excessive taxation, to say that the money raised in this way returns to the people in another shape, by means of the publick expenditure; and we are very far from asserting, that a given sum raised and spent abroad by the State, would not be still more injurious to the resources of the people than the same sum spent at home. But, nevertheless, the notion that such a process does not exhaust the national wealth, in whatever manner it is carried on-that the amount, or any thing like the amount of taxes spent at home, finds its way back into the pockets from which it was taken, is as false as it is paradoxical; and if its apparent absurdity strikes us at first sight, a closer inspection only serves to set that absurdity in a stronger light, and to disclose more fully the mischievous conclusion indirectly deduced, --that the pressure of taxation can never be very heavy, nor its amount very material. That the money spent by Government at home in part returns to the people, is easily admitted; indeed this is true, not of part, but of the whole. But we use people in a different sense when we speak of the taxes raised to furnish that money; it is in truth taken from one class and paid to another; taken from the people at large to the injury of their income, and, if pushed far, of their capital, and paid to a comparatively small body, who are in the employ of the Government. But these (it may be said) deal with the community at large; and so does the Government in its contracts. Undoubtedly they do; but if the money had remained where it originally was, an expenditure to exactly the same amount would have taken place, with a most material difference in the manner and in the result. The money would have been spent economically, and the labour which it would have called into action would have produced a constant and permanent augmentation of the capital of the country, and, with the capital of its annual revenue, or of the sum yearly to be expended in putting more labour in motion for a like beneficial purpose. Suppose, for example, that of the 81 millions raised by taxation in Great Britain in 1815, there were 26 millions expended, in consequence of the war, and the mere needless extravagance with which our affairs were conducted; and that the whole of this, the excess of our establishment over that of 1820, was spent at home, not one farthing of it remained at the end of the year for which it was wanted, unless in the shape of old stores, accoutrements and barracks. The whole of it had gone to purchase the labour of soldiers, sailors, and clerks in office, who had left nothing behind which could the year after employ any one else. It is true, that their consumption had occasioned a demand for produce and for manufactures; but if those 26 millions which supported them

this tax and the assessed taxes; or the tenant's tax falling on him, his income being 10,000l. a year, the interest of his debts 3000/., and his payments to those two imposts 1500l., from which 150l. may be deducted on account of the debts,-a sinking fund of 1350l. would have disincumbered him during the eight years in question of above 14,000l. of his debts, and of nearly 20,000l. since 1806. What then would be the state of the case, if we take into the account all the other burthens imposed upon him by the same fatal course of impolicy? Supposing only a fourth part of his income to be taken by the war-taxes; the accumulation of this portion, or the progress which it would enable him yearly to make in paying off incumbrances, with the fall in the interest of money from the general increase of capital, would assuredly leave him with hardly any debt at all.

If any one still persists in the idea, that so the money be spent in the country, it matters little how it is taken from the people; we would wish to ask him, whether the same argument does not apply to the case of each individual, and must not be true of every especial one, if it is true of the aggregate? Now, though certainly a rich man's neighbourhood, and, through them, his own property, is injured by his rents being drawn to a distance and there spent; and though, conversely, his residence on the estate, and spending his rents there, benefits the neighbouring country, and his own land reaps its proportion of the advantage; yet we presume no one will contend that it is a matter of indifference to this owner, who draws his rents, provided they be spent on the spot! that it signifies nothing to him whether he receives the whole, or is only allowed one half, provided the other half is expended among his tenants and the neighbouring shopkeepers and artisans; and that he has no right to complain if Government appoints a receiver to the extent of that moiety, so as the worthy functionary comes with a suitable staff of clerks, and a body guard, and a due proportion of livery servants, all of whom are to be maintained out of the allotted portion of the rents, and to make that portion circulate in the same parish from whence it was drawn. The absurdity of this strikes every one as soon as it is stated; and yet it is in no respect different from the position against which we are contending; except that we are using it in argument, and the other doctrine has been actually employed to persuade the sufferer himself. It has been addressed to the persons groaning under the burthen; it has been constantly in the mouth of the functionary; it has been urged by him to the unhappy proprietor, to sooth him, while in the act of losing half his rents. "Never you mind

(has been the language used), it is all for your good-you are only giving up this half to secure the rest. But in fact you are giving up nothing; for the money being all spent upon the spot, it returns to you in another shape;"-together with other kindred topics, and much simile, touching exhalations, dew, and rain.

