MR. COBDEN'S LETTER TO THE LIVERPOOL FINANCIAL REFORM ASSOCIATION.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 411, 11 July 1849, Page 2

MR. COBDEN'S LETTER TO THE LIVERPOOL FINANCIAL REFORM ASSOCIATION.

A striking letter from Mr. ' Cobden, addressed to Mr. Robertson Gladstone, .was read at the meeting of the Liverpool.Financial Reform Association, on Wednesday evening, December 20. It suggested the publication of a "National Budget," not as a complete financial scheme, but as a plan^that "should commit those politicians^ of all shades, who now join in the vague cry for ' economy and retrenchment,' io some practical measure worth contending for." '„. " I suggest that you take for the basis of your budget the expenditure of 1835. The whole cost of the Government in that year, including interest of debt, was £44,422,000. For the twelve .months ending the sth April last, it amounted to £55,175,000 ; being em increase of £10,753,000. The interest of the debt was less by £17,000 in the latter than the former year ; making the comparison so much the more unfavourable to 1848. The estimated expenditure for the current year, ending the sth April, 1849, (see Lord John Russell's Speech 18th February last,) is £54,596,000; so that we may take the increase to be, in lound numbers, £10,000,000 since 1835. Do you see any good reasons why we should not return to the expenditure of that year ? Englishmen love precedents ; and, they are not easily, persuaded Otfiat anything is Utopian, or. impracticable which has been .accomplished within the last, thirteen years ;' and' this is one reason, though I* will find you a better, why you should base your hudg£t upon "that of 1835. • * '• We are now actually expending more upon the army, navy, and ordnance alone than .sufficed for; tha maintenance of the whole civil and

military establishments under the Duke of Wellington's government ! When these facts shall be generally known, the country will, I think, be in' the humour for responding to your appeal, if you inscribe as your motto upon your banner,- '" The Expenditure of 1835 ;"- which will be a reduction of £10,000,000 from this year's budget." " I would hot- advise you to complicate your plan by> proposing any new imposts, to rouse the antagonism of interested parties, or any modifications or substitutions of existing taxes, to destroy that simplicity of object which, above all things, is necessary to the success of a public agitation. But there is one tax from which the dominant class in this country has exempted itself for half a century, 1 which exemption it would be disgraceful to the character ' of the "British people any longer to tolerate — I. mean' the Probate and Legacy duly. * * * I assume that the Probate and Legacy duty upon real estate, entailed and- unentailed, will yield, at a moderate estimate, £1,500,000. By the above phn, you would have a disposable surplus revenue of £11,500,000 — viz., ten millions from the reduction of expenditure, and a million and a balf from the increased produce of the Probate and Legacy duty." The surplus thus acquired, Mr. Cobden proposes to employ for the reduction of customs duties on tea, butter, cheese, &c, the abolishment of the excise duties on malt, bops, soap, and paper", and the discontinuance of the window tax and advertisement duty. " A word or two as to the mode by which I would reduce our expenditure to the amount 'of 1835. The great increase since that year has been upon the army, navy, and ordnance. In the year 1835 our armaments cost us £11,657,000; for the twelve months ended on the sth day of April last, they reached, including £1,100,000 for the Caffre war, £19,341,000 : and I expect that the charge for the present year will not be much less. * * * It will be self-evident, then, that if any material retrenchment be effected, it must be mainly upon our armaments, the cost of which has been increased £7,000,000 ; and this during a period of profound peace. * * * ' If we take into calculation the present reduced value of commodities, it will be found that £10,000,000 expended upon our armaments now will go much further than £11,657,000 did in 1135 ; and I suggest that you propose the former sum as the maximum expenditure for the army, navy, and ordnance, hy which you will gain about £8,500,000 of the proposed saving of £10,000,000. I by no means, however, wish to commit your association to ten millions as the minimum cost of our armaments ; for I have a strong belief that you will live to see the waste reduced to less than half this sum. The above named amount will be three times as great as that of the United States ; greater than that incurred for the same purpose by Russia, Austria, or Prussia ; and judging by her promised reductions, nearly if not quite as large as that of France. "The remaining £1,500,000, to complete the proposed reduction of 10,000,000, you will have little difficulty in saving from all the other heads of expenditure, including the cost of collecting the revenue and the management of the Crown lands. " But I am prepared to contend for changes in our foreign, colonial, and domestic -policy ; (though I will not attempt to do so at -letrgth now), calculated to facilitate a reduc--tion in the amount of our armaments. First and foremost, we' must insist that the principles of non-iuterference in the affairs of foreign countries, so loudly professed by politicians of all parties, shall be carried into practice in the policy of our Government. During'the whole of last year," a fleet, as formidable as that required by the Americans to watch over their commerce in all parts of the globe, was maintained in the Tagus, out of the taxes of the British' people, "for the service of the court and government of Portugal. -At this moment, we have as large a fleet in the Straits of Messina, engaged in an armed interference between the King of Naples, and his Sicilian subjects, "with no more interesVor righYoniour part than the government of tfie United States would have to send a squadron "off Holyhead andassuine the character of an armed mediator between England and Ireland. For three or four years we have had a fleet J in the River Plate, interfering in the endless and inexplicable ' squabbles of the Monte Videans and the Buenos -Ayreans, and which has at last ended in a ridicuious failure. I would wisK to see our Government spare the people this useless expense, by simply following the rule, observed by individuals, of leaving other nations to settle their quarrels, and minding its own business better. " I am also aware, that any great reduction in our military establishments musi depend upon' a complete change in our colonial system ; - and I consider such a change to be tbe necessary consequence of our recent commercial policy. * * *We have now declared' that, for all commercial purpose*,

