Amidst their thorny paths entwine a flower- Labour, and Liberty, and radiant Health, Near it shall raise his flow'rs, and nurse his field, The grateful rustic's hand and heart thy own.' Though this work is conceived with boldness, and executed in general with spirit, it contains too many flat, hobbling, and prosaic lines, terminated by bid rhimes. Mr. Pratt deals also too extensively in Alases! and often ekes out his verse with the article of the infinitive mode. He displays, however, some beautiful thoughts; e. g. The LITTLE CARES preserving their magic. power: 'Want digging his cavern in the poor man's eye;' and Health described as the Goddess of the golden mein;' are happy strokes of the poetic pencil. The Notes are added to justify the writer's representations: but we apprehend that the anecdotes of the farmers at Stratford on Avon will induce Mr. Pratt's readers to observe that, if occasionally he be prosaic in his poetry, he sometimes compensates by being poetical in his prose. An account of Mr. Pratt's last volumes of Gleanings was given in our 36th vol. p. 421. ART. ART. XV. The Income Tax scrutinized, and some Amendments pro posed to render it more agreeable to the British Constitution. By John Gray, LL.D. 8vo. 2s. Symonds. 1802. VARIOUS objections may be and have been alleged against the tax on income. Of all our imposts, indeed, it is the most irritating; and, in addition to its numerous disagreeable effects, it may be questioned whether it be established on a right principle. During the pressure of war, however, when the great majority of the people were convinced of the importance of sustaining the contest with firmness, this tax, under all its hardships, was paid without much murmuring: but it is not likely that it will be cheerfully sustained on the return of peace, unless it receives considerable modifications; and, indeed, it was originally imposed as a war-tax. Government, we understand at the moment of writing this, are disposed to re-consider the subject; and in the mean time the hints of wise and judicious men should be gratefully received. In this view, the reflections and suggestions of Dr. Gray, in the pamphlet before us, are intitled to no small share of consideration; since his general principles are not only excellent in themselves, but are calculated, to detect and place in a true light those false though splendid estimates of national wealth, with which the public have lately been amused. We agree with the Doctor in a leading position, that one of the great sources of the political, and it may be added of the moral evils, which have afflicted the world for more than one hundred is the miscalculation of statesmen, in years, regard to the comparative importance of the Income from Agriculture and the Income from Foreign Commerce. By preventing false reckonings on these subjects, and by discrimi nating between the true and factitious sources of national wealth, we are inclined to hope that some good might be effected. It is the object of Dr. Gray to ascertain what is properly National Income, and to expose those fallacies which great authorities have sanctioned. He denies that either the interest of Funds, or the profit of home trade, forms any part of this income: observing that the receipts of individuals, in their mutual dealings in society, are only portions of the original annual supply, and afford no gain to one individual without a proportionate loss to another; and as to the Funds, they no more enrich the community than private debts enrich the individual who owes them. The Territorial Income and the National Income are said to be nearly synonimous; and the Doctor pronounces it to be an impossibility to obtain any tax, in fact, except from this income. He estimates the National Income Income from land at 112,000,00cl.; and to this he adds the income from Mines, Irish and West India Absentees, and the profits from Foreign Trade, making in the whole 135,000,000l. Our attention, however, is chiefly directed to the income from land, as the basis of taxation; and he represents the landed proprietary as suffering both in their consequence and in their pockets, by endeavouring to relieve themselves from the contributions due to government. The result of this attempt is stated; and it is shewn that it is the advantage of the possessors of the National Income to pay their taxes directly rather than circuitously; that production, not consumption, is the natural source of public supply; and that, though an income tax properly laid may be the most beneficial of all taxes, it is requisite, in order to possess this character, that it should be drawn from the Real National Income. It is here proposed that The value of the rent of land. in all existing leases of whatever kind, should be registered in the County Towns of the Counties where the lands are situated, and that the rent specified in all new leases should be registered within a month after their date in those Towns, and be published three times in the newspapers of the County Town, or in the London Gazette, with penalties upon those who should omit to comply faithfully with such clauses, and rewards to those who should discover any fraud either in the Lessor or Lessee. The Capital of the National Income being thus ascertained, a Tax ad valorem on this Capital, at the discretion of Parliament, would, from year to year, connect the Public Supply with it in a just proportion. By this Constitutional Law, which might justly be stiled The Golden Rule of Finance, the Legislature would have a real Politicometer constantly and truly indicating the rise or the decline of the National Prosperity, sought for in vain from the amount of the Exports and Imports.' The following is Dr. Gray's mode of obviating an objection which may be made to his system, if the national resources be considered arithmetically rather than physically: You have, they say, estimated the National Income from Agriculture at 112 millions, of which one-fourth, or 28 millions, is paid to the Land-proprietors, and one-fifth of this fourth, which is one twentieth of the whole, or 5,600,000l. were to be always appropriated to the defence of the State, no other tax whatever would be necessary. But how is this possible, since