1031.] England at the Close of 1831. 591 - 



that we might reduce taxation, by destroying our national Establish- 

 ments. But would the remedy be better than the disease ? and would 

 the remedy take away the disease, without inflicting another on us a 

 thousand times more formidable .'' It is incontestable, that if we were 

 to cut off the pension list and the sinecures to-morrow, to the last six- 

 pence, the whole relief would not amount to a farthing a piece in the 

 population of the empire. But let them be cut away, say we, and let 

 every thing not absolutely vital to the country be abolished. This we 

 say as sincerely as the most violent of reformers. Yet the relief would 

 be totally unfelt. 'Tis true we might save eight millions by extinguish-' 

 ing the British Army ; and leaving our properties open to the hand of 

 rioters, our colonies open to insurrection, and our country open to inva- 

 sion. We might save eight millions more, by burning the British Navy, 

 and thus extinguishing the influence of England abroad, and her safety 

 on her own shore, exposing our commerce to every depredator, and 

 abandoning the seas. We might save a million sterling by abolishing 

 the Civil List, leaving the Law Courts without Judges, and St. James's 

 without King or Councillor. Three millions more might be saved by 

 confiscating the whole property of the Church. And even thirty 

 millions might be kept in the public pocket by spunging out the Na^ 

 tional Debt, declaring England bankrupt, and besides driving into 

 instant and utter beggary a million and a half of people, widows, orphans, 

 old men, and infants. 



Then, when we were without government, religion, defence of home, 

 power abroad, commerce or credit, we should certainly have no taxes to 

 pay ; and it would be well for us that we had not, for we should have 

 no money to pay them with. The money which we might have laid 

 by since the times of taxation, for the emergencies of the times of no 

 taxation, would be at the mercy of the first banditti, mob, or miscreanc3% 

 which would think it worth its while to demand our last shilling ; and 

 England would thenceforth have all the security of the beggar, who has 

 nothing to lose; and all the happiness of the culprit, who laughs at the 

 rope because it can make him no worse off than he was. 



Yet, even if all the establishments of the state were abolished, the 

 grand question would be as far from being settled as ever. What is 

 to be done with the three millions of men, who must make cloth and 

 cotton-twist, or perish ; or take up arms, and tear their subsistence from 

 the other classes ? We defy political expediency to discover a cure for 

 their hunger. The utter upbreak of society would certainly not serve 

 their trade, for in such times all trade dies. The partial remission of 

 taxes would not secure their prosperity, for they have an antagonist in 

 the advancing industry of Europe, which disregards such remission as 

 ■we can make, and which, hour by hour, makes silent but fatal battle 

 against the English loom. 



Emigration has been proposed : but it is not the weaver, but the 

 farmer, and the mere handicraftsman, who emigrates. The farmer takes 

 liis knowledge and his spade with him. The blacksmith eml)arks his 

 liammcr. But how sliall the weaver convey with him those immense 

 machines, which are necessary to his produce on the only scale that can 

 now be effectual ; his hundred-horsc-power .steam-engine, or his long, 

 curious, and castle-estal^lishment of machines ; of which he liimself is 

 almost a subordinate ])art, and to wliich he is not more necessary than 

 they are to him > It is in the labour, the poverty, and the dubiousness of 

 maruifactiircs that we arc to look for tlu^ growing discontents of the 

 I)copk'. Tho-se dibcontents may have been luirricd on, or heightened 



