72 Financial Reform. 



base tenure much lower. The same system prevailed in France and 

 Switzerland j for in the canton of Berne, the fine upon alienation of lands 

 amounted to one-sixth upon lands held by noble tenure, and one-tenth 

 only upon such as were held by base tenure. In England, the ancient 

 poll-tax was always graduated by the degrees of rank, down to the reign 

 of William the Third ; since which period the boroughmongering aristocracy 

 have reversed all equitable government ; and the people have been, in the 

 language of Montesquieu, brayed in a mortar. Every principle of justice, 

 restitution, and ancient precedent, therefore, requires that a property-tax 

 should now be assessed by the gradations of title : and we therefore pro- 

 pose to rate the lands of a Duke at ten shillings per acre, the lands of a 

 Marquis at nine shillings per acre, those of other peers of the realm at 

 eight shillings j Baronets, and Irish and Scotch peers, not having seats in 

 the House of Lords, at seven shillings, and all the remaining landed pro- 

 perty of the kingdom at six shillings per acre. If it be thought by the 

 Nobility that this scale of taxation exceeds their interest and superior pri- 

 vileges in the State, it may be enacted that such titled persons be permitted, 

 by laying down their hereditary titles, to sink into the mass of the people, 

 and thus become liable only to taxation upon terms of equality with the 

 Commoners of the kingdom. Nor would the burthens of the Aristocracy, 

 upon the adoption of this method of taxation, be in reality much increased; 

 for the reduced rate of all the commodities of life, upon the termination 

 of the excise, customs, and miscellaneous taxes, would outweigh, in the 

 establishments of the wealthy, the difference of increased taxation on 

 land. This change would also operate most beneficially in increasing 

 the veneration of the people for the superior orders in" this country ; 

 whereas it is probable that, without such a change, the opinion of the 

 public will soon disagree with all hereditary rank and privilege whatever j 

 it being certain, that without a counterbalance to the accumulative ten- 

 dency of our aristocratical institutions there can be no comfort, no real 

 liberty, for the mass of the people. 



BREVITIES. 



A man of genius, by too much dividing his attention, becomes diamond-dust 

 instead of remaining a diamond. 



As the prickliest leaves are the driest, so the pertest fellows are generally the most 

 barren. 



Verse is to poetry, what music is to dancing. 



Governments are generally about twenty years behind the intellect of their time. 

 In legislation, they are like parents quarrelling what kind of frock the boy shall 

 wear, who, in the meantime, grows up to manhood, and won't wear any frock at all. 



There is one special reason why we should endeavour to make children as happy 

 as possible, which is, that their early youth forms a pleasant or unpleasant back- 

 ground to all their after-life, and is consequentl) of more importance to them than 

 any other equal portion of time. 



To say that principles of exclusion, applied to particular classes, are a necessary 

 part of a free constitution, at all times and under all circumstances, is equivalent to 

 maintaining that the bandage which supports a man's wounded arm is apart of his 

 nature. The bandage may have been wisely applied originally, but it is always a 

 fair question whether it may not be safely removed ; and the removal is not giving 

 the arm a privilege, but restoring one. 



