Page:Observations on the present financial embarassments.djvu/25

21 honour should be sullied, or than her safety should be endangered, there lives not a Briton who would wish to see a single impost remitted. But it is because I wish to preserve the honour of the country, and to see Britain still maintain her proud station amongst the nations of the earth, that I respectfully offer these suggestions to the public. I would make her flourishing in peace, and formidable in war, by calling into action the enterprise of her capitalists, and the labour of her people. I would not abate taxes that only press on individuals; but I would repeal those which weigh directly on the interests of the poor, and are pregnant with evil to the community. In spite of her difficulties and embarrassments, the moral power of the British nation still remains. The sources of her greatness still exist, obstructed, indeed, by temporary evils, but which merely require a prudent and firm government to open them afresh.

Let, then, Ministers take their stand on the broad ground of the public weal. We have too long had Tory ministers, and Whig ministers; it is time now all party distinctions were dropped in common zeal for the country.

The plan I propose is not theoretical, nor speculative; it rests on the plain statement, that there is a pressure of six millions of taxation on the productive industry of the country. Repeal a