If a nation chose, it might deduct four per cent, from all the offices,
and make one of twenty thousand pounds per annum, and style the person
who should fill it, King or Madjesty, (1) or give him any other title.
Taking, however, this sum of one million and a half, as an abundant
supply for all the expences of government under any form whatever,
there will remain a surplus of nearly six millions and a half out of
the present taxes, after paying the interest of the national debt; and
I have shewn in the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, what appears to me,
the best mode of applying the surplus money; for I am now speaking of
expences and savings, and not of systems of government.
1 A friend of Paine advised him against this pun, as too
personal an allusion to George the Third, to whom however
much has been forgiven on account of his mental infirmity.
Yorke, in his account of his visit to Paine, 1802, alludes
to his (Paine's) anecdotes "of humor and benevolence"
concerning George III.--_Editor_.
I have, in the first place, estimated the poor-rates at two millions
annually, and shewn that the first effectual step would be to abolish
the poor-rates entirely (which would be a saving of two millions to the
house-keepers,) and to remit four millions out of the surplus taxes to
the poor, to be paid to them in money, in proportion to the number of
children in each family, and the number of aged persons.
I have estimated the number of persons of both sexes in England, of
fifty years of age and upwards, at 420,000, and have taken one third of
this number, viz. 140,000, to be poor people.
To save long calculations, I have taken 70,000 of them to be upwards of
fifty years of age, and under sixty, and the others to be sixty years
and upwards; and to allow six pounds per annum to the former class, and
ten pounds per annum to the latter. The expence of which will be,
Seventy thousand persons at 6L. per annum..... 420,000L.
Seventy thousand persons at 10L. per annum.... 700,000
-----------
1,120,000L.
There will then remain of the four millions, 2,880,000L. I have stated
two different methods of appropriating this money. The one is to pay it
in proportion to the number of children in each family, at the rate of
three or four pounds per annum for each child; the other is to apportion
it according to the expence of living in different counties; but in
either of these cases it would, together with the allowance to be
made to the aged, completely take off taxes from one third of all the
families in England, besides relieving all the other families from the
burthen of poor-rates.
The whole number of families in England, allotting five souls to each
family, is one million four hundred thousand, of which I take one third,
_viz_. 466,666 to be poor families who now pay four millions of taxes,
and that the poorest pays at least four guineas a year; and that the
other thirteen millions are paid by the other two-thirds. The plan,
therefore, as stated in the work, is, first, to remit or repay, as is
already stated, this sum of four millions to the poor, because it is
impossible to separate them from the others in the present mode of
collecting taxes on articles of consumption; and, secondly, to abolish
the poor-rates, the house and window-light tax, and to change the
commutation tax into a progressive tax on large estates, the particulars
of all which are set forth in the work, to which I desire Mr. Adam to
refer for particulars. I shall here content myself with saying, that to
a town of the population of Manchester, it will make a difference in its
favour, compared with the present state of things, of upwards of fifty
thousand pounds annually, and so in proportion to all other places
throughout the nation. This certainly is of more consequence than that
the same sums should be collected to be afterwards spent by riotous
and profligate courtiers, and in nightly revels at the Star and Garter
tavern, Pall Mall.
I will conclude this part of my letter with an extract from the Second
Part of the _Rights of Man_, which Mr. Dundas (a man rolling in luxury
at the expence of the nation) has branded with the epithet of "wicked."
"By the operation of this plan, the poor laws, those instruments
of civil torture, will be superseded, and the wasteful ex-pence of
litigation prevented. The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by
ragged and hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of
age begging for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to
place to breathe their last, as a reprisal of parish upon parish. Widows
will have a maintenance for their children, and not be carted away, on
the death of their husbands, like culprits and criminals; and children
will no longer be considered as increasing the distresses of their
parents. The haunts of the wretched will be known, because it will be
to their advantage; and the number of petty crimes, the offspring of
poverty and distress, will be lessened. The poor as well as the rich
will then be interested in the support of Government, and the cause and
apprehension of riots and tumults will cease. Ye who sit in ease, and
solace yourselves in plenty, and such there are in Turkey and Russia,
as well as in England, and who say to yourselves, _are we not well off_
have ye thought of these things? When ye do, ye will cease to speak and
feel for yourselves alone."
After this remission of four millions be made, and the poor-rates
and houses and window-light tax be abolished, and the commutation
tax changed, there will still remain nearly one million and a half
of surplus taxes; and as by an alliance between England, France and
America, armies and navies will, in a great measure, be rendered
unnecessary; and as men who have either been brought up in, or long
habited to, those lines of life, are still citizens of a nation in
common with the rest, and have a right to participate in all plans of
national benefit, it is stated in that work (_Rights of Man_, Part ii.)
to apply annually 507,000L. out of the surplus taxes to this purpose, in
the following manner:
[Illustration: table 053]
The limits to which it is proper to confine this letter, will not admit
of my entering into further particulars. I address it to Mr. Dundas
because he took the lead in the debate, and he wishes, I suppose, to
appear conspicuous; but the purport of it is to justify myself from the
charge which Mr. Adam has made.
This Gentleman, as has been observed in the beginning of this letter,
considers the writings of Harrington, More and Hume, as justifiable and
legal publications, because they reasoned by comparison, though in so
doing they shewed plans and systems of government, not only different
from, but preferable to, that of England; and he accuses me of
endeavouring to confuse, instead of producing a system in the room of
that which I had reasoned against; whereas, the fact is, that I have
not only reasoned by comparison of the representative system against
the hereditary system, but I have gone further; for I have produced
an instance of a government established entirely on the representative
system, under which greater happiness is enjoyed, much fewer taxes
required, and much higher credit is established, than under the system
of government in England. The funds in England have risen since the war
only from 54L. to 97L. and they have been down since the proclamation,
to 87L. whereas the funds in America rose in the mean time from 10L. to
120L.
His charge against me of "destroying every principle of subordination,"
is equally as groundless; which even a single paragraph from the work
will prove, and which I shall here quote:
"Formerly when divisions arose respecting Governments, recourse was had
to the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded
by the new system, and _recourse is had to a national convention_.
Discussion, and the general will, arbitrates the question, and to
this private opinion yields with a good grace, and _order is preserved
uninterrupted_."
That two different charges should be brought at the same time, the one
by a Member of the Legislative, for _not_ doing a certain thing, and
the other by the Attorney General for _doing_ it, is a strange jumble of
contradictions. I have now justified myself, or the work rather, against
the first, by stating the case in this letter, and the justification of
the other will be undertaken in its proper place. But in any case the
work will go on.
I shall now conclude this letter with saying, that the only objection
I found against the plan and principles contained in the Second Part
of _Rights of Man_, when I had written the book, was, that they would
beneficially interest at least ninety-nine persons out of every hundred
throughout the nation, and therefore would not leave sufficient room for
men to act from the direct and disinterested principles of honour; but
the prosecution now commenced has fortunately removed that objection,
and the approvers and protectors of that work now feel the immediate
impulse of honour added to that of national interest.