The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine [the best books to read txt] 📗

shillings for every family of five persons, which make the whole average amount of taxes and rates L14 17s. 6d. For six persons L17 17s. For seven persons L2O

16s. 6d.

The average of taxes in America, under the new or representative system of government, including the interest of the debt contracted in the war, and taking the population at four millions of souls, which it now amounts to, and it is daily increasing, is five shillings per head, men, women, and children. The difference, therefore, between the two governments is as under: England America L s. d. L s. d.

For a family of five persons 14 17 6 1 5 0 For a family of six persons 17 17 0 1 10 0 For a family of seven persons 20 16 6 1 15 0 Public schools do not answer the general purpose of the poor.

They are chiefly in corporation towns from which the country towns and villages are excluded, or, if admitted, the distance occasions a great loss of time. Education, to be useful to the poor, should be on the spot, and the best method, I believe, to accomplish this is to enable the parents to pay the expenses themselves. There are always persons of both sexes to be found in every village, especially when growing into years, capable of such an undertaking. Twenty children at ten shillings each (and that not more than six months each year) would be as much as some livings amount to in the remotest parts of England, and there are often distressed clergymen's widows to whom such an income would be acceptable. Whatever is given on this account to children answers two purposes. To them it is education- to those who educate them it is a livelihood.

The tax on beer brewed for sale, from which the aristocracy are exempt, is almost one million more than the present commutation tax, being by the returns of 1788, L1,666,152- and, consequently, they ought to take on themselves the amount of the commutation tax, as they are already exempted from one which is almost a million greater.

See the Reports on the Corn Trade.

When enquiries are made into the condition of the poor, various degrees of distress will most probably be found, to render a different arrangement preferable to that which is already proposed.

Widows with families will be in greater want than where there are husbands living. There is also a difference in the expense of living in different counties: and more so in fuel.

Suppose then fifty thousand extraordinary cases, at the rate of ten pounds per family per annum L500,000

100,000 families, at L8 per family per annum 800,000

100,000 families, at L7 per family per annum 700,000

104,000 families, at L5 per family per annum 520,000

And instead of ten shillings per head for the education of other children, to allow fifty shillings per family for that purpose to fifty thousand families 250,000

---------- L2,770,000 140,000 aged persons as before 1,120,000 ---------- L3,890,000

This arrangement amounts to the same sum as stated in this work, Part II, line number 1068, including the L250,000 for education; but it provides (including the aged people) for four hundred and four thousand families, which is almost one third of an the families in England.

I know it is the opinion of many of the most enlightened characters in France (there always will be those who see further into events than others), not only among the general mass of citizens, but of many of the principal members of the former National Assembly, that the monarchical plan will not continue many years in that country. They have found out, that as wisdom cannot be made hereditary, power ought not; and that, for a man to merit a million sterling a year from a nation, he ought to have a mind capable of comprehending from an atom to a universe, which, if he had, he would be above receiving the pay. But they wished not to appear to lead the nation faster than its own reason and interest dictated. In all the conversations where I have been present upon this subject, the idea always was, that when such a time, from the general opinion of the nation, shall arrive, that the honourable and liberal method would be, to make a handsome present in fee simple to the person, whoever he may be, that shall then be in the monarchical office, and for him to retire to the enjoyment of private life, possessing his share of general rights and privileges, and to be no more accountable to the public for his time and his conduct than any other citizen.

The gentleman who signed the address and declaration as chairman of the meeting, Mr. Horne Tooke, being generally supposed to be the person who drew it up, and having spoken much in commendation of it, has been jocularly accused of praising his own work. To free him from this embarrassment, and to save him the repeated trouble of mentioning the author, as he has not failed to do, I make no hesitation in saying, that as the opportunity of benefiting by the French Revolution easily occurred to me, I drew up the publication in question, and showed it to him and some other gentlemen, who, fully approving it, held a meeting for the purpose of making it public, and subscribed to the amount of fifty guineas to defray the expense of advertising. I believe there are at this time, in England, a greater number of men acting on disinterested principles, and determined to look into the nature and practices of government themselves, and not blindly trust, as has hitherto been the case, either to government generally, or to parliaments, or to parliamentary opposition, than at any former period. Had this been done a century ago, corruption and taxation had not arrived to the height they are now at.