industry would be free; taxes would be cheaply collected, and the material prosperity of this country would be so immensely increased, that homes would be happier, people more contented, and vice and misery diminished in such an enormous degree, that philanthropists and statesmen would think they had found a panacea for all the squalor and wretchedness which are now seen in such close proximity to wealth and luxury.

APPENDIX A.

WHILE these pages were in the press, Sir Stafford Northcote introduced his Budget, abolishing the sugar duties. Many of the arguments used in the text were used during the debates on that policy as well as in the public prints. On the morning of the very day the Budget was introduced into the Committee (April 16th, 1873), the Daily News laid great stress upon the annoyance to various trades, as pointed out in the text at page 36, by stating that, "Ever since the advent of the new Government became certain, particular trades have been kept almost in a state of stagnation, waiting to learn what changes would be made in the Customs. The sugar trade, in which large stocks are necessarily held by merchants and refiners, has been almost paralysed." What is alone surprising is that obtuseness which acknowledges that the abolition of the sugar duties is good for the country, and yet fails to see that a similar policy in regard to tea or any other taxed commodity would be equally beneficial. Mr. Gladstone described the increased prosperity which has always followed the remission of a duty, as something approaching to magic;" and he also spoke favourably of there now being a chance of the cultivation of sugar in this country from beet "and other commodities." The Chancellor of the Exchequer, too, said that it was to be hoped that the abolition of the sugar duties would not only be followed by an increase in the consumption of sugar, but that there would be" elasticity in tea, coffee, and other articles of consumption.” All this supports the views propounded in this book, while the

following anecdote from Sir Stafford Northcote's speech shows how easily the frauds by Custom-house officers, as mentioned on page 38, can be carried on. The right hon. gentleman said "I will mention a story which I heard a few days ago. I was told by a friend of mine that he met a gentleman who said to him, ‘I have a cargo of sugar at this moment coming to this country. It depends upon the decision of an officer of the Customs, who knows nothing about it, whether it should be put in one class or another, and according as it is put in one class or another I will either make or lose by the cargo, £1,200.'" I will merely add that I have been informed that the abolition of the sugar duties will enable the staff at the Liverpool Custom-house alone to be reduced by sixty clerks, to say nothing of other officials, and the clerks which every merchant in the trade has to keep on purpose to transact Custom-house business.

I would like to refer to Mr. Rathbone's speech on Mr. Cross's Licensing Bill, as strengthening the arguments on the liquor question used in the first chapter of this book. The Hon. Member points out that when there was virtually Free Trade in liquor in the town he represents (1862 to 1866), drunkenness greatly decreased; and that when the policy was departed from the number of convictions for that offence at once increased ten per cent.

APPENDIX B.

BY J. ALUN JONES, Esq.,

BARRISTER-AT-LAW, LIVERPOOL.

I HERE submit what I may call a draft budget, embodying the principles of Free Trade, and showing how they would, if applied, have affected the finances of a given year. I have selected 1867, not because there are any special features in the accounts of that year that make them exceptionally easy to deal with, but because Mr. Dudley Baxter's work on the income of the nation gives the figures for that year, and also because there is no subsequent year of the financial history of which so much can be ascertained on Government authority.

A few words of explanation may be needful as to the mode in which this sketch has been drawn up. The first column, headed " Actual," contains the figures of the finance accounts for 1867, as prepared by Mr. Henry Lloyd Morgan, and published in the Financial Reform Almanack. The second column, headed "Proposed," shows how the various items would have been altered or have disappeared, and a substitute provided in a direct taxation budget.

The first to be noticed is the income side of the sheet. In this the sources of revenue, headed respectively Customs, Excise, Stamps and Assessed Taxes, disappear, while the Post Office, Crown Lands, and Miscellaneous are, of course, retained. The Land Tax is merged in the first class of taxes on income from capital (Schedule A.) The amount of the tax, four shillings

in the pound, is simply that fixed by the Acts of 1692, and so shamelessly nullified a few years afterwards by the Landlords' Parliament of that time. The basis of the calculation is taken from Mr. Dudley Baxter's work, which puts the income of the nation from those sources that come under Schedule A (land, houses, mines, etc.,) at £162,500,000. This, at four shillings in the pound, gives £32,500,000, as stated.

The next class, Schedule C (incomes from the public funds), is fixed by the same authority at thirty-four millions. This tax is objected to by many, on the ground that it is unfair to tax the public creditor, but as the regularity and certainty of payment of interest on a national debt depend on the stability and good administration of Government, it certainly seems to me quite just to require some small contribution from fundholders towards securing such advantages. The same reasons apply with even greater force to the holders of offices and pensions, who come under Schedule E, for they, without any investment of capital at all, receive a sure and regular income from the nation, and, so far as the advantages enjoyed are concerned, they are in almost as good a position as persons deriving an income from land, the main difference in effect on themselves being that they do not, like landowners, share the benefit of increasing incomes as a result of growing national wealth and prosperity. I should add that the figures on which the calculation for Schedule E is based have been taken from the Statistical Abstract, No. xviii., page 16.

I now come to the last class of taxes, taxes on occupation. I may be permitted to cite the opinion of Mr. Wells, the eminent American financier, who states in his Report on Taxation in the State of New York, that rental is by far the surest indication of the wealth of individuals, and of their relative

ability to pay taxes. There is much difficulty in getting at reliable figures whereon to base an estimate for this tax. I have calculated £145,536,081 to be the gross rental of the United Kingdom, by taking first the gross estimated rental