thing; these are not matters of pith and moment-they are too childish, we would hope, either to mislead the beholder, or corrupt the pos sessor. It is not civil distinctions, but the nuisance of civil usurpations the just and enlightened wish to see abated. An aristocracy of office, of acquirement, and desert, is a natural aristocracy; but an aristocracy of birth is a feudal barbarism which honours the shadow in place of the substance, and dissevers merit from its just reward. Hereditary right to property we can comprehend, but hereditary right to be legislators, bishops, post-captains, military commanders, and secretaries of state, shocks common sense. One is a private immunity, transmissible from father to son; the other are public functions, which can never be alienated to any order of men; they belong to the living, and cannot be bequeathed and regulated by the dead; they are adjuncts to the present not to a past generation. The claims of property are so self-evident, and have formed, in all ages and in all places, (Sparta alone perhaps excepted,) so inseparable an adjunct to the social state, that one would have thought their utility would never have been called in question. Yet it is a fact-and it has not escaped the observant attention of the Editor of the Morning Chronicle- that there are many in both France and England who dispute the advantages of so old fashioned an institution. The followers of ST. SIMON and Mr. OWEN are deeply impressed with the evils resulting from the individual or competitive system, and to escape them would fly to remedies by which they would be augmented a hundred fold. Crime, penury, and ignorance exist to a frightful extent; they have always existed - but evils which are now partial would, under the proposed "New State of Society," become universal. Without the stimulus of property there could be no industry-no eminence moral or intellectual. Who would sedulously devote themselves to the useful arts, to agriculture, manufacture, medicine, or navigation, if superior application, superior enterprize, or superior endowments were not rewarded? For competition Mr. Owen would substitute co-operation. But do not the several classes of society already co-operate to the common advantage of all? One class is occupied in rural industry, another in manufactures and commerce, another in science and letters. Each is rewarded-not always perhaps, but mostly-in proportion to desert: but the claims of merit would not be recognized under Mr. Owen's system; the indolent would reap the rewards of the industrious, the vicious of the more deserving. This is not co-operation, it is corporation, the principle of the old monastic institutions and commercial monopolies-associations of whose stagnating, debasing, and injurious tendency the world has already had sufficient experience. We always respect the motives of men whom we see constantly devoting their means and energies to the good of mankind, and should, therefore, regret to utter any thing harshly of Robert Owen. There is at all events no imposture about him: his propositions are brought openly forward, and he challenges inquiry and discussion: submitted to such a test, good may result from them, but they cannot possibly be productive of lasting evil. There is one suggestion we cannot help offering to this gentleman,-namely, that if he were to aim at less, he would accomplish more. The idea of abrogating the empire of the laws, of abolishing the right of property, and of resolving old communities into little bartering co-operative societies, are projects too wild and puerile to be thought of a moment. But, if in lieu of these, Mr. Owen would endeavour to improve the system of education throughout the country by impressing on parents and teachers, more strongly than it now is, the vast influence of external circumstances in the formation of the juvenile character, some good might result from his zealous exertions. We have thought it advisable to preface this section, by glancing at some of the novel opinions abroad on a delicate subject, lest our present purpose might be misconstrued. Our intention is to say something of the possessions of the Aristocracy, and we were apprehensive lest it might be imagined we meditated spoliation, or beheld, with jealous eye, the magnitude of their acres and rental. All such constructions we disclaim. It is nothing to us, nor is it much to the public, that the marquis of Stafford has £360,000 per annum; the duke of Northumberland, £300,000; the duke of Buccleugh, £250,000; and that there are other dukes and marquesses with nearly as much. Such magnificent revenues are not enjoyed by noblemen alone. There are lords of the loom in Lancashire and Yorkshire who have accumulated incomes nearly as great, and, perhaps, not more humanely nor honourably. But, if such masses of wealth be evils, they are evils which would remedy themselves, were they not fostered and upheld by vicious legislation. Abolish the laws which consecrate these vast accumulations and minister to family pride and personal caprice, and the mere diversities in the characters of succeeding possessors would soon disintegrate the great properties. It is neither the mansions nor parks of the peerage that excite popular cupidity; it is the hereditary monopoly-not by constitutional right, but usurpation-of the political franchises of the people which begets hostile feelings; because it enables the privileged legislators to tax others and not themselves-to engross all public honours, offices, and emoluments-in a word, to make all the great social interests of a vast community, of which, in number, intellect, and even wealth, they constitute a most insignificant portion, subservient solely to the purposes of their own vanity, folly, indulgence, and aggrandizement. Here is the national grievance; and let us inquire whether, from the adventitious circumstance of property, they have any claim to inflict this great wrong on society. The most authentic data for ascertaining the distribution of the property and revenue of the different classes of society are the returns under the property-tax. But it is to be observed that these returns only include the annual value of property liable to the tax, and, consequently, do not exhibit the annual value of the smaller incomes, nor the amount T of that great mass of revenue accruing from the wages of labour. Bearing this in mind, we shall submit a statement of the annual income arising from property, professions, public annuities, profits in trade, pensions, and offices: and the amount of the gross assessments on the several descriptions of revenue arising from the different sources of income. The return is for the year ending April 5th, 1815-the last of the income-tax-and is abstracted from the Parliamentary Paper, No. 59, Session 1823. We have omitted shillings and pence, which make some trifling inaccuracies in the totals, and, to render the statement more intelligible, have added the titles of the schedules and rate of assessment from the 48 Geo. III. c. 65. The rise in the value of the