FINANCIAL REFORM
building of iron ships for ocean traffic in 1832’, and the A-D.1776
conditions of the competition for marine supremacy were
entirely changed. It is impossible to say how much of the
increased prosperity which has attended British Shipping is
due to a change of policy, and how much to the application of
engineering skill in giving increased facilities for ocean traffic, English
but the expansion of foreign trade in the twenty years which ae
followed the repeal of the Navigation Laws was unprecedented, #42 been
The total imports and exports of British and foreign produce fully main
almost trebled? and English shipping interests shook off for
a time their anxiety as to being outdone by their competitors
in the United States.
277. In spite of all these new openings and increased Com-
facilities, it was impossible for trade to make rapid progress std
in the twenties and thirties, as it was hampered by the hampered
burden of taxation which was part of the heritage of the long %¥
war. The demands of Government had been gradually worked
up till, in 1815, they had attained enormous dimensions. The
debt stood at £860,000,000, or about £43 per head of the
population; and the revenue, which was required to defray
the interest on the debt and the necessary expenses of
government, amounted to seventy-four millions and a half;
a quarter of the sum had sufficed before the long war. As a
necessary result, taxes had been laid upon everything that
was taxable and there was no incident of life in which the
pressure of taxation was not felt. Sidney Smith’s immortal
summary can never be surpassed, “Taxes upon every article
which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed
under the foot—taxes upon every thing which it is pleasant
bo see, hear, feel, smell or taste—taxes upon warmth, light,
locomotion—taxes on everything on earth, and the waters
nnder the earth—on everything that comes from abroad or
is grown at home—taxes on the raw material-—taxes on
every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man
—taxes on the sauce which pampers a man’s appetite, and
the drug that restores him to health—on the ermine which
decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal —
\ Lindsay, Merchant Shipping, 1v. 90.
Bowley, England's Foreign Trade, Diagram I.
3
