THE ALTERATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, AND THE INEQUALITY OF THE LAND-TAX, CONSIDERED CONJOINTLY.
BY
J. BRAND,
Cl. M. A.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. EVANS, NO. 32, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
M.DCC.XCIII.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THIS Tract is part of a general Essay on the Change of the Representation of the People, so much agitated of late. The whole was designed, at first, not to have been extended beyond the limits of a short pamphlet: but, as I advanced, I found that it would so much exceed those bounds, that the Publication must have been delayed, until the chance of its utility (if it would have possessed any) would have been nearly lost. I have therefore considered one great division of the subject only, retaining so much of the general matter as may serve for an introduction to it; and one purpose of this Advertisement is, to account for the appearance that this Tract carries, of being a detached part only of a subject of considerable extent.
Some Abbreviations, which are made use of in this Work, are here explained. They are chiefly of the titles of books quoted.
Davenant.
—Whitworth's Davenant, Edition, 1781.
Smith.
—Dr. Adam Smith, on the Wealth of Nations, edit. 3d, 8vo. 1784.
Chalmers.
—Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain, &c. by George Chalmers, 4to. 1782.
Sinclair.
—Sir John Sinclair's History of the Public Revenue, 4to. second edit. 1790.
Locke.
—Locke's Works, folio edition, 1722.
ms.
— These letters following any number, denote the integer part thereof to be millions: thus 8 ms. is to be read 8 millions; and 8·253 ms. either decimally, as 8 millions 253 thousandths, or as an integer, 8,253,000. This abbreviation has been adopted, because, in such great numbers, the last three places of figures have not been calculated, as being absolutely unimportant in the present subject.
THE ALTERATION, &c.
INTRODUCTION.
A MEASURE of such importance as an alteration of the constitution of the Third Estate, certainly requires to be examined in every point of view, before it be carried into execution. It may be considered as to its general or local consequence: the first as affecting the whole kingdom; the second, the larger district of it.
It will affect the kingdom in general, by producing a change in the present proportion of power, in the executive and legislative departments of the State. For its advocates hold out, that it will diminish considerably that possessed by the Crown, and at the same time reduce that of the Peers; while the strength of the popular branch of the Legislature is to receive some considerable increase. It is not (that I know of) so much as pretended, that the effective powers of the King, and the House of Lords, are to be decreased in the same proportion: it seems on the contrary, that the greater cession is to be demanded of the Crown. Hence the power of the Upper House will become relatively greater, compared with that of the Sovereign; and relatively much less, compared with the increased power of the Commons; or a total change will take place, in the present proportion of power of the three Estates.
The effect of this change upon the whole kingdom, taken as a whole, I do not intend at present to enter into; but to examine its consequences to a particular district of great magnitude and importance, the southern and eastern counties; and solely with respect to the tax upon land.
This part of the kingdom comprehends the counties of Middlesex, Surry, Hertford, Bedford, Cambridge, Kent, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Berks, Buckingham, and Oxford. With respect to the metropolis, these may be called the home district or counties; and the remainder of England and Wales, the remote district or division.
To the former of these districts, I consider the present proposed alteration of the constitution of the Lower House, as a measure attended with great danger: because, as near as its termination is, it is not very probable that the present century will elapse, or at least be long elapsed, before the amount of the land-tax will be augmented: and though the representatives of the landed property of the remote district, have now a very considerable majority, over those of the home counties in the Lower House; yet, by the most sober plans of this alteration which I have seen, it will in future be doubled. Now the burthen of the tax on the latter, is much greater than that on the former; and thus all relief to this great existing disproportion, will be rendered impossible; the present assessment will be made the basis of the additions to the charges of this tax which must in future take place: and the difference of the actual and proportional payment of the remote district, already very great, will receive a further augmentation. Now (all consideration of the metropolis being constantly left out of the question) the direct consequence of this must be, that the superior celerity with which the remote district has been advancing in opulence, during the course of the present century (aided, beside its natural advantages, by the existing inequality of the land-tax) will become greater by a second artificial acceleration, which will arise from this second defalcation of their payment to the public charge: and the relative decline of the home district, will be precipitated in the same degree.
One consequence of this may be here laid down: it directly follows from a supposition of its truth, that, if it should be granted that a change of constitution of the House of Commons is otherwise expedient (a supposition which, though not attacked here, is not to be taken as hereby admitted) still it ought not to take place, until its dangerous consequences be guarded against! which are, not only that of perpetuating an old system of the grossest inequality of the public burthens of the two divisions of the kingdom; but also that of aggravating its oppressive disparity by new augmentations. This must be guarded against, previous to intrusting the remote counties with double their present majority of members in the House of Commons: until that be done, a prudential justice, a regard for a fair equality, if these things have any existence more than in name, demand the measure to be postponed. And hence it follows, not only that the present is not the proper season to effect this alteration; but that such a period has not yet occurred since the Revolution; and that it is a happy circumstance, that no attempt to carry it into execution has hitherto succeeded. This is the legitimate consequence of the argument, the summary of which is laid down above: its several branches are now to be entered into, particularly and separately.
But it has often been urged by the inhabitants of the remote district, that the expediency and justice of the continuation of the present assessment, have been established upon good and solid reasons: and they may be inclined to alledge,
that this argument ought to be treated as a dilatory plea only, against a necessary reform: and that the bringing it forward at this juncture, points out the propriety of carrying this great constitutional measure into immediate execution, even for the quiet of the home division; who, when they see the absolute impossibility of succeeding in their unjust and impolitic pretensions, will silently abandon them: and the imaginary grievance, the real discontent it has always fostered, and all their chimerical expectations, will sink into oblivion together.
As the general argument may thus be attempted to be answered; this objection, and the consequences drawn from it, will be anticipated by treating the subject in the following order.
1st. An account will be given of the cause of the inequality of this taxation.
2d. The arguments in favour of its continuance will be all stated; and such as do not find a more natural place under a following head, will be here answered.
3d. The circumstances will be laid down which tend to prove, that the amount of the Land-tax must be increased.
4th. The measure of the disproportion of the charge upon the two districts, will be determined; and its effect assigned.
5th. The number of county members, to be added to those of the home and remote divisions, will be shown; according to the plans of this change, brought forward in 1785 and 1790: and thence the great addition of power which would be so acquired by the remote district, in the Lower House, will be proved.
These discussions will necessarily lead to a variety of arithmetical operations: the data on which they are founded, the circumstances affecting their authority, and the processes themselves, will all be referred to the Appendix: the results only of these operations will be noticed in each Section; to preserve the history or train of reasoning in it, clear and uninterruped by arithmetical operations; which, however necessary on the subject, produce nearly the same effect, mixed with arguments of the former kind, as digressions to collateral, or even to foreign matter. Davenant, vol. 1. p. 47.
What is to be said on each of these heads, will be the subject of a separate Section.
SECTION I.
On the Cause of the Inequality of the Land-Tax.
THE origin of the disproportion of the charge of the modern Land-tax upon the home and remote district, is to be sound in a very early period of our history; when the south-west counties were exposed to the descents of the French, and the western and northern, to the predatory incursions of the Welch and Scotch. These hostilities exposed them to frequent and considerable losses; and they could contribute very little to the charge of the general defence, after they had provided for their own. Hence it appears, in the old accounts of the Exchequer, that the northern and western counties were always favoured in their charge to the ancient subsidies. And during the reign of Mary the First, the whole counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, the towns of Berwick and Newcastle, and the Bishopric of Durham, were exempted from the payment of these grants, on account of their vicinity to the Scotch.
Sinclair, part 1. page 122.
In the 17th and 18th of Charles the First an assessment of £ 400,000 was levied upon Land, according to the proportion of the old subsidies
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 48.
. During the civil war, the Excise had been the great resource of the Parliament: but when the royal party was subdued, a Land-tax by monthly assessments was extended over the whole kingdom
Ibid. p. 34.
; the proportions of the old subsidies were adhered to as before
Ibid, p. 48.
. It has been generally said, that, by these assesments, the heaviest charges fell upon such districts as had formed associations in defence of Parliament: and this has been supposed to be the origin of the inequality of the modern Land-tax: but most counties in England having been at some time or other associated during the war, and by ordinances of the Lords and Commons at Westminster,
Ibid, p. 34.
this supposition must be given up.
One cause of continuing the former proportions of this charge, was, that while the remote district had been much harrassed by the hostile armies of both parties, the home counties, better covered by the forces of the Parliament, had enjoyed a greater degree of security. Hence arose a necessity of some temporary indulgence to the former; which was very commodiously, but perhaps not very politically conferred upon them, by continuing the old proportion of taxation.
Ibid, p. 34.
This mode of raising money by monthly assessments, formed part of the constant revenue of the State, until the Restoration: the remote counties however were indebted for this indulgence, in some measure, to the number and vigilance of the members they returnd to the House, as well as to the consideration of their past sufferings
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 34.
.
These assessments were the basis, on which the payments of the several parts of the kingdom to the modern Land-tax were determined; and to which they are "exactly"
Ibid. p. 48.
proportioned. This fact, for which we have cotemporary testimony, is in part the source of the popular error on this subject. Thus the disproportion of the assessments of the commonwealth was the proximate, and that of the old subsidies the remote, cause of the present inequality of the Land-tax.
The plan of converting the monthly assessments upon land, into a pound rate, was first brought forward in that singular Convention, which received the name of Praise-God Barebones Parliament. They resolved that the supply for the maintenance of the army should be so raised; but the assessment was broken up, before that resolution received the form of an ordinance or law
Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. 2. p. 472. Vivay in Switzerland, 1698.
. That this new system either was then, or afterwards became popular, is evident from its being carried into execution, the first year after the Revolution; for new schemes for raising money, which had not acquired an antecedent popularity, would not at such a time have been embraced. Two supplies by a tax on land were granted in that year; the first at one shilling, and the second at two shillings, in the pound. Their aggregate produce was £1,566,627: and at four shillings in the pound, the sum collected would have been £2,088,836. The real produce of the tax at that rate in the year 1693, was £1,977,713
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 278.
. There appears therefore to have been a deficiency of £111,123 in the latter payment, which is thus accounted for: to the first, the inhabitants of the home district had assessed themselves more nearly to the true value of their estates: they afterwards "
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 278.
learned of their neighbours, to favour themselves in the levying of this tax." If any species of fraud admitted of defence, it might be said, that they did not sufficiently profit of the example they had before them.
The assessment of 1693 continues, with very little change, to be the standard of the present time: though a certain part of this reduced amount has been rendered only nominal, in a very singular manner, by the subsequent extension of the tax to salaries and fees of office; which was certainly intended to produce an augmentation of the revenue: its effect has however been contrary; for the entire salary is paid out of the Exchequer
Molesworth, sixth Report of Commissioners, vol. 1. p. 115.
; and the tax on each officer goes in aid of the sum, at which the place where he resides was before assessed; a relief where probably it is not wanted. Thus this tax is in no case an increase of the income of the public; and in some instances it actually diminishes it; for when the salary is small, the officer is repaid out of the receipts of his own department
Sinclair, Part the third, p. 168.
: thus the Treasury pays part of the tax of all those places, where officers with small salaries reside; and the neat revenue of the State becomes actually diminished. What the loss thus generated may amount to, I am unable to assign: the effective payment of every county will therefore be taken constantly to be the same as in the year 1693.
When this inequality originally took place, several reasonings were made use of in defence of it, but of unequal validity. It was urged, that the owners of land in the remote district, could not pay an equal sum in the pound out of their rents;
because their returns and markets were not so quick; and they tasted not that benefit of trade and greatness of London, in the same degree as the home counties.
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 61.
It may very well be granted that, at the imposition of the Land-tax, the production of a farm of 100 acres in the remote district, sold for less money, than that of another of an equal size in the home division; in consequence of which, the rent of the latter was greater then that of the former; and therefore that an equal tax could not equitably be imposed upon equal quantities of land in each: but it by no means follows, that from equal rents, equally well paid, (which is for the present to be supposed) equal sums ought not to be contributed to the public charge; whatever the local circumstances, or the natural properties of the soil out of which they result, may be. For there is the same reason to admit a deduction upon account of one of these accidents inseparably attached to the estate, as upon account of the other. The landlord who derives an income of £.100 a year, from a farm with a good soil, situated near an inferior market, is in the same circumstances with respect to his ability to pay taxes, as another who receives the same rent from a farm, containing the same number of acres; whose soil is inferior, but which is situated in the vicinity of a good market: and if the latter were to plead for an abatement of a tax, confessedly proportioned to his income, because it was derived from a tract of sandy country, we should smile at such a plea, on such an occasion.
But another argument was urged, at the time of the imposition of the land-tax, in defence of the original disproportion of the charge upon the two districts; which, if the fact it rests upon be admitted, proves beyond dispute, that the remote district stood then in need of considerable relief in some shape or other: and that fact is established upon the fullest evidence. The landlords of the remote district alledged, that they
were not able to pay the same pound rate, because their rents were not so well paid:
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 61.
that is, losses of rent were more common among them, than in the home division. Davenant, from whom this is extracted, when writing in favour of the equalization of the tax, gives this as part of the plea of the remote district; and does not dispute the fact. This tacit admission of it is a kind of historical evidence in its favour. He also informs us, that in the year 1665 it was evident that money was scarce in the northern and western counties;
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 61.
a circumstance which must have caused many delays and failures, in the payment of rent; and it will be seen presently, that the relative depression of the landed interest in those parts of the kingdom, had increased between that time and the Revolution. That failures in the payment of rent were then frequent in the western counties particularly, and that the farmers were in great distress there, seems apparent from the testimony of Mr. Locke.
Locke, vol. 1. p. 13. Considerations on Interest. This essay was written about the year 1672, and published in 1691; as appears from the letter prefixed to it: in the latter year it received some enlargements. The passage relates to one of the two years; and in either case, it is applicable to one of the two statements here given.
But these accounts perhaps, without more substantial support, would not be sufficient at this time absolutely to confirm the fact, on which the remote district then claimed the indulgence of the State: and we might be inclined to detract something from their credit, upon account of that degree of doubt, with which such complaints ought in general to be received: but it is proved from the price of estates in 1666, that the rents were then very badly paid in the remote district: and on the same evidence it is to be shown, that from that year the security of payment to the landlord, was relatively more and more declining until 1688; as appears from the increasing ratio of disparity of the value of equal incomes, and the increasing difference of the interest of money made by purchases in the two districts, at each of those terms.
In the year 1666, the mean value of land, in the home district, was 19 years purchase;
Between 18 and 20 years. Davenant, v. 1. p. 359.
or an estate of £.526: 6
s.
a year, was in value £.10,000; and the interest of money made by such purchase, was £.5·2631 per cent.
The mean value of land, in the remote district, was at the same time 15 years purchase;
Ibid. between 14 and 16 years.
and the price of an estate of equal rent, £.7894: 14
s.
and the interest of the purchase money, £.6·6666 per cent.
Hence the proportion of the values of two estates, of equal rents, in the two districts, was at that time as 10,000 to 7894; the difference of their selling prices, 4 years purchase, or £.2105; and the difference of the interest of the purchase-money, £1·4035 per cent.
Nothing but a general and great insecurity in the payment of rents, could have caused such important differences, or raised the interest, made by purchasing land, above the legal rate on private securities; for the rent of land is the most favourite species of income. Now to those who then bought estates with an intention to reside upon them, if the rents had been equally well paid, £.526 a year, in the further district, must have been of much greater real value than the same sum in the home division, on account of the cheapness of markets. The situation would likewise have been recommended by another circumstance: the strength of the royal party laid here; and if we consider their character as contradistinguished to that of their opponents, those who were desirous of mixing with a country life, the pleasures of the liveliest society it affords, would certainly have thought this district, at least, as eligible as the other. The fashion for men of fortune to throng to the capital, was even then greatly increased, though not nearly so prevalent as it now is; and they had found the means of remitting their rents thither.
The receivers of the land-tax, in the remote counties, formerly justified keeping large balances in their hands, upon account of "the difficulty of procuring remittances from London:" but, at the same time, the collectors of the Excise
found no difficulty in procuring bills, and could have remitted more money by the same method;
the length of their term of payment, varrying with the distance of the place. Molesworth's Reports of the Commissioners, v. 1. p. 11, 12. This pretended difficulty is the occasion of the remark in the text: the remote district had already made some considerable advances, to rival the home division in its foreign commerce; and paper credit, before the Revolution, was very extensive, as will be seen further on; very little difficulty, therefore, could have existed on this head.
In this respect an income from one part of the kingdom was nearly as convenient as from another. On the whole of these circumstances, it appears, that equal rents, equally secure, should at least, at this period, have been of equal value in the two divisions; and that nothing but a great hazard of failure of payment, could have been the cause of the difference stated above. For there was at that time, in the home district,
a greater plenty of money than securities;
Davenant, v. 1. p. 359.
and if it had not been for this reason, it would have found its way to the market where the best income was to be obtained for it; that is, where the interest, by purchase of land, exceeded the legal rate on private loans, by ⅔ per cent. It was seen before, that in the year 1665,
money was very scarce in the northern and western counties:
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 359.
and here it is shown, that, in the remainder of the kingdom, there was more than could be employed.
At the Revolution, the average price of land, in the home counties, was 26½ years purchase;
Between 26 and 27 years. Ibid. vol. 1. p. 361.
and the interest of money so made, £.3·7735 per cent. Hence the value of an estate of £.377: 7
s.
a year, was £.10,000 in the remote district; the value of land was 17½ years purchase;
Between 17 and 18 years. Ibid.
the interest made by money so employed, was £.5·7142 per cent. and the value of an estate of £.377: 7
s.
was £.6603: 14
s.
This rapid rise (7½ years purchase, in 22 years) was caused by a singular fall of the rate of interest, which will be further noticed below.
If the security of the payment of rent, in the remote district, had not decreased from 1666 to 1688, the value of an estate, the price of which, in the home counties, was in the latter year £.10,000, would, in the remainder of the kingdom, have continued to be £.7894: 14
s.
It had fallen to £.6603: 14
s.
therefore the increasing insecurity of the rents of that part of the country, had diminished the value of landed perpetuities in the proportion of 7894·7, to 6603·7; or in that of 10,000 to 8364.
The increase of the insecurity of the landed income, in the rest of the kingdom, may be exhibited in another point of view; by assigning the proportion of its effect to sink the price of estates, to that of the cotemporary fall of interest, intimated above, to raise them. If the hazard of the payment of rent, in both districts, had been the same in the second town as in the first, the increase of the year's purchase, in each, would have been proportioned: hence, in the same time that the value of the land of the home counties, increased from 19 to 26½ years purchase, in the remote counties it would have been augmented, in like manner, from 15 to (20.921) 21 years purchase. On the other hand, if the insecurity of the payment of rent had increased in the same proportion as the rate of interest fell, or the year's purchase of the landed income rose, whose degree of security was constant, which is here taken as having been the fact in the home counties; then the number of years purchase would have remained fixed; or fifteen times the rent have been the value of land in the remote district in 1666 and 1688. Again, which is a third case, if the hazard had increased, but with less celerity than the rate of interest fell, the value of land would have been somewhere between the two limits of 21 and 15 years purchase; whose difference is six years. Now in effect this case obtained, these lands had risen to be in value 17½ years purchase, exhibiting an increase of 2½ years: it has been proved, that the undiminished effect of the fall of interest, would have increased their value by 6 years purchase: a part of its efficacy, therefore, and which would (if it had operated unopposed) have raised them 3½ years purchase more, was counter-balanced by some depressing cause; which, if acting alone, would have sunk them by that amount: and no adequate cause can be assigned, except the increased hazard of the payment of rent. Hence, if the total efficacy of the fall of interest to raise the value of land, which took place in these 22 years, be conceived to be divided into 12 equal parts, the effect of 7 such parts will be found to have been annihilated by the increasing hazard of the payment of rent, or the forces of these opposite causes to have been in that proportion; and the value of the estate to have been increased by the 5 parts only which remained uncounterbalanced.
The value of land in the remote district in the year 1666, was only 4 years purchase below that of the rest of the kingdom: the difference had increased to 9 years in the year 1688: the difference of interest made by purchases, which in the first term was (£.1.4035) £.1⅖ per cent. nearly, had, in the second, become augmented to (£.1.9407) nearly 2 per cent. The remote district was, therefore, relatively to the home district, in a state of rapid decline, at the time the land-tax was imposed; and the same is true, even of the value of land, though it exhibits a small absolute rise.
It may not be here superfluous to explain, by an instance, the terms
absolute rise
and
relative fall;
and how both may be understood to be applied to the same thing, at the same point of time: for this distinction is always material when the magnitudes which two or more subjects, increasing with different degrees of celerity, attain, when compared at the beginning and end of a term of time. Therefore let there be supposed to be two bodies, absolutely without weight; whereof the first is projected upwards, with two degrees of velocity, to continue uniformly the same; and let the second be in like manner projected at the same instant, with one degree of celerity: now all consideration of weight, with respect to both, being out of the question; at the end of a certain time, the second will be below the first by a given distance; and at the end of double that time, by double that distance. Here the second body, at all times, will have ascended absolutely; yet its distance below the first will be always such, as it would have been if the first had remained at rest, and the second been projected in the opposite direction, with one degree of uniform velocity, as before; therefore, considered with respect to the place of the first, it is said to have been, at all times, relatively falling.
Some account of the cause of the increasing insecurity of the payment of the rent of the remote district, may be given upon the authority of Mr. Locke. He describes the artifices by which the purchasers of the product of the farmer had, at the time of his writing his Tract upon Interest, been able to impose their own prices upon him, and compel him, beside, to allow them long terms of credit, and the incapacity of paying their rents, to which the farmers were thereby reduced: and he concludes,
If any one doubt of this, let him enquire how many farmers of the west are broke and run away since Michaelmas last.
Locke, vol. 2. p. 13.
From the whole of what he has said upon this subject, it is evident that the same account is applicable, though perhaps in a lower degree, to the northern counties.
Hitherto we have considered only the argument in defence of the original disproportion of the land-tax, drawn from the declining circumstances of the remote district, at the time of its imposition; but the following state of the home division gave no inconsiderable addition to its weight: and of this there is the strongest evidence, in the singular fall of the rate of interest upon loans, mentioned above; by which the value of lands, in the home counties, was in 22 years raised 7½ years purchase. In considering this fall, every thing which relates to the fluctuations of the rate in that term, which were themselves very remarkable, will be omitted. Some years before the time of Mr. Locke's writing his Essay on Interest,
the scarcity of money made it, in England, really worth more than £.6 per cent.
Ibid. p. 5.
but so early as the year 1681, such a decrease of the current interest had taken place, that the East-India Company borrowed considerable sums of money at £.3 per cent. Houghton, who has preserved this fact, adds,
that although he had secured the interest of one of the officers of the House, to obtain that rate for a friend, he failed of success; and that money was then currently lent at £4, 4½, and 5 per cent.
Houghton's Husbandry and Trade improved, vol. 4. p. 152.
At the time of the Revolution, according to Davenant,
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 361.
the greater part of the loans upon landed security, were at the two former rates.
This fall of interest is to be attributed, among other very accelerating causes, to the increase of our currency, at that time, by paper credit; which has been erroneously supposed by some not to have existed, or at least to have been in a very circumscribed state before the Revolution. The shutting up of the Exchequer, in the year 1672, occasioned the failure of many bankers; and by laying open their accounts, shew the extent which paper credit had then obtained. The circulating notes of one of them, on his single security, exceeded £.1,000,000;
Locke, vol. 2. p. 5.
but in 1688, it was so much further increased,
that by its means our rents and taxes were paid, and the bulk of trade here at home, carried on almost without the species of money:
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 151.
and Davenant, from whom this extract is taken, further describes the state into which it fell during the war of the Revolution, approaching to that of a total annihilation; and the first symptoms of its revival, as such, after the peace of Riswyck.
I have entered, with some detail, into this proof of the very flourishing situation of the home counties, and of the relative and increasing decline of the remote division, at the time of the imposition of the land-tax; because it is strongly connected to that inequality of the assessments which has been perpetuated to this day; and it shews that they stood in need of some relief, though the remainder of the kingdom has cause to regret, that no other method was followed in affording assistance to them, than that which has been eventually so unfortunate to themselves. In the course of these researches, two popular errors, in the history of our national wealth, appear likewise to be done away: the one respecting the high rate of interest; the other, the extent of paper credit before the year 1688.
In these observations on the causes of the inequality of the land-tax, I have been obliged to go so far with this sketch of a comparative history of the state of the landed interests, in the two districts, that there is but little required to bring it to its ultimate period; and therefore it shall be here given. The distant counties seem to have recovered a total equality with the rest of the kingdom, as early as the accession of George the Second. Guthrie informs us, that
in the year 1727, the value of the northern counties of the kingdom began to be better understood than formerly.
Guthrie's Geography, ed. 1785, p. 367. 8vo.
In the year 1729, the price of the land of England had increased to 25½ years purchase: this is given by Anderson, a diligent collector of facts, as the general value of the whole kingdom.
To 25 and 26 years purchase. Chalmers, p. 138.
No distinction is here made of the prices of estates in the two districts; and no traces of their disparity, at any subsequent time, have occured to me; I therefore conclude, that at this period a total equality had taken place between them. The national average price of land, in 1688, had been 19⅜ years purchase nearly: it follows that this average had increased, in the interval between the two last-mentioned years, by 6⅛ years purchase; but that the value of land, in the home counties, having been 26½ rents, had fallen one, while the remote district had risen in price, from 17½ to 25½, or 8 years purchase.
It remains only to account for this variation of the state of the two divisions: the inequality of the land-tax certainly much quickened the progress of the remote district, first to attain a level with the home counties; and afterward, in many circumstances, a superiority above them; but before it was imposed, there were some natural causes in operation, which would have ultimately produced even the last of these effects, although its period had not been accelerated by an artificial cause in constant action; the oppression of the remainder of the kingdom with a double land-tax. So early as the 1636, the home counties had begun
to grub up their woods and dispark their parks
;
Davenant, vol. 1. p. 46.
and carried that practice to a great extent. But the quantity of wood has been much more diminished since; and they are become in a manner tributary to the remote district for fuel. The coal trade, though by no means arrived at its present magnitude, was increasing with rapidity at the time the Land-tax was first raised: insomuch, that in the year 1695, it was found, that the quantity of coal consumed in London, had been trebled of late years. Manufactures are attracted from one country to another by the cheapness of firing: and accordingly it was then laid down as a fact, "that of late years likewise" the north and west had acquired a greater proportion of trade, than the home counties.
SECTION II.
The Arguments in favour of the Inequality of the Land-tax, stated and considered.
THE advocates for the continuance of the present proportion of the charge of the two districts to the Land tax, argue thus:
Its original establishment was necessary; for if was founded on the difference of their abilities to contribute to the public expences: the historical evidence on which this rests admits of no dispute. At present, the national interest, and the national justice, both urge its continuance; and the arguments for it, derived from each of these topics, are so cogent, that they deserve to be separately stated.
How strongly considerations of public interest and expedience, recommend the continuance of the old valuation, is thus made evident. No material increase of the charge of the tax upon the remote counties, can take place, without a corresponding advance of rent; which must be followed, by a proportional increase of the price of the farmers products: and as that district includes by much the largest part of the kingdom, a general increase of its rent will produce ultimately a general advance of the prices of the first necessaries of life.
But the effect of such an innovation will not terminate here. The claim upon which it is to be introduced, rests upon this principle; that the taxes upon rent ought always to vary with its amount, and be proportioned thereto. Hence every increase of rent, in every district, must constantly be accompanied with a proportional advance of the payment of the land to the State. A maxim of taxation, which, whatever specious pretences may be set up in its favour, has always produced the worst effects, in those counties where it has been carried into practice: in some of them, it has received the name of the
Taille:
and wherever it has been adopted, the spirit of improvement in agriculture has not only been extinguished; but, in many instances, the art itself has gone backward. Thus the equalization of the tax will prevent the increase of product, which might otherwise counterbalance its effect upon prices.
