Daily Companion, we may call it) so many of us owe our first and best lessons in political economy,—I have here a selection of extracts from the works of Colonel Perronet Thompson; and the very first thing I find in these extracts is the following prophecy: —
"So long as the necessities of the State can be supplied without any remarkable alteration in the present mode of collection, the Corn-Laws may have a chance to stand. But the first necessity for any change will probably bring them in ruins upon the heads of the monopolists. For instance, the first proposal of a Property-Tax—which is a thing already whispered as possible—would set all who have property on the discovery that the Property-Tax was only a subscription to maintain the landlords in an unjust gain. It is in fact totally incredible, that any nation would acquiesce in the imposition of a Property-Tax, when the whole necessity and demand for such an infliction arose out of the determination of the dominant party to lay restraints upon the industry of the country."—Westminster Review, 1st July, 1829.
That prediction seems in a pretty fair way of fulfilment.
I look on a few pages, and find the following: —
"The truth is, we must wait till hunger brings our people to their colours, and some time or other we shall have a fair stand-up fight, to know whether we are to continue to be the born thralls of the owners of the soil or not. Our Saxon ancestors wore it written on a ring about their necks; we wear it in an Act of Parliament. But we are a long way from the time yet; there must be thousands more of bankruptcies, and myriads of the wives and children of the working classes must die of hunger or over-work in factories, that a greater quantity of the produce of their industry may be given to the landlords for a bushel of com. We are in the state of raising statues to any Tory man who will offer to limit our working hours if we, on our parts, will assist him to keep up the oppression that creates the inducement to over-work; and half our people might be persuaded to tum against the individual who should tell them it was an invention of the enemy. But this will mend; misery and the progress of information will alter it. I look to the last, however, most. The working classes, at least in these southern parts, have proved themselves unequal to the question. It will be when the capitalists and employers find out where they are hurt, that the real resistance will begin."—Letters of a Representative, 1st July, 1837.
The time has come. The capitalists and employers have "found out where they are hurt," and the real resistance has begun. We have got the financial deficit; we have got the Income-Tax "subscription to maintain the landlords in an unjust gain;" we have had the thousands of bankruptcies,
