinburgh, &c. &c.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

An authenticated report from Tralee Assizes is not in a form to receive notice in this Review.

The note respecting a work on Economical Subjects, dated the 7th of -October, from a mistake with regard to the delivery at the late Printer's, did not reach the Editors' hands until the 22d.The pamphlet referred to will be noticed in our next publication.

The proposal of C. E. D. is under consideration.

A short pamphlet, on an interesting subject connected with Rustie Morals, was not submitted to the Editors in time for notice this month.

A short and interesting Tale would have been noticed, had it not been before the public last year, and reviewed elsewhere.

PRINTED BY W. SMITH AND CO. KING STREET, SEVEN DIALS.

THE

CRITICAL REVIEW:
Series the Fifth.

VOL. IV.]

NOVEMBER, 1816.

[No. V.

ART. I. Further Observations on the State of the Nation. The Means of Employment of Labour-The Sinking Fund, and its Application-Pauperism-Protection requisite to the Landed and Agricultural Interests. By RICHARD PRESTON, Esq. M.P. London, Longman and Co. 1816. 8vo. pp. 44.

Ir is the endeavour of almost every writer, whether his subject be a fan or a feather, to inflate or tickle his readers into a notion, that the matter of which he treats is of the deepest interest to his country and to mankind. The title of the present work is an exordium sufficiently impressive, without any weight of introductory argument, to make the nation feel sensibly its importance, and we will not devote an unnecessary line to what may be extraneous to it.

The former publication of Mr. Preston, entitled "The Present Ruined Condition of the Landed and Agricultural Interest," was reviewed in our preceding volume, p. 404413; and the object of it was to recommend, that an equitable reduction be made in rents; that a commutation in money be conceded for tithes; that a more equal division of the poor-rates be established; and that the home market be properly secured to the interest of the farmer. With the exception of the first, all the same subjects are again discussed in the present pamphlet, but, in some respects, under new circumstances; and superadded to them, is a long and valuable examination of the best expedients for giving employment to the active population of the country. The work also treats of the funds that may be conveniently assigned to procure that employment, and of the parlia mentary interposition that should set the whole in move

ment.

"Now then is the time for a wise government, a prudent legislature, and a patriotic press, to inform the public mind; to bring conviction even on those who are still in error; and to lead them to CRIT. REV. VOL. IV. Nov. 1816.

3 L

form such just and equitable arrangements, as shall give employment to British industry; shall protect British agriculture; shall diminish Pauperism; shall support the finances, by enabling those who are taxed to bear the burthen; and shall give ability to each half of the population, to find employment for the other half, by a mutual exchange of the labours and the fruits of their industry!!

It is not sufficient that Great Britain has the same physical resources as formerly, or even greater. You must give action, energy, and power to these resources. The misfortune which is experienced is, that you have changed the sources, and diverted the tide of wealth. You are requiring the industrious to labour, not only for the capitalist, but for those who are deprived of employment, and, to a great extent, for discharged and maimed soldiers and sailors, most meritorious objects of relief!! The poor, on the one hand, and the fundholder, the placeman, and the pensioner, and your large military establishment, on the other hand, are drawing to themselves the fruits of the labour of the active industrious part of the community: moreover, they are consuming the capital of the BeeHive. This diminution of capital will, at no distant period, be severely felt; not merely by a change of the stock of cattle and of corn from one hand to another, (a result of no great importance with a view to the future welfare of the country;) but by an actual and alarming diminution in the number of cattle, and of the quantity of corn, and of physical power, from the absence of manure and expenditure in labour, and from the pauperism and idleness of a large portion of the industry of the country, and the consequent inability to reproduce an equal quantity of human sustenance." (p. 16.)

On the necessity of public economy the honourable member is perfectly explicit, and we wish that all his colleagues were equally so. "Retrenchment," he says, "must take place; the people will demand and enforce it; self-preservation requires it." (p. 41.) Some facts connected with this branch of inquiry are illustrated by political arithmetic. He computes the expenditure at 70,000,000l., and the income of landed property, including canals and buildings, at 90,000,000/-assuming wheat to be at 80s. per quarter. Thus the taxation to the rental would be in the proportion of 7 to 9. In such circumstances, he conceives it to be absolutely required to reduce an expenditure, which occasions the whole circulating medium to pass through the hands of the government three, or perhaps four times, in the short revolution of a year; and which, on the scheme of a capitation tax, would contribute 47. from each individual to the state, reckoning the population of the United

Kingdom at about 18,000,000. The author fitly objects to the extravagant salaries of public officers.