even our Peace Establishment is computed to require triple this sum? Much more then would it be insufficient for the expences of a war. This appears a formidable objection; but when scrutinized, it will, I think, be found to have no solidity. That ten times as much money is now requisite for the support of government as was necessary an hundred ago, is not owing to government's being more wasteful or more powerful, but to the present absurd structure of taxation, with all its scaffolding, which is more expensive than the structure itself. This scaffolding of our present system of taxation has quite encum. bered the Nation with superfluous circulations, which, instead of contributing to the opulence either of the State or of individuals, have a tendency to undermine that of both. To descend to particulars in regard to these superfluous circulations would fill a folio volume; but from one or two instances, as from a sample of corn, one may form a judgment of the heap. A gentleman of 9000l. a year has á place under Government, I shall suppose of cool. a year, making his whole income 10,000l. out of which, in consequence of the Income Act, he pays 1000l. to the Exchequer. Here is an example of 2000 1. of useless circulations, 1000l. paid and 1000l. paid back, and both payer and receiver remain in the same situation as if no circulation at all had taken place. The annual sums paid to the public creditors amount to about twenty millions; but those sums arise from twenty millions of taxes, consequently here are 40 millions paid and received, which would have no existence were there no National Debt. But when it is considered that taxes on consumption have the effect of superadding to the price of the thing consumed twice or thrice, or four times as much as the taxes themselves had, these 40 millions of superfluous circulations, which the National Debt occasions, may well be presumed to add 80 millions more to the general mass of circulations. Were the Nation then to be without debt, these 120 millions of superfluous circulations would be annihilated; and the people in general might eat and drink, and be clothed and lodged, just as well as at present.' To abandon the true principle of taxation, in the science of politics, is said to be as foolish as it would be to reject the mariner's compass in the art of navigation: Dr. G. labours, therefore, to establish and to enforce the exercise of this principle. With the view of diminishing the pressure of taxation, he recommends,-territorial improvement, with direct and liberal aids from government, as this must make the territorial income more productive,-to extend our fisheries,—to render money less productive,-to alter wholly the system of artificial money, and to establish a rule for connecting the public supply, for ever, in a just proportion with the territorial or national income. -- Much good sense is evinced in this pamphlet: but, in matters of finance, this country has departed so far from the line of political prudence, and the error is now become so inveterate, that we can cherish little hope of seeing his plan of taxation adopted. Yet, in particular points, he may still be useful. MONTHLY MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For MARCH, 1802. RELIGIOUS. Art. 16. The Coming of the Messiah, the true Key to the Right understanding of the most difficult Passages of the New Testament, and particularly in the Evangelists; or a most interesting View of some important Internal Evidences of the Truth of Christianity; drawn from Historical Facts. In Answer to some Objections of the Historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and of the learned Dr. Thomas Edwards. By N. Nisbett, M. A. 8vo. pp. 330. 6s. Boards. Rivingtons, &c. 1800. THERE is no fault to which preachers and scriptural commentators are more prone, than that of forcing texts of Scripture beyond their natural meaning; and, with greater ingenuity than prudence, making the expressions of Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles, to denote much more than they ever intended them to convey. Thus the Scriptures have not only become a nose of wax, which various Divines have squeezed into different shapes, but Infidels, availing themselves of this practice among the ministers of the Christian Religion, have attacked the Gospel as inculcating doctrines which are indefensible. The inconveniencies attending the system of double, treble, and quadruple meanings, should instruct divines in the policy of abandoning it; and, instead of searching after latent doctrines and remote allusions, should induce them to be contented with the sense which obviously presents itself. Had this argument operated in Mr. Nisbett's mind, he would have been spared the trouble of composing the essay before us; the design of which is to shew that those expressions in the Gospels, which preachers and commentators in general consider as having at least a reference to the end of the world, and to the coming of Christ to Judgment, relate entirely to the destruction of Jerusalem, and to the Coming or Manifestation of the Messiah. Consistently with his hypothesis, Mr. N. endeavours to prove that the former part of the Sermon on the Mount alludes to the peculiar sentiments of the Jews respecting the Messiah; and to corroborate his opinion that the prophecies of Christ, which are usually interpreted to refer to the end of the worid, point only to the destruction of the Jewish polity and Mosaic economy, he reminds his readers of our Saviour's repeated declaration, that the existing generation was not to pass away before their fulfilment. He says that the end mentioned in Matth. xxiv. 6. Mark, xiii. 7. and Luke, xxi. 9. mean only the end of the Jewish government; and though Matthew says "the end of the world," the reader is reminded that, in the original, it is the end of the age; that is, of the period during which the Jewish Church and State were to last. By the adduction of parallel passages, Mr. Nisbett proves that the expressions-Coming of the Son of Man-the Day when the Son of Man shall be revealed-seeing one of the Days of the Son of Man and the Kingdom of Heaven,-are only different forms of expression; all signifying the Coming of the can Messiah. |