JB_172_297.xml

Title: [1820. Aug. 18. Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria]

Description: 1820. Aug. 18.

Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria

Letter 4. Under Code profit none

' 3. Creoles Unwilling

for defraying the charges of maintaining government in Spain. In Spanish America, or

any part of that country, should any such indignation chance to be kindled, is it

likely to be much softened by the consideration that the money, or any part of it,

instead of being employed in defraying the expence of the province from which it is

extracted, is to be employed in paying the salaries of rulers sitting to govern

Spanish America in Spain?

But, if, in Spain itself such would be the indignation called forth by a tax on

Tobacco, not less decided surely is the indignation reasonably to be expected to be

called forth, in Spanish Ultramaria, by any other tax, the effect of which would be

to extract out of that country into Spain, money to any thing near the same

amount. (a)

Note (a)

True it is that if in Spain it was to the mode only that the indignation applied to

the mode in which the tax is levied, considered in comparison of some grievous mode

in which it might be levied - what I proceed to say of the tax has no application:

but, if the objection was to the subject matter of the tax, an objection to this tax

seems little less than an objection to all taxes whatsoever: unless, as under

favourable circumstances, in the case of the general government of the Anglo-American

United States, so in the case of the Spanish Government, taxes upon imports alone, or

upon imports and exports, were regarded as sufficient. Spain, having, within herself,

the necessaries of life, a tax imposed there upon imports, is a tax upon no goods but

luxuries, and upon no consumers but the consumers of luxuries: a tax which,

therefore, does not extend to the least opulent, nor therefore, to the most numerous

classes. A tax upon Tobacco is, it is true, a tax which falls principally upon the

consumption of the least opulent classes. But Tobacco is not a necessary of life:

whereas salt, and abundance of the articles on which the alcavala falls, are regarded

as necessaries of life.

The question - never for a moment be it out of mind on this occasion, the question

is - not as to what the tax is in itself, but as to the disposition of the people to

submitt to it. Whether the people of Spain will or will not submitt to the tax in

question imposed upon them for their own use, the people of Spanish Ultramarian Spain

will not (I say) submitt to it, or to any other tax, if in the whole or any part of

it they regarded it as being imposed for the use of you the people of Peninsular

Spain or your rulers.

The people of English America, though, from the beginning, living in uninterrupted

subjection to the Parliament of England, would not submitt to a tax of threepence a

pound on tea, imposed by that Parliament for the use of the people of England though

the article is a mere luxury, and the use of it so modern in its commencement and

hence it was that, to Anglo-American subjection, after a struggle at the end of which

the power of England yielded was substituted Anglo-American independence: to a good

government growing every day better and better, a bad government growing every day

worse and worse

JB_162_101.xml

Title: [1820 May 10 Emancipation Spanish]

Description: 1820 May 10

Emancipation Spanish

It is not therefore to any such account as the advantage /exercise/ of exercising dominion that any money freely obtained for even equivalent can with propriety be set down.

For the obtaining of money /or [...?] with/ by the exercise of dominion there remains but these other conceivable sources. terms 1. One is taxation: 2. the other is receit of the produce of mines of land containing mines: of land in the shape /name/ of rent.

First as to money obtained by taxes. Whether even for a moment in any one of the provinces the people will without equivalent submitt to pay to be remitted to Spain for the use of the people in Spain any money on this score seems in no small degree doubtful. That they would not for any considerable length of time seems altogether certain.

As the business of government can not in Spanish America any more than in Spain be carried on without money, nor money extracted from the people otherwise than by taxes, what is necessary for the carrying on of the government in Spanish America, must at any rate be provided by taxes imposed on the people of the several Spanish American provinces. If then by or for the people of Spain in case of their burthens money to any amount is, by taxes on the people of /in/ Spanish America, to be raised in Spanish America, any such money must, all of it, be extracted /raised/ /levied/ in addition to whatsoever is extracted from the people of Spanish America for the carrying on of the business of government there, and by so much will the weight of the burthen borne by them in this shape be encreased.

JB_172_276.xml

Title: [1820. Dec r. 23 d. Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1820. Dec r. 23 d.

Rid Yourselves

Part I.

Lett. 3 Ultramaria Submissive

But if, at the expence of Ultramaria money or money's worth in amount

of the burthen in the Peninsula - and this paid voluntarily and with full

satisfaction on the part of those by whom it is paid, let us see from what sources in

particular it must come.

1. Supposable source the first. Taxation at large.

Upon the first mention, it can scarcely fail to be acknowledged, that,

in the shape, for any such a purpose as that in question, any such contribution as a

voluntary one - voluntary one - voluntary in any such degree as that in which it is

and will be voluntary in Spain - could not, in any part of Ultramaria, be reasonably

be expected to have continuance. In the Constitutional Code, not only in the Article

just mentioned, but from beginning to end, the principle professed is that of equal rights, equal to all citizens of the state, as well on

the one side of the sea as on the other. But, in the way of taxation, not a maravedi

could any where be levied in Ultramaria or Spain for the use of Peninsula Spain - for

the relief of the inhabitants of Peninsula Spain - without a proportionable violation

of that principle. A circumstance that can never be out of view in any part of

Ultramarian Spain is - that it was by the determination not to submitt to any such

imposition, that the yoke of England was cast off by the Anglo-American United

States.

2. Supposable resource the second: Mine-rents or Mine

taxes: Payment of money to Spain, by te occupiers of mines in Spanish America,

submitting to this whether under the name of taxes or under

the name of rents would be considered as submission to

taxation: if levied at all, the contributions, thus levied upon the fruits of the

land and labour of the people in Spanish America, ought to be applied (they would

think) in easement of the taxes borne by the people of the province or state in which

the mines are situated, and not to the enrichment of strangers, at so vast a

distance. (a)