the colonies shall in future stand in precisely the same relationship towards us as foreign countries. For seventy years we have denied ourselves the right, by statute, to tax them for Imperial purposes. Under these altered circumstances, will anybody be found, even among the Protectionists, aye, even Lord Stanhope himself, who is prepared to maintain that henceforth the only exclusive connexion we are to preserve with our colonies is the monopoly of the expense of governing and garrisoning them ? Once let them see that free trade is the irrevocable policy of the country, and the Protectionists themselves will join with me in demanding an exemption from the expenses of the thirty or forty little armies, which (exclusive of the troops in the merely military fortresses of Gibraltar, &c.,) are maintained at the cost of this country in all parts of the globe ; together with the little army always afloat, for the purpose, incredible as such folly may hereafter appear, of transporting reliefs of soldiers from England to serve as policemen for Englishmen at the Antipodes I We have only to give to the colonists that which is their birthright — the control over their expenditure and the administration of their own local affairs ; and they will be willing* as they are perfectly able, to bear all the cost of their own civil and military establishments., " And, finally, I contend that vre must endeavour to act at home more in accor'lrnce with the good old constitutional principle of governing by the civil and not the military power. We are, I fear, tending towards too great a reliance upon soldiers, and too liule on measures calculated to insure the contentment of the great body of the people/ The reading of Mr. Cobden's letter was frequently interrupted by applause, and its close was greeted by three distinct rounds of cheering* Mr. Lawrence Heywortb) M. P., promised his support in Parliament to any plan of financial reform which Mr. Cobden might propose. He moved the following resolution, which was carried unanimously — "That this meeting has heard with the greatest satisfaction the admirable and comprehensive letter of Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P., to the President of the Association, and pledge themselves to exert all their influence to procure the adoption of the National Budget as a measure of immediate reform, and an important preliminary step towards those further reductions in expenditure which the meeting believes to be practicable, and demands a complete system of direct taxation, which is the great and final object of the Association." We understand that it is in contemplation to hold a great meeting in the Free Trade Hall immediately after Christmas, probably on the 4th of January, at which Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Gibson are expected to -be present. We are not at liberty to pnter into details, but may state that the important questions of Parliamentary and financial reform will then be discussed ; and it is not unlikely that a scheme of operations having re*ference particularly to a general registration of electors will be developed. — Manchester Times.