But the measure of the evils which will result from the subversion of the old system, appears only of its proper magnitude in its secondary consequences; or when those primary effects of it, already pointed out, come to operate in conjunction by preventing the increase of productions, physically necessary to the subsistence of mankind, it puts a stop to the increase of population; and by its tendency to raise their prices, it perpetually takes something more and more away, from the comfort and happiness of the lower closs of people; which their numerous privations, brought on by the charges of the State, have already too much diminished. The greatest object of a moral policy (and nature and virtue admit of no other) is to augment the number of a nation, and to increase their comforts, in the utmost practicable degree. Now the effects of this novelty are directly repugnant to these great ends; and we cannot forbear adding how even that empty and delusive, but perhaps ostensible pretence to justice, on which it rests as a foundation, has been lately in some degree done away. Every one must be convinced, that the house-tax is a land-tax disguised under another name: by its imposition, this charge upon the remote district has been effectively increased since the first valuation; and at the same time brought nearer to that proportionality, incessantly demanded with so much clamour, and so little reason.
These are the arguments, to the consideration of which, the remainder of this Section will be confined; but there is another constantly produced on this subject, upon which the greatest stress is often affected to be laid: that all purchasers of estates in the remote district, for a long series of years, have paid an increased price for them; in confidence that the present proportion of assessments should be continued to all future periods; and that it would he injustice to take from them, what they have paid a valuable consideration for. This argument will be more fully stated in the Fourth Section, and an answer to it given: no further notice will therefore be taken of it here. The consideration of those which precede it, is now to be entered upon.
They set out with a tacit defence of the continuance of the inequality, from a necessity which arose, from the peculiar circumstances of the home district, at the juncture when it was suffered to take place. That they stood then in need of some relief, is not to be disputed: and possibly the justice of that claim has been fortified with a new proof, in the preceding Section. Admitting it therefore in its full extent, it does not follow, that such relief ought originally to have been extended to them, in a mode contrary to the first principles of taxation; nor (even that point being gratuitously given up) that the relief ought to have been prolonged, beyond the necessity on which it was founded. Now all traces of the preexisting depression of the remote district, had been obliterated so early as the year 1729; and the necessity, and the inequality, ought to have terminated together.
The second plea urged is, that as the equalization of the tax will encrease its charge, throughout the greater part of the kingdom, it must effectively increase the national rent itself; and consequently, the prices of the first necessaries of life.
In answer to this, I shall endeavour to show, that it will neither effect rent nor prices. That it will not effect rent of land follows, first, from the nature of the subject itself; which is clearly laid down by Dr. Adam Smith, in his work on the Wealth of Nations.
Smith, v. 1. p, 223.
He informs us, that rent is always the largest part of the value of the product of land, that can be taken from the farmer; allowing him the ordinary profits of stock, after defraying his expences. Now this being admitted, in the latitude in which he has put it, that is, as a general principle; the rent must be already arrived at this height in the remote counties: no further rise therefore can take place, merely in consequence of the increase of the landlord's outgoing charges. For it will not create an ability in the tenant to pay him a greater sum; that ability being no more affected, by the increase of the landlord's payment to the public, than by an equal diminution of his income by any other means; as, by the alienation of part of his estate, equal in rent to the addititious part of the tax, in consequence of his former extravagance. In either case, his wishes and efforts to enjoy the same neat income as before, will be equal; and the influence of his endeavours with his tenant, to raise his rent, because his income is reduced, will be equally efficacious. It is only an increase of the farmers product, or of the prices of that product, or both conjointly, which can raise the rent of any district. When that rent, and the value of the product, are once adjusted to each other, the increase of the latter must always precede that of the former; as the cause must always precede its effect.
But let it now be supposed, contrary to what has been shown to follow from the nature of the subject, that the rents of the remote district will be raised; and that the farmers will attempt to raise their prices, to reimburse themselves. There will be nothing in this advance, immediately to effect the rents or prices of the home district. Now the two divisions of the kingdom have many common markets, foreign countries, the metropolis; and all those markets, in the interior parts of the kingdom, situated on their common boundary line; and some miles within it, on each side. The farmers of the remote district carry their products, now, to all those markets, as equal competitors to those on the other side of the boundary. But if they raise their prices, they will be no longer able to support that competition; or at least their vent will be greatly diminished. In either case they will be forced to keep a greater quantity of their commodities at home, than formerly: and their home demand not being increased, the prices of their home market, instead of being supported at the new rate, must fall below that which took place before. Now an increase of rents can never subsist, with more circumscribed markets, and with declining prices: hence no advance can be put upon their rents, which shall disable them to go into the markets common to the two districts, at the same prices as their competitors: the interest of the landlords themselves must prevent it; or in other words, they cannot raise their prices above the rate which would have taken place, if there had been no advance of rent.
But, beside the gratuitous admission of the possibility of the rent being increased in the remote district, in consequence of the equalization of the tax; let it lastly be conceded, that the farmers will not be prevented from raising their prices, by the competition of those of the home division: and let us enquire, what increase of the rate of their markets may now be expected to take place.
To equalize the tax upon the two districts, the remote counties must have their rate increased one shilling and ⅘d. in the pound rent; or, £ 5:340:9⅗ per cent.
App. Art. 9. §. 1.
On such an advance taking place, when an estate is to be let, it follows from what is conceded, that the treaty, or (as it is called by those who have written on prices and commodities) the alteration, will run thus. The landlord will say:
The decrease of my income by the new tax, is one shilling and ⅘d. in the pound; and you must increase the rent in the same proportion.
To this the tenant will reply:
The markets are not advanced; nor will the land become more productive by virtue of the increase of the tax. The amount of my disbursements, the annual interest of my capital, the value of my labour, and of my superintendance, will continue undiminished: and I must make the same profit for the immediate subsistence, and the future provision for myself and my family, as before. I therefore cannot consent to any advance, demanded upon that account.
We have seen before, the nullity of the landlord's pretensions, and the validity of the reasons against them, urged by the tenant. But let it be admitted now that what is alledged on either side has equal force: hence the alteration will terminate, by the landlord's receding from half his additional demand, and the tenant submiting to pay the additional tax, or to increase the rent 6⅖d. in the pound; that is (£2.67) £2:11:10⅘ per cent.
App. Art. 9 §. 2.
Let the effect of this, on the general price of provisions, be now enquired after.
It will be admitted without hesitation, that the price of the farmer's yearly product, if any variation be made in it, will, after this advance of rent, continue to bear the same proportion to his total annual disbursements, that was found to take place in the year 1774. These disbursements are divisible into two classes: the first increasing immediately, by the increase of his rent operating alone; and the second, comprehending wages, the wages of labour, seedcorn, and some other particulars; by the effect of an increase of prices of necessaries already established; and following upon such increase, either immediately, or at the end of a term more or less remote. An increase of disbursements of the latter kind, cannot impress a beginning of movement upon the market, or produce an initial rise of prices; because an effect cannot generate its cause. But if the farmer's out-going expences of this second class, be increased in consequence of a preceding rise of markets, occasioned by an advance of rent; this may lay him under a necessity of making a
urther augmentation of his prices, or generate a second addition to their rates. But this secondary addition cannot take place, until the first in order (the cause on which its existence depends) is established in the market. The point to be proved therefore, is, that such initial advance cannot take place.
The expences of the first class, whose increase is, or may very probably be, immediately consequent upon the increase of rent, are the parish charges, and the tithe: now let the former rent of the tenant have been £19·200,
App. Art. 9. § 2.
according to the average proportion, found to obtain throughout the kingdom; the sum of this rent and those two charges, would have been £21·436:
App. Art. 9. § 2.
and that sum will be now increased in the same proportion the rent is increased; that is, £2·67
App. Art. 9. § 2.
percent as above, or by £0·572.
App. Art. 9. § 2.
And all the farmer's annual disbursements, including the maintenance of his family; which before amounted, according to the same average, to £60·331;† will now be augmented to £60·903; and the selling value of his total product must be increased in the same proportion. That value had before amounted to £72·826; and it must now become £73·516; that is, it will be augmented 18s. and 11d.½ per cent. The effect of this may be shown on the price of wheat, the article of his product the most necessary to general subsistence. Wheat at this time, is about 44s. the quarter; its price, with this augmentation upon it, will be £2. 2
s.
5
d
1/250.
App. Art. 9. §. 3.
If all the farmers in the remote district were tenants at will, according to the supposition on which we are now tacitly reasoning; each of them would have his rent increased, in the first year of the increase of the tax, according to the proportion here given; and the assigned advance might justly indeed be made general through the whole district. It seems however too minute to produce any effect in the market; as the loss to the farmer would be the increase of the expence of production only; equal to about one third of the increase of the price above stated; and therefore less than two pence the quarter of wheat.
But it is only a part of the whole body of farmers, whose terms will expire, and whose rents can be thus raised, in that first, or any succeeding year: a circumstance which must be taken into the account. And therefore it is to be observed, that lands are let for different terms. Although there are some farmers who are tenants at will, by much the greater part of the land is under lease or article for a term certain; as for 7, 10, 12, 14, or even 21 years. Let it be supposed that the term of all the contracts for the remote counties, is, on an average, seven years, upon the equality of chance; the term of one farmer of seven will expire in any assigned year. Now the farmer whose rent is raised at the Michaelmas immediately following the augmentating of the tax, is justly entitled to sell his commodities at the advanced rate stated above: but the remaining six farmers of every set of seven will be as well able to sell at the old prices as before. Let us now take as an instance one of these sets, supposing the rents of all the farmers equal, and seek what effect the advance of the prices of the single individual will have in market. Now it is evident it will be the same, as if we suppose the rent of the single man above mentioned is seven times its former amount; but that it is raised only the same sum as before. Now the quantity of his product being in the proportion of seven to one, he will be completely reimbursed, by one seventh of the former rate of his advance on his prices; that is, by 3/7 of a penny on the quarter of wheat; or 2
s.
8
d.
½ per cent. on the selling price of all his commodities.
This is the rate of advance, averaged upon the whole district; which will reimburse the general body of the farmers, at the old rate of profit, for the additional charge, the advance of rent in the first year will bring upon them: and it is too minute, for them to take any measures in that year to obtain it. If even the advance of rent had at this time fallen at once on the whole body, there is little probability that it would have disturbed the rates of the markets: and that increase of charge falling on one seventh of their whole number only, in the first year of the augmentation of the tax, its effect is so far insensible, that it seems to leave no tendency to an advance of prices behind it. Things once fixed, completely resist a smaller degree of force tending to a change. They in some measure resemble heavy bodies at rest; which require a power of a certain magnitude to be applied to them, which must exceed what is sufficient to counterbalance friction, or a kind of adhesion to their situation, before they can be put into motion. If the increase of the rent had taken place all at once, it would most probably have passed off, without any effect on the market prices; but its whole power upon them will be divided into seven parts, each taking place at distant intervals. And in this case, we may fairly recur to the former illustration, and say: If we admit that a certain force, when applied to a body all at once, may be capable of overcoming this resistance of cohesion; and to produce a small, but almost imperceptible movement in it; yet if this moving power be divided into many parts, and each applied in succession, the effect of each will be successively lost, before the application of the next, and no movement ultimately produced.
The next objection in order, is, that if the tax be from time to time augmented, it will degenerate into that specious of imposition upon land, which is called abroad the
Taille,
which has, in every country where it has been adopted, been found to obstruct all increase of the quantity of land brought into cultivation, and those improvements which augment the product of land already cultivated. Thus, by preventing the multiplication of the necessaries of life, it deprives the lower class of people of a liberal support; and even, by a diminution of its numbers, makes a waste of human life.
In opposition to this, it must be proved that every plan for augmenting the land-tax, does not terminate in such a system; and to do this, it is necessary to lay down the following preliminary division of the subject. The effect of the rise of the tax may be different, as it takes place after improvement of the annual value of land, either immediately, or at the end of some definitive term of time. It may also differ, when land is to be improved by the capital of the tenant, or that of the landlord. The combination of these circumstances, affords four distinct cases for our consideration.
Let us first examine the two cases, where the rise of the tax immediately accompanies the advance, of the improving value of the land; not entering at present into any consideration of the means of carrying such a measure into execution. The greater part of the improvements of the value of land is, effected at the expence of the tenant: this therefore is the case first considered. In order to be induced to undertake it, he must have a lease at a fixed rent, for a considerable term of years. But here the landlord may have frequently a temporary interest against such improvements, and consequently against granting all such leases, of the same duration as the term of the contract, and of no small magnitude. This will be a great check upon long and improving leases: for while the value of the estate is increasing, the tax will be perpetually increasing; and the landlord's gross rent remaining fixed during the whole term, his neat income will be perpetually decreasing. We know how a small present interest can counterbalance a great advantage, if remote. But the immediate interest here treated of, is not a small one. When the improvements of the tenant are spirited and judicious, and he has a long term before him (the only thing which can call forth such vigorous and beneficial exertions from him), the annual value of the land may come to be doubled, or more than doubled, during its subsistance; and the tax increasing with that value, cause a very sensible diminution of the landlord's neat income. And sometimes he may even find himself in considerable embarrassments, throughout the whole remainder of the term, after these improvements shall have become fully effective: and it is the interest of the tenant to make them so, as soon as possible. In this case, the landlord will not always find the present uneasiness of his situation, counterbalanced by the reflection that he, or perhaps his heirs, will, at a remote period, reap a great advantage by an advance of rent. If the increase of the tax should therefore follow, directly upon the increase of the annual value of land, such leases, it may be presumed, would be less frequently granted.
When the landlord is at the expence of the improvement, he is not exposed to the hazard of these inconveniencies. At his contract for a lease for any term of years, he will obtain an increase of rent, in proportion to the speculated value of his improvements: this will consist of the annual interest of the capital he advances; an annual profit upon it, of the nature of a commercial profit; and the amount of the expected increase of the tax. These points he must have a reasonable prospect to secure; or he must act without a motive, or on the abstract consideration of public good only. But in this case,
the landlord would certainly be less disposed to improve, when the sovereign, who contributes nothing to the expence, was to share in the profit of the improvement.
Hence the progress of cultivation, as far as it depends upon the capital of the land-owner, might receive some little check, but by no means so considerable as that pointed in the first case.
But admitting that augmenting tax, immediately upon every increase of the annual value of land, may be attended with some consequences that are ineligible, and some difficulties in execution; it does not thence follow, that a territorial valuation, once established, should remain invariable to the end of time; especially, if in its origin it was oppressive and unequal: or, according to what has been laid down by some on this head, that such valuations should not be revised, above once in a century at most; although it is to be cursorily observed here, that even admiting the last principle, a century is so nearly elapsed since the establishment of the tax, that the home district may now rest its claim to equalization upon it.
It remains now to consider, whether, if the increase of the land-tax should follow that of the rent, at any assignable term or distance of time, it would produce the bad effects inseparably attached to that levy called a
Taille.
This inquiry likewise involves two cases: but before they be separately gone into, the supposition on which they both of them depend, that such an increase of the land-tax is practicable, must be examined. The proof that a measure is practicable, ought certainly to precede the consideration of its expedience.
If ever there should be an attempt made, to introduce a permanent correspondence between the tax and the value of the land, the opposition to it will endeavour to make a vigorous stand upon this point; and such erroneous opinions have, by some anticipation, been inculcated respecting it, that many of those most essentially interested in its defence have sometimes seemed disposed to give it up. I shall therefore begin this examination, with a maxim drawn from the code of political morality. If men would but dedicate half that exercise of the understanding, to reduce what is just to a practicable form, which they apply to support institutions which rest upon no proper basis of principle; employing all the indirect policy, and perplexed patchwork of expedients, to make them rub on without any violent shock or obstruction; they would generally find their work neither difficult, nor its event doubtful. What is just, has in its own nature a strong tendency to become practicable; and almost to find the way to become effective itself. It wants but few helps and previous arrangements; and those, a very moderate degree of circumspection will easily suggest. Temper it only with so much indulgence to the personal interests which seem attacked by it, as you well can without defeating its end (and that power is seldom greatly circumscribed), and you must succeed. The narrow and awkward ground, which you force those who oppose you to take, and the shame of making a persevering and decided stand upon it, half disarms them to your hands.
That adjustments of the advance of the tax to the advance of the rent, may be reduced into practice, has been fully shown by Dr. Adam Smith;
Smith, v. 3. p. 64.
and how the latter may be always discovered. But to anticipate all objections to the gradual increase of the tax, the rent of the last past lease or contract might be made the value taxed in every year; not the present existing rent, which seems so far to diminish the temptation and facility of fraud, as almost to annihilate it.
By this mode many objections to the registers of leases, for the purpose of determining rates and charges upon land, are anticipated. It diminishes the temptations of falsification, incident to some other plans. Two men may combine together to make a false entry, where a true one would be followed with an immediate increase of some annual payment, to be made by either or both: but if the increase of charge be remote; as, for instance, if it be not to take place until the end of a lease now entered upon; the temptation to a fraudulent entry will be almost annihilated. Where a present or almost immediate sacrifice of property is called for, a fraud may be committed; but if it be not actually to be made, in less than seven, or perhaps ten years, after the account is given in, men will readily consent to it. They will seldom venture upon a piece of knavery, when they know it must be so long before they can expect to reap the beneficial effects of it. Beside the interval between the registry and the commencement of the next contract, when the increase of the tax is to take place, must be long; and the chances of the discovery of the fraud, multiplied in proportion. If the parish rates were to follow the valuation of the land-tax thus adjusted, it would take off a similar discouragement to improvements in agriculture, that of being followed up immediately with an increase of charges of another kind. And no fraud would thus probably find its way, either into the rates, or into the register; for such a fraud would not diminish the charges of the person committing it: and it would expose him to great resentment from his neighbours; as sacrificing their future interest, without any advantage to himself. Besides, every contributor in a parish would for his own sake be a vigilant guard over all the rest: the probable number of frauds woule be greatly diminished; and the chances of the discovery of each, greatly increased: and the parish rates would either keep errors out of the public register, or afford several valuable corrections to it. This mode of increasing the tax has likewise another good property. Dr. A. Smith (v. 3. p. 257) has observed, that
every tax ought to be levied at the time, and in the manner, that is most convenient for the contributors to pay it.
Now this maxim, which primarily refers the original imposition of a tax, holds likewise of all its subsequent augmentations. For, according to this arrangement, the tax will always come to be increased, at a time when the landlord has enjoyed the augmentation of the rent, on which the addition is to be assessed, without deduction, for the complete term of one lease; and at a time likewise, when he has probably secured a second augmentation of rent, by a second contract: for, as the average value of land is constantly increasing, an increase of rent will be mostly obtained at every new letting.
In what manner a similar and equivalent indulgence is to be extended to those who occupy their own lands, has been explained by the same writer.
Smith, v. 3. p. 268.
It appears that, under these modifications, the tax may be made to increase with the ability of the contributors, without great difficulty. The inquiry is now to be resumed, whether being constantly so augmented, it will nor be followed with the bad effects of a
Taille:
and here let it be first supposed, as before, that the improvement is to be made by the tenant; and that it is a great and spirited operation, requiring the advance of a large capital. For if it be found that the gradual advance of the tax, as described above, will be no obstruction to a greater improvement, it cannot be requisite to show in particular, that it will be no impediment to others, upon a less extensive scale. The general circumstances of such undertakings, as far as they affect the question, are these: the land is to be taken, as having been let before at a moderate rent, according to its former condition: its advance to the in-coming tenant will be either nothing, or very small, on account of the great expence he must incur in the proposed improvements he will also take
are to secure himself a sufficient term; to pay him the insurance of his hazard, and to enable him to reap the profit of his spirited industry. Now during this term, which must be considerable, if any small advance of the rent had been acceded to by him in the begining of it; the tax will be assessed to its former, not its present amount, according to the leading principle of its augmentation, described above. At the end of the term there will be a second contract; when the estate will be let to the full of its improved value, or nearly so. And during its subsistence the tax will become increased, in proportion to the augmentation of the rent, by the first lease only; which advance, it was shown, could not be very considerable. And at this rate the valuation will remain fixed, during the whole of the second term: and ultimately, at the end thereof, or at the beginning of the third lease, the tax will be raised to correspond to the second rent, or the improved value of the land.
Let us now search, what there is in these circumstances to hinder an improvement, which would take place if the tax were fixed. If, contrary to the plan here traced out, the great augmentation of the tax were to take place, immediately with that of the rent, at the expiration of the improving lease; the farmer would not have been originally deterred from accepting it, by the consideration that an addition would be made to his landlord's outgoing charges, at the instant his present connection with him was to terminate. He will know that at the end of the lease, if he think so long beforehand of treating again for the farm, that the landlord will get as much for the improved value of it, as he will be able to pay, or nearly so; and that he can get no more. And as that future addition to his rent must depend upon other circumstances, he will not at all consider, how one eighth or one tenth of it will be drawn out of his landlord's strong box, at the end of fourteen or twenty-one years to come.
Yet it is here admitted, that the great improvement of the value will be taxed immediately at the termination of the first letting; whereas, according to the mode supposed to be followed, that material augmentation of the tax corresponding to it, will not take place until the end of the second lease. The increase at the end of the first, being proportioned to the first augmentation of the rent, which must have been either small or nothing, on account of the expence of the farmer at his first improvement; the augmentation of the tax corresponding to that improvement, will only commence with the third lease. Now no man will carry his speculations to a futurity so remote, as, previous to entering on a contract for a farm susceptible of such improvement, to consider on what terms he could obtain a third lease; or what his landlord's assessment to the taxes would be increased to at the end of that length of time, to which the second will extend. As to the small advance to be made at the beginning of the second term, if any, it has been already seen, that a much greater would then produce no effect.
It remains to be examined, how far the increase of the tax, thus modified, will be a check upon the spirit of improvement in the landlords. And let it be supposed here, that the augmentation of the tax will ultimately be an eighth or a tenth of the increase of the annual value of the land. In fact, the average effective tax of the kingdom does not exceed a fifteenth of the rent; when its nominal rate is four shillings in the pound. When the tenant improves his land upon a long lease, he knows he shall, at the end of the term, be obliged to pay an advance of rent equal to that of the value of the land, or very nearly so: yet this does not now hinder him from making such improvements, at his own expence. When it is done by the landlord, he obtains immediately an increase of rent in consequence of it, equal to the value of the improvement: and the tax will take from him, but an eighth or tenth of the augmentation of that annual value, at the end of the same term, at which the whole would be taken by the rise of rent, from the improving farmer. Hence, if giving up the whole of the augmented value, at the expiration of the lease, do not hinder the farmer's improvement; one eighth, or one tenth, being taken from the addition to the landlord's rent at the same term, will produce no effect.
It has been urged by one writer, that the house-tax is in its nature a land-tax; and consequently, having been laid upon the remote district long after the imposition of the former, its original degree of inequality no longer subsists. He might have proceeded to confirm his acute conclusion, with the mathematical axiom—That if, to unequal magnitudes, equal magnitudes be added, the quantities so increased, will approach nearer to the ratio of equality, than the two first. I will not expose to posthumous censures, the well-earned reputation of a man eminent in his own laborious branch of science; in which he rendered to the public the greatest services, by quoting him by name, or referring to the books from which such an imbecility is copied. The answer is contained in a few words: the house-tax is general, and at the same rate throughout the whole kingdom, including the home district; and therefore the payment of it does not exempt any other district from paying its equitable proportion to any other tax.
SECTION III.
On the Probability that the Amount of the Land-Tax must be increased at a very near Period.
THE foundation on which the result of all inquiry into the probability of the future increase of the charge of the land-tax, ought to rest, must be found in its general nature, and the existing circumstances of the State. In the consideration of the nature of a land-tax, some principles will be laid down, tending to show that it is,
caeteris paribus,
to be preferred, perhaps, to all others. The natural limitation of those principles will also be afterwards added, though not necessary to the points to be proved: for general principles, which differ from universals, by being limited by an internal necessity, or external circumstances, are frequently set up as such, or abusively confounded with them; but they ought never to be brought forward, without duly specifying the point at which they cease to be applicable, unless it is well known or self-evident.
Taxes are established, as well for the purpose of political regulation, as effective revenue: such as at once answer both these ends, are the best. Now a land-tax is an effective and sumptuary tax, and unequalled in the degree in which it possesses these two properties: for no plan for collecting a revenue, from the great incomes derived from monied capitals, or the annual fund of expenditure of the more opulent traders, has been hitherto carried into execution with success.
It is observed, by a political writer of the first estimation, that as productive
capital is the source of industry, so revenue is the source of idleness.
Smith's Wealth of Nations, v. 2. p. 12.
The glitter, the magnificence, and sometimes the dissipation of the opulent proprietor of land, becomes the example of those who derive great incomes from other sources; and they seem to undergo something like the reverse of improvement in the transplanting. The greatest number of these copyists, like those who propose splendid, but faulty originals, as models, exhibit their faults, at second-hand, something increased; and the effects of the other parts, not a little diminished. If the luxuries of this class could be reached by a tax, the moral benefits to society would be great; and, perhaps, no permanently useful institution of policy ever existed, which did not draw that consequence after it. But to drop the consideration of what seems, but perhaps only seems, unattainable; we may observe, that drawing an effective revenue from land, attacks this progress of luxury at its very source, and greatly retards, though it cannot totally counteract it. There is a consequence of this which deserves attention.
In the natural history of human society we find, that when it has once attained to a state of manly elegance, it passes on next to refinement; and ultimately to a vitiated and effeminate voluptuousness. Whatever is noble and excellent must decline in each step of this fatal progress; and even whatever tends to accelerate the transactions of society, from the first to the second of these states, must be numbered among the greatest evils; whatever retards it, among the greatest benefits to mankind. It is like a medicine which would prolong the continuance of youth and manhood, and suspend the approach of the imbecility and miseries of old-age. And I add, that a sober philosophy may prepare such a tincture for society, though not for the individual: though there is nothing more deleterious, than the preparations which pretend to these properties, which are to be found in the laboratories of some great modern chymists.
The luxuries of a wealthy society are the cause of this progress. It is always the object of that of to-day, to pass the bounds of that of yesterday: and whatever checks it in its course, at least retards the celerity with which society is gliding down this descent; and lengthens out the existence of its arts, its manners, and its morals.
The tendency of a tax on land to produce this beneficial effect, is evident: by absorbing a just part of the income of the proprietor, it diminishes the strength of the primary cause of these successive degeneracies in the state of society. It is to be observed on the other hand, that whatever makes his capacity of expence increase, with greater celerity than his rent, will anticipitate the terms of those changes, and consequently be pernicious: the circumstance here taken as a supposition only, will be afterward found to exist.
There are further considerations which show the rent of land to be a more proper subject of taxation than most others: and one is, that to make a due proportion of the public charges fall upon it, leaves the quantity of comfort and enjoyment, remaining to society after such a tax, the greatest possible; as no way has been discovered to come at the great monied incomes; which, therefore, are not here to be considered: for the deduction of the same proportional part from the incomes of any two men, are here supposed equally to diminish their capacity of acquiring the customary comforts of their situation. A tax exclusively falling upon land, affects only a class of men which is, upon the average, extremely opulent: but in case the same money were levied by a general tax, the lower orders of the people would have been obliged to pay their share to it, and their comfort would have been diminished, in the proportion which the annual sum so taken from them bears to their annual income: but as it is now paid by the opulent proprietors of land, their enjoyments will be diminished, only in the proportion the same sum bears to their great annual income; that is, indefinitely less; or the comfort enjoyed by the whole society, considered as an aggregate, remain much greater. It is evident likewise, that it tends to render the enjoyments of the separate classes of society more equal.
A tax on land tends also to render the inequalities of rank and fortune less glaringly offensive to those whom civil society, by the operation of its very nature, has subjected to numerous and afflicting privations of the enjoyments of life. For if we suppose the present land-tax taken off, a greater and more parading display of the disparity of the circumstances and ranks of the classes of civil society, would take place: and the irksome sense of it in the inferior orders, must be aggravated in proportion; a sense, which enters perhaps for no inconsiderable part of the calamities of that class, whose feelings of their own state will always be numbered among the objects most worthy of respect, by a wise and benevolent legislature.
