TOPICS OF THE DAY.

esome mole

of " posive resistanre " ttrthe tax as it stands, to insist upon an LEGISLATIVE FUNC.TIONS OF THE HOUSE OF equitable assessment. la that case, the Aristocracy,. who now

laugh with the Conservative scribes at the futile efforts of the

LORD BURLINGTON'S RESISTANCE TO TAXES. THE resistance of the shopkeepers to the Assessed Taxes, however illegal or absurd it may be, is grounded upon a very rational ob- jection to being taxed at a prodigiously higher rate than their aristocratic neighbours. But we wonder it has never occurred to • ! them, instead of attemptingt the expensive ant1 tioub

well as oppressive on account or its inequality, would oppose these the manner in which Patliatnentdischarges its leg ila tive functions. very taxes, with more violence and success, on the floor of the House of Lords, than the tradesmen do in Marylebone or else-

The present week has supplied an instance in proof' of this. their neighbours. - Brought to little,' if an' notice —the anuouctilement Lord BURLINGTON has, ever since the Assessed Taxes have been mumbled from the bar—iestmoie ulterwards the name and —objects gabbled over imposed, been paying a less sum. te

porti . His mansion M , until May last, had been assessed at 1,0001.,

instead of 2,9431., which is only a very motlerate estimate of its .hatAyiAteasrttti with:int the knowledge of any.individual in it value. The complaints of the rich shopkeepers of St James's ensce„„e;;ae. ufe anyrstin ott ipaairiedntage—dseni t toltehe_Lords, who are parish inductel the authorities to have a fresh survey, in order to a hundred others,—how ; wlii Ii ea

remedy the injustice. The moment a tax presses upon a noble-

man, he resists both sturdily and warily. Thus, Lord BURLING-

TON refuses to pay the Poor-rates, calculated also by the parish- officers on the increased valuation of his mansion : he gets two or

the Great Unpaid to alter the rate in his favour ; and on the parish so enormously—t at the Times quite despairs of purifying the

applying for a distress warrant, the stipendiary Magistrates refuse ''indurated mass; out earnestly rote:emends the adoptieli o seine

to grant it, although they could eot but admit that their amateur plan which will I'l."‘"eut its aug;ie'u: mu in future. brethrenof the bench had acted irregularly and without being " There ought, no thubt, to he pre.....oti ,-ores against further

empowered by law. The Parish, very properly, to purette

the matter. If other parishes had acted in a similar manne.r, the .III I It (trines niight est;;Ii!iAn,!, wai to •••• ,•I. Assessed Taxes would have disappeared before this: and then thtau: cut all clj'etiu"'th!'ii these shortsighted tritdestnen, who now cry out ignorantly against seeerni cersi.sit'of persons not in Parliament—Smolt! lawyers—possibly three w

the Assessed Taxes, would (as soon they will now) discover, that, lour .fulgcs.1 next to a Property-tax, an equitable assessment on houses is one :sumitted to Piirtialossit." of the tamest of impositions.

It has been urged, with some ingenuity and much impudence, that the mansions of the Aristocracy shenIcl not be assessed at their full value, because, it' their houses were to be let, few persows weuld be feund ivil It meens sufficiently ample to tenant them. This at any into cannot apply t;) th.msit VII0 hatT the mutts. Not only is the value of the house, generall;, a fair standard ot the wealth of the owner, but, in case of its iiklury by a owl), the county is liable to refund the Owner to the amount requisite to reinstate it. Taxes are for the support of government ; government is for the protection of property. A man should be taxed according to his means, as in proportion to his property is the risk the state runs of having to reimburse him for its wanton destruction. The Duke of NEWCASTLE got full value for an uninhabited old castle that was burnt by a mob. Is it not clear, then, that he ought in justice to have paid .a share of the taxes on that house propor- tionate to what it would require to rebuild and furnish it ? And does

. it not follow, that as the Duke did not do this, either his exemption . from the full rate of taxation on that heuse was a :obbery of the nation, or his being awarded a full amount of damagea was a rob- bery of the hundred?