Aus:
The Economist, 7. April 1866. S. 405.
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Corn Duty.

Get rid of the remaining slight corn duty. It interferes with the cheap feeding of cattle, on which the farmers more and more depend every year to pay their rent. Some things can only be done near the market, and fatting cattle is one of them. A long transit makes an animal lean again, and therefore by a natural law an animal should be made fit to eat as close as may be to the place where it is to be eaten. The farmers in the vicinity of great towns have discovered this, and will act on it more and more.

Aus:
The Economist, 7. April 1866. S. 406–408.
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American Finance.

One of the „original“ American taxes which the commissioners do not propose to abolish – is a stamp on matches. One cent on each bunch. Brachte 1865 250,000l. There was raised in America by internal revenue:

Und zwar von 150 heads of taxation. The income of the U. St. in the financial year ending 30th June 1865 was 65 Mill. £; but in the quarter ending 30 Sept. 1865 it was 32,000,000£.

The commissioners recommend: 1) to reduce the tax on distilled spirits from 2 to 1 dollars. 2) recommend a tax of 5 cents per lb on cotton to be „levied and collected from the manufacturer“, where the cotton is worked up at home, and from the merchant at the port of export where it is sent away for use abroad. 3d) income tax to be levied on incomes über 200l. a year statt jezt über 120l. Customs und Excises werden geben mit den andren taxes 87,000,000l., Expenditure 60 Mill. £, Surplus: 27 Mill. l. St. Schlagen vor 1) to repeal the taxes on many articles of luxury; 2) to repeal a duty on the repairs of engines, ships, cars, carriages etc. 3) a repeal of a portion of the tax on clothing. The great Tax Bill |42 imposes an excise duty levied on the manufacturer of 5% on boots, shoes, gloves, mittens, hats, caps, bonnets, cloth and cotton clothes, and „all articles of dress not otherwise assessed.“  Siehe Karl Marx: Le capital: „La fiscalité moderne, dont les impôts sur les objets de première nécessité - et partant l’enchérissement de ceux-ci, formaient de prime abord le pivot, renferme donc en soi un germe de progression automatique. La surcharge des taxes n’en est pas un incident, mais le principe.“ (MEGA² II/7. S. 673.21–24.)
Schließen This is taxing the working classes more certainly than any despot would dare to tax them; and it is interfering with trade more than an „old world“ Gvt dared to interfere with. In America this tax has yielded more than 2 millions l. St.

Aus:
The Economist, 7. April 1866. S. 413/414.
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British deer farmers.

The potato blight in Ireland formed the last argument which condemned the Corn Laws; the cattle plague may prove the death-blow of that economical crime so widely perpetrated in this country, the appropriation of useful land to deer forests or game preserves. In every county in England there are dozens, perhaps 100 of game preserves, wherein hares, rabbits and pheasants waste and consume the agricultural products, which naturally and economically would be applied by the farmers in the rearing and fattening domestic animals for meat.

In Scotland, in the Highlands in particular, men no longer wanted as vassals, having been displaced for sheep, the sheep in turn have made way for deer.

Prof. Leone Levi schwatzte at recent meeting of the Society of Arts, on deer forests and Highland agriculture. The management of Highland property vermindre die production of food. Jezt the population of the Highland counties very scanty, only 22 persons per □ mile, obgleich diese districts once full of crofters and small occupiers. A farm is seldom to be met with, and miles and miles may be walked over without coming to a cottage. „The plan of depopulating the Highlands,“ sagt er, „and destroying the crofters has been forced and carried to a point inimical to the best interests of the country.“

The crofters occupied land of which the rental for each holding was little more on the average than 30l. a year, and the plan usually adopted was to turn out the tenants, burn down their cottages (often before their eyes) crowd them into fishing villages on the seashores, and convert all the arable land into pasture, on which sheep in large numbers were fed. Though the climate is unsuitable for wheat, oats and barley could be grown, and with roots and green crops would have largely increased the capacity of the Highlands for sheep breeding. It may be questioned, too, whether some amount of cattle should not have been still bred. The crofters were in the aggregate extensive cattle breeders, though of inferior sorts. Levi sagt: „Under the old system, it is said, the people collected in the glens and valleys between the mountains produced but little corn, and were mainly dependent upon cattle. By the overthrow of the cottier system, the clearing of the glens and the introduction of sheep farms, extensive mountain land, formerly useless, has been made productive etc.“

⦗Depopulation and conversion into mere sheep-walk presented the readiest means of income without outlay. …

From the depth of a sheep-walk, the lower deep of a deer forest has been a common change in the Highlands. The sheep are now turned out for the sake of wild animals, as men were once turned out to make room for sheep.⦘ „It is estimated (says the Professor) that there are in Scotland upwards of 2 Millions acres of forests; ⦗and one can walk from the Earl of Dalhousie’s estates in Forfarshire to John o’Groats, without ever leaving forest land.⦘ I might mention the forests of Alyth, Athol, and Dummie, in Perthshire; of Balnagowan and Lewis, in Rossshire; of Boyn and Glenavon, in Banffshire; of Mar |43 and Birsa, in Aberdeenshire; of  The Economist: Gaiak
Schließen Gajak, in Inverness-shire; and of Platers in Forfarshire. ⦗In many of these the fox, wild cat, the marten, the polecat, the weasel, and the Alpine hare are common; whilst the rabbit, the squirrel, and the rat have lately made their way into the country. Immense tracts of lands, much of which is described in the statistical account of Scotland as having a ‚pasturage in richness and extent of very superior description‘, are thus shut out from all cultivation and improvement, and are solely devoted to the sport of a few persons for a very brief period of the year.⦘ It has been gravely asserted that there is only a difference in the kind of meat produced. But who will compare beef or mutton with venison? Who eats venison as food? Beef is the sustenance of the many; venison is the luxury of the few.“ High rents are or rather have been obtained for deer forests under the influence of fashion. Such rent is not wealth – it is not derived from the soil – it is simply the price paid by some overwealthy individual for the luxury of plunging for a few hours into the sports of the wilderness. Is not this what was done by our Norman conquerors? … Allowing that a certain amount of produce is extracted from the chase in venison and grouse, the market value of such produce is inconsiderable and altogether incommensurate with the expenditure incurred for such forests, while the permanent injury committed on the land, and far more, the withdrawal of such large portions of land from productive purposes, especially from sheep and cattle, must be considered as most injurious to the country at large.

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Aus:
The Economist 23. Februar 1867. S. 218.
Schließen

Manufacturing Districts.

Manchester Feb. 21. Stocks are not pressing heavily on the market, as the short time movement keeps them in a reasonable compass.

Iron has moved off slowly. Exporttrade in coals is somewhat active.

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