AN ACCOUNT of the several Sums of Money received by the PURSEBEARER to the Lord Chancellor, during Three Years, commencing May 1st, 1827; distinguishing the Amount received from Public Seals and from Private Seals.

In the third column are included the receipt and docquet fees, which are paid whether the instrument is sealed at public or private seal.

There were sealed, at private seal, from 1st May, 1827, to 30th April, 1828, 3704 writs, at 3s. 3d. amounting to £601:18; from 1st May, 1828, to 30th April, 1829, 4937 writs, at 3s. 3d. amounting to £802: 5:3: and, from 1st May, 1829, to 30th April, 1830, 4861 writs, at 3s. 3d. amounting to £789:18:3. This sum of 3s. 3d. is thus appropriated:-the Lord Chancellor, 28.; sixpenny-writ duty, 6d.; chaff-wax, 3d.; sealer, 3d.; porter, 3d.

MASTERS IN CHANCERY.

AN ACCOUNT of the Sums of Money received by Master STRATFORD and his Clerks, from his Office, in One Year, ending in 1830.Parl. Paper, No. 361, Session 1830.

The Master:

For copies of papers and other proceedings, including parti

£ £

culars

2071

.......

Warrants

676

Swearing affidavits, answers, and examinations..

48

Reports and certificates upon orders made upon petitions or motions

200

The master's salary, received quarterly from the Exchequer, is £87:6 per annum; and for robe-money, from the Hanaper-office, £6:8:10 per annum. The master's salary, received from the suitors' fund, in thn AccountantGeneral's Office, half-yearly, is £600 per annum.

The clerks have no salaries; they are remunerated solely by fees, partly belonging officially to the chief clerk, and partly by a participation of the master's fees, regulated by usage or particular agreement between him and his clerks; and varying in different offices.

Returns were made, to the House of Commons, of the emoluments of the other Masters in Chancery; but, as the sources whence they arise and their amount are similar to Master Stratford's, we omit them, to save room.

AN ACCOUNT of the Sums paid in the Year 1829, and the Total Sums paid from 1826, for COMPENSATIONS for Loss of FEES, under Authority of 6 Geo. IV. c. 96, intituled, "An Act for preventing frivolous Writs of Error."

The Hon. Thomas Kenyon, filacer, exigenter,
and clerk of the outlawries in the Court of
King's Bench

Henry Edgell, Esq. clerk of the errors in the
Exchequer Chamber

"Cursitors for London and Middlesex:

Robert Talbot, Esq.

Hon. William Henry John Scott

William Villiers Surtees, Esq..

Richard Wilson, Esq.

Ushers of the Court of Exchequer :

Richard Grey.

1829.
£ 8. d.

Total, from
1826.
£ 8. d.

John Morris

William Broadhurst

Filacer, exigenter, and clerk of the outlawries in the Court of King's Bench, appointed by the Lord Chief Justice.

Clerk of the errors in the Exchequer Chamber, appointed by the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.

Cursitors for London and Middlesex, appointed by the Lord Chancellor. Ushers of the Court of Exchequer, appointed by the Chief Usher, who holds his office in fee, under grant from the Crown, temp. Henry II.

Clerk of the Pleas of the Court of Exchequer, appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

Number of Persons committed for Debt to the several Prisons of the Metropolis in the Year 1827, and the Sums for which they were committed.-Parl. Paper, No. 76, Session 1828.

We should like to be informed what course the cursitors intend to pursue, in consequence of the alterations made by the act of last session, for the more effectual Administration of Justice in England and Wales. By that act, the cursitorial department of Wales is annexed to the four cursitors for London and Middlesex. But surely these gentlemen, who, for several years, have been receiving an annual compensation for the losses sustained by the Writ of Error Act, will make some return to the public from the additional gains accruing to them from the new arrangement.

PROGRESS

OF THE

PUBLIC DEBT AND TAXES.

THE annual income of a nation consists of the united produce of its agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. Taxes are a certain proportion of the annual income levied for the public service. In other words, they are a certain proportion of the income of the labourer, the farmer, the merchant, and manufacturer, abstracted for the use of the government. The portion of income the different classes can appropriate to this purpose, without creating national poverty and misery, is limited. If taxation be carried beyond this limit, the necessaries of life of the labouring classes will be abridged, the profits of trade and agriculture will be so far reduced, that capital will diminish, or cease to be employed, or transferred to countries where it will be more productive. England, in the privations of the people-the protracted stagnation of industry, only interrupted by transitory gleams of prosperity-the embarrassments of the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing classes the emigration of capital-and the inability of the farmer, unaided by the artificial high prices produced by corn-laws, to cultivate the soil-exhibits all the evils of a country suffering from the pressure of overwhelming taxation.

