hat trade and commerce do
not pay half the income tax that land does, as a reason, among the many
others which exist, for a thorough and radical reform of our financial
system, so far as direct taxation is concerned.

[30] Net amount of income tax for year ending 5th April, 1845:--

England. Scotland. Total.
Schedule A, Land rents, L2,112,072 L253,976 L2,366,048.
-------- B, Tenants 292,646 22,961 315,607.
-------- C, Annuities, funds, &c. 766,066 ------ 766,066.
-------- D, Trades and professions, 1,424,017 117,953 1,541,970.
-------- E, Offices, Pensions, &c., 305,401 8,500 313,901.
---------- -------- -----------
L4,900,202 L403,390 L5,303,502.

Whoever considers seriously, and in an impartial spirit, the various
particulars which have now been stated, will not only cease to wonder at
the frequent, it may almost be said universal, embarrassment of the
landed proprietors, but he will arrive at the conclusion, that if they
continue much longer unchanged, they must terminate in their general
ruin. We say _general_ ruin, because it will not be universal. The
_great_ landowners, the magnates, whether moneyed or territorial, of the
land will alone survive the general wreck. They will, by degrees,
swallow up all the smaller estates in their neighbourhood; and it will
come to be literally true in Britain what was said, by a Roman emperor,
of Gaul, in the decline of the empire, "That the estates of the rich go
on continually increasing and absorbing all lesser estates around them,
till they come to the estate of _another as rich as themselves_." With
direct taxes, amounting to 50 or 60 per cent. on the disposable income,
which, under the change of prices, induced by the change in the corn
laws, they will very soon be, even without any addition from farther
taxes, it is wholly impossible that any landowner who does not possess
enormous tracts of country, or vast funded or moneyed property in
addition to his territorial possessions, can avoid insolvency. What the
effect of the total destruction of the middle class of British
landholders must be on the balance of the constitution, and the state of
society in these islands, it is not our present purpose to inquire.
Suffice it to say, that it is precisely the state of t