But it may be made evident, that the landlords cannot be charged with more than a certain part of the public burthens, by a tax on their estates, without the injury extending beyond themselves, and affecting the interests of society. They contribute to the general taxes; to many they pay as much, and to many, more than their relative proportion: there are some likewise to which their contributions, for certain causes, are less. But, upon the balance, their other taxes will be found to be at least in proportion to their total incomes; and the land-tax to be purely an additional charge, exceeding that proportion
I thought I had been alone in this opinion, but find myself preceded in it by Sir Nathaniel Gould and Baron Maseres..
; and such payments neither can or ought to be carried beyond a certain extent.
For the ability of paying these addititious charges, must be confined to that class of the landed men, whose circumstances are so easy, that they can commodiously subsist upon their incomes: and let it be admitted, that this may be extended so low, as to take in that order of men, which Mr. King, in arranging the nation into classes, denominated freeholders of the better sort; whose income from land, at this time, upon an average, may somewhat exceed £.180 a year; and which was valued by him, in 1688, at £.91: and let it be admitted, that the incomes of the different classes of society bear the same proportion now, each to each and to the whole, which he found to take place in 1688. If this amount be divided into a thousand equal parts, the income of the more opulent landlords is 218
App. Art. 8. § 2.
; of the labouring people, 207
App. Art. 8. § 2.
; and of the remainder of the society, including the mercantile and monied interests, 574
App. Art. 8. § 2.
such parts. The income of the lower class, as exhibited here, falls short of, rather than exceeds, its present proportion, according to some accounts which have fallen into my hands. It is nearly in the proportion
shown above,
or 218 thousandth parts of the whole which they pay by the general taxes. That denomination is here given to the remainder of our taxes, which are payable by the people in general, including the proportion of land, and not by the latter exclusively.
Now the total amount of the general taxes is £.15·162 ms.
App. Art. 8. § 3.
: and the part thereof paid by the great landed proprietors, proportioned to their income, is £.3·312 ms.
App. Art. 8. § 3.
Moreover, the total land-tax being £.1·962 ms. its proportional charge on this class is £.1·434 ms.
Ibid. § 4.
and their total payment to all taxes £.4·746 ms.
Ibid. § 4.
exceeding their proportional charge, in the ratio of 14,330 to 10,000
Ibid. § 4.
.
This excess is greater in the home district, less in the remote, than the average here assigned; and if the land-tax were equalized, the whole class of the land-owners would contribute to the expence of the State, in the same proportion as those of the home district pay at present. The sum of the taxes, on the income of land, would become five shillings and five-pence in the pound; and on all other incomes, on an average, three shillings and three-pence and one third:
Section IV. Table.
or the former would be to the latter, as five to three.
But by carrying this system too far, the opulence of this class will become more reduced than is consistent with the general interest of society. When every man is taxed according to his income, the proportional power of every class, which depends very much on the existing division of property, remains unaltered. Now the inequality of its present division is natural, as far as human society, of which it is the necessary consequence, is natural: hence that proportion of power in the different classes is natural; and a diminution of that of the upper-class of too great magnitude, places society in an unnatural situation, and draws a long train of calamities after it. For hereby the spirit of subordination is undermined, and almost annihilated; and its place must be supplied by something else, to preserve public order as before: as much restraint as is thus taken off from the individual, must be added again by the coercion of new and stricter laws; the increase of which is always inimical to personal liberty at least. The rigours of the municipal laws in republics, and some ill-constructed mixed governments, furnish us with striking examples of this. It has arisen from their being obliged to diminish the natural influence of ranks by artificial restraints, as being inimical to the principle on which they are founded.
But it is not hereby meant to be maintained, that the opulent land-holders ought not to pay any addititious tax; and particularly, that the amount of the tax cannot be now increased, until it bears the same proportion to their rent, which took place in the beginning of this century; actual experience having proved the contrary: or that the landlords of one part of the kingdom cannot bear the same proportional charge as those of the other.
These reasonings, showing that the tax may justly be increased, are nearly of the same force to prove that it will; unless an inability of the contributors can be admitted, or that the State will not, for a considerable period to come, want such an augmentation of revenue. For whoever has considered the progress of taxation in this century, and a great part of the last, will admit, that to prove the one, is nearly to prove the other. But leaving these general topics, more particular considerations are now to be brought forward, in support of this position.
Since the year 1700, the taxes paid by the other classes of society have increased in burthen, though not in the same degree as in charge; because their annual income, in the same period, have greatly increased. For if their income had remained fixed during this term, and the taxes paid by them been trebled, their burthens would have been trebled: but if this income be conceived, in the same time, to have become doubled; at the end of it, every equal charge would have been borne with twice the facility; and their burthens, instead of increasing in the proportion of three to one, would have been augmented only in that of three to two, or become only half as much again. This illustrates, though it does not give an accurate measure of the increase of the burthen of all taxes, exclusive of that on land, on all the contributors during the present century.
On the other hand, if the taxes had remained fixed, and the income of the contributors had been doubled, their burthens would have been reduced one half.
It is in this mode, though not in the same degree, that the advances of rent has been perpetually diminishing the burthen of the land-tax. The average increase of actual rent has been nearly three-fourths per cent. annually, from the year 1700 (the first term for which an average land-tax, for peace and war, or its periodical average can be assigned) to the year 1792. Or, more accurately, every pound rent had, in that term, been increased to £.1·9745
App. Art. 6. § 9.
. And if the tax had increased in the same proportion, its burthen would have perpetually remained fixed. Now, in the year 1700, the periodical average of the tax (that of the city of London being excluded) was £.1.3148ms.
App. Art. 6. § 8.
and thus augmented it would have become £.2.596ms.
Ibid. §. 9.
Its amount at 4s. in the pound, the nominal rate of the preceding peace, is £. 1.675ms.
Ibid. § 10.
therefore, if an addition of £.921,000
Ibid. § 10.
were now made to the tax, it would only bring the burthen of the contributors back to an equality with that of the year 1700. And here it is to be observed, that this addition is far less than the present defalcation of the remote district.
See Section 4.
But as the burthens of the other classes of society have continued increasing, and that with a very considerable degree of celerity; they have a right to demand from the proprietors of land, that, by their particular tax, they would again contribute to the increased public expence, at least in the old proportion to their incomes; and that some remedy should at length, though late, be applied to a system of taxation, by which, while the proportion of their own burthen to the expence of the State is perpetually increased, that of the land-tax of the opulent country gentry is perpetually diminishing: and they will add, that the experience of the beginning of the century pointed our that the land could very well bear the burthen then laid upon it. Justice and policy redemand it; and there seems a considerable probability that the demand must be attended to.
For an additional argument for it, of great weight, is to be drawn from the progress of the debt, and the necessity of putting a stop to it. This will be fully laid open in the proof of the following proposition: that the equalization of the land-tax will be very nearly an adequate remedy to this evil, and put it absolutely in our reach, with a small additional exertion. To demonstrate which, it becomes necessary to determine the amount of a sinking fund, which will effect this great purpose.
Our present efforts to put a stop to the increase of the debt, although very inadequate, greatly exceed whatever were made at any former term; and form no weak presumptive proof, that we may expect from the spirit of the times, and it may be justly added of the Administration, that when it is seen with what facility this first step to security can be obtained, it will not be neglected.
We are now to proceed to the investigation above mentioned. Omitting fractions, it may be taken, that the average length of a term of war is eight, and of peace ten years
App. Art. 6. § 6.
. Nor ought it to be assumed, that in future the duration of peace will exceed that of war, in a greater proportion. In subjects of such consequence to a State, it is best to err on the safest side; and we are to give way to no delusive imaginations, that the future course of things will be better than what we have experienced in the last 100 years; for it is so far back that these averages extend. The present
semi-chaotic
state of Europe will not permit us to indulge in such agreeable but visionary expectations: and in a few months we have seen a new and great republic rise, the vices of whose internal constitution are such, that foreign wars will become necessary to it, to obtain some respite from internal commotion. This is very clearly illustrated, by the consequences which always attended the heterogeneous and discordant constitution of the republic of the Romans; a much more moral people. A state of hostilities, almost continual, was the only remedy to the discord of peace: it was by foreign wars only that they enjoyed, at any time, the delusive appearance of a hollow truce at home, with no principle of union within; the State fell to pieces, when there was no external force to compress its repulsive parts together: it fell, for want of an enemy; and the tyranny of a despot succeeded the alternate tyrannies of the great and the mob. The new republic has the same disorders, but in a more malignant degree; and it possesses only the same terrible means, to patch up the blotches and ulcers, which its radically vitiated constitution will be perpetually producing and reproducing.
These considerations will not give us leave, especially at present, to think the chances of the duration of peace to be increased, or tending to increase. Eighteen years is therefore here assigned, as the length of a period of one war and one peace taken together; as the distance from any assigned year of peace, to the same year in the next peace: and let it be supposed, that a term of peace, now existing, will continue five years; it will be followed by a war of eight years, of which the extraordinary expence will be taken at eighty millions. The five first years of the following peace will complete the period: and if the debt, at the beginning and end of that period, be equal; or the capital paid off in the two halves of the terms of peace, be equal to the new capital generated by the intermediate war; the progress of the debt will be completely stopped, and no more.
The fund applicable to the discharge of the debt, which will effect this purpose, may be called the adequate fund, to distinguish it from such as suffer the debt to continue to increase; and also those whose product is so great, as to afford a remission of taxes under certain regulations.
If an adequate fund were to be this applied to the restraining the progress of the debt, directly at the commencement of a term of peace, taken to continue ten years, or another immediately at the commencement of a war, whose duration would be eight years, it is evident their amounts must differ. The fund which would be necessary in the middle of a term of peace, as being nearly the mean of these charges, is the most proper for our present purpose: its amount and operations are therefore to be here shown
The determination of the amounts of sinking funds, which shall operate in any assigned manner, forms a chapter of modern political arithmetic, which should have been long since completed. Its title, I believe, is now written for the first time, and a section of it is given in the text, which is more fully explained in the last article of the Appendix: and to this, if I have time, I shall add a summary of the contents of the other parts of this subject.
.
The mean rate of interest in the stock market, during each year of the two half terms of peace, is taken at 4 per cent. or the value of the consolidated 3 per cent. £.75
App. Art. 11. § 5.
per cent. their neat average for nine years, ending with the year 1791, was £.70.52
App. Art. 11. § 5.
.
Now if, five years before the actual commencement of a war, the State be possessed of a sinking fund, amounting to £.3.485ms.
Ib. § 9.
such a fund, under the most probable conditions which can be assigned, will be, what is here called, an adequate fund. For first, this sum annually applied to the reduction of the 3 per cent. capital, will be augmented at the rate of 4 per cent. annually; and will, in five years, have furnished £.18.876ms.
Ib. § 9.
in money, for that purpose; by which a capital of £.25.168ms.
Ib. § 9.
will be bought up, and the fund, at the end of the first peace, amount to £.4.2399ms.
Ib. § 9.
A term of war of eight years is now to be supposed to follow: in which let it be admitted, that the extraordinary expences will amount to £.80 ms.; that the average price of the 3 per cent. stock will be £.56·64;
App. Art. 11. § 6.
and its rate of interest, £.5·295
Ib. § 10.
per cent. And the system of the management of the land in war, which has lately been established, being supposed to be uniformly followed; its annual product is to be subscribed by the commissioners of the land, to the loan of each year; for which they are to receive an annuity, raised by new taxes; the perpetuity of which shall be equal to the perpetuity of the
omnium,
obtained by the lenders of equal sums of money; that is,
Ib. § 10.
£.5⅔ per cent. Thus £.41·471 ms.
App. Art. 1. § 11.
(being the produce in money of the fund so augmented, in eight years) will be advanced by the Commissioners, for the service of the war: and at the commencement of the peace, its annual amount becomes augmented to £.6·593 ms.
Ib. § 13.
The sum necessary for the support of the war is taken at £.80 ms: and as £.41·471 ms. is the sum furnished by the public Commissioners, the loans of the private creditors must amount to £.38·528 ms
Ib. § 12.
: and this will generate a new capital of £.72·771 ms.
Ib. § 12.
in the 3 per cents.
In the first two years of the following peace, the product of the fund being annually increased, at the rate of 4 per cent, will be in money £.35·710
Ib. § 13.
; which will have extinguished a capital of £.47·613 ms.
Ib. § 13.
, in the 3 per cents.
In the last five years of the foregoing peace, it has been seen that a capital of £.25·168 ms. had been in like manner paid off by the fund; and in the first and second terms taken together, a capital of (£.25·168 ms. × £.47·613 ms.) £.72·781 ms.
App. Art. 11. § 12. There is here a minute difference of the capitals generated and paid off: it is caused by neglecting totally all places of figures after the fifth; which, in operations of this sort, are comparatively of no consequence.
or it pays off, in one complete period, the new debt generated therein: and the capital of the debt, at its termination, is precisely equal to its amount at the beginning. The fund, therefore, becomes what is here called an adequate fund.
An equalization of the land-tax, which would produce a million and a small fraction annually, in addition to our present surplus, would be a very good approach to such a fund: and it may be carried into execution, without making the tax perpetual, by vesting a further part of the old sinking fund in the commissioners, equal to the increase of the tax; and voting the latter, annually, to the current services, to make up the deficiency in the provision for them, which will arise from this appropriation: nothing is hereby altered of the constitutional nature of a land-tax; as it continues to be voted annually, and to be applied to current services only. It is thus indeed to be considered, as indirectly applied to the augmentation of the fund: and in this sense, its augmentation thereby is to be always here understood.
The amount of an adequate surplus fund being £.3·485 ms. a year, the existing fund, which very little exceeds 1½ million, must be admitted to be totally inadequate; and if the consideration of our present safety does not impose upon us a necessity of augmenting it instantly, the time in which that necessity shall speak in a more imperative tone, is not far distant; but the same exertions, at both periods, will not produce equal relief in equal times: the ultimate burthens of the State, and the time they must continue, are increased by every delay of effectual measures.
This state of our affairs, therefore, calls for every just and practicable addition to be made to our income; and an augmentation to the land-tax evidently comes under that description.
Whatever shows that such a sacrifice, on the part of those who ought to make it, is less than at first sight it appears, is an argument which enforces the claim upon them: it adds the whole of its proper weight to the consideration of necessity; and thus increases the probability that it must take place, though indirectly, not in a minute degree. It may be therefore proper to be shown, that, upon a supposition that an adequate fund be established, part of which shall be effectively formed by an augmentation of this tax, it will effect the total value of the estates out of which it issues, and the neat annual income of the proprietors, much less than at first sight it may appear to do.
That the selling price of estates will be hereby very little, if at all, decreased, is thus shown: although their neat rents be at first diminished, yet, by the operation of such a fund, the rate of interest must be much reduced; and the year's purchase of neat landed income will be increased in the same proportion. Hence, the reduction of the market value of such estates will be ultimately inconsiderable: and it much concerns those persons, on whom the augmentation of the charge of the tax will fall, well to examine, whether by the application of such a fund, and the consequent fall of interest, more may not be gotten than lost upon this head.
Sir John Barnard, in his celebrated essay on the reduction of the interest of the Debt, in the last four lines of it, where he would have advanced nothing which in his own opinion did not stand upon the best foundation, applied this argument in support of a point which seems to involve a much more decided opposition to popular belief, than that stated above. Considerations, &c. Osborne, 1750, p. 34.
It may be said, that the increase of the tax is an uncompensated reduction of the neat income of the landlord: but the very act of giving up a small part of it impresses a very strong tendency upon the remainder to increase; for that increase will always be the consequence of improvements of the soil, or augmentation of demand; and both these must follow, in a certain degree, the fall of the rate of interest. The price of improvement of land is the interest of the money sunk in it: and whether it be effected by the capital of the farmer or the landlord; when it becomes cheaper, the landlords will be able to draw into their own pockets a greater proportion of the annual value of these improvements, supposing the number of such undertakings not augmented; but the increased facility of them will likewise augment their numbers. Again, from the same common source of prosperity, the traders and commercial men will become able to be better customers for the products of the soil, or an augmentation of demand for them take place; the second pre-disposing cause of an increase of rent: the joint effects of both may very soon restore to the landlord no small part of what the tax initially takes from him; or he may ultimately, and at no very distant period, find his temporary sacrifice entirely repaid; and when the urgent necessities of the State call for it, it may be expected, that the voice, even of a self-interest, very slightly counterbalanced by any better principle, would be almost silent against it.
But should the tax be increased, without augmenting the appropriated sinking fund, there will be no tendency in its effects to reimburse the landlord for the diminution of his income: and a resource, almost sufficient to ward off all the new difficulties the debt will involve us in, and in time to free us from the old, will be lost to us for ever, and leave nothing which a well-grounded hope can substitute in its place.
Nor can it be said, that the addition to the tax thus applied, is locked up from the service of the public, when any exigence requires it. The new system of the application of the sinking fund preserves to the State the command of its own money at all times, and under such conditions, that its alienation increases its efficacy. Thus a defect of its original institution is converted into an advantage. The present surplus retards the increase of debt, but does not put a stop to it; and, without the establishment of an adequate fund, the annual charges of the State must continue to increase to the most oppressive magnitude, by the increase of the public annuities. The best and readiest source of augmentation for the fund is that of the land-tax; and the justest mode of effecting that, is by equalization: that measure would place us in the immediate reach of the great object here treated of; for if it be once obtained, the tax which would pay the interest of the loan of a single year of war, will make the fund adequate.
The amount of the fund is something less than 3½ millions. The sum of the surplus and the augmentation of the land-tax, is very nearly £.2.700 ms. and since this Section has been chiefly written, an addition of £.500,000 has been obtained to the revenue, from the East-India Company: an equalization of the tax would therefore bring us very nearly into the situation stated.
If the present war should not be attended with any great deficiency of the revenue, such a fund would very soon be rendered adequate, by the addition of an annuity of 1l. per cent. on all loans, to its amount.
The justice of the claims of the rest of the nation upon the land-owners, for an increase of the amount of the tax; the magnitude of that evil to which it will provide almost an adequate remedy; and the urgent necessity for such a remedy; afford presumptions which rise almost into proof, that the time when it will take place is not very remote: what they want of absolute evidence, will perhaps be nearly supplied by the following considerations.
The average nominal rate of the tax, in four successive terms of peace, ending with that of 1763, was 31.955
App. Art. 6. § 1. Table.
pence; and of the four last terms of war, 4s. in the pound: and we may look on the established proportion of its charge in war and peace to be as the numbers 48, and 31.955, respectively. Thus its nominal rate, during the present peace, having been uniformly 4s. in the pound, in the next war it will exceed six shillings by a small fraction, and the addition to its annual charge become £.1.011,381: and it may be observed here, as on a former occasion, that it will be seen in the next Section, that if the whole of this addition be levied, exclusively, upon the remote district, it will still contribute to this tax less than its proportional charge.
Besides these arguments, deduced from the nature of a land-tax, the equity of the measure, and the state of our finances, to show that an augmentation of amount is very probable; several authorities to establish the same point might be doubtless found by any person who should search for them. At the conclusion of the late war, and during the term at the beginning of the present peace, in which a settled gloom seemed to hang over us, some sober and temperate men began to declare their opinions of the necessity of its augmentation. Baron Maseres, who certainly applied himself with much ability and attention to investigate the effects of the sinking fund, on several capitals of our heterogeneous mass of debt, concludes his researches, by affirming, that it would become necessary to increase the land-tax, if the revenue should fall short two millions of what the exigencies of the State might require; and he takes it for granted, that such an addition to our income would be wanted.
Maseres, 1783. page 448.
'There is reason,' says this writer,
to apprehend, that it will be necessary not only to continue the land-tax at 4s. in the pound, but even to increase it to double its present quantity, or to four millions a year.
This he wrote during the war; but, as he did not publish the work in which it is contained until after the conclusion of the peace, if his sentiments had been changed, he would have corrected the passage.
It is here evidently seen to what quarter men, well versed in these subjects, look forward themselves, and direct the attention of the trading and monied interest, for the next augmentation of public revenue.
Though the opinion of Baron Maseres, that the amount of the land-tax will probably be doubled, when a new necessity shall call for an increase of the public revenue, may be disputed; yet a less augmentation would severally affect the interests of the home counties: and whenever again we shall be engaged in a war, a great addition must be made to it. The opinions long since advanced by men of eminence will then form the general sentiment, and be carried into effect: and it is probable, that if the present valuation be continued, the nominal rate will be about six shillings in the pound, for the reason given above. I know very well, that there is much ridicule frequently attached to the supposition, that plans of speculative men, buried in the dust of a library, will ever influence the important transactions of the political world, or produce events on which the fate of great classes of men, or even great nations, shall depend; and that to consider, and be prepared beforehand, as to what part we shall act, when we see such scenes to be approaching, is something even beneath the folly and dotage of timidity. It would be easy to multiply examples, to show, that the confidence which gives birth to such maxims, has been very frequently ill-founded: and the astonishing events of the last 20 years will not lend it any great support; at least, it will not be derived from the revolutions of America, of France, or of Poland.
In Davenant's Essay on Foreign Trade and Plantations, he has preserved the heads of a plan which fell into his hands, for the general government of the colonies which were then planted.
Five of the articles it contained, were as follows:
Whitworth's Davenant, v. 2. p. 40.
That the colonies of Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, the Jerseys, Pensylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina, shall appoint deputies, to meet annually, or oftener.
That this meeting be called the Congress, and be held in the most central colony—New York.
The Congress is, among other things, to be empowered to decide in all differences between province and province;
To consider of ways and means to support
the union
and safety of the provinces against their common enemies;
To allot and proportion the quota of men and money of each province, to be furnished against the common enemy.
The powers reserved to the Crown, were to appoint a high commissioner to preside in Congress, and a commander in chief of its troops. That body was to consist of 20 members, two from each colony; a very numerous assembly, as the whole continent did not "contain quite 200,000 persons of English parentage." Upon the same scale, the first Congress which sat, would have perhaps contained 250 members.
The seizure of the church property in France, which has terminated in the ruin and exile of the greater part of the Gallican clergy, presenting to every country in Europe, but perhaps more particularly to this, the melancholy spectacle of numbers of men, respectable for their virtues, their literature, their rank, fallen, and as it were fallen in a day, from eminence, from affluence, and from a liberal competency, into a state so hopeless, and so helpless, all its circumstances considered (the commiseration they inspire us with being excepted), that no other class of men can perhaps be involved in the like calamity. This seizure is the transcript of a plan, brought forward in the assembly of the States at Pontoise, in the minority of Charles IX. The original, destined to be the source of so much iniquity and misery, is preserved to us, in the 27th book of the history of that excellent magistrate De Thou. A long-continued war, and the prodigality of the Court, had exhausted the treasury, and involved the Crown in great debts. The assembly went into the subject of ways and means, to discharge them: the resumption of profuse grants and pensions was not forgotten; but the capital resource was the seizure of ecclesiastical property.
Thuani Hist. lib. 27, tom. 2. p. 9. Hoffmannus Francofurti, 1614.
The revenues resulting from the secular jurisdictions of the clergy were to be confiscated; and many things were proposed, detrimental to the sacred order; one fourth of every benefice of 500 livres, a third of every benefice of 1000, and one half, if it amounted to 3000 livres of yearly income, was to be taken away, and paid into the treasury. If the annual produce was 12,000 livres, 3000 only were to be left to the former possessor: the remainder was given to the king. The rents of all the convents of the Carthusians, the Maturins, the Celestins, the Miniens, and of all the nunneries, were to be seized to the king's use, reserving to their members sufficient sustenance. All the real estates of the bishops and canons were to be sold, with an exception of the
château,
or capital mansion, in which they resided: this sale, it was computed, would raise 1,200,000 livres.
CXX
Librarum Myriadas.
This is copied literally: it appeared to me suspicious; and, upon examination I found it false. At the death of Francis II. it was found that he had left upon the nation a debt of 42,000,000 livres. The words quoted from De Thou make its amount 1,200,000 livres only.
Entretiens d'Eraste, par M. l'Abbé Fillasier,
1774, p. 916.
The interest of one third part of the purchase money was to have been reserved to the late proprietors of such estates; which would have been as productive as their former rents: the remainder was to have been applied to discharge the crown debts: thus the royal income would have been increased, and the nation for ever freed from those taxes with which they were then so much oppressed.
Even while I am writing, the new partition of Poland adds one more to these memorable instances. King Stanislaus, in a tract on the
liberum veto,
and the anarchy of the country, has this remarkable prediction.
We shall be the prey of some famous conqueror, or perhaps the neighbouring powers will come to an agreement for the partition of our states.
La Voix du Citoyen, p. 19, 1749. Voyez Théâtre de Voltaire, tom. 6. p. 145.
The remote sources of some great institutions, which have been useful, or of a more dubious nature, might be here added: but it is not our present business to multiply historical anecdotes of any determinate description.
The remote sources of some great institutions, which have been useful, or of a more dubious nature, might be here added: but it is not our present business to multiply historical anecdotes of any determinate description.
SECTION IV.
On the Measure of the Disproportion of the Charge of the Land-Tax, on the Home and Remote Districts, and its Consequences.
IN the first Section it was stated, that the kingdom is, with respect to the land-tax, to be considered as separated into two great divisions; the home district comprehending the 11 home counties, with that of Middlesex, all consideration of London being here excluded; and the remainder of England and Wales, called the remote district. It is generally known, that the land-tax upon the home district much exceeds its due proportion, as determined by the annual rent of each. The measure of that excess is first to be made the subject of consideration.
The proportion of the contents, or number of acres of each district, is very nearly known: but, if the value or fee simple
Accurately speaking, estates of equal value only should be charged with equal taxes, not those of equal income. Hence a rent proportioned to the fee simple of a district, not the actual income thereof, will be the measure of its taxability: but this distinction (which had been apparently adopted by Mr. King) is much less necessary upon this subject than I had at first imagined. It will be found, however, to have been observed throughout this Essay. Though distinctions with but little difference ought not generally to be made, yet, when they are once interwoven in a tract, there may be much trouble in blotting out all the traces of them; and it will on the whole be only a negative correction.
of each be taken as its contents, that of the remote district will be stated too high. Again, the number of houses in each, at the Revolution, is known with sufficient accuracy: and the remote division has relatively increased in population ever since, to a great degree. It has likewise, in the same term, increased in manufactures with a much greater celerity than the home division. If therefore the taxable value of the districts be computed from the proportion of their population in 1688, that of the remote district will be considerably less than the truth. In the first case, there will be an error of excess in its value, and in the second, of defect: and it is here assumed, that these errors counterbalance each other: hence it is determined, that the value of the home is to that of the remote district, as 10,000 to 31,814.
App. Art. 1. § 13. And it is evident, that this is the proportion of their taxable income.
The proportion of their values is all that is here required to be found, as it serves the same purposes, in the present inquiry, as their absolute amounts, if known.
By other independent methods it is found, that this proportion is sufficiently near the truth; and they afford collateral support to it.
Davenant, in his essay on Ways and Means, written in 1695, lays it down, that the remote counties were then to be esteemed and valued as three fourths of the kingdom. In the first Section it is fully shown how much their value has relatively increased since: it is matter of common notoriety. If therefore, when the rent of the home division is taken as 10,000, that of this district be taken as 31,814, the latter may seem rather to be less than greater than the truth. The land-tax paid by the home district (London excluded) is £.652,275:
App. Art. 1. § 17.
and according to the proportion here given, the remote district ought to pay £.2,075,100:
App. Art. 1. § 17.
the real payment thereof is £.1,038,184,
App. Art. 1. § 17.
which falls short of its equitable and just contribution, £.1,036,916.
App. Art. 1. § 17.
This defalcation may be stated in another point of view: thus its proportional payment
Davenant, v. 1. p. 46.
being £.10,000, its effective charge is £.5002 only: and for every sum of £.10,000 thus paid, the just charge amounts to £.19,989.
We shall now inquire, what is the effective charge of this tax in the pound, upon the actual income of real estates, in the two districts, when the nominal charge on each is four shillings.
The income of such estates is of two kinds; rent of superior condition, as rent of land; or of inferior condition, as that of buildings and mines. The sum of each of these is ordinarily stated as the national rent; and may properly be called a mixed rent, on account of the nature of the subjects out of which it arises. The market values of all the estates of two districts of considerable extent may not be as their incomes, the rate of interest being in each the same; because one may contain a greater proportion of rents of the inferior condition than the other. Hence the ability of such a division of a country to contribute to a land-tax, will not always be in the precise proportion of its mixed income, but of its selling price: or, which is the same thing, it will be as the annual rent of supeior condition, which might be purchased for that price. To determine the proportion of the ability of the landlords of a district to pay any tax, its mixed income ought to be so reduced; a transformation which is employed in other parts of this inquiry: but we are now to find the proportion the actual tax bears to the actual income, that is, the mixed income; the law by which it is imposed, bearing no respect to the nature of the subject out of which any rent arises.
Excluding London, the mixed rent of both districts, in 1792, amounted to £.25.525 ms.; and that of the home district, to £.6.104 ms. And the land-tax on this part of the kingdom being £.652,200, the charge in the pound was 2
s.
1 2/4
d.
very nearly. The rent in the remote district was £.19.421, its land-tax £.1.038,100, and the rate in the pound 1
s.
0¾
d.
very nearly, or half the former only. The average of the whole kingdom, without London, is 1
s.
3¾
d.
Table shewing the rates of the total taxes, the land-tax, and the general taxes in the pound, on the income from real estates.
 
