THE MYSTERY OF THE REVENUE.
MORNING JOURNAL—Our contemporaries are perplexing themselves sadly to account for the increased productiveness of the revenue at a juncture when the manufacturing and labouring classes are, in almost every part of the country, suffering severe distress. It only requires a few words to clear away any thing like mystery that may belong to the subject. In the first place, a partial increase of revenue is not always a symptomof prosperity, any more , than is the flush of health and the sensation of convalescence, which often visit the patient on his death-bed. For instance, the revenue for the quarter ended 5th April 1.326—a period of universal panic, when the Gazette was more crowded with entries than the ledger of the merchant—when fortunes, acquired by years of toil, were lost in a day—when, in fact, we were, ac- cording to Mr. Huskisson, within forty-eight hours of barter—at that period the quarter's revenue exceeded that of the corresponding quarter in 1827 by no less a sum than 469,548/. And, in the same way, the quarter ending 5th January 1827, exceeded that ending 5th January 1828. At the former period one-third of our manufacturing population were in a state of pauperism.
Agricultural labotirers were also subject to many privations, and the utmost gloom and stagnation prevailed. On the other hand, the labourers in the first quarter of 1828 were comparatively well employed ; the shuttle had begun to work, and the ploughboy whistled to his team, in the hope of better times. Notwithstanding this, the revenue for the quarter ending 5th January 1S27, was 12,52,1,0851., while that for the quarter ending 5th January 1828, was only 12,336,078/, leaving a balance in favour of the worst season of 188,007/. These are strange facts, but they serve to exhibit the caprice of the revenue.
Previous page
