Welsh Newspapers

Search 15 million Welsh newspaper articles

Hide Articles List

17 articles on this Page

CARMARTHEN, FRIDAY, MARCH…

News
Cite
Share

CARMARTHEN, FRIDAY, MARCH 25. The Income Tax as might be expected is still the sole subject thought of or spoken about, either in private circles or public places that it should continue to engross and to agitate the public of course is but natural, for the moment one man unwarrantly attempts to put his hand in another man's pocket, the liveliest and longest sustained indignation is called fortli-and what is true of an individual is no less true of a nation. Thanks to the Tories we are now menaced with a sort of breeches-pocket legislation that may boast of an eminence as bad as the worst days of borough- mongeriug itself could have given birth to and the pick-pocket plan of the Premier is about as cool a piece of rapacious impudence as the most consummate practitioner in the art of mistaking mcum from tuum could have exibited. To say that the measure meditated by the minister in- volves a species of state-robbery, the robbing Peter (the nation) to pay Paul (a part of it), the plundering of the many for the gain of a few-and that too in a manner the mo,t inquisitorial and abhorrent to the feelings of all men-to pronounce this nauseous mixture of financial fraud and in- quisitorial tyranny an odious attempt to plunder the public for the undisguised aggrandisement of a class, of a class of persons who already draw every year from the pockets of toiling industry upwards of 12 millions of pounds sterling—an enormous sum the loss of which impoverishes the people to ten times that amount while it does not really enrich even the persons into whose coffers it comes—to sav this and much more is but to give expression to the universal condemna- tion of the new plan of finance now prevalent throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain. The Welshman was if not the first, at least amongst the first, to denounce the Income-tax in terms as strong as language could supply. We did not wait to see what other journals would say-we were not either so captivated by the artfulness of the Premier's long and clever speech as not to be sen- sible of its sinister purpose and its unstatesman-like manoeuvres. As to its cleverness as a contempo- rary justly observes enough and more than enough has been said in the House of Commons in praise of it. "The public are not like their representatives, so charmed with the ability of a statement as to forget that the main part of it is the proposal to subject them to a tax of the most vexatious nature. People not in the House of Commons think more of what they have to suIrcr than of the industry with which the project for bur- J dening them has been prepared, and they are disposed to repeat Johnson's comment on the praise given to a lady for the execution of a very difficult piece of music,—" Difficult! Would to Heaven it had been impossible!" When men upon whom sentence of death is passed feel full of admiration of the eloquence of the Judge's address, we may expect the public, like Members of Par- liament, to be so much in raptures with the elaborate exposition of a financial scheme as to lose sight of the disagreeable fact that ihey are to be the tax-payers. What was applauded in the House of Commons as the Premier's grasp of mind, was only thought of out of doors as the Premier's grasp of the public pocket." It has been objected to our description last week of the inquisitorial character of the propo- sed tax on all income that we went a little too fa- in our reprehension of it. We are invariably as little disposed to violence of language as to the dis- guise of our convictions and at all events if the Welshman's picture was overcharged that of the Times is tenfold more so. Speaking of the Income- tax when the country was writhing under its in- fliction that journal said, "There is nothing that men in a state of society bold sacred into which it does not obtrude itself or thrust its odious agents. It pries into the marriage settlements and claims of consanguinity among the living, it ran- sacks the wills of the dead, it bunts deeds and bonds in the deepest recesses of the bureau, and drags them to light. Rushing into the counting-house, it spreads wide the ledger, and thereby blasts commercial confidence, and chills mercantile speculation. It stands at the door of the shopkeeper and counts his customers; it mounts the chariot of the physician, and numbers his fees. It adjusts the claim between debtor and creditor, whose relation to each other should only be known to themselves. It computes the feelings of filial piety, of gratitude and humanity, by items of pounds, shillings, and pence for it estimates the support allowed to decrepit old age, to decayed services, perhaps to penitent or discarded guilt. In short, if any man would know whether the income-tax ought to apply in this or that imaginary case, let him be assured that if its application can render his home comfortless, or his closet suspected to him, there will the myrmidons of income-tax have a right to be. Nor is this the termination of the mischief, for, like every other tyrannic measure, its manifold oppressions have the effect of driving those who are the objects of it to a corresponding degree of baseness, falsehood, treachery, and perjury, in order to elude its grasp." We will not wsary the reader with any further remarks on the subject but referring him to another column where under the head Income Tax" will be found such forcible arguments against the pick-pocket proposition as cannot fail to produce conviction, we will now only express a hope that the good seed there sown may take root in the mind of every man throughout the principality.

[No title]

LITEST 1WEW8.I

—— —i — —» , I CARl\L\R'l'IIENSIIIRE.…

CARMARTHENSHIRE ADJOURNED…

-HUNTING APPOINTMENTS.

PEMBROKESHIRE.I

CARDIGANSHIRE. I

I GLAMORGANSHIRE.I

COAL OWNERS MEETING.

I :JIIIG I TiLI..I(.;IECE'…

--LOCAL MARKETS.- - I

[No title]

[No title]

Family Notices

I I

Advertising