Rent
Total Taxes
Rate
Land Tax
Rate
General Taxes
Rate
Home District
£.
ms.
6.104
£.
ms.
1.6525
£.0.27072
d.
64.972
s.
5:5
£.
ms.
0.6522
£.0.10685
d.
25.644
s.
2:1⅔
£.
ms.
1.0003
£.0.16386
Remote District
19.421
4.2205
£0.21731
d.
52. 152
s.
4:41/7
1.0381
£.005345
d.
12.823
s.
1:0¾
3.1824
£0.16386
Both Districts
25.525
5.8730
£.0.23007
d.
55.216
s.
4:7¼
1.6904
£0.6622
d.
15.892
s.
1:3¾
4.1827
£0.16385
d.
39.364
s.
3:3⅓
Here the rates of the taxes in the pound are given in decimals of a pound, in pence, and decimals of a penny, and again in shillings, pence, and the nearest vulgar fractions; each way of expressing it having its convenience for different purposes. See Appendix, No. 7.
Beside the peculiar tax paid by the landlords, a part of all other taxes is paid out of their income or rents; and as these do, or may, affect all income in general, from whatever source derived, they are here called general taxes. Now the part paid out of the rents of the two districts, is to their whole charge, as that rent to the whole national income: hence the amount of these general taxes being £.15.162 ms.
App. Art. 7. § 3.
, their charge upon the provincial proprietors of land is £.4.1827 ms. or 3
s.
3⅓
d.
Preceding Table.
in the pound rent.
Hence the charge of all taxes in the home district is 5
s.
5
d.
Preceding Table.
in the pound; and in the remote division 4
s.
41/7
d.
Preceding Table.
: therefore, by the inequality of the assessment of the land-tax, the burthen of the home district exceeds its true proportion, in the ratio of 5 to 4. It is also somewhat greater than that proportion of their income which political arithmeticians have laid down as a limit of what a country can pay in taxes, in the the time of peace, without ceasing to increase in riches.
The fourth penny of their annual income. Davenant, v. 14 p. 253.
The payments of the rents of the home district to all taxes is £.1.6525 ms.
App. Art. 7, § 8.
; and the equitable payments of the remote district, in proportion to its value, would be £.5.2572 ms.:
Ib. § 10.
its actual payment is £.4.2205
App. Art. 7, § 8.
ms. which falls short of its due contribution, by £.1.0367 ms.
Ib. § 10.
nearly the same sum as before assigned; and their proportional is to their real charge, as 12.456 is to 10.000.
Ib. § 9.
The consequence of this disparity, to the kingdom in general, and the home district in particular, offer themselves next to our examination. The first branch of these considerations will be entered upon by the proof of the following proposition.
If the remote district had constantly contributed in their just proportion to this tax, and the sum by which it would have been thereby increased, had been applied to the purchase of 3 per cent. stock; it would at this time have extinguished a capital, nearly double that of the present redeemable debt, after a due and even liberal allowance had been made for the difficulties that part of the kingdom laboured under, at the Revolution, and perhaps for some following years.
The average nominal rate of the tax, since its first establishment, has been 3s. and 3
/8d. in the pound, very nearly;
Pence, 39.114.
and its annual average product in England, £.1.6116. Now, its actual charge to the remote counties is to that on the whole kingdom, as 1.0381 to 1.9777.
Davenant, v. 1. p. 39 (Table).
Therefore, the annual average charge upon them has been £.845.930: but that actual charge is to the proportional charge, as 10.000 to 19,989. The amount of the latter would have therefore been £.1.690,990. The difference of these two payments, or £.845.060 is the fund, which would thus have been applicable to the reduction of the 3 per cent. capital.
The term of its operation is next to be fixed; and in assigning it, due allowance is to be made for the distress under which it has been seen that the remote district laboured at the Revolution, and for some years after. It was above shewn, that in the year 1729, all traces of the former depression of the value of estates in the district had become obliterated, or 36 years after the imposition of the tax: but at the very beginning of the term, the payment of the remote counties was greatly below their abilities of contributing to the public charges: and it may be taken, that their estates rose to an equality of value with those of the home district, by equal degrees, in equal times: and if their first payment, which was so inadequate, had been fully proportioned to their ability at that time, by the nature of their progressive recovery, as above described; if they had paid the full tax the last half of the term, or 18 years, and their initial assessments without increase, for the first half thereof; a due allowance would have been made for their temporary distress: but in the circumstances which took place, this allowance is much more than adequate. From the whole term of a century, therefore, the period during which the land-tax has existed, 18 years is to be deducted; and the remainder, 82 years, is the period in which the fund of £. 845,060 (to have been gained by the equalization of the tax) would have been applicable to the extinction of the debt.
The third factor to be assigned, is the rate of interest at which the fund would have operated in successive periodical publications. We have the price of the 3 per cent. stocks from the year 1731 inclusive, to this time; and taking, as before, the average interest of the stock market, during the present peace, at £. 4, that of the last 62 years was £.3·562 per cent.: during the first 20 years of this term, that rate was still higher; but the permanent rate here assumed is £. 3½ per cent. It is to be noted, that hereby the amount of the fund for the whole term will not be inconsiderably less than the truth; the interest at which it would have accumulated in the first 20, and the last 10 years, having exceeded £. 3½ per cent.
The amount of an annuity of £. 1 in 82 years, at £.3½ per cent. is £.451·20; and of an annuity of £.845,060, £.381·29 ms. And interest being at £.3½, or the value of the 3 per cents. £.855/7; that sum of money would have extinguished a capital of £.444·83 ms. of such stock.
Nor can it be said, from the experience of the fate of our sinking fund, that such an additional sum, if put under the like appropriation, would not have been applied for that purpose; for, during the present century, the mean annual expences, and the charge of the peace establishment, have increased very nearly in the same proportion. And this seems to be derived from a necessity, imposed upon every member of the European republic of States, which will not submit to be degraded below its former relative rank therein; which is founded on great advances in strength and opulence, which most of them have made in the present age. By an unfortunate system of policy, the nation has never provided an increasing revenue for this increasing charge; and thus the product of the sinking fund has at length been almost totally absorbed by the increasing charge of the peace establishment. The errors, and perhaps the delinquence of Administrations, may at some periods have contributed toward it; but this impolitic national parsimony, much more: nor are the marks of criminal profuseness, which appear upon the face of the public accounts, so frequent in the middle and at the conclusion of the last hundred years, as at the beginning: and perhaps no reason can be assigned, to show, that, if the amount of the sinking fund had been £.850,000 a year more, this surplus would have been gratuitously flung away; and if only one half of it had escaped from the influence of peculation and mismanagement, our present debt would have been nearly annihilated.
But the inequality of the land-tax has likewise contributed its share to another great evil: it was not without its effect, and that perhaps a very considerable one, in producing the civil war of the colonies, and dismembering the empire: for it cannot be doubted, that a suspicion of the equity with which the British Parliament would exercise the power of taxation, was one of the leading causes which brought on the resistance, which terminated in that great revolution. And if no other American made up his opinion on this head, from the disparity of the land-tax of England, Dr. Franklin at least did.
He always used to quote the continuance of the land-tax, upon its present very unequal footing, as a proof of the very little regard that was had to justice and common-sense, in our national deliberations.
Maseres, on Life Annuities, p. 450.
This argument must have full weight with those who think the colonists would have concurred in any mode of contributing to the expences of the united empire; which they were assured, from the established character of equity in the legislation, would not have been attended with practical oppression and inequality: for they would not have hazarded a civil war, for abstract principles, when they had a sufficient moral probability, grounded on their confidence of the long unimpeachable justice of that assembly, in whom the power would be, that these abstract principles would never produce an additional burthen to them in their operation; and, on the other hand, temperaments would have been easily discovered, and conceded to with the same facility, to have obtained their contributions, without any contravention to those principles.
The effects of this inequality, upon the home district in particular, are now to be stated. Here it will not be sufficient to examine simply the force by which these counties are depressed: for its consequences depend, not only on its magnitude, but on the strength of the subject on which it operates: therefore, after discussing the general effects of the disparity, other circumstances are to be pointed out, which, operating in conjunction with them, tend greatly to increase the relative depression of the district.
Beside the absolute definition of the property of the the home district, by the disproportionate assessment of the tax, as a secondary consequence, it produces an effective, and a very important balance of payment, against the less, and in favour of the greater division of the kingdom.
When money is brought by taxes into the treasury, much of it again returns into the country, for several purposes; to pay the interest of the public creditors; for the subsistence of troops, the purchase of stores and commodities; and on divers other accounts. Now it may very well be admitted, sums so returned into the two districts, are as the landed capital of each: the sum of these disbursements in both will evidently exceed £.1·6903 ms.
App. Art. 4.
, the amount of the provincial tax: but first let it be considered as exactly equal thereto, being distributed to both in the proportion laid down. The share of the remote division will be £.1.2860 ms.
App. Art. 4.
; and that of the home district, £.404,300.
App. Art. 4.
The former sum exceeds the remittance of that district to the treasury, on account of the land-tax, by £.247,970
App. Art. 4.
; and the latter falls short of the tax on the home division, by the same sum: or it is an effective balance, increasing annually the money of one district, and decreasing that of the other.
Now let the annual disbursement of government exceed the sum assigned, by any given amount: such excess must be derived from the general taxes, which are equally levied in both districts; and the money returning to each, according to what is above laid down, will be proportional to its landed capital, or its prior charge to those taxes, but less than the amount thereof; because all the expences of government are not internal. Hence, considered by itself, this second reflux of money cannot generate a balance in favour of either of them: it is only a proportional restoration of part of the money of both. It therefore cannot diminish the wrong balance assigned above.
Such balances may exist between province and province, as well as between independent kingdoms, and, in like manner, must be ultimately paid by the precious metals. That we may judge of its consesequence, let its amount be compared with that part of our annual gain by foreign trade, which presents itself first to every one's imagination, who thinks upon the increase of national opulence: I mean that part of the precious metals gained by the general balance of trade, which forms the annual increment of our national stock of coin. That we have, on an average of many years, an annual resting balance of this kind, notwithstanding the great diminution of corn which must be occasioned by our wars, and the more latent causes of decrease, will not, I think, at this time, be brought into dispute. Now the larger this sum is stated to be, the less will the comparative loss of the home district appear, from the adverse balance above pointed out. In 1750, Mr. Andrew Hooke published his Essay on the National Debt and Capital; which is mentioned by Sir John Sinclair
Sir J. Sinclair's History of the Revenue, v. 2. p. 118. We may see likewise, by Postlethwayt's Dictionary, that it was a work held in much consideration, when first written.
as an "admirable" work. The great foundation on which all his computations are built, is the annual increment of the national coin: this he states at £.164,772
Hooke's Essay, p. 6. In this he seems to have exceeded the truth. It appears from a passage in Dr. A. Smith's Wealth of Nations (which I have not time to search for), that this amount may somewhat exceed £.130,000 a year.
yearly. Thus the balance against the home district, generated by the inequality of land-tax, exceeds the part of our foreign balance of trade, by which the coin of the kingdom is increased, by £.83,198, being more than one half thereof.
This annual increment of the coin of £.164,000 a year, is the basis on which the increment of our currency is founded; which is the sum of our circulating paper and coin; for a part of this new coin being withdrawn, and locked up in the chest of the banker, enables him to increase the currency by three or four times its amount in paper: and thus the market for all our commodities is supplied with the representative signs of real value, although both their quantities and their nominal prices are perpetually augmenting. This apparently minute annual increment of the national stock of coin, is the stream that has led the national capital, in every stage of its progressive growth; and it is sufficient to have increased it to that magnitude it has attained. The inequality of the land-tax, which has generated a balance against the home district of £.247,000 a year, must have greatly retarded it in its course of prosperity, during the whole term it has operated: although the counties included in it, should be admitted to have derived an equal, or perhaps a superior sum, annually from some other quarter; for even in this latter case, a part of that annual superlucration of the district, equal to this balance, would be annihilated by it, or would be rendered what has been called a
lucrum cessans;
which is always in effect equal to a
damnum emergens.
In the process to determine the adverse balance against the home counties, by the inequality of the tax, it has been shown, that its amount upon the provinces, when its nominal rate is 4s. in the pound (a charge now become permanent) is £.1.6903 ms.: of which sum, the proportional share of the remote district is £.1.2863 ms.; and of the home district, £.404,300. I shall here so far make a digression, as to draw a corollary from this, connected with the general subject, though not with the particular matter of this Section.
Hence a method is easily deduced, to equalize the burthen of the tax, and still retain the old valuation of the districts, and this may be done by adopting a counter-inequality
This is not the decisive counter-inequality of Dr. Franklin, to be described hereafter: though I borrow the term from him, he annexed a much more effective notion to it.
of the nominal rates at which the two districts are assessed, so adjusted as to be reciprocal to the inequality of the valuation; by which the payment of each district is rendered proportional to its value. The new rates are found thus: the product of the tax on both remaining fixed at its present amount, the proportional contribution of the remote district is £.1.286 ms.: now, at the nominal rate of 4s. in the pound, the sum raised therein is £.1.0381 ms; and at the nominal rate of (59.455d. =4s. 11½d.) 5s. in the pound, the total collected by the division would amount to that proportional payment.
Again, at the nominal rate of 4s. in the pound, the sum of £.652,270 is raised in the home counties; the valuation of which being continued, and that reduced to (29.752 pence or 2s. 5¾d.) half-a-crown in the pound, the amount of the tax would be reduced to £.404,333; its proportional part of the total now paid by both.
This seems to hold out a very easy mode of doing an act of substantial justice to the oppressed district; and, at the same time, of avoiding the natural difficulties, and the artificial obstructions which might be flung in the way of a new valuation: but the gross inequality being thus removed, the great mass of interest, which opposes the introduction of a more perfect system of levying this tax, would be much reduced, if it did not fall with it: and in a little time, every subordinate inequality would follow the fate of the great one, which at present covers and protects them all.
To return to the immediate subject of the Section: The burthen of this disparity on the home district has been considered in some material points of view; but if all of them had been exhausted, only one half the inquiry is finished. The measure of the power which is to support that burthen, remains to be sought after; and this power may be considered either absolutely or relatively.
Now there are some natural circumstances respecting the two districts, whose primary and secondary effects necessarily give a great superiority to the remote division: it includes the coal countries; the direct and primary consequence of which (the wood in the home district being reduced to almost nothing) is to form another balance of payment in their favour. But the secondary effects of this natural inequality of the districts, in respect to firing, extend much further: it lays the manufactures of the one under great disadvantages; and gives a superior facility to the extension of those of the other: in the home district it has the most hurtful effect on the morals and industry of the labourers in agriculture: and while, from the increase of its coal trade, and that of its manufactures, the shipping of the remote division has received a great augmentation, that of the home district has suffered a cotemporary decline; and each in a degree which, prior to actual experience, would have been held far to exceed any bounds of probable expectation. This source of superiority, derived from nature on the one side, and of relative depression on the other, are the most cogent arguments against suffering the continuance of any other disparities, generated by artificial and inequitable systems of policy; such as the continuation of a tax of double burthen upon the district, in the less fortunate natural state.
But I must consider more in particular each of these circumstances, which add to the weight of this unjust burthen: their importance to the general argument is such, that they are not to be passed over in a bare summary enumeration.
With respect to the balance against the home district by the coal trade, it may be said,
that if their wood be cleared off the soil, it is because they find their gain more by reducing it into cultivation: hence they are able to pay for their coal, and afterward derive a greater profit from their land than before.
To this it must be answered, that the whole advantage it might reap, if they could obtain their firing out of the bowels of their own soil, is diminished by the price of the coal remitted out of the district; and that land brought into cultivation in the other division occasions no drain of money for firing: on the contrary, they keep that whole sum at home; and their capital is perpetually increasing, by the expence of their neighbours in this article, for the price of the coal and its freight.
The expence of this fuel to the consumers in the home counties, consists of the following parts: its value at the pit; a duty of "more than sixty per cent." on that value
Smith, v. 3. p. 338 and 339.
; the freight; mercantile profit; and inland carriage. Firing is necessary for the
comfortable subsistence of many different sorts of workmen, who work within doors
Smith, v. 3. p. 338 and 339.
: and manufacturers have always gradually migrated into countries where fuel is cheapest, when there has been no great disparity of other circumstances. To this cause the depression of many branches of the manufactures of the home district is to be ascribed, which formerly flourished there: and that part of the kingdom may have long occasion to regret the loss of the bill brought into the lower house by the present minister, a few years ago, laying a tax on coal at the pit's mouth. If it had been withdrawn on being carried coastwise, it would have formed an equalizing and protecting duty, and given some remedy to its natural disadvantages.
If this difference of situation affect the subsistence of one class of the labouring poor in the home district — the manufacturers, and attack the very existence of the manufactures themselves; it produces effects no less fatal to the morals and industry of another—the workmen in husbandry. Before wood was almost extirpated there, the labourer could purchase firing; or, as it was of little value, much was given him: its scarcity has diminished very much, if not annihilated, this supply from the liberality or sufferance of his superiors; and its price renders him more ready to steal, than able to buy. He goes out in the night in search of it; and opportunities frequently present themselves to him, at the same time, of making other depredations: and the wood-stealer is thus tempted to become, and frequently does become, a robber of a still more dangerous character. This is one great inductive cause of that profligacy which the poor are arrived at in the home district; and from which I conclude, that cheapness of firing has greatly tended to preserve those of the remote division. It is well known how much the flourishing state of a country depends upon the morals of the lower class: and in the home district there is every cause in action to bring them into a state of degeneracy which can operate in the remainder of the kingdom, with almost an additional necessity imposed upon them, by the dearness of fuel, of beginning the practice of night stealing.
The last disparity of the two divisions to be treated, is in the quantity of their shipping; that of the home district having decreased with great rapidity, while that of the other has been constantly and greatly augmenting.
This is to be shown from the tonnage of English ships cleared outward, in the year 1750 and 1772. two terms sufficiently remote; and the only terms for which I have been able to discover proper data, to found any comparison upon. And it will be afterwards shown, by general reasoning, that the conclusions to be derived from them, will very well apply to the present purpose.
The shipping of the out-ports, are here only to be taken into the account; excluding that of the port of London. And the materials for their comparison, obliges us to divide the tonnage into two parts; not corresponding to the two districts, but approaching to such correspondence as near as may be. The first division contains the four greater out-ports of White-haven, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Bristol; the second, the remaining ports of the kingdom, being all the smaller out-ports: after that account is so stated, it will be shown that all its consequences may be strictly applied to the smaller home ports; that is, all the ports of the home district, exclusive of London: and moreover, that they would hold good
a fortiori,
if the account could be more exactly drawn out; or that the decrease of the shipping of the home district, estimated both absolutely and proportionally, would by such more accurate account appear to be greater than that here to be exhibited.
The absolute decrease of the shipping of the smaller ports, is first to be shown. There were cleared outward, from all of them taken together, in the year 1750, 264,073
App. Art. 10. § 4. Mr. Chalmers takes the total tonnage of English shipping, at ⅓ more than the number of tons cleared outward in a year. See note, App. Art. 10. § 2.
tons of English shipping; and in 1772, 156,499
App. Art. 10. § 4. Mr. Chalmers takes the total tonnage of English shipping, at ⅓ more than the number of tons cleared outward in a year. See note, App. Art. 10. § 2.
tons only: they had therefore decreased 107,574 tons,
App. Art. 10. § 4. Mr. Chalmers takes the total tonnage of English shipping, at ⅓ more than the number of tons cleared outward in a year. See note, App. Art. 10. § 2.
in twenty-two years. To apply this loss to a proper measure, familiarised to the conception of every man, as far as it can be, by being frequently made the subject of conversation: in the very same term of twenty-two years, the tonnage of English vessels annually cleared outward, increased 107,063 tons. Thus if these ports had been able to preserve their shipping, without augmenting it a single ton, the increase of our vessels for commerce, and our naval force (great as it actually was) would have been doubled: and half the augmentation of our marine strength, from the prosperity of the five great ports, was annihilated by the decline of the smaller taken conjointly.
Having stated the absolute loss, the celerity of this decline is now to be fixed. Taking therefore the tonnage of the smaller out-ports in 1750, as 1000; that of 1772 will be found to be as 5926:
App. Art. 10. § 4.
or they had lost ⅖ of their whole shipping in twenty-two years. The prosperity of the four great out-ports, and the severe reverse of situation of the remainder and smaller, exhibit an unparalleled and afflicting contrast. The tonnage of the former increased in the same time from 199,338 to 361,604 tons; or by 162,066 tons; in the proportion of 10,000 to 18,122:
Ibid. Art. 10. § 4.
while the most distressed commercial State in Europe did not, in the same period experience any calamity, to be put in competition with the decline of the latter. It argues something deleterious and fatal, either natural or artificial, or both, to their commerce, depressing it during the whole of the term.
Although no extracts of registers can be here produced, to show upon which of the smaller ports the whole of this calamity fell, yet every general reason points out, that the total of it is exclusively to be carried to the account of those of the home district; the increase of shipping of some of the smaller ports of the other division, at least counterbalancing, probably much exceeding some decrease, which might be experienced by others: because those causes, then known to exist in this kingdom, adequate to the production of so great an evil, or even capable of restraining a course of prosperity, were limited in their operation to the home district exclusively. For although that district, beside its disproportionate charge to the State by the land-tax, is further exhausted by paying an annual balance to the other counties, which this first oppression draws after it, as its necessary consequence (a balance which considerably exceeds the annual increment of the national coin) there is superadded to this, a second and much greater, on account of coal: and the scarcity of fuel, which has thus rendered the home district tributary to the rest of the kingdom, is a circumstance, which has generated much depravity in the village poor; laid a new tax upon the productions of agriculture; and tended, not a little, to retard its improvements, and the increase of its products. And to the effect of the same cause is further to be added, that by promoting the migration of some of our manufacturers, and restraining the extent of others, it has produced the same melancholy consequences on the labouring inhabitants of our greater towns and cities, as on those of the villages; increasing the pressure of their necessities; and, by perpetual intermissions of employment, relaxing their habits of industry, and giving birth to, or increasing those of the worst nature.
In this account are to be found, proximate as well as remote causes of destruction of commerce, and the consequent decrease of shipping: these having existed exclusively in the home district, the whole of their effect must have taken place there. And it appears highly probable, that the account above given, does not show the whole of their loss in shipping: for, from their natural and artificial advantages, it seems absolutely necessary to admit, that the smaller ports of the remote division taken collectively have made some increase to their tonnage; counterbalancing in part the decrease of the others. This rate of augmentation may certainly be taken equal to that of the average increase of the national shipping, as retarded by the losses of the home district; for their advantages are above the general average; and it may with the greatest moderation be assumed, that as the four great out-ports, all situated in the remote district, have in twenty-two years increased in tonnage, in the proportion of 18122, to 10000,
App. Art. 10. § 4.
so that of the other ports alike situated, and partaking the same common advantages, have, in the same time, increased in the proportion of 11755 to 10000 (which is the average rate of increase of the tonnage of the whole kingdom) or with something less than one fourth of the celerity of the former.
But if it be contended that even this rate is too much, let the tonnage of these smaller ports, taken collectively, be now admitted to have increased with any celerity, less that here mentioned: the augment it has received must be something; and the decrease of the tonnage of all the smaller ports of the kingdom, taken together, will have been diminished by that increase: therefore the decrease of that of the other ports, that is, those of the home district, will be equal to the total decrease of this tonnage, 107,574 tons, with that small augment added to it. The decrease of their shipping therefore, as above represented, is less than the truth: whence it follows, that the celerity of its decline is much less than the truth. For in 1750, the tonnage cleared outwards from the small home ports, must have been less than 264,073 tons,
App. Art. 10. § 4.
the total for both districts: its decrease also exceeded 107,574 tons. Hence, by the nature of proportion, it must have decreased from the year 1750 to 1772, with a greater celerity, than that defined by the ratio of 264,073 tons, to 156,499 tons, or of 10000 to 5926.
App. Art. 10. § 4.
If the shipping of smaller remote ports be supposed to have been stationary, neither increasing nor diminishing; the decrease of the annual tonnage of the smaller home ports will remain as first stated: but, from the nature of proportion, the celerity of their decline, as given above, will be below its true magnitude.
There is one case indeed, in which the celerity of the decline of the shipping of the home district, will be accurately defined by that proportion, that is, if one equal decrease had taken place, at the same time, in the remote division. But this supposition is extremely improbable; for it may be presumed, that, in the history of commerce, there is not to be found an instance of a great district, which had once acquired a considerable quantity of shipping, if it had not lost its industry, or did not labour under any particular circumstances of adversity, where that shipping was found to have been decreasing, in long terms of time. It has always been progressive throughout Europe in general, where the existence of such causes to retard it have not been extremely evident.
Laying now aside, all further consideration of the absolute quantity of its decrease; it is to be observed, that the celerity of the decline of the shipping of the smaller home ports, can be exaggerated by the estimate given above, upon one supposition only: and that is, that a more rapid decline has taken place in the smaller ports of the other, in a time when every cause of superiority was operating in their favour: an assumption too absurd to be considered.
It is concluded hence, that the decrease of the shipping of the smaller home ports, and the celerity of its decline, great as it is represented above, rather falls short of, than exceeds the truth; and that, although this point is established only upon general reasoning, which is certainly inferior in conclusiveness to the proof arising from actual registers of tonnage, yet these general reasons have great cogency, are founded upon well-known facts; and there appears nothing of the like kind to be set against them, to balance them; and they can only be set aside, by the production of copies of the entries of such registers.
It may be said,
that the state of the shipping of England may have been very much altered, between the year 1772 and this time; and that the smaller home ports may have recovered in a great part their relative proportion.
Now, on an average of three years, ending in 1774, the tonnage of all our ships in foreign commerce was 979,263 tons;
Chalmers's Opinions on interesting Subjects. 1784. p. 99.
and in the like term, ending in 1783, 933,785 tons. This shows a decrease of 45,478 tons;
Chalmers's Opinions on interesting Subjects. 1784. p. 99.
and exhibits no appearance of an increase of shipping in any part of the kingdom: and the probable presumption is, that it would not have sprung up in a time of general decline, in a district which every thing tends to depress: and if such be the fact, it can be proved by the evidence of the registers alone. It is beside to be added, that those causes which produced the decrease of shipping from 1750 to 1772, must have been since removed, before its progress could have been even stopped; and a much greater change must have taken place, before their antecedent effect could have been in any degree recovered. Of either of these great revolutions, no single vestige has occurred to me.
The proportional payment of the home district to the and-tax is, £2·075,100:
App. Art. 1. § 17.
and its effective payment being £1,038,184,
App. Art. 1. § 17.
the defalcation amounts to £1,036,916.
App. Art. 1. § 17.
I therefore now proceed to show, that it is possessed of the full ability to make up that deficiency.
This might be in general terms inferred, from the great increase of the commerce of that part of the kingdom, just before instanced; but it may be more directly proved, from particular and independent evidence, that, after such augmentation of the tax, their burthen would not be equal to that of their actual contribution to it at its first imposition; on the contrary, that a further addition of £99,400 a year to this proportional payment, must be made to bring it to such equality; and, as they were able to support the original charge, and rapidly emerge from a state of comparative depression into that of a decided superiority over the remainder of the kingdom, that they are possessed of the full ability now, to make good their defalcation to the proportional payment.
The burthen of a tax upon all income of the same condition, as before defined, is the proportion the annual charge of the tax bears to the annual amount of the income: thus a double sum taken from a double income, and a treble sum from a treble income, constitute equal burthens; and so on, for any other equimultiples of tax and income.
