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of 1.62 per cent. in the one case, and 1.14 per cent. in the other.

The aggregate real and personal estate of the United Kingdom is more difficult to ascertain. Still it may be arrived at approximatively in various modes. Mr. Porter's plan, as we have seen, gives it at 5,975,000,000l. Again, the amount charged under Schedule A., which embraces at least all the real property of the kingdom, was, in 1858, 128,000,000l.:- This, at 22 years' purchase (and as so much of it consists of houses, railways, mines, &c., we have no right to take a higher valuation) would give 2,816,000,000l. as the aggregate amount. The probate duty in the same year yielded 1,338,000l.; and, as this duty averages as nearly as possible 2 per cent., we arrive at 67,000,000l. as the total personal property charged in that year. But, as the annual deaths among the legacy-leaving classes do not exceed 1 in 50*, we must multiply 67,000,000l. by 50, to reach the aggregate, which is, therefore, 3,350,000,0007., - to which we may add 50,000,000l. for those small amounts (under 201.) which are exempt from Probate duty-making a total of 3,400,000,000l. The case would then stand thus:

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But a considerable amount of property, leaseholds and shares for example, is assessed as realty, under Schedule A., and also pays as personalty to the probate duty. Probably — it is of course only a conjectural estimate we ought to strike off 400,000,000l. on this account, which would leave the total for the kingdom, 5,816,000,0007.

Or we may take the Poor Rate assessments as our data for ascertaining real property. Calculating from the latest official returns, the valuation, under this assessment, will be 76,200,000l. for England and Wales; 12,100,000l., for Ireland; and about 12,200,000l., for Scotland; or a total of 100,500,000. This assessment is, however, taken considerably below the actual annual rental; and we may therefore safely multiply by 28 years' purchase, thus reaching a total for realty of 2,814,000,0007.

The entire deaths in England averaged, in the ten years last given, 1847-1856, 2.276 per cent., or one in 44; in 1850, it was reduced to 2:05 per cent., or one in 49. But the deaths among the richer, or legacy-leaving classes, if taken by themselves, will show a decidedly smaller percentage.

This sum, added to the corrected total (as above) of personalty, would yield an aggregate of 5,814,000,000l.

Or, finally, we may take the legacy and succession tax as our data. This tax embraces all property, real as well as personal. The authorities charged with the special duty of supervising the levy of this tax, consider that it strikes 100,000,000l. of property annually, which, as not more than 1 in 50 of the legacyleaving classes die annually, indicates a total of 5,000,000,000% This would probably be the best test of all, but for the fact that all legacies left to widows are exempted. What their aggregate amount may be, it is impossible to say, but it must obviously be very large-probably not less than 10,000,000l. annually. This would raise the gross total of property to 5,500,000,000

Now, the average of these four estimates is 5,776,000,0001; and this we will take as our basis for comparison. On this sum, our annual total levy of 81,305,000l. is 14 per cent., and our annual net expenditure (imperial and local) of 51,428,000l. is 0.89 per cent.

To sum up, then, the comparison of fiscal pressure in the two countries will stand thus:

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Per head, then, we are decidedly more heavily taxed than the Americans in relation to our means of payment, decidedly more lightly. Yet the revenue levied by taxation in the United States is aided and diminished to an extent varying from one million to five millions sterling per annum by the produce of the land sales a resource of which we are destitute; and, in comparison with Great Britain, it may be said that they have no debt, no paupers, no army, and no navy, to provide for.

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III. The indictment brought against our existing system of taxation, when analysed, will be found to resolve itself into three several counts; which, like the two popular fallacies we have already examined, will be found to contain a few grains of truth amid many bushels of error. Some of the allegations must be admitted, though with much reserve and with large deductions; but the doctrinal conclusions built upon them can only be regarded as the produce partly of vast exaggerations, and partly of the omission of considerations most essential to the question. Indirect taxation-taxation levied on articles of consumption— as compared with direct (it is alleged) is very costly in the

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collection; is extravagant and impolitic, because it takes much more out of the pockets of the tax-payer than it pays into the Exchequer; interferes with the springs of industry and the expansion of commerce; and presses preponderatingly, and therefore unjustly, on the poorer classes. Now, all this might be true of taxes on consumption: much of it was true years ago; but it is not true of our revenue as at present collected except to a very trifling extent, and, with a few feasible alterations, will cease to be true at all. And whatever impolicy and want of parsimony must be conceded as apparent, admits of a simple and triumphant defence.