currency has probably depressed the nominal amount of incomes below the contemporary increase in produce and industry; but, as this change affected all classes alike, with the exception of annuitants and those enjoying fixed money payments, it has not materially altered the relative proportions of revenue, as exhibited by the returns of 1815, possessed by the different divisions of the community. Here follows the statement: The most important item for our purpose is the property charged in schedule A. consisting of lands and tenements which were assessed on the rack rents, and profits from mines and quarries. Under this head the assessment charged on land, houses, mines, &c. appears, from the parliamentary return, to which reference has been made, to have been as follows: Lands chargeable under the general rule £ .39,405,705 .16,250,399 4,473,224 £60,138,330 Particular properties chargeable on the annual profits, viz. tithes, manors, fines, quarries, mines, iron works, and non-enumerated profits.... From this it appears that the entire rental returned in the last year of the property-tax was £39,405,705, and which has been reduced since the peace, in the opinion of Mr. Lowe, to twenty-five millions. Now the question is, what portion of this rental is received by the four hundred and eighteen members of the House of Peers. The Scotch and Irish peers, to the number of one hundred and eighty, who only sit in the Upper House, by their representatives, we exclude from consideration; the object being to get at the incomes of those who exercise the political power of the empire. For this purpose it will be necessary to analyze the component parts of the landed interests, and separate the peers from those who share with them the territorial revenues of the kingdom. The number of baronets is 658, and many of them enjoy landed incomes as great or greater than lords. Then there is the squirearchy, more numerous than Pharoah's host, who draw freely from the surplus produce of the soil. To these must be added the great loan-contractors, merchants, manufacturers, and others, appertaining to the monied, mercantile, and trading classes, many of whom possess extensive estates, and who rival, and, in part, have superseded the ancient nobility. Dr. Colquhoun supposed the gentry, and the classes we have enumerated, as enjoying large incomes, to amount to 46,861, and their incomes, from land and other sources, to amount to £53,022,110. Besides which, allowance must be made for the estates of the younger children of noble families, and for lands appertaining to lay and ecclesiastical corporations, and to charitable foundations. From all these considerations we should conclude that the rental of peers, sitting in parliament, does not exceed three millions per annum. Some of the members of the Upper House, we are aware, enjoy vast revenues, but the average income of each, from the soil, does not exceed £7,177. Mr. Hallam says the richest of the English aristocracy derive their possessions from the spoils of the Reformation. He ought, also, to have added the spoils of the crown-lands, for they have helped themselves freely to the possessions of both church and king, as well as the people. The Bentinck, the Pelham, and other families inherit vast properties from leases and alienations of the royal domains. The houses of Cavendish and Russell, it is well known, made their acquisitions at the Reformation. The foundation of the Fitzwilliam estates was advantageous purchases at the same era. The Lonsdales have dug out their wealth from coal mines. The Buccleugh property has been an accumulation from heiresses, including here in England the possessions of the duke of Montague. The Gower estates have, also, mainly come by marriages; but the grand augmentation was by the canal-property of the late duke of Bridgewater, to which are now to be added the Sutherland estates of the present marchioness-a principality in themselves. The Grosvenor riches came mainly from an heiress, who brought, in marriage, the London building land about two generations back. The Northumberland estates are, principally, the old feudal inheritance of the Percys. In the whole peerage there are only eighteen commer cial families, and these form the only houses which can be said to have acquired their wealth by habits of peaceful and honest industry. Granting, then, that by means of marriages, and other favourable circumstances, some few of the nobility have accumulated vast revenues, still there are others whose poverty is notorious, and, altogether, they do not enjoy a landed revenue exceeding three millions per annum. What right, then, it may be inquired, have an Oligarchy of 418 persons, possessing so small a share in the general wealth of the community, to monopolize political power. Three millions per annum is not onehundredth part of the annual revenue of the kingdom.* Yet, to a body of men, having so diminutive a stake in the gereral weal, are confided the destinies of the empire. The revenues derived by the peerage from the taxes and church revenues have been estimated to amount to £2,825,846 per annum, being nearly equal to their territorial revenue. This vast addition to their legitimate income they have been able to acquire from having usurped the franchises of the people. Whether the sum they draw from the church estates and the public is more or less, it is not our present purpose to investigate. Our object has been to demonstrate that the wealth of the peerage, of which they can justly claim the possession, is insignificant, when compared with the entire wealth of the country; and that the aristocracy, by direct or indirect means, exercising the political power of the state, the government, as at present constituted, neither represents the number, intellect, nor property of the community. The two former propositions have been often demonstrated, but the latter was a desideratum in general information. There is another mode of viewing the distribution of the revenues of society, which it will, perhaps, not be unpleasing to our readers, if we submit to their consideration. The whole social fabric rests upon the industrious orders, and, we believe, they are only imperfectly acquainted with the magnitude of their power and resources. The late Dr. COLQUHOUN, who was a bold, but, as experience has proved, a very shrewd calculator, formed an estimate of the number and income of the different classes into which the community is divided. From the data exhibited by this gentleman, in his "Treatise on the Resources of the British Empire," we have drawn up a statement which will afford a curious insight into the subject about which we are occupied. It is hardly necessary to remark that the Doctor's conjecture of the incomes of the clergy is greatly below the truth. Indeed, it is to be observed that all statistical tables, drawn up prior to the restoration of a metallic currency, are chiefly useful in showing proportions, and do not express the present numerical value of either income or property. Lowe's Present State of England, App. p. 65. |