In 1693, the land-tax, amounting annually to £ 1,038,184, was laid on this district. In sixteen years of the first twenty, the charge was the same, or at 4
s.
in the pound: for three years at 3
s
; and the remaining year at 2
s.
At the Revolution, or five years before its commencement, the remote district was in a state of relative decline; which appears even to have been advancing upon it, with great celerity. Yet the progress of this decline became retarded; it stopped entirely; "the state of manufactures began to shift;"
Guthrie's Geography, edit. 1785. p. 367.
the lands in the other parts of the kingdom had fallen not very inconsiderably; and those of the remote district advanced to a perfect equality in value with them, so early as the sixteenth year after the expiration of the first twenty. It is to be concluded therefore, that during that term of twenty years, the burthen of the land-tax did not exceed the measure of that ability, which the district then possessed; and that the same burthen would at present be attended with no oppression to them.
Our inquiry therefore must be directed to discover, what charge, in the year 1793, would be equal in burthen to the actual payment of the division, in the year 1693.
The taxability of any income is (every thing else being alike) as its selling value. From a revenue of £1000 a year in land, or what is called here, income of superior condition, a larger sum may be drawn in taxes, than from the same rent in buildings, or income of inferior condition. Or if an income of the latter kind be reduced in the proportion which its proper number of years purchase bears to that of an estate in land, the resulting amount will be part thereof, which appears to be justly the subject of taxation. Thus having given the national rent of land, and of estates of inferior condition; the whole may be reduced into an income, all the equal parts of which shall be of equal value, and equitably pay the same rate in the pound to a tax. The value of these rents in 1688, and 1774, are severally given. It appears from their amount, that the national rent, during those eighty-six years, increased very nearly ¾ per cent.
App. Art. 2. § 4.
annually: and supposing it to have continued to be augmented at this rate, until the year 1793, the taxable national rents of 1693 and 1793 were £12·451 ms.
App. Art. 2. § 4.
and £26·085
App. Art. 2. § 4.
ms. respectively
The wealth of the remote, has evidently increased with greater celerity, than that of the home district; and consequently the advance of the rent thereof exceeded the average rate of the whole kingdom. But let it be admitted to have increased at an equal rate only; it follows, that the taxable income of estates of this division, has increased, from the year 1693 to 1793, in the proportion of 26·085 to 12·451; or in that of £0,174,500, to £1,038,184. But this latter sum was the amount of the payment of the remote division to the land-tax in 1693: now the experience of that time demonstrated, that it was able to bear such a burthen, for nearly twenty years successively, and, during that term, to recover in a great measure from very depressed circumstances, and make large steps in the road by which it has since led to a high degree of prosperity: and the former sum, £2,174,500, being the payment of equal burthen, the inhabitants of that part of the country are now equally well able to bear it. Their proportional payment was before shown to be £2,075,100, which falls short of the tax of equal burthen, by £99,400
App. Art. 2. § 5.
a year. Reasons of very great validity must be produced by the possessors of land in the remote district, to oppose to the claims of their countrymen for redress or equalization: and I will here put the defensive argument, in which they seem to repose the most confidence, in as good a light as I am able to place it.
From the original imposition of the Land-tax (and a whole century has now elapsed since that time) all contracts for estates in this district, have been made in full confidence, that this proportion of payment would be perpetual. It is not a few individuals whose interest are sacrificed to this innovation but the whole body of purchasers of land, for that whole term; who in number perhaps exceed three fourths of the cotemporary purchasers in the kingdom. All these, by one act, will be stripped of a property for which they have paid a fair value, and in which they thought themselves secured by the public faith. It has certainly been tacitly given; but it has been ratified as often as the present and original proportion has been re-enacted, which has been an annual practice of the same continuation as the tax. And hence the State is become as firmly pledged, by these repeated acts, as by the most express promise: for a legal right, the most absolute and plenary, both to benefits and exemptions, may be founded on long continued customs; and every good system of laws, recognizes such customs as a foundation of civil right: all invasions upon them have always been diligently repressed in the common courts, where the maxim,
quieta non sunt movenda,
has constantly been had in reverence. But this custom is of a higher nature: it is the custom of the legislature; and the custom of parliament is the law of parliament, which is paramount to all its ordinary acts, and a fundamental part of the Constitution; limiting even that power, which limits every thing else.
To this it is answered, that the facts alledged are not true: and admitting their truth, the conclusion must then rest entirely upon some other assumptions, used in conjunction with them in the course of the argument, which are totally repugnant to the first principles of society.
It is laid down as a fact in this argument, that all purchasers since the establishment of the tax, have been made in full confidence that no equalization would in future take place. To this it is replied, that the expectation of the purchasers on this head, could not amount to such a confidence. Our ancestors in the home district, before the imposition of the tax, made their respective purchases, without any compensation for a perpetual charge upon their purchased income, of double the magnitude which the new land-owners of the remote counties will have to pay, after the equalization has taken place. I repeat the words,
of double the magnitude;
for the question being here of purchased income only, by the equalization they will lose a part of such income, equal to one half only of that taken away from our ancestors, at the original imposition of the tax: and this is the whole purchased income, the tax after, equalization will take from them; the part thereof paid by them at present not being purchased income. For at the treaty for the sale of the estate to each individual, its amount was deducted out of its income, and no money paid for it; and their expectation, that the whole of their purchased income would be liable to no tax, must have been weakened, by their knowledge that the State had formerly taken from the persons they represent, the same quantity of purchased income which is now required for the equalization; and from the proprietors of the home district, the double of that quantity. Their expectation therefore of continuing to enjoy the whole of their purchased income untaxed, must be less than that entertained by our ancestors, prior to their having experienced such an assessment; and even the expectation the latter might form, must have fallen very short of the measure of full confidence, pretended to by the purchasers of the home district; as, in the course of more than fifty years before the land-tax took place, occasional aids of great amount, under other names, had frequently been levied upon land. The confidence therefore under which they pretend to have purchased must have been diminished, by the experience of the former failure of a confidence, better founded, in the case of the home district. It therefore could not be what they style it, a full confidence. And it may be added (though it depends upon a principle to be proved hereafter) that they must always have suspected, that the inequality of the land-tax must ultimately be remedied; because, in counties where the greater outlines of a moral policy are upon the whole well preserved, no exemption flagrantly abusive can subsist to all perpetuity: and that such forms of government, by their own internal vigour, ultimately purge off all real feculencies.
But if we examine this full confidence which has perpetually existed, a little more closely, we shall come to its true nature: it is a new species of full confidence, which has subsisted under a constant expectation, entertained in both parts of the kingdom, that it would ultimately fail. The subject of Baron Maseres's work on annuities, makes him a very good authority on this head; he has beside paid considerable attention to it: by him we are informed, that
the persons who have been lightly taxed, have
always
feared; and those who have been heavily taxed, have
always
hoped, that the Parliament would, one day or other, have sufficient regard to justice to correct this gross inequality.
Maseres, vol. 2. p. 449.
It follows that the purchasers of estates in the remote district did not, at the time of purchasing, regard that part of their income which an equalization would take from them, as a certain and perpetual annuity; but as a contingent income only, which must cease on the happening of a certain event, which was so probable in their opinion, as to be the object of constant fear. Now nobody can imagine, that the same number of years purchase would be paid for an income or part of an income, which it was always feared might be taken from the purchaser, as for an absolute perpetuity; there must have been some difference in the purchase-money. Now this difference allowed to the buyer, was the value of the increase against the contingency happening; or, the income ceasing by the equalization of the tax. And this is effectively the same thing, as if the purchaser had paid down the whole value of that income; out of which a sum equal to the then reputed value of the hazard, had been repaid to him by the seller, as a proper equivalent to the loss of it, when it should happen: all such purchasers in the remote district, have therefore the consideration for this addition to the tax in hand; or it has been paid to those of whom they are the representatives; whole virtual engagements, binding the income, they must abide by: and it must be admitted, that these purchasers, either by themselves or their representatives, have one with another been permitted to enjoy this contingent annuity, a much longer term than they could have expected; for if no second sale of the same estate had taken place, during the whole century the disparity has subsisted, the purchaser and those claiming under him, will, according to the equality of chance, have been in possession of this beneficial contingency fifty years; and taking repeated sales into the question, the term may probably have been about thirty-five, or forty years.
But let it be now supposed, that all these contracts for the purchase of land, were actually as improvidently made as they were stated to be: join to this the well-known fact, that Parliament has adhered, during a whole century, to the same proportion of assessment: yet this will not serve as a foundation, to prove such a custom as is alledged; granting all that is laid down in law books upon the validity of custom: for it is
an established maxim of the law,
malus usus abolendus est;
Blackstone's Com. v. 1. p. 76. 1783.
an inequitable custom must be abolished. The Act of 1693 established the inequality, and such an act it is itself, among the enumerated proofs that custom is invalid;
since the statute itself is a proof of a time when such custom did not exist:
Blackstone's Com. p. 77.
and the like may be said of the 99 subsequent acts, every one of which is a full and distinct proof of its non-existence at the time it was passed; and this is the total support their claim of custom derives from the original proportion of assessment having been 99 times re-enacted: beside, if, at any time during the whole period, the faith of Parliament had been expressly pledged to the remote district, for the continuance of their exemption, and not tacitly and by implication, it would have destroyed the analogy set up between this custom and a legal custom, as it would have shown it to have been not
compulsory;
Ibid. p.
an essential property of a legal custom, but voluntary.
As the continuance of the immunity contended for, fails of all support from its analogy to a legal custom; its only remaining defence must rest upon the principles of natural equity.
Let us therefore examine, how far it can be reconciled to the first principles on which human society is formed, and on which it continues to be kept together. These are always clearly discoverable, by the fiction of a number of wise and well-disposed individuals, who were before independent of each other, meeting to form a compact to enter into society; and all disguise of their sentiments and circumstances being out of the question, by the description of the individuals forming such a meeting, the want of each individual, for the protection of all the rest, and his desire to obtain it, would be really and apparently equal; and every one would readily and honestly engage to contribute to the protection of all the rest, by prestations, bearing the same proportion to his ability, or constituting equal burthens to him;
By prestations are to be understood, renders of personal service, or of commodities, or both jointly; or of their representative signs.
for there exists no ground, in the case described, why less or more than that proportion should be either required or accepted of, or engaged for by any one.
That the burthens of every member of the same community be equal, is therefore the first principle on which human society is founded; and that compact is violated, when any one refuses to take his proportioned share in the aggregate burthen: it is of moral obligation as long as he enjoys the protection of the society or nation; and such obligation, a series of infractions of no length, although it may very well suit the iniquity of self-interest to call it a custom, can invalidate: moral obligations cannot be prescribed against. No absolute and declared act of any legislature can cancel the first article of this primitive convention. Parliament, therefore, is not competent to pledge the national faith, even by an express law, that the tax should not be equalized; and it will not, I suppose, be pleaded, that that august assembly could tacitly contract such an engagement on the part of the nation, when an express declaratory law to that purpose would, in itself, be null and void.
Upon the grounds of the objection, advanced by the remote district, against an equalization of the tax, it might be likewise proved, that such tax ought never to be laid in countries where it has not been laid before; and where it has, that it should be immediately repealed: for, prior to the introduction of such a tax, every purchaser of an estate would have paid the full market value of its clear income, and of every part thereof; and the tax will take from him an income he has purchased under the full security of enjoying it; a security more complete, and much higher in degree, than the land-owners of the remote district can entertain. This being an absolute injustice, such a tax ought not to be introduced; and where it is already established, the evil ought to be remedied as fast as possible; and, with very little trouble, it might be shown upon the same ground, that every other tax ought to be repealed.
There is a very numerous class of proprietors in the remote district, who possess estates which have been in their families for the whole
erm of the existence of the tax; during which, a double charge has fallen upon the income of those of the home counties. If the former were to rest the continuance of this inequality upon their own interest, they would want even a verbal pretension to resist the claims made upon them. Injustice does not like, however, to go quite bare-faced; she will rather make use of any flimsy tatter, almost transparent, to veil herself with. Some of the old hereditary proprietors, it may be presumed, t
ke up the argument here considered for this reason; others join them who never examine what they have constantly heard repeated, and what their self interest makes them wish to be true; and many who examine no old opinions at all: these unite to give this miserable shadow of a pretence for the continuance of oppression and injustice, weight and currency; and together with those whose claims to indulgence they avow themselves to defend, they form a great majority of the landlords of the remote counties; that is, of three quarters of England. Yet if this argument, in its best form, were proposed to any sensible man, who was not previously acquainted with it, and with the interests and prejudices which combine to support it, and he was told at the same time, that it was the language held by a large party of well-informed men in England, he would be apt to suspect the veracity of the relation.
Hitherto the difference of the charge of the land-tax of the home district, and that of the whole of the remote division, has been considered; it remains only to draw a comparison of the former, with a part of the latter, the county of York. The actual and proportional payment of that county to the land-tax, and its rate in the pound, are the only points to be considered.
Following the process laid down at the beginning of this Section, it appears that the rent of the home district is to that of the county of York, as 10,000 to 4034; the actual payment of the home distrct, to the land-tax, is £.652,275; and the proportional payment of the county, £.263,120; its actual payment is £.91,620; and the defalcation, £.171,500.
App. Art. 3.
This proportional charge is to the actual payment, as 10,000 to 3481; and for every £.10,000 paid by the county to this tax, the proportional charge is £. 28,719: the tax upon the home counties is 2
s.
and 1 1/
d.
and upon the county of York 8
d.
and 9/10
Ibid.
in the pound.
SECTION V.
On the Addition to be made to the Number of the Representatives of the Home and Remote Districts, according to the Plans for the Alteration of the Constitution of the House of Commons, proposed in
1785
and
1790.
IN considering the consequence of the plans for a change of the election of the Commons, I confine myself to those brought forward in the years 1785 and 1790: as it is probable, from the great celebrity of their movers, that on a future occasion either one or the other will be revived; or some third scheme brought forward, compounded from both. The first was introduced into the House by Mr. Pitt, in the year 1785; the second, by Mr. Flood, in 1790, whose name certainly retains great weight, with those who now call for this great alteration in the Constitution; and of the outline of which Mr. Fox declared, that
it was the best he had ever heard suggested upon the subject.
New Annual Register, 1790. History, p. 94.
I shall begin with a very short analysis of each of these plans.
That of Mr. Pitt
New Annual Register, 1785. History, p: 82, 3.
consisted of three parts, as follows—The suppression of some smaller boroughs, which ultimately were to have been about fifty in number: this was to have been done by the purchase of the right of election of single boroughs, whenever the consent of two thirds of the electors was obtained for its surrender.
The first set of boroughs to have been disfranchised, was in number thirty-six: and seventy-two members were to be added to the representatives for counties, in such proportion to each,
as the wisdom of Parliament might prescribe:
and copyholders were to have been admitted to the right of voting, in all the counties.
After this part of the plan had been fully executed, the rights of election of other boroughs were to have been bought up, and transferred to large towns at present unrepresented. As it was supposed, that the new members would ultimately amount to about a hundred; the number of the second class of boroughs to have been suppressed, would have been nearly fourteen; and in populous towns, where the number of electors are very few, that franchise was to have been extended to all the inhabitants.
By this plan, the number of members in the House of Commons would have remained unaltered; strict regard being had to the article of the Union on this subject.
That of Mr. Flood
New Annual Register, 1790. History, p. 94.
consisted of a single article only—That a hundred new members should be added to the House, to be elected by the householders of the counties.
By the first, if executed in its full extent, about fifty boroughs would have been suppressed: by the second, they are all supposed to continue in the possession of their franchise. According to the former, some greater towns, now unrepresented, were to have the privilege of returning members to Parliament; the number of these members would have been about twenty-eight: by the latter, no new grant of this kind was made. And lastly, by the scheme of 1785, the members of counties were to have been increased by seventy-two; and by a hundred, by the plan of 1790: but by both, the right of voting is extended to electors of new descriptions; and the number of members who would have obtained seats upon absolutely new appointments, by the first, is the same as that which would have been added to the House by the second of these schemes of alteration.
The several parts of each of them, and the circumstances connected with them, which tend to affect the balance of power in the representation of the two districts, are now to be made the subject of disquisition.
The continuance or the suppression of the elective franchises of the boroughs, will produce some difference in the effects of the alteration of the Lower House, upon this balance. It will therefore be shown that there is no probability that in future such suppression will take place; for it is by no means certain that it would have been affected, if the Bill of 1785 had been passed into its original form: but it is more clearly evinced by the following argument. It will be opposed by all those who wish to uphold the present constitution of the House; and they will be supported in their opposition (judging from what is past) by the most effective advocates for a change.
And first, it is by no means certain that the elective franchises of certain boroughs would have been bought up and suppressed, if the Bill of Mr. Pitt in 1785 had passed into a law.
For, prior to the suppression of any borough, the Bill made it requisite that two thirds of the electors should signify, in a prescribed manner, their assent to resign their elective franchises. This act indeed would become binding upon the whole; and they were to receive a compensation for their surrender, which would, upon an average, have amounted to £27,777 to each borough.
One million was to have been allotted, for the suppression of 36 boroughs. New Annual Register, 1785. Hist. p. 82.
But we cannot but perceive there was, by this plan, much left to chance in the suppression of the boroughs It was postponed to an indefinite period; and Mr. Pitt admitted, that
the operation of the scheme would not have been immediate, at least in its fullest extent.
It was declared however, that the benefit of the plan was expected to be felt, before the expiration of the Parliament then newly assembled. When Mr. Flood proposed his plan in 1790, he observed on this head,
that the purchase must be slow and uncertain, and that the worst boroughs, those of Government, would never resign.
There is a very great party in the House, who support the boroughs as part of the existing Constitution: and when their suppression is again moved (judging from what is past), we may pronounce, they will be joined by a very effective body of the advocates for a change; namely, those who shall follow on this subject the former sentiments of Mr. Fox; and (as we are not to presume on a change of opinion in any man, till we have some evidence of it) by that great leader of Opposition himself. The outline of Mr. Flood's plan has been given before he proposed the admission of one hundred new members for counties into the House, to be elected in a manner he described, and to leave the boroughs in their present state. Mr. Fox owned
that he thought its outlines the best he had ever heard suggested upon the subject.
New Annual Register, 1790. Hist. p. 94.
But nothing could tend to give more stability and permanence to them, than the effect of some of the principles laid down by him upon this subject, in 1785. He contended that the franchise election was a public trust, and not a property; which therefore the public had a right to resume, without any pecuniary consideration. If it be admitted that the principle contains an abstract truth, no abstract proposition can be laid down, tending to raise a stronger barrier against all attempts to get rid of the boroughs. It precludes all treaty between the electors, and all other persons interested in the thirty-six boroughs, and the State; and by alarming all the rest, it must have united them in a much firmer combination in the general defence. He likewise laid a further difficulty in the way of the measure; arguing on the principles of those who consider the right of voting for a representative as a property, he did
not hesitate to declare, that he would never agree to the purchasing from the majority of the electors, the property of the whole.
New Annual Register, 1785. Hist. p. 85, 86.
In requiring a perfect unanimity of the whole body of the electors of a borough, the difficulty of obtaining a voluntary resignation of their elective powers, was increased to the utmost; and when in the same debate he honoured with
his particular approbation, that principle which, by a diminution of members for boroughs, tended to increase the proportion of knights of the shire,
New Annual Register, 1785. Hist. p. 85, 86.
one is a loss to conceive, by what practical means he could give it effect; nor, unless he looked upon it as a political impossibility, can this decided praise which he has given to the abstract principle, be reconciled to his declaring afterward the outlines of a plan from which it was expressly excluded, the best he had ever heard suggested upon the subject.
The name of Mr. Flood itself, independent of this approbation, will influence many in favour of this distinguishing part of his scheme; and a great class of the supporters of the change, become supporters of the continuance of the elective franchise of the boroughs.
The qualified system, however, which he endeavoured to introduce, bore a nearer resemblance to that of the late Lord Chatham, than he seemed disposed to admit. The plan of that nobleman, was to make
an addition to the county representatives; leaving the rotten boroughs, as he expressed it, to drop off by time.
† Mr. Flood proposed, that the new representatives of counties should be elected by the resident householders: the second article of Lord Chatham's plan, the leaving the boroughs in their present state, he professed to retain; and observes upon Mr. Pitt's scheme, that
to disfranchise them might be arbitrary; but that to buy them out, would be to build reform, not on purity, but corruption.
New Annual Register, 1790. Hist. p. 93.
From this account of the two debates on the change of the representation, it does not seem certain, from what passed at the first, that the suppression of the smaller boroughs would have been carried into execution, if the addition of county members had been consented to; and in the second, this part of the plan was not only deserted, but treated with no very indirect censure.
In the further support of this conclusion, I shall bring forward the authority of another of the greater patrons of this revolution in the third estate; who is to be understood as delivering the sentiments of that great body of men, who have taken the lead in this measure, and who have placed him at their head. The evidence here to be produced, is that of the Rev. Mr. Wyvill, late chairman of the committee of the Yorkshire association. In his Defence of the Reformers of England, pages 15, 62, 80, 82, 90, 95, when he speaks of the boroughs, he is totally silent as to the suppression of any: every thing that he says relating to them, is confined to the liberation of the electors from the state of influence, or even of subjection, under which he states them to be brought by certain individuals: and to these he likewise strongly urges, the absolute necessity of resigning their usurpations; the abolition of which he represents as the ultimate object of popular pursuit. This amounts to an absolute disavowal of all the plans for their disfranchisement. It also might be inferred that such a thorough measure would not meet his concurrence, or that of the party of which he is the head, from the principle he lays down,
that men do not attempt to correct, what they wish to destroy.
He had given great praise, indeed, to the plan brought forward by Mr. Pitt in 1785: but what he has said on each subject, ought to be so construed, that his declarations on both may be made to stand together. This praise is general; and such praise may always be supposed to be attended with the reserve of some particulars, which a writer does not stop to specify, or intentionally declines it: his approbation is therefore to be understood, to extend to the other parts of Mr. Pitt's plan, exclusive of the disfranchisement of boroughs; and so taken, the appearance of contradiction stated here is done away.
It results from the whole of this, that no serious attempt will be probably made, for the suppression of any of the smaller boroughs: it is rather to be expected, that, at a future period, a compromise may be offered between the spirit of alteration and borough influence, perhaps by laying them a little more open; that something may be gained to the former, and something preserved to the latter.
The measures to be pursued with respect to the boroughs, are not without their consequence, in determining what share of power each of the districts will have in the House of Commons, after a change of its constitution shall have been affected; as will be shown in its proper place. What they will probably in future be, has been therefore here examined upon the authorities of leaders of parties. It will be likewise shown further on, that the plan of laying open the boroughs, as far as it has any effect on this future balance of power, will operate against the home district.
It follows likewise from what has been already advanced, that the home district ought so to act, whenever this measure shall be attempted a third time, as if no more was intended to be carried, than what was moved for the second; namely, an addition to the number of county members only.
A second great alteration in the constitution of the House, by the plan of 1785, was giving the franchise of election to some populous towns at present not represented: it was calculated that the number of members so to be admitted, would amount to about twenty-eight. Now the remote district having increased in manufactures and population, with much greater celerity than the home counties; the number of towns in the former, risen into the required degree of consequence, bear a greater proportion to its magnitude, than those of the latter; and instances perhaps are there only to be sound, of market towns rising into the magnitude of great cities, and villages into that of populous towns. Hence the number of new members to be thus added to the remote district, shall exceed that of the home district, more than in the proportion of its magnitude, or that of 314 to 100, the ratio of their landed capital. The nearest approach to this proportion, in integer numbers, is by allotting seven members to the smaller district, and twenty-one to the larger; which thus would acquire a majority of fourteen. But the number of votes thus acquired by the remote district, is less than the proportion assigned above points out; and it has been shown that it ought to be greater: and more probably, the least acquisition of the latter might be taken at twenty-three, and of the former at five; or the remote district acquire a new addition to its majority in the House, on all territorial questions, of eighteen voices.
The last alteration these plans hold out, is that of adding to the number of the county members; and in this they both concur. By the plan of Mr. Pitt this addition was to have been of seventy-two; which were to have been allotted in such proportion to each county, "as the wisdom of Parliament might prescribe."
New Annual Register, 1785. Hist. p. 82.
It may be here taken, that the addition to be made to the number of members returned by each county, would be such, as to make its share in the representation proportioned as nearly as possible to its weight and importance in the scale of the general landed interest; that is, to the total value of such county itself. And the present number of county members being ninety-two, and that of the proposed addition seventy-two; the representatives of the landed interest would thus amount to one hundred and sixty-four.
Now the value of the home and remote district being to each other as 10,000 and 31,814 respectively; the balance of power of those divisions in the Lower House, according to the present system, and the proposed plan of alteration here considered, is shown in the following comparative statement.
App. Art. 5. § 1.
Number of Members.
Present
Plan of 1785
Expressed in the nearest whole numbers.
Additions by the latter.
Home District
24
39
15
Remote District
68
125
57
Majority of latter
44
86
42
By this plan the majority of the representatives of the landed interest of the home division, would be increased from forty-four to eighty-six, or very nearly doubled.
But this majority would have received a further accession of strength, by a disproportionate addition of new members for great towns, if that part of the plan of 1785 had ever been carried into execution. For the majority of the members of the whole district would have received a further increase of fourteen votes, or have now become fifty-six in the whole: for the latter would have brought an augmentation of power to the landed interest of its proper district; though perhaps not quite so certain and effective, as an equal addition of representatives of counties.
We shall find that the consequences of Mr. Flood's plan would have been in this respect very nearly the same: and at the first view, there is the appearance of total coincidence between both. He proposed that the number of representatives should be increased one hundred, and that they should be elected by the householders of the counties. These are inhabitants of market towns and villages, the latter are chiefly landlords and tenants, with a few little tradesmen; the former contain a greater number of tradesmen and artificers in tolerable circumstances; but whose business chiefly depends upon the neighbouring farmers or gentry. Here we see nothing but landed proprietors and electors of the two other descriptions, either immediately or mediately dependent upon them. The new class of members, in both the great districts of the kingdom, will be returned by the landed interest; and be in all respects as much representatives of that interest, as if the votes by which they are appointed had been given by men of landed property only. Hence, if this scheme be carried into execution, the number of representatives of the landed interest being increased by one hundred, will become one hundred and ninety-two: and the number of members of both the great divisions of the kingdom, by the new arrangement, are to be taken as being made proportional to the value of estates in each; according to the supposition laid down, when the corresponding part of the scheme of 1785 was under consideration: and the comparative statement of the new and old representations of the two districts, may be exhibited as follows.
