Dilemmas of Pride. Mrs. Loudon
of the state on shoulders already weighed down by nature's demand for daily bread. I would exempt from the whole weight of taxation the labourer, whether of brain or limb; he has no stake in the stability of the state; he can carry his head or his hand wherever he goes. He who keeps back the hire of the labourer is denounced in holy writ: I would not be worse than such, and rob the labourer of his hire. I would, therefore, repeal every tax direct and indirect, which now exists, and substitute for all a graduated property-tax, on independent property only, trifling in amount, say one per cent., where the property was small; and doubling, trebling, nay, quadrupling, if necessary, as it rises. What, if a man with thirty thousand per annum, pay twenty thousand, can he not live on ten? or if the man with two hundred thousand per annum, pay one hundred and fifty thousand, can he not live on fifty? This, some people are not ashamed to answer me would be robbing the rich; while they talk as loudly as vaguely of the sacredness of property and vested rights. But I would answer such, that starvation in the midst of plenty, on the plea of the sacredness of justice, is a practical blasphemy! What, therefore, relief from taxation did not effect for the absolutely destitute, I would complete by an amended system of poor-laws;—such assessments, however, to be levied on independent property only."
"Poor-laws are bad things," interrupted Sir James, who having finished his luncheon, was now lolling on a sofa, "they make the common people so lazy."
"As long as industry is not taxed in support of idleness," answered Henry, "the lazy rich man is entitled to no commiseration for being compelled to assist his brother, the lazy poor man! Poor-laws," he added, turning to Lord Darlingford, "as far at least as food goes, I consider the most sacred of vested rights. God said, 'Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.'"
"But you allow," said his lordship, "that many of the great landed properties you would tax thus heavily are purchased with the produce of the owner's own exertions; state your reasons for giving immunity to present industry and not to past?"
"Because," replied Henry, "when once a man has realized property he has acquired a stake in the country, a stake in the stability of the government; his property requires protection, whether from the foreign enemy or the home depredator; and, therefore, he should pay for such protection. If a man desires a wall round his garden, who pays for building the wall? The man who owns the garden! If a man wishes to insure his premises against fire, who pays the insurance? The man whose premises are guaranteed. Would either of these persons dream of calling a parish meeting to demand of their neighbours as a right, that they should subscribe towards the expense so incurred; nay, that every pauper subsisting on some shilling or two per week, should be compelled to pay two-pence for his penny loaf until the sum was made up; yet, such is the spirit of every tax, direct or indirect, levied on any thing but independent property. The machinery of government is the garden-wall of the landed interest, the insurance office of the fund-holder. Any tax, therefore, levied on those who have neither land nor money is a crying injustice, except, indeed," he added with bitter irony, "we admit of a small pole-tax to keep down burking. It is, no doubt, the houseless, nameless, friendless wretch, who has no one to ask what is become of him; the poor creature, who has nothing to be protected but the limbs and sinews he was born with, who runs the greatest risk of contributing these to the promotion of science."
"But," observed Lord Darlingford, "it is not the very destitute who pay taxes."
"I beg your pardon," said Henry, "indirect ones they do. If the beggar in the street succeeds in exciting the compassion of the passenger, and receives one penny, ere he can appease his hunger with a mouthful of bread, do not the corn laws, by doubling the price of the loaf, exact from him one half of the penny so obtained? And is not his mite, thus cast into the treasury, like that of the poor widow in the Gospel, taken from his want; and, therefore, more than all they (the rich) did cast in of their abundance?"
"Oh, it is all but too true!" said Lady Arden, feelingly. "I do think your scheme of taxation would be but justice. Willoughby would certainly have a great deal to pay; but he can surely afford it better than poor creatures who have nothing but what they earn, or what they beg. I see the subject now in quite a new light. I have always been in the habit of thinking people poor who had but one or two thousands a-year; and I never took the trouble of considering that there was any difference between hundreds a-year and nothing."
"How would you apportion this property-tax of yours?" asked Lord Darlingford; "and how ensure its being sufficient for the exigencies of the state?"
"On a graduated scale, as I have already said," replied Henry, "from justice to individuals: let those who have the largest property to ensure, pay, as at all other insurance offices, the most; but, as to details and calculations, I leave those to Mr. Hume, or some of the multiplication table people; I only advocate the principle. Indeed, one of the great recommendations of this plan is, that the principle once established, the work is done: when those who tie up the burdens have to carry them, they may be trusted to find scales of sufficient nicety in which to weigh them: we need, in that case, no longer call for estimates, or petition against sinecures; nay, we may give the very voting of the subsidies to the Lords themselves!—many of whom, I make no doubt, would forthwith become immortalised by the economical or 'twopenny halfpenny' ingenuity, developed in the devising of future budgets. 'Twopence halfpenny,' I would have the noble lords to know, though no object to them, is a sum which many of their destitute fellow-creatures would, at this moment, receive with joy of heart! Then, remember, in further recommendation of this scheme, the millions a-year of unprofitable expense that would be saved to the nation, by having but one instead of innumerable taxes to levy."
"I don't think," said Sir James, looking as if he had made a discovery, "that the people with large fortunes will like this law of yours, Henry."
"Many people, too," replied Henry, contemptuously, "don't like paying their Christmas bills."
Alfred, who had been looking over a morning paper near a window, and from time to time lending a share of his attention to the disputants, now joined them.
"We cannot, I think," he said, "blame any particular government, or set of men, for the ills of which you complain. The fault is in human nature; and the remedy, if there be one, is only to be found in laying step by step the wisest general restrictions we can on individual selfishness. The advance of civilization has already placed a salutary check on plunder by force; it remains for the march of intellect to discover one for plunder by stratagem. But we must be cautious; in desiring the higher steps of the ladder of wisdom and virtue, we must not undervalue those we have attained, and in our headlong haste, stumble; and, like our neighbours of the continent, fall back on the frightful abyss of anarchy that lays below! 'Tis well to rise in excellence; I hate the cant of dreading all chance: but, to keep to the simile of the ladder, let us take care that the lifting foot be firmly placed on the step above, ere the standing one be removed from the step below."
"Is there not some danger," said Lord Darlingford, "of a property-tax sending capital out of the kingdom?"
"It must be very easy," replied Henry, "for the inventors of all sorts of protecting duties to devise a means of meeting that difficulty, by some ingeniously arranged tax on the exportation of property, whether income or capital, with a tremendously deterring fine on any attempt at imposition; and minor exactments, to hunt evasion through all its windings. There might, also," he added, "be an alien tax, to prevent the foreign artizan from sharing the immunity from taxation, purchased by our own rich for our own poor."
"Is there not some danger," said Lady Arden, "that the deteriorated incomes of the great, by obliging them to lessen their establishments and expenditure, would throw many people out of employment, and so increase the numbers of the poor?"
"I should think not," answered Henry; "recollect there would be the same property in the kingdom, only in more general and more equal circulation. The servants dismissed, and the luxuries foregone by the few, would in all probability be more than compensated by the increased establishments and more numerous comforts of the many, though each only in a small degree. The standard of splendour might be lowered, but that of comfort would be raised. The change, too,