STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
Two letters have appeared this week in the columns of the Times, to which that journal has accorded the great, because rarely and almost grudgingly granted, tribute of its praise. The one is signed "Play- fair ;" and the other, which is more recondite, "Hermes." The sub- ject of both, as well as of the remarks that they have elicited, is the dis- tresses of the country. And there can be no question of the existence of very great and very general distress. In every corner of the empire, in every branch of traffic, we find demand small, supply in excess, profits falling, wages scanty, masters hastening to decay, labourers in rags, nothing stationary but the taxes, and nothing, increasing but the poor-rates. The cotton trade, the woollen trade, the iron trade, the silk trade, all suffer, some more some less. This is not the declamation of factious nor the croaking of timorous men, but the simple expression of a fact of much importance, whose existence must be acknowledged before a cure can be applied. In noticing the alleged causes of such a widely-spread evil, it is our purpose, agreeably to our principles, to act rather as historians, and searchers after truth, than as advocates.
That there is yet "balm in Gilead," we hope and trust; but we may not affirm that the source whence it is to flow for the healing of the evils of our people has been discovered. The causes, as assigned by our various contemporaries, are- 1. The Corn Laws ; 2. The Inequality of Taxation; 3. The Currency, and special iter the Small Note Bill ; 4. The Navigation Act of 1822, and the other acts which are in- cluded in what is commonly called the Free Trade system; 5. The Amount of the Taxes.
To these Mr. COBBETT and Lord BLANDFORD add, "The state of the Representation in Parliament ;" and the Morning Journal," The Catholic Emancipation Bill:' We had hoped that the expiatory sacri- fices to Bacchus and Ceres at the Golden Fleece in Maidenhead, and the solemn procession to Hurley-Bottom, would have wiped away the sin of the last-mentioned act ; but we have been deceived in our fond expectations.
The two first causes are those assigned by " Playfair " and " Hermes" in the Times, Our contemporary approves the former by hypothetical opposition, and the latter by recommending it to the pe. rusal of his more diligent readers." The Standard has caught up with its usual activity and ingeniousness the contemplated attack on the landed interest, and sounds the alarm to squires of high and leer degree in its most heart-searching strains.
We think we may state without fear of contradiction, that there never was a more unpopular measure passed in England than Mr. ROBINSON'S Corn Bill. From John o' Groat's to the Land's Hee, no man bade "God save it ;" of twenty millions without the wan of Parliament, there was not one approving hand held up. Well do we remember hearing from a pious, sober, and most enlightened clergy. man, (and he spoke the sentiments of many) these words--e Sir, I was ever before an advocate of Parliament; I thought it the organ of the nation; but its conduct respecting that bill went far to make a Radical of re." " Playfair " has shown, we think incontestably, that the bill of Lord GODERICH (Mr. ROBINSON) was preferable to the present ; and he has shown most clearly, that what may be called the famine point, which by the former is fixed at 80, is, in consequence of the difference of the currency, fixed by the latter at 94 shillings. There are, however, two points to be ascertained before we ac- knowledge the corn-bill to be the cause of our distress,—How much of the wages of the labourer is absorbed by the excess of price in monopoly over free trade corn; and how much would the diminution of income in farmers and landlords consequent on free trade in corn depress the wages of the labourer ? The arguments of " Playfair," we must add, are those of COBBETT ; and even his lan- guage and illustrations are borrowed from that writer. The substitution of an income-tax for various others which press‘', pore immediately on production, as proposed by "Hermes," is no new plan. We question its propriety. An income-tax must be search- 'ng, inquisitorial, oppressive, or it must be useless. The great mass of the tax is necessarily drawn from small incomes, which can ill afford , direct diminution, as it is only by prudential abstinence from taxed con- veniencies that their possessors make shift to live. Besides, for all that is said on the subject, the inequality of taxation is more apparent than • real. The aggregate amount, rather than the distribution of the impost, is the evil. It is of extremely small importance to him who is com- pelled to part with three-fourths of his loaf, whether the party claim- ing cut from the bottom or the top. " Hennes" has another remedy to get out of our present difficulties: he would have us revive again the good old plan of borrowineb money instead of raising taxes. This is curing the wound by the rust of the weapon that inflicted it. The Times says the argument of its corre- spondent is " curious ; " we would add, "if true:' In his zeal for arithmetical demonstration, " Hermes" has forgotten the fact, that money is always offered freely to those who do not want it ; and that, plentiful as it seems at present, if Government were to go into the market and ask for a supply, it would get wonderfully scarce in a very short time. If " Hermes " -will glance over Dr. HAMILTON'S tables, he will see that nations, as well as individuals, "that go a borrowing, go a sorrowing." The other causes above enumerated we must pass lightly over. That the limitation of the Currency consequent on the Small Note Suppression Bill has aggravated pro tanto and for the time, evils which it did not absolutely create, we think undoubted. Whether it has brought with it compensating- e of a permanent nature, is another question. The alteration of the NavigationLaws, we shall discuss at some length, in a separate paper, next week. The Globe has a theory of its own ; which is, that in order to cure the present distress, every thing must retrograde to the condition in which it was some thirty years ago. The landlord must quit claret for port, the farmer port for home-brewed; the one must drop his canine, the other must put his hand to the plough instead of directing others. The Times more logically describes this process not as the cure but as the consequence of the disease. • We are inclined to believe that the Taxes, or in other words rile Dern, more than any thing else, lie at the root of the present com- mercial stagnation. Without .these we should have no corn-laws ; without these we should have no prohibitory duties ; and were every man free to seek the best market where to buy and where to sell, it is impossible that capital and industry and skill should not command employment. Indeed, all the schemes that have been broached by ingenious speculators, when strictly analysed, resolve themselves into this, "diminish taxation." Instead, therefore, of wasting our labour in attempts to remedy secondary evils, it would be well to bend our whole endeavours to the diminution of this the great soiree and parent of them all. But.then, THE DEBT!
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