App. Art. 5. § 2.
Number of Members by
Present system.
Plan of 1790
Additions by latter.
Remote District
68
146
78
Home District
24
46
22
Majority of former
44
100
56
By this plan the majority of the representatives of the landed interest of the remote district, would be considerably more than doubled.
This decrease of power of the landed interest of the home district in the Commons, is an unbalanced loss, to be repaired by no probable circumstance. If the power of sending members to parliament, had been taken from, or resigned by a number of the smaller boroughs; part of those which would have been suppressed, would undoubtedly have been situated in the remote district; and thus this decrease of power would have been in some degree, though inadequately, counterbalanced. But that idea, which never appears to have been cordially taken up by the greater patrons of the change, was soon avowedly deserted, and even condemed. And if it be now to be purposed, that any alteration should take place in them, it will only be in the number and description of their electors. But whether measures for this purpose are to be embraced, or not, the consequences to result from the increase of the majority of the county members of the remote district, will remain the same as if no change were made in such bodies or borough election; for there is nothing in such alteration to counterbalance this increased majority: if it have any feeble effect in this case, it will act in concurrence with it.
On account of the consequences which the continuance of the smaller boroughs will be attended with, the probability of it has been considered at some length. I therefore add this further observation only upon the subject: those who are, from principle alone, friends to this alteration of the Constitution, will consent to their continuance under some modifications, to diminish the opposition they must otherwise meet, and those of the remote district, who are patrons of it from local interests alone, or jointly with other motives, will concur with the former. And this is additional evidence, that a total disfranchisement of the smaller boroughs will not be attempted. But let it be now admitted that it actually takes place; and let its consequence, in conjunction with an increase of the members for counties, upon the proportion of power to the landed interest of the home district, in the Lower House, be now examined.
It has been before observed, that it must be supposed, that some or many of the boroughs to be suppressed are situated in the remote district: thus some counterbalance to the increase of its majority will take place; although it cannot be doubted, that if a number of boroughs were suppressed in that district, and their members added to the counties, its landed interest in the House would be very much strengthened; and its influence, in every thing relating to charges upon land, very much increased. For the landed estates of county members, upon an average, very considerably exceed those of the representatives of boroughs: they are therefore far more interested in all charges upon their own land; and they will not only join with more unanimity in opposing them, but they will individually exert their personal abilities with more energy, and employ their more extensive interest with a more earnest diligence, to the same end. But let it be admitted that any number of them could be found, disposed to sacrifice their immediate pecuniary interest to public justice or expediency; they have another object, at least of equal magnitude, to surmount: the private interest of all their constituents is directly against the increase of charge upon land, with whom, taken in the aggregate, it is always public virtue, not to give up a partial or total exemption from any general chage; to resist the imposition of a new, or the extension of an old tax. It is a kind of local patriotism: and the honours of this patriotism are acquired in villages, by cheating the hundred for the good of the parish; in the hundred, by cheating the province; in the province, by defrauding the nation; and in a nation, by robbing the world in general. And if any individual belonging to one of these societies, endeavour to counteract these objects of public utitity, he is looked upon as a betrayer of the public interest, and a traitor. Hence, if a county member of the remote district were to give his vote for the equalization of the land-tax, he might not only lose his seat, but retire under no small load of popular odium. Many individuals may be found, who have that regard for the general State, that they will submit to burthens, which they have the most probable expectations of being able to evade: a sentiment which hardly ever discovers itself in great bodies of men. Among the reasons to be given for this, is, that here the blame of injustice rests upon the whole, and no part of it separately attaches itself to any one in particular.
And as charges on land are less expensive in general upon the representatives of boroughs, their property in land, upon an average, not being nearly so large as that of members for counties; so their constituents of the foRmer are less interested in such charges than those of the latter. It will even frequently happen, that they are totally uninterested in the tax of the lands in their neighbourhood: or as, by the imposition of such taxes, they may expect to avoid future additions to their own, their interest may be contrary to that of the district in which the borough is situated. The members of many boroughs are therefore quite uninfluenced by the landed interest of the circumjacent country, as far as respects the security of their seats: and even where a member is effectively nominated by a single opulent landed man, it is much more probable that he will leave him to act by his own discretion, on this head, than that he will so be left, in this case, by the landlords of a whole county; for individuals are much more frequently determined by disinterested motives, than numerous bodies of men.
It follows from this, that if a number of boroughs disfranchised, and their members added to the landed interest, increasing the number sent by both districts, so as to render them proportional to their values, the superiority of the remote district in the House will be very considerably increased.
And if the privilege of voting for the members of the smaller boroughs be extended to the land-owners of the circumjacent counties, the representatives of every such borough, will be more influenced by the landed interest than before: and if all such boroughs be so laid open, the remote district will acquire some further degree of superiority in the Legislature; which may not be inconsiderable, and without danger to the home counties.
What has been already said leads to a question, the examination of which cannot properly be here declined; that is, how far the consequences resulting from this alteration, have or have not been among the motives for the singular zeal and perseverance with which this object has been pursued, of late years, in certain parts of the kingdom.
In the first place, it may here be observed, that it seems impossible that it could at any time have been the general motive of any great combination of men, in any part of the kingdom; for in that case the expected effect of the measure must have been as extensively known, as the motive was general: and its very publicity would have rendered its success impossible, by alarming the home district against it, whose concurrence in it its advocates might not only wish, but otherwise expect to obtain. Beside, the arguments by which it would be defended, whatever superficial appearance of plausibility they might be dressed out with, would appear to be nothing but the mockery of injustice. It cannot therefore have possibly been the motive of the great exertions of communities at large.
Again, the consequence pointed out cannot have been the motive of numerous committees in any part of England, to have taken up such a measure; for if it had been so, it would have become matter of general notoriety: nor is it to me credible, there can be indiscriminately taken in any part of England, out of any political party, a numerous assembly of men of property and education, as many of the committees for this purpose have been, to whom any man, or set of men, would venture to propose the pursuit of such an end as has been described, by such means.
Yet it appears extremely probable, that the effect of this alteration to perpetuate the inequality of the land-tax, did not escape the attention of all persons who were interested in it: however, it might pass totally unheeded, by a great body of those who actively concurred with them, and even of their ostensible leaders; and of these persons some might have contributed to give movement to this business, and to support that unwearied spirit with which it has been persevered in. And the general cicumstances of the case, the county where, and the peculiar time when, the measures to carry this plan into execution were first set on foot, are, taken together, no inconsiderable evidence of this; at least it renders the contrary very difficult to conceive. Such was the persuasion at least which impressed itself upon me, if a writer may state his individual conviction, about the time of the intermission of the long persevering struggle of the party formed to effect this change in the constitution of Parliament, after the check it received by the defeat of 1785.
The first county which took up the alteration of the Commons with zeal and system, was that of York; and indeed it is the only one which can be said to have done so. This measure was entered upon, at a general meeting of the freeholders, in the year 1779. How far the county was interested in this as a defensive measure, is evident by a comparison of its actual and proportional charges to the land-tax. When the nominal rate of that tax is 4
s.
in the pound, its actual charge on the home district is 2
s.
and 1⅔
d
;
App. Art. 3.
and on the county of York to 8
/
d.
its actual payment to the tax, at the same nominal rate, is £.91,620: but its charge on every tract of the home counties, equal in rent, amounts on an average to £.263,120.
Sec. 4. table.
It is evident therefore, upon an equalization of the land-tax, the charge upon the county of York would be very greatly increased; and that it is much more deeply interested against a parliamentary reform of this abuse, than any other county in England.
Therefore the probability here contended for, receives all the support which can possibly be derived from the consideration of the place where the measure originated. The evidence deducible from the time and circumstance of its being so taken up, and of the great effort made some years after to carry it into execution, is now to be brought forward.
It has been shown before, that apprehensions had always been entertained in the favoured counties, that an equalization of the tax was an event which would one day take place; and these apprehensions were greatly increased in 1779, the time when the association of the county of York was set on foot. Now, in a former Section of this tract, many circumstances have been produced, to prove that a considerable addition must be made to the land-tax, at a near period: they were mostly written, when the conclusion of a very prosperous peace was not esteemed to be so near, as in fact it was found to be: the necessity of that augmentation could not appear less in degree, or more remote in distance, during the despondency and misfortunes of the war of the colonies, when enemy was superadded to enemy, and when the county of York formed its association. And every such appearance of necessity to increase the tax, must increase the apprehension entertained by the favoured counties, and by that of York in particular: their comparative exemption is approaching with speed to its end.
But there were other causes then existing, peculiar to that juncture, to alarm the foresight of self-interest, and put it upon its guard. Circumstances sufficient to make an impression upon every mind, had recently and strongly tended to draw the inequality of the tax to public attention. It has been seen before, that the resistance of the colonies to the claims of taxation, was defended by Dr. Franklin (who might then have been properly called their minister in England) by the injustice of the English Parliament, shown by this inequality; that this injustice he frequently inveighed against.
Maseres on Life-Annuities, p. 450.
This truly great man used always to quote the continuance of the land-tax, upon its present very unequal footing, as a proof of the little regard that was had to justice and common sense in our national deliberations.
When it was objected to him, that the correction of this inequality would be unjust to those who had purchased land, upon a supposition of its continuance, he replied with some quickness:
Unjust! yes, it would be unjust; for it would be doing but half of what strict justice requires; which would be, to create a counter-inequality in the assessment of the land-tax, whereby the lands which had been heavily taxed, should hereafter be taxed lightly; and those which had been lightly taxed, should hereafter be taxed heavily, for the space of about fourscore years; or for a time, which should be equal to the time during which the present inequality has been permitted to continue.
Truths derive effective weight, and receive general currency, from the greatness of the occasion on which they are laid down, and the great consequences they are seen to draw after them; and whatever gives a subsequent addition to the celebrity of the man who employs them with such effect, tends more strongly at the instant to concentrate the general attentention to them, and to excite alarm in those whose interests they oppose. And in the begining of 1778, it was known that he had completed the dismemberment of the empire, by his treaty with France; and in the next, the association of this county was formed. From the political sentiments of the majority of its members, he had many admirers, and probably personal friends, among them: and no doubt can be entertained, that his sentiments on this subject were sufficiently understood to several. As therefore it was a period in which there was greater reason to expect a formidable attempt, on their relative immunity from the tax, than at any other preceding it; the strongest probability indicates that there must have been some persons who urged on the association, as an adequate defensive measure against it.
If the circumstances which took place when this country made its great effort in 1785, be examined; the same conclusion results from them. Dr. Price, writing in the beginning of 1784, informs us that in 1783 there had existed an excess of annual expences of the nation above the receipt, of £.1,393,204: part of this he states to have been temporary; and he estimates the reduced deficit at £.823,642.
Postscript to State of Public Debt; dated March 22, 1784. Cadell, p. 11, 12.
We may suppose this state of the revenue to have been known and given full credit to, by many members of that association; of which his able defender, the Rev. Mr. Wyvill, had long continued the head, Baron Maseres, one of the first calculators of the age, and the friend of Dr. Price, in his very important work treating on revenues and debt, had the year before affirmed that there was reason to apprehend that on the return of peace it would be necessary to add two millions a year to the land-tax; to make good the payment of the interest of the debt, and acquire a surplus of a million or twelve hundred thousand pounds, to be applied to its reduction;
On Life-Annuities, p. 448. He dates the passage here extracted, April, 1782.
that is, in case, upon the return of peace, we shall have a deficiency of revenue, nearly of the same amount which was actually found to exist. The State was then in the very situation he described; in speaking of which he had added, that it was highly fit to correct the inequality of the land-tax.
If the revenue had not recovered from this state of deficiency, recourse must have been had to some very effective tax, or set of taxes; and there was sufficient probability, that it must have been to the land-tax, to alarm those who were interested in it.
This alarm must have been greatly increased, by the singular decline of public credit, in the following year 1784; for the price of stock in that year, so far from holding out any expectation of an amendment in our situation, seemed to indicate, that additional calamities were coming upon us with rapidity, and that nothing less than the most ready and effectual aids could support us. That year was marked, by the average price of the 3 per cents stocks having fallen to the lowest point of depression, which had ever been known in the whole period of their existence: they had sunk nearly £.9¾ per cent. below the average of the preceding unfortunate war; their mean neat value, in that year, having been £.56.09
App. Art. 11. § 4 and 5.
per cent. only, even below the lowest year of that term: and in March 1785, their price in the market had been reduced to £.54⅞
New Annual Register, Pub. Papers, p. 240.
per cent.
Such was the situation of our finances, and the apparent necessity of obtaining a great augmentation of revenue from some quarter by a very productive tax, in the year 1784, and the begining of 1785; when the Yorkshire association exerted all its efforts, to bring about what is called a reform. Now this measure being adapted to the purpose of continuing their comparative exemption from the land-tax, like a means to an end; being pushed with great energy, by the county most interested in flinging obstructions in the way of real reform, that of substantial injustice; and their strongest exertions having been twice made, at a crisis when the most alarming danger threatened that exemption; these circumstances combined render it credible, that there are persons, not ignorant of the consequences of an alteration of the constitution of the House of Commons here described, mixed with the general body of the friends of that plan in the remote district, and who are not without influence in the direction of their measures.
And there is nothing discoverable which diminishes the degree of this probability, in the general inaction of this party in the remote district, during the six years of great prosperity, following the rejection of the Bill of 1785, which seemed to have removed the danger to an indefinite distance; nor in the resumption of their operations, with some little change of mode, during the spring of last year, when a war upon the Continent was become certain, in which there were grounds to conjecture, that we might be sooner or later involved; whereby their former danger might return upon them, and perhaps increased in degree.
I shall now address a few observations to both the districts, drawn from what has preceded. To the inhabitants of the home counties in general, it may be said, that, as Nature has given you disadvantages to struggle with, your attention ought to be vigilantly employed, that no addition be made to them that can be prevented: Nature, in giving coal-mines to your countrymen, has rendered you tributary to them. This unfortunate disparity in physical circumstances, has diminished many of your manufactures, and perhaps annihilated some: and on account of the expence of fuel, you are less able to support the competition of foreigners, in those articles of export trade which remain to you. The superiority you once possessed over the rest of the kingdom in foreign commerce, has been lost above a century: these misfortunes are derived from natural circumstances; they will probably be as permanent as their cause, and the inhabitants of the home counties must acquiesce under them.
The same however cannot be said of that which is now to be stated: the shipping in your ports has been so decreased, that it requires half the augmentation of that of the rest of the kingdom, to make up the loss; and this shows, not only a relative, but an absolute decline: and it does not seem, that any natural cause can be produced for it. It is a loss of which perhaps no second instance can be found to have taken place on the same extent of coast, in any part of Europe. In natural advantages, in skits, in capital, the maritime parts of this district are superior to many, if not to most of these equal tracts. This indicates the existence of some artificial cause, by which this depression must have been greatly increased, if not absolutely genera
ed: and the only apparent cause of it, is the inequality of the land-tax, which not only distresses these counties by its direct operation, but, by a circuitous effect, transfers annually a great balance in specie into the more flourishing division of the kingdom, in addition to the large yearly sum, necessarily remitted thither for firing. In the present state of the representation, the latter cause of the depression of the home counties, does not seem absolutely out of the reach of remedy: I appeal to the apprehensions always entertained by the remote district, on the subject of an equalization of the tax, as a proof of it. But their uniform determination to employ all their force to oppose it, has been evident, from the days of Davenant, to the present time. By an alteration of the constitution of the third estate, their majority of representatives of the landed interest will be doubled: and if at this time, under any pretence, they be assisted by you in measures which will effect it, you add to the will to oppress you, in order to exonerate themselves, a power to do it, which you will never be able to resist; and deprive yourselves of every future hope of palliating your natural disadvantages, which, though you may be unable to conquer, your vigilance, if duly exerted, may diminish.
With those among ourselves who call this alteration a reform, I would argue thus:—An equality of representation, or a nearer approach to it, if desirable, is certainly desirable for some end. It is to be considered as a means, and not as a final object, which is desireable of itself, without looking any further. If it be not an end or final object, what is the end or object meant to be obtained by it? You will answer, that the public charges may be rendered the least possible; that they be imposed, with perfect equality, upon every one of equal ability, and proportionally upon persons of different abilities. But it is evident the change for which you are such strenuous advocates, will give new powers which may be employed to subvert these very ends: these new powers will be by you entrusted to men, whom experience shows to have been always leagued together, to prevent your ends being carried into effect; and when you have doubled their power to defeat them, by your patriotic exertions, you certainly will have made no alteration in their sentiments, except that which an increase of strength always inspires. The self deceits of interest gild over many a piece of base metal, until it passes for fine gold from the crucible, even in the opinion of the operator himself. Some semi-voluntary deception like this, I believe, may have taken place in this business in the remote counties: this is an every-day human infirmity, which may be some apology for them; but what shall be the apology for you, sacrificing your own ends, in the pursuit of means utterly subversive of them, and of your immediate interest?
By these plans, some members are indeed added to the home counties: but with your own hands, you put a weight so much greater into the opposite scale, that you effectively annihilate the power of the former. And what is the interest of that power you labour to anihilate? To destroy a gross system of inequality and disproportion, the very professed end of your exertions. What will be the use made of the power you labour so heartily to render superior to all opposition? To apply the increase of strength you confer on it, to perpetuate in practice and effect, principles diametrically opposite to your avowed object; and that upon a large and an increasing scale. This must be the consequence of your ultimate success, if you do not make the equalization of the tax, a previous condition to your concurrence in what you call a reform.
This attachment to proportion and certain beauties of abstract form, induces you to endeavour to augment the number of the county members, and that of the great towns: and so far, the master-builders of constitutions in the remote district, will assist you, but at no inconsiderable expence; for the land-tax must be increased; and you must pay double your proportion to the augmentation, as you do to the present tax. You wish, in addition, to disfranchise the maller boroughs; here other reformers will conteract you, and your magnificent design remain incomplete. And this conduct of yours, to make no small concession in its favour, very much resembles that of many of the Ialian Nobility, at the revival of architecture, who began magnificent palaces, which they were totally unable to complete; but almost every one of them, and their descendants, has ever since had the gratification of starving, in a building full of proportion and beauty, as far as they were able to run it up, but not quite covered in.
What is further to be said, will be addressed to the zealous advocates for a revolution in the House of Commons, belonging to the remote district; and first (as far as the subject will permit such a distinction to be preserved) to those who push on the measure, only on account of some analogy they suppose they discern in it to the spirit of the Constitution; who, I am confident, compose almost the whole of the party, though this description does not absolutely extend to all.
The success of your efforts will terminate, in flinging into your hands a majority of the landed interest in the House, of double its present amount. It will then be absolutely in your power, to continue to compel the home counties to pay in the double of the proportion you are charged at to the land-tax, and to assess them at the same rate, in all the augmentations which must be hereafter made to it. Experience has taught you, that you may with facility run into this abuse: and if we refer to the whole course of that of the last century, we shall find the disorder to have been hereditary, and endemial; and you should wish at once to get rid of it out of the country. Injustice is a more deformed local disease, than an Alpine
goitre.
Now this abuse you can (previous to the great concessions you solicit being made to you) put it out of your power to commit: and you will still be able to attain, by the grant, every end you profess to seek; and by thus removing all suspicion of a latent self-interest mixing with it, you will remove no inconsiderable obstacle to the acquisition of your object. But if you refuse previously to place this injustice out of your reach, in order to give facility to the acquisition of your object, which in your opinion is great; and no less than to carry the finest system of government a nation ever had the happiness to live under, to a height of perfection and excellence even far above what it ever knew; if, to this end, you refuse to sacrifice this power of abuse; you clearly prefer the second to the first. What distance there may be between such conduct, and that of those whose original motive was the abuse, and not the use of these additional powers, I shall not attempt to determine: it may be admitted to be considerable, but it is not enough.
Beside, it is to be observed, that there is a repugnancy between the ultimate effect of this majority, and the principle upon which it is declared to be sought; which is, that representation, and contribution, and the ability to contribute, should be proportional: now that effect will be, to render the assessment by which the home district is double-taxed, permanent; and to double the majority of representatives, which that part of the landed interest now has, which evades half its payments to the public charge. You demand that a strict proportion should be established between representation and property; and yet refuse to establish it, between property and constitution. We have heard much of test laws; and those who will not comply with them, are legally excluded from power: the admission of this proposition in practice in its full effect, is a test you must comply with, before you can legally be admitted to an increase of power; and it is required by a law, the authority of which you will not venture to dispute; it is the law of wisdom and of justice. To put on an appearance of public principle, solely to serve for a cover to the injustice of self-interest, is political hypocrisy of the worst kind; and to those who shall come to discern the oppressive consequences of this measure to the home district, after they have taken it up, and yet persevere in it, must be added, that even to permit ourselves to be biassed by the seductions of the same motive, to persevere in reducing a system into execution, whose effects are discovered to be contrary to the better ends which induced us at first to embrace it, cannot escape without the like reprehension, however mitigated in degree.
It has been repeatedly observed, that if the principle of the old assessment be continued, the charge of the home district above its proportion must increase with every increase of the tax; and that the effect of the new system will be to render this increasing oppression inevitable. The great majority of its patrons in the remote counties, I make no doubt, will join with every one, who reveres the spirit of our own Constitution, in condeming much of the general system of the old government of France, and much of the detail of its administration. Yet such abuses as these, that system was adequate to the correction of, and effected it. They did not call it reform, even under that government, bad as it was, to invent a new mode of fortification to cover old oppressions, and to be able to extend them. In France as well as in England, parts of the provinces were aggrieved, by being assessed above their proportion to the land-tax.
It is not the absolute amounts of the tax in the two kingdoms which are here compared, but their proportionality to the values of lands taxed only.
Mr. Neckar has given us the mode, in which a remedy was applied to these inequalities. I think it was put in practice in Upper Guyenne: a valuation was made of the lands, a number of districts, which were generally admitted to be taxed at the average rate: and as the first step to an equalization, it was permitted to any district, the inhabitants of which supposed their lands to be taxed one third more than that rate, to have them surveyed at their own expence; and if the measure of the excess was found to be of that magnitude, the whole of it was remitted, and the deficiency of the tax made up, by a small additional levy upon the province. The greater inequalities being thus remedied, the same redress was
extended,
as a second step in the operation, to all those divisions whose charge exceeded their due proportion by one fourth: and lastly, all those places were relieved in the same mode, who thought the amount of the abatement they would be entitled to, equal to the expence of a survey and valuation.
Neckar, English translation, v. 2. p. 249, from an abridged account.
A comparison of the measure of these inequalities with that of the English land-tax, will not be an improper addition to this account. Now the average excess of the charge of the home district in England, is much greater than the limit of the highest class of unequal assessments in this province: for the average real rate of the tax in this kingdom, is here the proper standard of comparison, and corresponds to the fixed charge found in France by the first valuation which was made the standard of comparison there. Now that average in England is (one shilling and three pence three farthings) 15.892 pence in the pound
See Section 4. ta
le.
; and one third of this rate, is (5¼
d.
) 5.297 pence, corresponding to the smaller limit of the disparity of charge of the most oppressed class of the landlords in this part of France. But the measure of that disparity in the home district of England, is (9¾
d.
) 9.752 pence in the pound: therefore the mean excess of charge of that district, is to the lower limit of the most oppressed district, in this part of France, as 9.752 to 5.297, or as 18,410 to 10,000; or something more than nine to five. In this transaction the French adopted the idea of a graduated scale, on which they marked the different measures of oppression, arising from the inequality of the land-tax, with the purpose of applying a remedy to each successively, according to its degree. And, in its construction, it resembled in principle that of a thermometer; for the fixed point, or that of absolute equality of contribution, was the zero from which the comparative degrees of oppression or injustice began to be estimated. We have seen that, in the home district of England, its mean degree would fall nearly twice as high, as the lower limit of extreme disparity in France; and, if the degrees of oppression in England were marked on a scale by similar graduation, as one half must fall below that mean point, so, by the very nature of an average, the other half in number and amount must fall above it. The evils of the old French Constitution, and even this evil, while it subsisted, certainly deserved condemnation: but it becomes not the mouth of those who persist in measures whose effects promote the continuance, and perhaps the extension of greater. Its appearance, it is true, was dark; but when placed upon a ground so much darker, its colour seems to assume a different character.
I do not find in the account I follow, that any opposition was made by the favoured districts, against carrying this fair measure into execution; although the sufferers could not add to the principles of universal equity, on which they applied for relief, a second claim to justice, and the promptest justice that could be rendered them, drawn from the particular circumstances affecting both parties. They could not, as the proprietors of lands in the home counties, produce historical proofs, that the inequality of the tax had been a necessary relief to their countrymen, at the formation of the original assessment, who then laboured under great difficulties and distress (a sect which has been shown in the history of the English tax); and then appeal to the united principles, of gratitude, justice, and of honour, to be freed from a burthen their humanity had been instrumental in imposing upon them, now the reason had so long ceased.
The lightest censure with which any of these schemes for alteration can be dismissed, is that it is a refinement totally useless, if it fail in the ends for which it is recommended to us; and one great end must be, to bring about a proportional division of all public burthens, particularly contributions to the public service: it is otherwise, at best, a parade of design and accuracy, without use; a great movement, without a motive. But it is to those who make use of these well-sounding maxims, as pretences to screen other motives which it is not so convenient to avow, that the remainder of this observation, and that which follows it, are directed.
