The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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THE RELATIVE DEPRESSION OF THE LANDED INTEREST 841 in the sole interest of a special class. Who were the land- 4-0-1776 lords, and what had they done, that they should be thus favoured ? And when the question was put in this way, it en they . enefiteq a was obvious that there could be but one answer. An arrange- particular ment, which pressed heavily upon the community, must be “** allowed to drop; even though it did enable the class on whom a large share of national, and the chief burden of local taxation ultimately fell, to meet the demands of the State. It was as a class question that the matter was discussed, and decided ; and the sense of bitterness it roused was not allayed when the repeal was effected. Some of the legislation of the latter half of the nineteenth century seems to have been affected by an unworthy desire to retaliate on the landed proprietors for the special indulgence they had secured for a generation? The case against the Corn Laws was so strong that, when f,the hi once the issue was fully raised, repeal was inevitable. On of the . _ mant- the one hand there was all the evidence of the Commission facturing . oe . snl . on hand-loom weavers, which showed that the limitation of *¢** the food-supply was the greatest grievance to the operative classes ; owing to the large proportion of their earnings which was spent in food, their power of purchasing clothes was curtailed, and the home demand for manufactures was checked. The Corn Laws also interfered indirectly with our foreign commerce ; the high tariff on imported corn introduced an obstacle to the export of our manufactures. There were many of our customers who had not the means of paying for our goods; the Baltic ports and the United States were regions from which food might have been obtained, but for 1 Mr Gladstone’s Budget of 1853 was regarded at the time as an intentional blow at the landed interest as such. Disraeli said: “I have shown you that in dealing with your indirect taxation you have commenced a system and you have laid down a principle which must immensely aggravate the national taxation upon the British producer. I have shown you in the second place that while you are about to pursue that unjust and injurious policy, * * * while youn are aggravating the pressure of indirect taxation upon the British producer, you are inflicting upon the cultivator of the soil a direct tax in the shape of an income tax, and upon the possessor of the soil a direct tax in the shape of a tax upon successions. **» Twill not ask you was it politic, was it wise, or was it generops to attack the land, both indirectly and directly, after such an immense revolution had taken place in those laws which regulated the importation of foreign produce. * * * I will remind you that the Minister who has conceived this Budget * * * is the very Minister who has come forward and in his place in parliament talked of the vast load of local taxation to which real property is exposed.” 8 Hansard, cxxvI. 985.

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