COMMUTATION OF TAXES. 



be preserved without alteration and amendment. But it would appear 

 from the arguments of many politicians of the present day that all 

 change should be avoided, and that the country has arrived at a point 

 of perfection which neither wisdom nor foresight could improve that 

 the interests of various classes of men are so nicely balanced as to 

 leave no preponderating weight on either side, so that although the 

 scale may be apparently uneven, yet if any benefit were thrown on 

 the lighter side it would prove an absolute burthen intolerable alike 

 to those who would receive it, as it would to those whose interests 

 would be counterbalanced by the operation of a heavier power being 

 given to their opposing weight. 



These preliminary remarks are perhaps necessary to support the 

 question that we propose to discuss, a question which in our view has 

 approached not without introduction, but which has arisen and ad- 

 vanced into importance from the operation of those events which 

 brought it into action. We have endeavoured to show that an extended 

 circle of society requires to be governed by more general laws than 

 those which would serve for the mutual security of a smaller tribe ; 

 and by the same rule it becomes necessary, that the burthen of sup- 

 porting those laws, or in other words the expense of maintaining them 

 must be so generalized as to bear with a due proportion of convenience, 

 according to their means, on all parties who prosper under national 

 order and public security. 



England may be considered to have just emerged from one of those 

 changes which, as we before stated, were necessary in the govern- 

 ment of kingdoms she has made a provision for extending political 

 power amongst the various classes, which under national prosperity 

 have increased to a surprising extent ; and, having as it were settled 

 her account of justice, and established a citizenship between the off- 

 spring of the past and present generations, it seems but a reasonable 

 calculation to believe that her next duty would be to adjust the bur- 

 thens, as she has remedied the defects in the political power, of her 

 sons. But from whose hands are we to expect this work ? and by 

 whom will the great adjunct to the Reform Bill be prepared ? Not 

 we fear by the present governors, for it is but too apparent that they 

 have taken up the absurd opinion that further change should be 

 avoided, and that improvement or alteration in our financial arrange- 

 ments must remain untouched and uninterrupted. 



It is our desire, having first shown the necessity of coupling an 

 extension of political power with financial relief, to point out the 

 injustice of granting the one, and witholding the other the impos- 

 sibility of maintaining the two measures in adverse position, and of 

 devising means by which both arrangements may be rendered con- 

 venient, safe, and complete. In the first place, if we attempt to raise 

 the moral condition of society, it must be accomplished by means of 

 education, and by extending the bounds of political power amongst 

 the people, and then we shall as surely find that when the first adop- 

 tion begins to operate on the public mind, the second cannot be with- 

 held ; and having placed the people in such a condition as to render 

 them sensible of the inconvenience of the national burthens, it will 

 soon be found necessary, by compulsion, that they should only bear 