When changes of this kind are called for, planned to fortify old abuses with new strength, and sting into the hands of those who have always supported them, powers to add to their weight, men feel themselves insulted as well as injured: they see that the realities of public principle and justice are sacrificed to the mockery of proportion and speculative equality; and that a system called by the name of a reform, under a delusive pretence of strengthening public liberty, and putting a necessary weight into the popular scale, slips at clandestinely into that of inequality and oppression, already more loaded than a decent selfishness would wish. But the present example of a neighbouring nation, and that of our own in the middle of the last century, show that the selfishness which hypocrisy has taught to wear the mask of patriotism, strides over all ordinary bounds.
It is not only justice that suffers thus; the spirit of liberty itself suffers with it. Great and good principles, which have taken deep root in the character of a nation, are most liable to be destroyed by abuse, by being practised upon by an insidious policy, for its own crooked ends, and being excited to the wildness and folly of fanaticism: for every great principle has both its fanatics, real and hypocritical, and its fanaticism. Instead of a fire regularly and fully fed, it may be kindled into a conflagration, which destroys every thing in its neighbourhood, devours its own magazines; and, amidst the ruin which it spreads round, hardly a spark may be found to survive, covered up in the embers. Our history in the last century furnished more than one example of this; and it will be the happiness of the present, if our posterity has to recur so far back as to that period, for such domestic instances. In the reign of Charles I. the principle of loyalty had been overstrained, to serve the purposes of the Court: when the civil war and all its calamities might have been prevented by its constitutional exertions, it was found to be too much exhausted.
The spirit of liberty, whose increase at first was necessary, to oppose the overgrown and formidable prerogatives of the Crown, ran into a contemptible and wild enthusiasm: by its extravagances, it almost lost all hold of the affections of the people; and at the return of Charles II. the virtue of his minister prevented parliament from making an entire sacrifice of the national freedom, by conferring upon the sovereign a fixed revenue, which would have made him for ever independent of that assembly. The sobriety of manners, and serious attachment to religion, which so honourably distinguished the English in the beginning of the century, had been very generally debased, during the civil wars, into a puritanical hypocrisy: and at the Restoration, public decency appeared almost swept away, by a torrent of profligacy and irreligion. Here it is seen, that the same physical law seems to affect society, to which individuals are subjected: immoderate elevation proceeds, and causes a depression in an equal degree; or to make use of the language of medicine, a state of excitation is constantly followed by a state of collapse. The spirit of liberty should always be vigilantly preserved in a full and regulated degree: but when it is artificially stimulated into fanaticism, to serve mean and oppressive purposes, the contempt with which the end only ought to be surveyed, becomes, with the generality of mankind, attached to the instrument employed to bring it about; and the meaner the motives an ostentatious affectation of it is made a screen to, the more it will be degraded in the general opinion. The national attachment to liberty is in danger enough, from the abuse of its name, to carry on purposes inimical to the regulations and existence of civil society: and if it be further perverted, to procure the creation of new powers, to protect a lucrative system of injustice, and to add more weight to its oppression, it may be pronounced, that its extinction is not far distant.
One very important question on this subject still remains to be discussed: and that is, how will the interest of the public creditors, and the whole class of men whose income is derived from the profit of stock, be affected by the landed interest of the remote counties acquiring an additional power in the House of Commons?
By the plans for this alteration here examined, the weight of the landed interest in the House will be greatly increased. If seventy-two members for counties were substituted instead of the same number for boroughs; its weight will be very considerably augmented, although twenty-eight members were admitted, for the more populous unrepresented towns.
But there is no occasion to employ much consideration upon this, as the plan for the absolute suppression of boroughs seems abandoned. If they be left in their present state, and any number of members be added to the counties, the addition to the landed interest in the House will diminish the relative importance of that of the other two—the mercantile and the monied men. If the mode of election in boroughs be changed, by admitting more of their inhabitants to have votes, it will not tend to counter-balance the increase of weight the landed interest will acquire as above: but if that change be made, by admitting the inhabitants of the circumjacent country, of any description, to votes in a borough, it will give some further superiority to the landed interest.
By the equalization of the land-tax, such an addition may be made to the applicable sinking fund, that it will very soon, by its own operation, become what has been called, in this Essay, an adequate fund. It has been shown to be the property of that fund, that while it is applied to the extinction of capital, a debt ceases to increase periodically; or the additions made to it in every war are paid off in peace. By the operations of such a fund, it is evident, that the price of stock would be supported, both in peace and war, at a rate much higher than at present can permanently take place. Hence the value of the funded income of that great body of the public creditors, the proprietors of the 3 per cent. stocks, and the irredeemable annuities, will be very greatly increased; while the interest of capitals in trade will be reduced; and that great class of men will be benefited by some moderate increase of profit, and by a new facility of obtaining capital, whenever an opportunity of employing a greater to advantage, presents itself.
These are the consequences of a revenue acquired by an equalization of the tax, so applied: it is the only apparent anchor of the national hope; justice demands it from the landed proprietors of the remote district: they themselves will be great sharers of the benefit which the public may thus receive from it; and so far the expence of their sacrifice will be lessened: but I think an enlightened attachment to the good of their country ought to make them preserve it for this purpose, to give it up on no other condition.
But if, before the equalization be obtained, the commercial interest and the public creditors concur in any plan for the alteration of the representation, which adds to the majority of the members of the remote district in the House of Commons, they render it apparently impossible, and destroy the foundation of their best hopes. No bodies of men exist, whose interest at this juncture should lead them more strongly to oppose the alteration of the constitution of the Commons, than the inhabitants of our commercial cities and towns, both in the home and remote district, together with the great majority of our public creditors: and perhaps it would be difficult to fix upon a measure which it was more their interest to unite all their strength against.
FINIS.
CORRECTIONS.
PAGE 1, l. 7. for
district,
read
districts.
P. 5, l. 16, and Note, l. 9, after
own
and
matter,
insert †. P. 7, l. 18, for
assessment,
r.
assembly.
P. 13, l. 12, after £. 10,000, a period: l. 16, after
rise,
add,
in the former.
P. 14, l. 1, for
town,
r.
term.
P. 15, l. 22, for
when,
r.
are.
P. 16, l. 24, for
following,
r.
flourishing.
P. 17, l. 22, for 1,000,000, r. 1,100,000.
P. 21, l. 16, after
conjunction,
a colon. P. 22, l. 22, for
home,
r.
remote.
P. 25, l. 5, for 340, r. 3: l. 9 and 28, for
alteration,
r.
altercation.
P. 26, l. 7,
comprehending wages,
dele
wages.
P. 31, l. 26, after
improvement,
add †; and in the margin, †
Smith, v.
3,
p.
268: ib. l. 29,
printed,
add
out:
ib. l. 31,
augmenting,
add
the.
P 33, l. 2, for
effective, r. effect of itself:
ib. l. 5, for
so,
r.
as.
P 34, Note, l. 21, after
refers,
add
to.
P. 37, l. 29, for
former,
r.
latter.
P. 40, l. 1, for
transaction,
r.
transition.
P. 43, l. 6, for
proportion,
r.
propr
t
rs.
P. 45, l. 4, for
have,
r.
has.
P. 48, l. 1, after
home,
add a colon: ib. l. 16, for
as,
r.
or as.
P. 50, l. 2 and 5, for
land,
r.
fund:
ib. l. 31, for
4. P. 52, l. 11, for
effect,
r.
affect.
P. 56, for
severally,
r.
severely.
P. 58, l. 28, for
minims,
read
minims.
Page 59, last five lines repetition, dele. P. 64, for
consequence,
r.
consequences.
P. 66, l. 9, r.
operated. In successive periodical publications, we,
&c. lb. l. 32, after
expences,
add,
in war.
P. 67, l. 1,
on,
r.
on the.
P. 63, for
definition,
r.
diminution.
P. 69, l. 6, after
admitted,
r.
that the
ib. l. 21, for
the,
r.
this.
P. 70, l. 13, for
corn,
r.
coin.
P. 71, l. 10, for
led,
r.
fed:
ib. l. 31, for 1.2863, r. 1.286. P. 72, l. 5, for
is,
r.
would be:
ib. l. 11, for 59.455
d.
r. 59.465
d.
: ib. l. 17, after
that,
r.
rate:
ib. l. 20, for 404,333, r. 404,330.
P.
73, l. 29, dele
derived from nature;
and insert it in l. 30, after
other.
P. 74, l. 11, for
it,
r.
they.
P. 76, l. 9, for
are,
r.
is.
P. 77, l. 16, for 1,000, 1. 10,000: ib. l. 23,
199,338, r. 199,538. P. 78, l. 24, for
manufacturers,
r.
manufactures:
ib. l. 32, after
sound,
r.
many:
ib. l. 33, after
of,
r.
the.
P. 80, l. 18, for
one,
r.
an.
P. 83, l. 29,
be,
add
that.
P. 84, l. 16, for £.0,174,500, r. £.2,174,500: ib. l. 33, for
or,
r.
and.
P. 86, for
purchasers,
.
purchaser.
P. 87, l. 2, for
hom
,
r.
remote:
ib. l. 12, for
principle,
r.
position:
ib l. 15, for
counties,
r.
countries.
P. 88, for
increase,
r.
insurance.
P. 88, l. 9, dele
it.
P. 93, l. 8, dele
in the year
1785: l. 9, dele
in
1790. P.
4, l. 3, for
be,
r.
have been:
l. 29, after
their,
r.
elective.
P. 95, l. 20, for
into,
r.
in.
P. 97, l. 2, after
franchise,
add
of.
P. 99, l. 7, for
states,
r.
represents.
P. 104, l 15,
or,
r.
of—election,
r.
electors.
P. 106, l. 15, for
their,
r.
the,
P. 106, l. 34. after
boroughs,
add
be.
P. 105, note, for
and †, insert † and
. P. 110, l. 3,
particular: their,
r.
particular; that their.
P. 111, l. 17, for
country,
r.
county.
P. 114, l. 21, for
skits,
r.
skill.
P. 116, l. 10, for
former,
r.
other:
l. last, for
I
i
an,
r.
Italian.
P. 118, l. 28, for
constitution,
r.
c
nt
ution.
P. 119, l. 32, for
lands,
r.
lands of.
APPENDIX.—Page 5, line 2, for
at,
r.
as.
P. 8, l. 18, for
any,
r.
an.
P.
, l. 17, dele
is.
Page 11, l. 10, for
received,
r.
re
ves,
P. 12, l. 2, for 16x431,814, r. 164x,31,814. Ib. table, l. 2, col. 4, for 2 1/1
, r. 2, 7 1/1
, P. 13 l. 16, for
this,
r.
the.
P. 16, l. 59, for 3 3/10, r. 3/10. P. 19, l. 18, after
only.
insert a colon: ib. note, after
this,
r.
but.
P. 20, l 5, after £ 4.1827, r.
ms.
P. 21, l. 4, for £.12,436, r. 12,456. P. 22. l. 10 and 15, for 1.0078, r. 1.00,728: ib. l. 15, for 12.0
ms.
r. 12.0
ms.
x: ib. l. 40, for
shillings
5, 5, r. 5
s.
5
d.
P. 23, l. 27, for
proportions,
r.
proportion.
P. 24, l. 11, for
Sulmioch,
r.
Susmilch.
P. 25, l. 24, after
ms.
insert l: ib. l. 25, for 4, insert x: ib. l. 27, for ‡, insert †. P. 26, l. last, after
greater,
r.
branches of.
P. 28, l. 26, for 1.200948, r. 1.00948. P. 30, l. 20,
place of table:
ib. table, col. 5, l. 8, for 6208, r. 16208. P. 33, l. 5, dele
of:
ib l. 31, for
somewhat more than,
r.
nearly.
P. 34, l. 18, af
er
be,
r.
as.
P. 35, table, col. 4, art. 1, for 716,61, r. 716,861. P. 40, l. 31, after
ms.
) r. £.6.593
ms.
APPENDIX.
ARTICLE I.
On the Proportion of the Values of the Land, contained in the Home and Remote Districts of England.—Also, on the Sum the latter ought to pay to the Land-Tax, in Proportion to the actual Charge thereof upon the former; the nominal Rate of the Tax being at Four Shillings in the Pound.
1. IN the preceding tract, the kingdom is taken as divided into two great districts; and the proportion of their value is there assigned, from the best elements I could procure.
2. An account is here to be given of these fundamental elements, and of the mode by which this proportion has been deduced from them. The first, or that which is called the Home District, comprehends the eleven home counties, and that of Middlesex; London being excluded: that named the Remote District, includes the remaining counties of England and Wales.
3. The total number of acres in the several counties, and in the whole kingdom, are taken from the account given by the celebrated Dr. Halley, in Houghton's Tracts.
Husbandry and Trade improved, v. 1. No. 25. It is from this account that all the measures of quantities of land in this Appendix are taken.
This account (though there are some exceptions against it, which certainly must be allowed their weight) is the best survey of the quantity of land in the kingdom, which has fallen into my hands. By summing up the contents of every county, he found the kingdom to contain 39.938 ms. of acres. By a second and different operation upon a map on a smaller scale, he determined that area to be 38.66 ms. of acres: and considers the difference as not important. Mr. Gregory King (whose researches in political arithmetic are deservedly held in the first degree of esteem) stated it at 39 ms.
Davenant. v. 2. p 216.
of acres: if he discovered this amount, by an original operation of his own, it is a proof that the conclusion of Dr. Halley is very near the truth; if he was his copyist only, he gives his own authority to that account, which has very great weight. Dr. Nehemiah Grew examined a second and ancient account of the contents of all the counties, by which that of the whole kingdom appears to be 39¼ ms. of acres.
Motte's Abridgement of Phil. Transactions. P. 41. ch. 3. art. 8.
This is a distinct and independent proof, that the estimate of Dr. Halley
It is evident, from the words of Dr. Grew, 1st, That the account here referred to, is not that of Dr. Halley; and 2d, That he did not know of the existence of the latter.
approaches very nearly to the truth; the contents of the kingdom, from the mean of his two operations, being 39.299 ms. of acres. Dr. Grew has also, in the same paper, given a method of his own, to approximate to that quantity; but it is founded on an assumption so gross and ill-adapted to the purpose, that its result is not to be set against that of Dr. Halley, as confirmed by concurring authorities. He makes the contents of the kingdom to exceed, by a small quantity, 46 ms.
Grew in Philos. Trans. ubi supra.
of acres. By some mode of proceeding, equally erroneous, Sir William Petty reduces that amount to 28 ms.
Grew in Philos. Trans. ubi supra.
but the mean of these extreme estimates is 37 ms.; and it tends, as far as such a mean can be evidence, to confirm the account of Dr. Halley; who observes, that, in his time, the best maps did not agree to a million or two of acres.
4. It appears from this table of the contents of the several counties, that the home district contains 8.253 ms. and the remote districts 31.685 ms. of acres. And the contents of the former being taken as 10,000; those of the latter will be as 38,392.
5. It was observed above, that some exceptions may be taken against the mechanical approximations used by Dr. Halley, in assigning the contents of the counties, which must be allowed to have their weight. In determining the proportion of two small counties by this mode, an error of some consideration may arise: but this will not sensibly affect the truth of the conclusion given above; for if the contents of two small tracts of land, containing two such counties each, be compared together, the error in their proportion will be less, than in the comparison of such counties single; and if there be 7, 8, or 9 such counties comprised in each district, it will become insignificant; and the result may be taken as true to all practical purposes. In like manner, in determining the area of a single county, if it be very large, the probability of error will be reduced in proportion to its size. In increasing the number of counties in each district, we approach nearer and nearer to absolute truth in these proportions; in the same manner, and for the same reasons, as in multiplying the number of astronomical observations, to obtain a correct average: its error decreases rapidly, as their number increases; and it soon arrives at the greatest degree of accuracy that can possibly be required in use.
6. We are now to endeavour to determine, as near as may be, the proportion which the rents of the two districts bear to each other.
7. If their rent be taken to be, as the total number of acres in each, it is evident that the remote division will be estimated considerably too high.
8. But it must be admitted, that this district has increased in riches, with more celerity than the rest of the kingdom. The number of its inhabitants likewise exceeds that of the home counties, in a considerably greater degree than it did a century ago:
It is not assumed here, that an actual increase of the number of the people in either of these districts, has taken place since the Revolution. I am not entering the lists with the sturdy advocates for depopulation. If the number of inhabitants of the remote district have continued the same, while those of the home counties have decreased; or if the former have decreased, with any assignable degree of celerity, and the latter with a greater; what is laid down in the text remains true.
being therefore relatively increased in wealth and population; it follows, that if the value of the two districts be taken as their respective number of inhabitants in 1690; that of the remote district in this second mode, will be estimated considerably too low: therefore, let it be here assumed, that the error of excess in that value, determined in the first mode, is nearly equal to that of defect in the second; and that the mean of both approaches very near to the true value.
9. The proportion of the population of these districts in 1690, is now to be found; and this may be done, from that valuable account of the number of houses in each county, given by Dr. Davenant, from the hearth books.
Davenant, v. 1. p. 39. It is from this table that the number of houses, and the land-tax of each county, are constantly taken in these computations.
10. It is necessary in this computation, to leave out the number of houses contained in London; as the land-tax of that city will not be brought to account, in the estimate of the payment of the home district.
11. The number of houses in the county of Middlesex, (exclusive of London) is not separately given, in the account referred to; but it must have nearly borne that proportion to the number of acres it contains; which took place at that time, between the quantity of land and number of houses, in the counties of Essex, Kent, Surrey, and Hertford, taken together; they being contiguous to it, and, in other circumstances, similarly situated. Now, the contents of the four counties are 3.531 ms. of acres; and the number of houses, 145,317; whence the number of acres in Middlesex being 247,000, the proportional number of houses to be assigned to that county, is 10, 164. To avoid a repetition of the steps of this process in another place, I add here, that the land-tax of the 4 counties being £.284,302, that of Middlesex, exclusive of London, is found by the same method to be £. 19,887.
12. The number of houses of the 7 remaining counties of the home district, were 190,226; and those of the whole division, 345,707; the number in the remote district, by the same table, was 872,457. Hence, by the second supposition, the value of the two districts is as those numbers respectively: or that of the home district being taken as 10,000; that of the remote district appears to be as 25,237.
13. It was shewn above, that, if their proportional values be taken at the quantity of land in each, they will be as 10,000 and 38,392 respectively: and it was also assumed, that the error of excess in the proportion of the remote counties, by that mode of estimation, is nearly equal to the error of defect in this; and therefore, that the mean of the two is very near the truth. Thus, the value of the home district is to that of the remote, as 10,000 to 31,814 nearly; and to that of the whole kingdom, as 10,000 to 41,814.
14. To confirm this conclusion, the proportion of the rents of the two districts are now to be determined in another mode. Both of them contain many and considerable uncultivated tracts of land; and as profitable land is the only subject of taxation, in order to determine how far the land-tax upon each is proportioned to its value or rent, the profitable land in each district ought to be known. Upon the authority of Mr. Young, the land in cultivation, in the whole kingdom, is here taken at 32 ms.
Chalmers, p. 178.
of acres; and thus the quantity of land at present lying waste in both districts, amounts to 7.938 ms. of acres; but I have discovered no direct authority, to determine the quantity of profitable land in either. It is therefore here assumed, as an hypothesis, that if, of a tract in the home district, of a given magnitude, a certain number of acres upon an average ought to be allowed as waste land; and in the same quantity in the remote district, treble of that allowance, and deduction be upon an average made; the value of equal proportions of land, of the two remainders, will, upon the average, be equal. From this assumption it follows, that nearly 1-13th of the whole, or 7,684 acres in every 100,000, is to be taken as uncultivated land; and in the remote division, 23,054 acres, in every equal tract; or nearly 3-13ths of the whole. The waste land in the home district, will then amount to 634,200 acres, and the profitable land to 7.619 ms. of acres; and in the remote district, the uncultivated land will be 7.304 ms. and the land under cultivation, 24.381 ms. of acres; making the quantity of cultivated land in both, 32.000 ms. of acres, as above.
15. Hence the value of the home district being taken as 100,000, that of the remote district will be as 320,002; and of the whole kingdom as 420,002; for 7.619 ms. is to 24.381 ms. as 100,000 is to 320,002. By the former process, it had been found, that taking the value of the home district as 10,000, that of the remote division is as 31,814; and of the whole kingdom as 41,814; which conclusions agree sufficiently well.
16. If the proportion of waste land, in equal tracts,
Davenant, v. 1. p. 39.
in the home and remote districts, had been taken as unity and four respectively; then every 100,000 acres in the home division, would have been found to contain 5,880 acres of waste; and in the remote district, 23,523; and the value of the former district being taken as 10,000, that of the latter will be 31,198; which agrees still nearer with the result of the first process.
17. The sums actually paid on account of this tax by the two districts, and their proportional charges, are now to be compared.
Davenant, v. 1. p. 39.
Davenant has given the produce of every county to the first 4-shilling aid, granted in the 4th year of William and Mary; the variations which have since taken place, are too minute to be considered here. It appears from his table, that the charge upon the home counties (London and Middlesex being excluded), was £.632,388. The sum paid by that county, exclusive of London, was before shewn to be nearly £.19,887: the amount of the land-tax for the home counties is therefore £.652,275; which sum, as appears above, is to the proportional charge upon the remote district, as 10,000 to 31,814: the proportional charge upon that district, is therefore £.2,075,100 nearly; exceeding its actual payment £.1,038,184,
Davenant, v. 1. p. 39.
by £.1,036,916.
ARTICLE II.
A Comparison of the Burthen which the proportional Payment to the Tax, would at present be upon the Remote District; and that of its actual Charge upon it, at the Imposition of the Tax in
1693;
the nominal Rate of the Tax being at
4
Shillings in the Pound.
1. WHEN the proportion of the tax to the rent remains fixed, the burthen continues the same, although the cotemporary amounts of the rent and tax vary in any assignable manner.
2. To determine the amount of the tax, which, in the year 1793, would be equal in its burthen on the remote district, to that paid in 1693; the proportion of its rents in those two years must be found. And this may be very well taken to be the same as that of the cotemporary amounts of the entire national rent. Hence the rents of the land of England, for the years 1693 and 1793, are first to be sought.
Thus Mr. King made the aggregate of all these rents of estates real 13 ms. pounds; for personal estates, chargeable also to the land-tax, he added one million more; stating the total so chargeable at 14 ms. pounds. Davenant, v. 2. p. 216. This latter sum, Davenant mistook for the national rent of 1688, and gives it as such. P. 221. But instances of considerable error are not unusual in that writer: this has been copied from him by the generality of authors since.
These are to be derived from the rents of the years 1688 and 1774; which have been ascertained, with more accuracy than those of any other terms. In the former, the rent of the land of England, or the rent of superior conditions, was stated by Mr. King (the best political arithmetician this kingdom has ever produced) at 10 millions; and those of buildings, mines, and other hereditaments, being rents of inferior condition, at 3 millions. It is evident, by his estimate of the amount of the landed capital, as preserved by Davenant, that he rated the value of these inferior rents as equal to that of a landed income of 2 millions of superior condition:
This point has been carefully examined; the several elements he made use of, and the results he obtained from them, are to be found scattered, in separate essays of Davenant; but without any reference to the process, of which they are a part. A proof of this position is much too long to be given here. I shall add, however, a circumstance, which I think tended to determine him to take the value of the 2 species of real income, in the proportion of 3 to 2. I have been informed, that, in the assessinents of parishes, Lord Chief Justice Hale directed lands to be laid at 3-4ths of the rack-rent, and buildings at one-half. And such a rate so formed, was confirmed by Lord Mansfield, in the case of K. and Brograve, M. 10. G. III. Now 3-4ths is to 1-half, as 3 to 2. It was possibly upon the authority of Hale, that Mr. King adopted this proportion of the value of equal rents from land, and buildings without land; and took it as holding true of other rents of inferior condition. This opinion would have great weight with him, as Sir Matthew Hale had applied himself to political arithmetic, as appears by the observations he has left upon population. He died in 1676. The work referred to was published 1677 (Chalmers, p. 183); and upon that subject, Mr. King must have considered him as his immediate predecessor.
the value, of such rents being thus reduced in the market for income, upon account of the inferior nature of the subject from whence they result; hence the whole rent, being in value equal to 12 millions a year in land, ought to be taxed as an income of 12 millions is only.
3. In the year 1774, Mr. Young estimated the rents of land, or those of superior condition, at £. 19.2 ms. and the rents of inferior condition, as buildings, &c. at £. 5.2 ms.
Chalmers, p. 178.
From the latter sum, 1.733 ms. or 1-3d, is to be subtracted as before; and the remainder, £. 3.466 ms. will be the equivalent income of superior condition: the taxable rent was therefore 22.666 ms.
4. From these rents of 1688 and 1774, thus reduced to a proper form, those of the years 1693 and 1793 are to be determined: in order to this, let it be admitted, that in the whole interval from 1688 to 1774, or during 86 years, that equal rents, upon an average, increased equal sums, in equal times; or, which is the consequence thereof, that the national rent increased at any equal rate per cent. annually: that rate is now to be sought. The rent of 1688, £. 12.000 ms. multiplied by 1.8888, is equal to £. 22.6
6 ms. that of 1774. Now there intervened 86 years between those terms; and 1.00742, raised to the 86th power, is equal to 1.8888: hence the annual average augment of rent for that term, was £. 0.742 or nearly ¾ per cent. From 1688 to 1693, there elapsed 5 years; and the rent being supposed to have increased annually, in the ratio assigned above, became in the year 1693 (£. 12.000 ms. × 1.00742• =12.000 × 1.0376) £. 12.451 ms. In like manner, from the year 1774 to the year 1793, there elapsed 19 years; and the rent of the year 1793, is equal to £. 22.666 ms. × 1,007421• = £.22.666 ms. × 1.1508) £. 26.085 ms. Now it is evident, considered in every point of view, that the improvements of the remote districts have advanced with greater celerity than those of the rest of the kingdom: and the increase of rent, from the natural connection between general improvement and the improvement of land, has gone on in the same manner. Hence the rents of that district have increased, with a greater rate of celerity, than the total national rent. But let them be taken by the assumption laid down above, to have increased only in the same proportion. Then the rent of that division in 1693, being taken as 12.451, that of 1793 is as 26.085: its land-tax in 1693 was £. 1,038,184: and it will be as 12.451 is to 26.085, so is £. 1,038,184 to £. 2,174,500. And these two sums being as the rents of the home district in the years 1693 and 1793; the burthen of the former upon the landlords in 1693, was equal to what the burthen of the latter would be upon the landlords in 1793; if their charge to the land-tax were to amount to the latter sum.
5. It has been seen before, that the tax which ought to be paid by the remote district, in proportion to the actual charge of the home division, is £. 2.0751 ms.
App. Art. I. § 17.
which is £. 99,400 a year, less than the sum assigned above, as the present charge of the land-tax is equal in burthen to the original payment.
ARTICLE III.
On the proportional and actual Charges of the Land-Tax on the County of York; its nominal Rate being Four Shillings in the Pound.
1. IN Dr. Halley's table, the county of York is stated to contain 3.77 ms. of acres; and the contents of the home district being nearly 8.253 ms.
App. Art. I. § 4.
of acres; estimating the value of each thereby, the latter is to the former as 10,000 to 4,568. The proportion of their values is now to be assigned, according to the population of these two tracts. In 1690, the home district contained 345,700
App. Art. I. § 12.
houses, and the county of York 121,052:
Davenant, v. 1. p. 39.
therefore the value of the former being assumed as 10,000, that of the latter, derived from this second assumption, appears to be as 3,501. But taking the arithmetic mean of these results as before, those values will be as 10,000 and 4,034 respectively: hence the actual payment of the home district to the land-tax, being £.652,275;
App. Art. I. § 17.
that of the county of York ought proportionally to be £. 263,120: the actual payment of the county is £.91,620; which is £. 171,500 less than that proportional payment. Hence the average charge of the tax upon an income from land, of any given amount, in the home counties, is to that on an equal income, in the county of York, as 10,000 to 3,481; or the owners of land there are acquitted, for the payment of little more than 1-3d of their equitable contributions: and for every £. 10,000 paid by the county to this tax, their proportional charge is, on an average, £. 28,719.
ARTICLE IV.
On the Balance of Payment between the two Districts, as affected by the Inequality of the Land-tax; its nominal Rate being Four Shillings in the Pound.
THE land-tax of the home district (excluding the metropolis) being £. 652,270;
App. Art. I. § 19.
and that of the remote district, £. 1,038,100;
Devenant, v. 1. p. 39.
the total provincial land-tax is £. 1,690,370. Suppose now the annual expences of the government in the provinces, for the payment of public annuitants, services, for commodities, &c. to amount to this sum and no more; and in each district, to be in proportion to the value of the lands; that of the home division being as 10,000, the remote as 31,814;
App. Art. I. § 13.
the value of the two taken together, will be as 41,814. Therefore, as 41,814, the number proportional to the value of both districts, is to £. 1,690,370, the money so returned into both; so is 31,814, the number proportional to the value of the greater division, to £. 1,286,000, the sum remitted thither by government. And the difference of these sums, £. 404,300, will be the money flowing back into the home division on the same accounts. But their charge to the tax being £. 652,270, the difference of their payment thereto, and the money returning to them annually, is £. 247,970. This sum constitutes an effective balance of payment against them, in favour of the other division; being the excess of the money the latter received back, above the charge of the tax to them.
ARTICLE V.
On the Number of Members to be returned to the House of Commons in future, from the Counties of the Remote District, according to certain proposed Alterations in its Constitution.
1. BY the plan for the change of the constitution of the House of Commons, brought forward in 1785, the number of the members for counties was to have been increased by 72; and it would thus have amounted to 164. It is taken here as granted, that this plan, if carried into execution, will be effected, by so increasing the number of representatives for each county, that it will become, as nearly as possible, proportional to its value. And although for a single county, we cannot approach nearer that proportion than its next integer number; yet if many counties be taken as forming a large district, the new number of members to be allotted to it, taken collectively, may be made to be extremely nearly proportional to the aggregate value of the district formed by them. Hence the total number of county members, now to represent the remote division, (the value of which somewhat exceeds 3-4ths of the whole lands of the kingdom), might, and would, by the new arrangement, be made very accurately proportional to that value. Now, the value of the lands of the kingdom being as 41,814, and of the remote district as 31,814;
Art. I. § 17.
and the total number of the representatives of counties by this plan, being 164; the number to be sent by that district shall be (16×431,814÷41,814=124·78) 125.
2. By Mr. Flood's plan, the addition to the number of representatives of counties was to have been 100: if it be followed, the number of county members in the House will amount to 192; and that for the remote district to (192×31,314÷41,814), 146.
ARTICLE VI.
To determine what would have been the present periodical Amount of the Land-tax, if it had increased in the same Proportion as the Rent, from the Beginning of the present Century.
1. A TABLE, shewing the average actual charge, and nominal rate of the land-tax, in each of the five great wars since the Revolution; and in the following terms of peace: together with the periodical amount of the tax, and the nominal rate thereof, in each of the terms, the first war excepted.
Terms.
Aver. Actual Charge War.
Nom. Rate.
Aver. Actual Charge. Peace.
Nom. Rate.
Periodical Average Charge.
Nominal Rate.
 
