or is of any interest or importance-France and America: France, because it is our European equal and competitorAmerica, because it is the nation whose economical administration, self-governing skill, and popular justice, are constantly and reproachfully quoted against us by the tribunes of the people.

We must, however, guard ourselves against cavil at the outset by stating in the plainest and strongest manner that a perfectly fair and accurate comparison with either of these countries, or with any foreign country at all, is a simple impossibility. Accounts are differently kept; expenses, which in one country are provided for by local rates, or voluntary contributions, are in others paid out of the national or the State exchequer - such as roads, hospitals, charities, local improvements, &c. Our local taxation is enormously heavy; that of France is comparatively light. The communes of France can scarcely ever increase their levies, but on the other hand, they run recklessly into debt: the indebtedness' of the municipality of Paris, for example, is at this moment enormous. In England, on the contrary, the local rates are augmented as circumstances require, and local debt is unknown except perhaps in the case of turnpike trusts. France, again, has no poor rates: ours exceed seven millions annually. On the other hand, the octroi, a local urban tax unknown here, is most burdensome in France its entire amount we have found it impracticable to ascertain; but in Lyons it yielded in 1830 2,300,000 francs; in Paris it yielded 33,000,000 francs in 1849, and 49,000,000 francs in 1859. In England, again, the clergy are paid by tithes; in France they are paid to the amount of 1,800,000l. out of the imperial revenue; but this obligation was incurred by the confiscation of ecclesiastical property at the epoch of the Great Revolution, a confiscation which greatly relieved the revenue at the time, and thus diminished the debt and its permanent charge. The Crown lands or national domains, too, the receipts from which diminish taxation to an equivalent amount, yield very different sums in different countries: in England they yield about 280,000l.; in France about 1,500,000l.; in America from 1,000,000l. to 4,000,000l. Finally, the comparison between different countries, and more especially between England and France, is constantly vitiated by the fact that one country provides for its extraordinary expenditure by loans, and another by taxes raised within the year. Thus France scarcely ever ventures to impose a new tax or increase an old one, whatever may be her necessities, or however great the augmentation of her expenditure; she borrows what she wants. England, on the

other hand, shrinks from loans, but thinks nothing of adding to the annual taxation. As we have seen, she now raises nine millions more than sufficed in 1850. France would simply have borrowed the nine millions -- and perhaps the sum for paying interest on it as well. With these preliminary cautions--which we entreat our readers to bear in mind throughout this article -we proceed to the comparison with France, confining ourselves to Imperial revenues alone.

奪

The amount of the French revenue (according to the Budget Provisoire for 1859), is given as 1774 millions of francs, or 70,960,000l. The revenue of the United Kingdom for 1858, the last year made up, was 61,812,000l., to which we must add the gross cost of collection to make the comparison a fair one, as this item is included in the French accounts. This cost was 4,493,000l.†, making a total for comparison of 66,305,000. Now the population of the United Kingdom is 30,000,000, and that of France 36,000,000; the taxation per head, therefore, is 44s. 2d. in England, and 39s. 5d. in France.

But as so large a proportion of our revenue in England is required to pay the interest of a debt incurred in former times, and over which now Government has no control, let us further compare the proportional sums levied from the citizens of the two countries for the actual current expenditure or present necessities of the nation. The total expenditure of France‡ (inclusive always in both countries of payments for collection of revenue) was 1766 million of francs; of this the interest of the debt absorbed 530 millions, leaving 1236 millions, or 49,440,000l. for current actual expenditure. The total expenditure of this country, after deducting the interest of the debt (which was 28,750,000%), in 1858 reached 36,428,000l.

This is based on the expenditure of 1858. Two Budgets are published-the Provisoire and the Definitif: they do not differ materially; and as the latter is not made up usually till four years later, we have been obliged to take the former. But the receipts vary little, for the reasons above given.

†This sum includes the cost of the post-office, which is in no sense expenditure for collection of revenue, but the expense of managing a government monopoly. It is, however, included in the French accounts. The real cost of collecting our revenue was in 1858, 2,600,0001.

That is to say, these are the official figures; but it is questionable, after recently alleged occurrences, whether they can always be relied upon. The Budget is drawn up to provide for a peace establishment, and the surplus expenditure, which in some years is very large, is defrayed by loans.

VOL. CXI. NO. CCXXV.

R

The cost of government in France, therefore, is a heavier burden on the people than in England, being 27s. 5d. a head against our 24s. 3d.

Man for man, then, it can scarcely be said that the Englishman is more heavily taxed by his government than the Frenchman, the difference being only one-ninth. Putting aside the interest due on the public debt, the taxation in France for the actual government expenditure, is decidedly heavier than in England in proportion to the numbers of the people: and when we come to take into account the relative wealth of the two countries, and the proportion which the 44s. 2d. and 24s. 3d. in the one case, and the 39s. 5d. and 27s. 5d. in the other, bear to the respective incomes of the men who pay them, the comparison becomes enormously favourable to the Englishman. Unhappily, on this head we have no data on which to base even an approximate calculation. But Mr. Norman, who took great pains to arrive at a just conclusion, estimated the taxation of the Frenchman, in proportion to his income, to be at least double that of the Englishman.*

We will now turn to America, the land of economy and popular vigilance, par excellence; the land, in Radical estimation, not only of promise but of performance also; the land where no privileged class 'fattens on the plunder of the public;' the land, too, whose vast unoccupied territory yields by its sale a large ycarly revenue in aid and in lieu of taxes; the land whose recent erection into national existence exempts it from the weary burden of a debt handed down by ancestral folly and extravagance; the land, finally, whose peculiar and nearly isolated position enables it to dispense with those standing armies and costly navies which absorb so large a portion of the revenue of older states. If there ever was a country where taxation ought to be so light as to be almost unfelt, it is the United States of America. If an American pays only one-fourth the

*On the whole (he says, pp. 43, 45.) we can hardly be wrong, or if wrong at all we are under the mark, in estimating the collective wealth of the British Islands at double that of France. If so, a system of taxation which raises any given sum per head in the latter, is doubly as severe as one which raises an equal sum per head in the former country.