But we have been admitting, for argument's sake, that the expenditure takes place at home. A portion of it undoubtedly is so: a portion of the extraordinary expenses of the war, as well as nearly the whole of the peace expenditure-and we may go so far as to allow, that, in most wars, even a large proportion of that extraordinary expense is incurred within the country. But in all wars, a considerable part of it, and in the late unprecedented contest, a very large part, was incurred abroad. Now, surely, even the reasoners with whom we have been contending will not affect to doubt, that money raised from the people here to be sent abroad, and either spent by our troops there, or given in the shape of subsidies, or lent as loans-which experience shows are equivalent to gifts, the borrower always forgetting to repay them-must operate as a direct drain on our resources, in exact proportion to the sums raised, and without any chance of return by any material reaction upon our capital and industry, or, as the phrase is, finding its way back again.' We are not speaking now of the money spent in purchase of stores at home, which stores are to be wastefully consumed abroad; this falls within the scope of the preceding observations; for it signifies but very little whether the consumption takes place at home or abroad, so long as it only supports absolutely unproductive labour. But we are adverting to the sums transmitted to subsidize foreign powers, and to pay and support our own troops, and foreign troops in our service, while they are abroad, and generally to provide for all the reckless and most prodigal expense of actual warfare. By far the greater part of this money is expended in the purchase of raw produce and labour, and other things furnished on the spot; and the utmost effect that can, by such expenditure, be produced upon our own markets of produce and manufacture, is far more than counterbalanced by the ruinous effects of the operations which the money is used to support. The war must immediately, and still more effectually in its consequences, injure those countries, as our customers, to a much greater extent than the expenditure of our capital there can stimulate them to aid our domestic industry. The same short-sighted reasoners, who see so little mischief in the expenditure of a large revenue at home, are ignorantly prone to admit that all is clear loss which is spent abroad. There is a

difference between the two operations. With certain restrictions, to which we have just referred, the revenue which is spent abroad must be allowed to be the most exhausting to our re

sources.

To estimate the proportion of the war expenditure which takes place abroad with any minute accuracy, is manifestly impossible. But we have data whereby some approximation may be made to this result. In the first place, we know, that, of the Army Extraordinaries during war, by far the greater part was foreign expenditure. From 1807 to the end of the war, these amounted to about 90 millions; from which we may deduct the Extraordinaries for ten years of peace, which would leave 70 millions. Next, a large part of the military force being abroad during the same period, we must allow a similar proportion of the Ordinary expenses of the army to have been incurred abroad. The entire expenses of the army and ordnance reached so high, in one year, as 38 millions; and they averaged about 26 millions during the whole of the above ten years. Deducting from this the sum of 90, for extraordinaries, already reckoned, we have 170 millions as the ordinary charge of the army. The numerical strength was about 260,000 regular forces of all descriptions, during a great part of the time; exceeding the establishment of 1820 by about 100,000; to which excess the sum of 65 millions in the whole ordinary charge is proportional, and may, perhaps, safely be taken as the amount expended abroad, beside extraordinaries. To these sums must be added the loans and subsidies, which, for the ten years under consideration, amounted to no less a sum than 50 millions; the whole loans and subsidies from 1793 having been almost 67 millions.

We have thus the sum of 185 millions as the mass of the foreign expenditure during the concluding period of the war. Nor ought its enormous amount to make us question it. Positive evidence is before the country, stating the expenditure for some years in its details; and these support our estimate. Thus it appears, by the returns of the bills drawn in 1814 from all parts abroad, upon the Paymaster of the Forces, that those draughts amounted to 19 millions, after giving credit for bills remitted; and the whole sum, including subsidies which passed that year to foreign parts through the same department, was about 25 millions. No less than 30,000l. were paid in premiums to naval officers for the transport of specie; and there were 130 voyages required for the purpose of carrying it. It should also be remembered, that we have allowed nothing for the foreign expenditure of the Navy, which must have been considerable, although by no means in the same proportion to its whole cost with that of the army. A VOL. XXXVI. NO. 72.

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