122 Europe at the Commencement of the Year 1831. [[FEB. 



revolutions. Even in England, a new and angry feeling had begun to 

 spread. The abettors of popular violence, excited by the success of the 

 French and Belgian insurrections, became more daring, A blind and 

 fierce system of outrage was put in practice; and the breaking of 

 machines, and the burning of farm-yards, menaced the destruction of 

 agriculture. 



A new year is before us ; and it may exceed human sagacity to anti- 

 cipate the nature of the changes which shall occur before its close. But 

 some extraordinary changes in the condition of the continental govern- 

 ments must be apprehended. In England strong in her constitution, 

 in her position, in the power of her middle class, and the consciousness 

 of all wise and honourable men, that the principles of the monarchy can- 

 not be changed for the better we have no reason to fear revolution. But 

 it is possible that a multitude of the abuses, which time or corruption 

 has drawn round the government, will be tolerated no longer. 



The first object which stings the public feeling is, of course, the 

 Public Expenditure. England is taxed to ten times the amount of any 

 other European State. It has been computed that, in one shape or other, 

 every article which belongs to the support, the civilization, or the 

 enjoyment of life, contributes three-fourths of its value to the State ; that, 

 in fact, every tax-paying individual in England pays 75. out of every 

 100. of his income ! The question is loudly asked why, with the pro- 

 ductive soil, the temperate climate, and the singularly advantageous 

 geographical position of England, are the means of life more difficult to 

 be provided here than in any other country of Europe ? why the same 

 quantity of bread which costs one penny in France but fifteen miles from 

 England should in England cost three ? why all the other necessaries 

 of life are in the same proportion? why the labourer on the Continent 

 lives in comfort and plenty, while the English labourer lives in penury, 

 and is driven to poaching, smuggling, and the parish ? why the incomes 

 of the great landholders, the church, and the farmers, are all sinking, 

 and yet no other class is the richer ? 



The general answer assigned to those queries is the inordinate taxation 

 which goes to support the inordinate expenditure of Government. - The 

 public investigation is now turned keenly on the ways in which the 

 national property is expended ; and the strongest anxiety is already 

 directed to the measures to which Parliament is pledged on the subject 

 of retrenchment. A topic of peculiar offence is the Pension-List. The 

 crowd of names which that document exhibits as sharing the public 

 money, has been already severely investigated, and will be brought into 

 inquiry with still more unsparing determination. The popular writers 

 demand, by what service to the State, or personal virtue, or meritorious 

 claim of any kind on the public, have three-fourths of those pensioners 

 been fixed upon the national purse? They state that, in a crowd of 

 instances, the only grounds which they can even conjecture are of a 

 kind which it is not consistent with decorum to name. In other instances, 

 they find the families of men who had long enjoyed highly lucrative 

 employments, and who, though with the most obvious means of pro- 

 viding for the decent subsistence of their families, preferred leading a 

 life of show and extravagance, living up to the last shilling of their 

 income, and then fastening their wives and children upon the State. 

 Others, who, having not even the claim of such service, contrived, 

 merely by some private interest, to secure this provision, and thus sup- 

 port individuals in rank and luxury, whose natural place, whatever their 