'N.B. In estimating the relative taxation of the two countries, we must not forget the indirect and unstated, but very heavy taxation imposed by protective duties in France, which, though not going into the exchequer, comes out of the pockets of the people. The protective duty on iron alone, is calculated to tax Frenchmen to the extent of 2,500,000 per annum, by raising the price of iron 51. a ton.' (Norman, p. 42.)

sum paid by an Englishman or a Frenchman to the national exchequer, we have a right to say that he is heavily mulcted, and that his government must be extravagant in the extreme. What, then, is the fact?

The taxation in America is two-fold; the federal and the state taxation. The former is furnished almost entirely by Customs' duties and the produce of the sale of public lands, the latter resource (which, be it remembered, reduces taxation to an equivalent amount) having furnished, on an average of the last twenty-five years, an annual sum of 5,400,000 dollars, or 1,148,000.*, and sometimes three or four times that amount. The latter (or state taxation) is supplied mainly by direct taxes levied on all real and personal property. But as these state taxes include many, if not nearly all, of those contributions which are known among us as local rates, we must, in any fair comparison with the United States, add our poor rates and county rates to our imperial revenue.

Now, as we have seen, our gross revenue, including cost of collection, is 66,305,000l. Our entire local taxation is known to reach 15,000,000l.† This makes a total for comparison with America of 81,305,000l., or 54s. 3d. per head.

In 1856 and 1857 the Customs' duties levied on federal account averaged 64,000,000 dollars for a total population of 28,000,000. Now, as the population of New York State at that period was 3,500,000, the proportionate amount of federal taxation (independent of land sales) contributed by that state was just one-eighth of the whole, or 8,000,000 dollars. The 'American Almanac,' compiled yearly from official sources, gives the State revenue of New York for 1856-7 as 15,166,000 dollars which, added to the 8,000,000 dollars of customs'

*We have taken the value of the dollar, for convenience of calculation, at 4s. 3d.; M'Culloch gives it at 4s. 31d.

The sums levied in England and Wales for poor rates, county rates, &c., reached in 1858 to 8,189,000l.; the church rate was 594,000l.; highway rates (1857) 1,950,000l., and in 1856 the turnpike tolls reached 1,051,000l., making a total of 11,784,000l. And this does not include quite all. The local rates of Ireland reach 1,752,000l., and those of Scotland 1,045,000l.

It is important to notice that this taxation would be even heavier than it is, were it not for the revenue yielded by the property belonging to the State as a State, which, on an average of the six years from 1849 to 1854 inclusive, furnished a net sum of 2,030,000 dollars, besides 857,000 dollars which accrued from educational state funds or endowments. Thus, had it not been for the existence of these sources, the actual taxation of New York would have been about 3,000,000 dollars heavier than it was, or nearly 4s. a head.

duties, as above obtained, makes an aggregate sum of 23,166,000 dollars, or 4,922,7507.; which, among 3,500,000 of citizens, gives 28s. 2d. per head.

This comparison is, no doubt, at first sight favourable to the American, though considerably less so than that usually given forth. But there are two other methods of comparing the taxation of the two countries, both of which it is necessary to resort to before we can draw any fair proportionate conclusions. We have seen that the cost of the British Government to the British tax-payer (independent of the charge on the ancestral debt) for services annually rendered, is now 36,428,000l. If to this we add 15,000,000l. for municipal rates, the rate of effective expenditure per head for purposes of comparison, will be 34s. 3d. The aggregate federal expenditure of the United States (exclusive of the interest on the public debt) was, in 1856-7, 61,878,000 dollars. The proportion of this assignable to New York State (in the ratio of the population) was 8,110,000 dollars. The state expenditure of New York is set down at 10,177,000 dollars, and the interest of the state debt is given at 1,950,000 dollars, leaving 8,227,000 dollars for annual cost of local or state government. The account will therefore stand thus:

This, among 3,500,000 citizens, would give 19s. 10d.

per head.

It is, however, obvious, as we remarked at the outset, that the real pressure of taxation depends entirely on the wealth of the people pressed upon; and 19s. 10d. a head in one country may in reality be a far heavier burden than 34s. 3d. in another. Let us endeavour then to arrive at some approximate estimate of the relative wealth of Great Britain and America-i. e. their relative power of enduring fiscal extractions. In the latter

country we have pretty accurate data for our calculations, for in most of the States the real and personal property of the citizens is minutely assessed, and the taxation levied on that assessment. Now the taxable property,' in the State of New York, was, in 1856-7, assessed at 1,432,000,000 dollars, of which 1,112,000,000 dollars was real estate, and 320,000,000 dollars personal estate. The entire taxation levied on the New York citizens for state and federal purposes was, we have seen, 23,166,000 dollars with, or 16,337,000, without, the interest of the debt. This equals a tax on the aggregate property assessed