rged: on the contrary, it is _within_ the truth in
some instances. We know an instance of a great iron master, whose
profits average above L100,000 a-year, who pays less poor's rates for
the poor he has mainly created, than a landholder in the same parish, of
L2000 a-year, who never brought a pauper on its funds in his life. Such
is the consequences of the present barbarous system of levying the
poor's rate as an income tax on the landlords who are burdened with
paupers, and only a house tax on the manufacturers who create and profit
by them. The first thing to be done towards the introduction of a just
system of direct taxation is to lay the maintenance of the poor equally
on all classes; and above all to abolish the present most unjust system
of making it only a house tax on the producers of poor in towns, and an
income tax on their feeders in the country.

The LAND TAX is another burden, exclusively affecting real property,
which should either be abolished, altogether or levied equally on all
classes. Its amount is not so great as the poor's rate, nevertheless it
is considerable, as it produces about L1,172,000 a-year.[22]

[22] Porter's Parl. Tables, xii. 36.

The whole ASSESSED TAXES, though not avowedly and exclusively a tax on
the landed interest, are, practically speaking, and in reality, a burden
on them almost entirely; at least they are so much heavier on the
landowners than the inhabitants of towns, that the burden is nothing in
comparison on urban indwellers. Had they been practically felt as a
grievance by the urban population they would long since have shared the
fate of the house tax and been abolished. They have so long been kept up
only because, with a few exceptions, they press almost exclusively upon
that passive and supine class of landlords, the natural prey of
Chancellors of the Exchequer, whom it seems generally impossible by any
exertions, or the advent of any danger how urgent soever, to rouse to
any common measure of defence. It no doubt sounds well to say that the
assessed taxes are laid generally on luxuries, and therefore they are
paid equally by all classes which indulge in them. But a closer
examination will show that this view is entirely fallacious, and that
the subjects actually taxed, though really luxuries to urban, are
necessary aids to rural life. For example, a carriage, a riding horse, a
coachman, a groom, are really luxuries in town, and their use may be
considered as a fa