"A determined system of retrenchment may be calculated to produce a saving of five millions a-year; for example-no governor of an island or colony should be allowed more than 5,000l. a-year, while some have 20,000l. a-year. No one person, in any department, or holding several offices under government, should receive more than 10,000l. a-year from the government; and of these officers there should be very few; only the cabinet ministers, who have official duties requiring eminent talents, and their whole attention. To those who may urge that 5,000,000l. a-year cannot by any possibility be saved by retrenchment, the short answer is, produce a list of salaries and duties, and let an investigation of the catalogue take place, and a correct opinion on this point may be formed!! And it should always be remembered, that every 187. a-year paid to any placeman or pensioner, beyond a fair remuneration for his time, &c. withdraws from the public the means of giving active employ ment to one individual, as the head of a family; thus depriving five persons of the means of sustenance from the fruits of honest industry and active labour, and rendering them paupers.

"Pursuing this, or some such system, and reducing the military establishment, without abridging the pay of the private soldiers in the army, or the sailors in the navy, 5,000,000l. might be saved, being one-fifth of the present expenditure. The difficulty, if any, of saving more than this sum, proves the enormity of taxation and our distressed situation. After this reduction, the expenditure would be 20,000,000l. a-year, and the amount of taxation would be 65,000,000l. a-year. A property-tax, taking from every payment under government, including the funds, and with the exception of the soldier and sailor, 10 per cent, would reduce the burden of taxation to a sum not far exceeding 57,500,000l., being the balance of 70,000,000l., after deducting 5,000,000l. of retrenchment and 5,500,000l. of per centage. In consideration of this reduction, &c. the property of the country, as estimated at about 90,000,0007. a-year, should bear a tax of 10 per cent., computed at 9,000,0007. a-year; thus adding a sum of about 9,000,000l. a-year to the amount of the present taxes, in the place of those taxes which press most severely on the industry of the country." (p. 3-4.)

The reduction proposed of the expenditure, it will be observed, revives a property tax as to every payment under government, with the exception of the lowest ranks in the navy and army; and if a general impost of this nature be unjust, impolitic, and oppressive, a fortiori, a partial one must be of the like character. But we do not object to the effect as here recommended; we would in another form have the same object accomplished.

"However (Mr. Preston continues) to enable the landed interest to bear this taxation, and, in short, to preserve any rental, the burden of the poor-rate should be so regulated, that it may be borne by the community at large in just proportions. For the purpose of the poor-rate, the rental should be computed at 90,000,000l.; placemeu, &c. at 20,000,0007.; and the funded property at 45,000,000Z. ; making an aggregate amount of 155,000,000l. a-year; and houses, docks, &c. should be computed, for the purpose of this tax, at double their annual rental value, as the means of taxing personal property; and thus there would be an addition of at least 20,000,0007, making together 175,000,0007.

"These sources must contribute at least 10,000,000l. to the poor-rates; thus making 1s. 9d. in the pound for the poor. Beyond all doubt, the present expense of the poor exceeds the 10,000,000l. By a system of good management, this expenditure may be reduced to 5,000,000l. It is essential that every parish should maintain its own poor under the present system. Parishioners are the best guardians of the conduct, and the most competent judges of the necessities, of the poor. The country should add to the contribution of each parish from poor-rates a just proportion of the tax imposed on pensions, places, and funded property; thus each parish would receive about one-fourth part of its expenditure. An expenditure in any parish below a certain rate, say is. in the pound, should subject that parish to a contribution in aid of the general fund, so as to enable the general fund to provide for the relief of parishes heavily burthened. The plan would require that farms only, and not houses for occupation unconnected with farms, should be assessed to the present poor-rate; and the new assessment should be on houses, canals, &c. corporation dividends, and funded property, and on persons receiving any annual payments from government. By this arrangement, parishes would have an interest as at present against encouraging an increase on the poor-rate, since that increase must add to the burthen of the parish.-This scheme would provide for the present race of paupers." (p. 4—5.)

A very material relief is here proposed to the land from the extension of the poor-rates to every description of property; and it is most important that some change should be adopted, if it be the fact, as Mr. Brougham asserted, that the manufacturer makes the poor, and the farmer maintains them. If the latter be rated according to his occupancy, the former should be burthened according to his profits, or by some equivalent rendering personal property liable; and the general result, as here proposed, augments the sum from which the poor-rate is to be discharged to 175,000,000l. The mode of relief now proposed, in a relative view, will be greatly preferred to the legislative intricacy of protecting duties on flax, clover, and other seeds,