THE SHOPKEEPER'S ROAD TO RUIN.
TAE opposition to the Assessed Taxes spreads among the London shopkeepers and mechanics. More meetings have been held during the week, to form associations and organize an extended resistance to their collection. As might be expected, no small quantity of nonsense, couched sometimes in violent language, has been uttered on these occasions; and resolutions have been passed, which assuredly prove their authors and supporters to have got some strange notions in their heads. Last night, for example, there was a meeting of deputies from the parishes of St. Luke, St. Andrew, Clerkenwell, &c., at which the following sapient resolu- tion was passed unanimously.
" That the Assessed Taxes, pressing on the industry of the people, are, and long have been, one of the chief causes of the depression of trade, and the ruin of the commercial interest of this country; and that the evident intention of his Majesty's Ministers to uphold them as long as possible, rendered it essen- tially necessary to resist, by every legal and constitutional means, the collection of these oppressive and unjust imposts."
We shall not be surprised, after this, to hear that bad harvests, eclipses of the sun, and all the other calamities which " perplex nations," are attributable to the Assessed Taxes. Whatever may be the disposition of Ministers, we very much question their power to evade the repeal of these unpopular imposts next session; and when we have once got rid of them, the " industry of the people," we presume, will once more become productive, " the depression of trade" will cease, and " the commercial interest " no longer struggle in the jaws of ruin. What a blessed state the country will then be in ! How cheering it is to reflect, that the remedy for our present sufferings is so simple and practicable, and so speedily to be applied !
Previous page