Some, indeed, contend that taxation has no share in producing these calamities. The fallacy of this will easily appear. Taxation being a certain portion of the income of every individual, the evils it produces will be obvious, by considering the different effects produced by this portion of the annual income remaining in the hands of individuals, and being paid to government. In the former case, the income of every individual would be increased, the labourer and artizan would have a greater command over the necessaries of life; the profits of the farmer, merchant, and manufacturer augmented; their capital increased, consequently commerce and the means of creating employment extended.

But this is not all; supposing public burthens reduced, there would be fewer placemen, pensioners, collectors of taxes, soldiers and sailors to be supported. These classes might be returned to the plough or the loom, and occupied in the pursuits of commerce and the cultivation of the earth. There would be no want of capital for these undertakings. The abolition of taxes would create capital. In short, the general effect of a reduction of taxes is this: the power of production and consumption, or, in other words, the quantity of employment and the means of subsistence are augmented.

It is a favourite dogma with some, especially those who live on the public, that taxes return to those from whom they are collected; which is about as good as the defence of a housebreaker, who, convicted of carrying off a merchant's property, should plead he did him no injury, for the money would be returned to him in purchasing the commodities he dealt in. But it may be asked of those who maintain this position, in what manner are the taxes returned? Certainly, taxes are paid in money; this money is again paid to the servants of government; these again pay it to the cultivator of the soil and manufacturer; and in this manner, it may be said, that taxes return to those from whom they were collected. But on this latter part of the operation it must be observed, that before either the cultivator or manufacturer can re-possess himself of his portion of the taxes, he must part with a certain quantity of his commodities in exchange; so that tax-paying revolves itself at last into the industrious giving a certain portion of their produce for the maintenance of government.

Here is the true source of the privations and embarrassments of the country. The portion of every man's produce levied for the support of government, of pensioners, placemen, sinecurists, and standing armies, has invaded the funds necessary to the comfortable subsistence of the labourer, and for carrying on the trade, commerce, and agriculture of the kingdom.

Having alluded to the general principle of taxation, let us consider those measures by which the present enormous load of debt and taxes has been incurred. The principles on which government has been conducted have not varied since the Revolution of 1688 to the present time. The wars waged have generally commenced for trivial and unattainable objects, and these objects have generally not been obtained; under pretence of guarding against distant and improbable danger, the country has been involved in present and imminent ones; passion and pride, rather than any views of national advantage, have been the actuating principles of government; and as they engaged in war rashly, they persevered in it obstinately, and rejected more favourable terms of pacification than they were afterwards under the necessity of accepting. short, our wars have been wars of ambition, of pride, folly, and despotism, originating in, and carried on by, the corrupt state of the representation. Let us endeavour to give some idea of the cost of these parliamentary wars from the Revolution, as evinced by the increase of taxation and the Borough Debt.

In

WILLIAM THE THIRD'S REIGN, FROM 1688 TO 1702.*

The public income at the Revolution amounted to £2,001,855. At the death of William it had increased to £3,895,205, being nearly doubled. This augmentation arose from various new duties; especially the excise on salt, the distillery, and the malt-tax. The other sources of revenue were the customs, land-tax, poll-taxes, a tax on births, marriages, and burials, hearth-money, the post-office, and other smaller duties. The total sums raised by taxes and by loans, during this reign, were as follow:

Of the fourteen years of this reign, nearly ten were years of war, The military and naval expenses amounted to £44,847,382, being more than one-half the whole expenditure of government. After all the blood and treasure expended by William, his ambition and revenge remained unsatisfied; and the ostensible object of the war, the curbing the ambition of Louis XIV. unattained. Speaking of the conclusion of this contest at the treaty of Ryswick, Smollett observes,-" Such was the issue of a long and bloody war, which had drained England of her wealth and people, almost entirely ruined her commerce, debauched her morals, by encouraging venality and corruption, and entailed upon her the curse of foreign connexions, as well as a national debt, which was gradually increased to an intolerable burthen.”—Continuation of Hume, vol. i. p. 330.

The funding system, and the mode of raising money by lotteries and exchequer-bills, commenced in this reign.

QUEEN ANN'S REIGN, FROM 1701 to 1714.

The revenue, at the commencement of this reign, amounted to £3,195,205. At the period of the union with Scotland, in 1709, the revenue of England amounted to £5,691,803. The sums received into the Exchequer, during twelve years and three-quarters, were—

The amount of revenue, and the estimate of the naval and military expenses, from the Revolution to the end of the reign of George II. are taken from Dr. Colquhoun's Treatise on the Resources of the British Empire.