FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79  
80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   >>   >|  
t." "But how," he wrote to Cobden (Jan. 5, 1864), "is the spirit of expenditure to be exorcised? Not by my preaching; I doubt if even by yours. I seriously doubt whether it will ever give place to the old spirit of economy, as long as we have the income-tax. There, or hard by, lie questions of deep practical moment." This last pregnant reference to the income-tax, makes it worth while to insert here a word or two from letters of 1859 to his brother Robertson, an even more ardent financial reformer than himself:-- Economy is the first and great article (economy such as I understand it) in my financial creed. The controversy between direct and indirect taxation holds a minor though important place. I have not the smallest doubt we should at this moment have had a smaller expenditure if financial reformers had not directed their chief attention, not to the question how much of expenditure and taxes we shall have, but to the question how it should be raised.... I agree with you that if you had only direct taxes, you would have economical government. But in my opinion the indirect taxes will last as long as the monarchy; and while we have them, I am deeply convinced that the facility of recurring to, and of maintaining, income-tax has been a main source of that extravagance in government, which I date from the Russian war (for before that a good spirit had prevailed for some twenty-five years). Bagehot, that economist who united such experience and sense with so much subtlety and humour, wrote to Mr. Gladstone in 1868: "Indirect taxation so cramps trade and heavy direct taxation so impairs morality that a large expenditure becomes a great evil. I have often said so to Sir G. Lewis, but he always answered, 'Government is a very rough business. You must be content with very unsatisfactory results.' " This was a content that Mr. Gladstone never learned. (M23) It was not only in the finance of millions that he showed himself a hero. "The chancellor of the exchequer," he said, "should boldly uphold economy in detail; and it is the mark of a chicken-hearted chancellor when he shrinks from upholding economy in detail, when because it is a question of only two or three thousand pounds, he says that is no matter. He is ridiculed, no doubt, for what is called candle-ends and cheese-parings, but he is not worth his salt if he is not ready to save what are meant by ca
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79  
80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

economy

 

expenditure

 

spirit

 
income
 
taxation
 

financial

 
question
 

direct

 

detail

 

government


chancellor
 

indirect

 

content

 

moment

 

Gladstone

 
united
 

economist

 

answered

 

twenty

 
Bagehot

humour

 
Government
 

impairs

 

cramps

 

Indirect

 

subtlety

 

morality

 
experience
 

matter

 

ridiculed


called

 

pounds

 

thousand

 

candle

 

cheese

 

parings

 

upholding

 

shrinks

 

learned

 

results


unsatisfactory

 

business

 

finance

 

millions

 

chicken

 

hearted

 
uphold
 

boldly

 

showed

 

exchequer