Page:Observations on the present financial embarassments.djvu/17

13 for the poor; when the press teems with nostrums for this purpose; and every one admits the necessity of finding such employment, that there should be continued a tax upon labour to the amount of no less than six millions per annum! For that a tax on raw materials is, to all intents and purposes, a tax on labour, no one will, I presume, venture to question. Remit this tax, then, at the same time that, by the able plans of the noble secretaries for the colonies, you facilitate settlements in the colonies; remove the pressure on labour at home, by repealing the six millions of taxes that are the real weight on the industry of the country; and I look forward with sanguine and confident hope to see the energies of the country revived.

It is not, indeed, to be expected that so large a sum as six millions, raised in this way, should be at once remitted; but a portion may be, and could not fail to produce real and substantial good.

What advantages, for instance, would result from taking off the duty on hemp, which is at present subject to a duty of 4l. 13s. 4d. per ton! Remit this duty, and you confer an immediate