1. We will speak first of the cost of collection. As obtained from official returns, the cost of levying the direct and indirect taxes appears to be as follows, in this and other countries :

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But several changes have been introduced at different dates into the mode of keeping the accounts, or rather in the items charged to the

Customs' duties 64,000,000 dollars, cost of collection 4,986,000 dollars; of which 1,824,000 dollars was for custom-house building and repairing.

This difference between the two years arises from the fact that in 1858 the income tax yielded 11,767,000l., and in 1859 only 6,812,000l.

The following table shows the cost of collection in the three principal branches of the revenue for some years past. The percentage is calculated on the gross revenue:

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cost of collection in the case of the Customs, which render the comparison for this branch scarcely a fair one.

These are the apparent facts, as far as official documents show them; and they are satisfactory as proving, first, that we collect our revenue much more economically than the two rival countries, and secondly, that we collect it more cheaply than we used to do. But as far as regards the cost of collection of Customs' duties in the United Kingdom, the above figures cannot be accepted without large modifications and deductions. And as the question we are discussing lies between the relative economical merits of direct and indirect taxation, we must beg the close attention of our readers while we proceed to show, by an analysis of official returns and carefully procured information, what the actual cost of levying the Customs' revenue really is, when fairly stated, and what it might be reduced to by a few simple alterations. We believe we shall be able to satisfy them that the Customs' revenue of this country (whatever may be said of the Excise, as to which we speak less confidently), is or may be collected at a cheaper rate per cent. than the same twenty-three millions could be obtained by any other equitable or endurable process of direct taxation.

In 1858 the gross revenue derived from Customs' duties reached 23,603,700l., and the charges of collection were 843,7574 But to this latter sum two additions must in fairness be made. The first of these is the amount of contributions annually deducted from the salaries of the officers, towards the fund for providing them with retiring allowances when superannuated. The sum of these abatements in 1857, the last year for which they were levied, was 18,1907. The second addition is the cost of the Preventive Service, or Coast Guard. This branch of the service always a sort of anomalous one, having duplicate functions was, in 1856, transferred from the Customs to the Admiralty, and now appears in the estimates of the latter department. The Coast Guard was created and kept up ostensibly and principally for the prevention of smuggling, and the protection of the revenue, but also in great measure as a nursery for seamen, who, in case of need, might be drafted off thence into the royal navy. This latter object has now been made the chief one; the Coast Guard having been, by a vote of Parliament, nominally doubled in numbers, and placed under the control of the Admiralty. It never was satisfactory as a protection to the revenue, either as regards efficiency or economy; and had revenue considerations alone been involved, or had the sort of Preventive Service desirable been left to the decision of the Customs' authorities, it is certain that a very different sys

tem would have been adopted. In all probability arrangements would, in that case, have been made with the constabulary force of the maritime counties, which, aided by a few small and lightarmed steam cruisers, under the sole control of Customs' officers, would have formed a more efficient protection than the Coast Guard ever was,-while costing far less. It is believed by those best qualified to form an opinion, that this system might be carried out at a maximum expense of 150,000l. per annum, while the Coast Guard costs three times that sum.* It is the smaller sum only, therefore, that can equitably be added to the charges for collecting the Customs. The account will then

stand thus:

Charges of collection as per official report
Superannuation abatements on superannuation account
Estimate for preventive service

£843,757 18,190

150,000

£1,011,947

This, on a revenue of 23,603,7007., is 4.28, or 41. 6s. per cent. But 1,011,947., though the fairly computed expense of the Customs' department, is by no means the sum fairly chargeable as the cost of collecting the Customs' revenue. Before arriving at the latter sum, we have three several deductions to make from the former.

(1.) In the first place, we must strike off the expenses involved in the discharge of those various functions now assigned, for convenience' sake, to the officers of Customs, which yet are in no way necessarily connected with or belonging to the collection of the revenue. These extraneous and miscellaneous functions, connected with statistics, light-dues, and the working of the Merchant Shipping Act, are numerous, important, and costly; and involve an annual expense of 77,2007. This sum, deducted from 1,011,9477., will leave 934,7477. as the net cost of collecting 23,603,7707., or rather less than four per cent.

(2.) In the second place, we must make abstraction of the whole cost of the bonding or warehousing department. This does not belong, by any natural connection, to the duty, pure and simple, of collecting the revenue. It adds enormously to the expense and trouble of the Customs' officers, without adding one farthing, unless in the most remote and indirect manner, to the amount of revenue received. It grew up originally out of

In 1856 the Coast Guard cost in salaries and expenses 368,000l., and in pensions and retired allowances 62,000l., making a total of 428,000l.

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