Page:Observations on the present financial embarassments.djvu/16

12 I beg leave to direct particular attention at the present moment: the great, the crying evil of the country is the surplus of population beyond the means of profitable employment. This is the dreadful evil that now preys on the vitals of the state, and which, unless promptly and vigorously arrested in its course, must prove, at no distant day, fatal to the welfare of the state. For this surplus population there are but two remedies: you must either enable the poor to emigrate to other countries, or you must find for them employment at home. The former measure, that of emigration, is now likely to be brought forward in a more practicable shape, and under better auspices than it hitherto has been. But this alone will not avail, unless employment is also found at home for the great proportion of those who may not be inclined to emigrate. Whatever measure, therefore, tends to give employment to the poor, is entitled to the support of every well-wisher to the state.

Now we hear much of the evils of taxation; we hear great complaints of the injustice of various taxes; but there is one tax, which is more unjust, more oppressive, and more objectionable than all the others put together, and that is—the tax on labour!

Is it conceivable that, at the very moment when we are complaining of not being able to find