 
s. d.
 
s. d.
 
s. d.
War 1689
1,832,015
3 10
 
 
 
 
Peace 1697
 
 
1,258,582
2
/1
1,545,298
3 2½—
War 1702
1,969,492
4 0
 
 
1,614,037
3 3½
Peace 1712
 
 
1,116,437
2 2⅖
1,542,964
3 1
War 1739
2,000,292
Id.
 
 
1,558,364
3 1
Peace 1748
 
 
1,251,005
2 6
1,625,648
3 3—
War 1755
2,007,636
Id.
 
 
1,629,320
3 3
Peace 1763
 
 
1,690,321
3 4 4/1
1,848,978
3 8¼
War 1775
1,999,392
Id.
 
 
2,004,752
4 0
Peace 178
 
 
2,029,184
4 0
2,014,288
4 0
A detailed account of the authorities on which this table is founded, would be much too long for this place; the average actual amount of the tax in each term of war and peace, together with the nominal rates, are here assigned; after an accurate examination and comparison of the data to be found in the authors named in the margin.
Davenant; Postlewayte, in his History of the Revenue; Dr. Price; and Sir John Sinclair. The first and last of the periodical charges are she only articles of the table here treated on: it was not drawn out on this occasion; but I have chosen to give it entire and unmutilated; as it shews the progressive amounts of the tax.
The several sums include the expences of collection.
2. The nature and determination of the amounts in the third greater column, called the Periodical Average Charge, or of the smaller column which follows it, being the same average of the nominal rate of the tax, require an explanation; the former being the bases of the calculation now to be entered upon.
3. The periodical average, either of the actual charge, or nominal rate of the tax for any term; as for instance, that of the peace of 1748; is found in this same manner: that is, by multiplying the annual average payment, or rate of the term, by the mean length of a term of peace; and that, annual payment, or rate, during the preceding war, by the mean number of years in a term of war; and dividing the sum of the products, by the number of years comprehended in one period, consisting of a term of war and a term of peace, each of the mean length. This may be illustrated in the instance of the nominal rate of the tax, for the term mentioned above. During the peace of 1748, this rate was at two shillings and sixpence in the pound: and taking the mean length of a term of peace at 10 years (which, though not accurately true, as will be seen hereafter, is near enough for the present purpose, which is that of mere illustration), the product formed by the multiplication of the rate and the term, will be 25 shillings. Again, the constant nominal rate of the tax in the war of 1739, which immediately preceded this peace, was 4 shillings in the pound; and taking the mean duration of war at 8 years, which is likewise near enough to the truth, the product will be 32s. and the sum of the product 57s. The sum of the length of the two terms is 18 years; by which dividing the sum of the products, the average nominal rate for the whole period (determined on the above assumptions), is 3s. and 2 pence. And by a similar process, the periodical charge for the whole period may be determined.
4. And supposing the average length of peace and war duly assigned above; as they are sufficiently nearly for the purposes of illustration; it is evident, that this is the nominal rate at which the charge of the tax upon land ought to have been then allowed, in all treaties of bargain and sale at that time; for its true charge upon any estate, could not be estimated for the future, at either the one or the other rate; the one being too great, and the other too small; but by a mean, properly taken between both.
5. Amounts thus calculated for each term of peace and war, ought to be reckoned (according to the equality of chance) the true average charge of the tax upon the kingdom at that time; the accidental excess of one period, being always compensated with an accidental alleviation at another.
6. The average length of a war is very nearly 8½ years; and of a term of peace, 10½. For the sum of the lengths of our five great wars since the Revolution, was exactly 43 years; computed from the month in which they effectively commenced, to that in which they effectively terminated. And if the peace of Utrecht had continued uninterrupted until the commencement of the war of 1739, the length of the 4 intermediate terms of peace would have been 51 years and 2 months. But the Rebellion in 1715, and the petty hostilities with Spain in 1718, 1726, and 1733, may be taken together, as adding 4 years to the duration of the 5 wars, and increasing the number of terms by the fraction one half. Thus the total number of years of war are 47, equal to the duration of 5½ terms; and the mean length of a war is 8·54 years, to be taken at 8½ years. The number of years of peace is reduced to 47 years and 1-6th, or 2 months; the number of terms increased by a half, becomes 4½; and the mean length of a term of peace 10 48, to be taken at 10½ years. Now 19 years being the distance from the commencement of one term of peace to that of the following, is here called a period; and the averages of the land-tax for 19 years, are named periodical averages.
7. But during the first year of every peace, the land-tax has always been continued at 4 shillings in the pound, or at the rate of the preceding war; it is therefore effectively, with respect to the tax, a year of war; wherefore, in the table, the terms of the duration of the tax in war and peace, are taken as having been equal.
This accidental circumstance of their equality, is purposely neglected in the illustration given in § 3.
8. The periodical charge of the tax during the peace of Riswyck, is stated in the table at £.1.5452 ms.; and its nominal rate at 3s. and 2½d. in the pound; the middle of that term fell in the beginning of the year 1700: we are to find what was the charge of the tax upon the whole kingdom in that year, exclusive of London; and hence determine what it would amount to in the present year;
Written Dec. 1792.
upon a supposition that it had increased during the whole of this century, with the same celerity as the rent. The land-tax of London and Middlesex, at 4s. in the pound, is £. 307,140;
Davenant, v. 1. p. 39.
and that of Middlesex, £. 19,887, as above.
App. Art. 1. § 11.
The tax upon London, therefore, amounts to £. 287,254, at 4s. in the pound; and at 3s. and 2½d. (the periodical rate in 1700), to £. 230,399; and that of the provinces, to £. 1,314,899.
9. This charge is to be supposed to have increased with the same celerity as the rent, or £. 1 at the end of one year to be increased to £. 1.00742.
App. Art. 2. § 4.
At the end of 92 years, it will become (£. 1.0074292 ), £. 1.9745; and the whole tax on the counties (1.9745× £.1.3148 ms.=) £. 2.5960 ms.
10. The periodical and actual land tax of Great-Britain, at this time, is £. 2.0142 ms.; the rate, 4 shillings in the pound: that of Scotland, £. 0.052 ms. of London £. 0.2872 ms. and that of the counties £. 1 6750 ms. Now this charge falls short of the sum, found above to be proportional to the rise of rents, in the first. 92 years of this century, by £. 921,000. The remote district now pays £. 1.0369 ms. annually, less than its due proportion, according to the present constant rate of the tax; and if the proprietors thereof were to take this augmentation entirely upon themselves, that defalcation would still continue to be £. 115,900 a year.
11. It may be contended against the whole of what is here laid down, that
in treaties for the sale of land, this periodical average never comes into consideration: that it never has been, even eventually, the actual measure of the charge, for any real period of war and peace. And in fine, that it is an amount never considered in speculation; and which never becomes the actual measure of the charge in fact.
To this it is answered, that for the reason given above,
Section IV. of this Article.
the charge of no one year in particular, either of war or peace, or the average of no one term of either can be assumed as the constant measure of this charge; therefore an average is to be taken in some other manner; which must be such as, upon the equality of chance, will approach nearest to the truth; and this is the property of the periodical average above assigned. This certainly is not necessarily the real or eventual average; and perhaps not that most frequently adopted in treaties, or the speculative average: but it is notwithstanding the probable average; and, as such, ought to supersede the other two in use. Any mean taken in any other manner, must in long terms be found erroneous: and this is generally true, of the mean taken from the actual length of two assigned successive terms of war and peace.
12. But let the actual average of the war of the Revolution, and the following peace, be now made the basis of computation, as the proper periodical average; and it will be found, that the conclusion before derived, is not invalidated thereby; the mean annual amount of the tax, which was paid for 6 years in the war of the Revolution, was £. 1.832 ms. the sum of the 6 nominal rates 23s. that of the 1st year having been 3s. in the pound. In the following peace, which continued 4 years, its amount was £. 1.2585 ms. and the sum of the 4 rates was 11s. therefore the actual mean payment of these 10 years for all England, was £. 1.6026 ms. and the mean nominal rate 3 shillings 3.3/10 The tax of London was £. 0.2369 ms. and the charge on the remainder of the kingdom £. 1.3657 ms. which augmented as before, in the proportion of 1.9745 to unity, gives £. 2.6965 ms. as the amount of a land-tax, which in 1792 would be equal in burthen to the average payment of the counties in 1700, exclusive of London. The advance upon the counties thus found, is £. 1.0215 ms. and the defalcation of the remote district being £. 1.0369, if the whole of that advance were levied upon them, their payments would become very nearly proportional to that of the home division; the difference of these sums being £. 15,400 a year only.
ARTICLE VII.
On the Charge of the Land-tax, at the nominal Rate of Four Shillings in the Pound; and of the general Taxes, separately and conjointly, on the Owners of Land in the two Districts.
1. THE amount of the taxes of England (the land-tax excluded), is first to be shewn; and as these taxes may fall on the whole society in general, they are here called the general taxes. We are next to enquire, what part thereof is paid by income from land; the fund for the payment of all taxes, being income of some kind or other. That part being found, its charge upon the two districts severally will be determined; and the general taxes paid by each, its payments to the land-tax (which falls on landed income alone), being added, the total tax of the landlords of each district will be obtained; and its proportion to their respective incomes may be assigned. Moreover, if we compute the absolute rent of each district; the sum of the general taxes, the land-tax, and the total of both being before found, the charge of each of these in the pound, in both divisions, will be found likewise.
2. The taxes of England, exclusive of that on land, are here given, from the account of the national income for the year ending at Lady-day 1789.
Sinclair, v. 3. p. 290.
The articles of that account fall under two heads, proper taxes, and money derived from other sources. In the statement here followed, imprest money, and arrears of taxes, are given in one article; and their joint amount is £. 113,591. The former is a saving from money allotted before to specific purposes, it forms no part of the taxes paid in this year; but not having authority upon which to settle its amount, it is taken equal to the arrears of taxes of preceding years, paid in during the year comprehended in the account: half this compounded sum is therefore struck off; but the other half is carried to the general total, to balance such part of the taxes of the year, as are not paid in until the next; and therefore do not appear in their proper places.
The profit of the lottery is likewise struck out of the account; it is not a part of the general taxes, though an annual resource of the State; it is no more such, than the money for cards at a card-table.
The difference of the general taxes of Great-Britain and Scotland, is their amount in England.
3. The account stands as follows:
Taxes of Great-Britain.
£. ms.
On Scotland.
 
Customs gross produce
4.7256
Total income, including Land-Tax, £.ms.
1.0991
Excise ditto
7.1960
 
Stamps ditto
1.3299
Deductions
 
Miscellaneous ditto
2.0801
non-taxes
Crown rents £.
Bishops ditto
Seizures, Customs,
Forfeitures, Excise
7,055
Appropriated duties do.
0.0318
4,200
Malt Tax
0.7500
18,275
Arrears of former years
0.0567
9,812
 
 
Land-tax and charges
52,000
Great-Britain
16.1702
 
 
Scotland
1.0078
Total £.
91,342
General taxes of England
15.1624
General taxes, £. ms.
1.0078
4. The amount of the general taxes paid out of the anded income, is now to be sought, together with the charge upon the two districts separately. Let the nation be supposed to be divided into two great classes, the first
eriving their income from the rent of land; and the
econd, from all other sources; that the income of many individuals is mixed, will not affect the truth of the conclusion sought: let it also be assumed, that the charge of the general taxes upon each class, will be as its total expenditure; which is to be taken to be in the same proportion to its gross income in each. And lastly, let it be also admitted, that the total income of the district bears the same proportion to the total income of the nation, which was determined by Mr. King to obtain in 1688.
I find that the application of the calculations and results of Mr. King, frequently made in this tract, is justified by the uniform practice of those, who have treated on subjects similar to this, because they were interwoven in the body of Davenant's works, they are frequently referred to as his: and Postlethwayt, speaking of them as such, says;
The quantities are since, no doubt, considerably increased: but, as, most probably, the proportion remains very little (nearly) unaltered, it is fair to argue upon them, as has been done by the best writers upon these subjects.
Dictionary, Article Landed Interest, column 4th, line 9th, edition 3d, 1766. Of the great comparative authority of what Mr. King has left us, mention has been before made. App. Art. I. § 3.
5. The actual income of the two districts in 1688, must therefore be assigned. When it was before enquired, what proportion of the tax the remote district could equitably pay; the selling value of the estates in each, or the rent of estates of equal value in land, or of the best condition, was taken as the proper measure by which to estimate that ability: the estates of inferior condition, as buildings and mines, being reduced to landed income of equal value. But here the question is, what is actually paid from incomes of estates real, of all qualities, all being equally assessed, without regarding that better or worse condition; but their amount only for the comparison is now actual income and actual taxes. The income of all the estates real in the kingdom, in 1681, was 13 millions; and of buildings, two millions: now, from this amount, the rent of London is to be deducted, which being taken in that year at one million,
A very considerable part of the general taxes of the city of London, is paid directly out of the income of the landed gentry, constantly or occasionally residing there; and it duly corresponds to the rents of all the houses they occupy by the year, or for shorter terms. And it does not appear, that the clear income of estates in London in 1623, is taken too low, consideration being had of this circumstance.
leaves the income of both the districts 12 millions.
6. The total national income being as £. 43·498 ms. its absolute amount in 1688; the present amount of the general taxes, £ 15·162 ms. and the provincial rent as £. 12,000 ms. its absolute amount at the Revolution; the general taxes upon that income at this time, will, by the assumption, be a fourth proportional to those three numbers, or £.4·1827, the sum paid thereto, out of the income of estates real in both districts.
7. That paid by each comes next to be determined; and it will be directly proportioned to the income of each respectively. Now the incomes of superior and inferior conditions will be mixed, very nearly in the same proportion in the two districts; and the sums of each in each district, will be as the selling value of that district, whence the sum of the rents of both, being taken as 41,814, that of the remote district will be as 31,814;
App. Art. 1. § 13.
and the general taxes of both conjointly, being equal to £.4·1827 ms. by taking a fourth proportional to these 3 numbers, their charge on the income of the remote district is found to be £. 3·1824 ms. and on that of the home district at £.1·0003.
8. The last object of this part of our enquiry is, the total total taxes paid out of the landed income of each district, separately; and the proportion of those payments to each other.
Districts.
Home.
 
Remote.
 
£. ms.
 
£. ms.
General Taxes
1·0003
 
3·1824
Land-Tax
0·6522
 
10381
Total Taxes
1·6525
 
4·2205
9. Now it shall be as £. 1·6525 ms. the total tax upon home district, is to 10,000; so is £. 4·2205 ms. the sum paid by the proprietors of land in the remote district, to 25,540. Therefore the sum of the taxes upon the home district being taken as 10000, their charge on the remote district will be as 25,540; but the rent of the home district being taken as 10000, that of the remote division is as 31,814; and the total charge of the taxes paid by the owners of the land of each, ought to be in that proportion. Hence the actual taxes on landed income in the remote district, is to their proportional and equitable amount, as 25,540 to 31,814; or when the sum of their payments to the taxes is £. 10,000, their charge ought to be £. 12,436.
10. The total sum levied by taxes on the remote district, is £. 4·2205 ms. but to render it proportional to the charge on the home district, it must be increased to £. 5·2572 ms. The difference of these sums, or the defalcation of the land-owners of this division, in their payment of the taxes, is thus found to be £. 1·0367 ms. being that of their payment to the land-tax; which had been before determined to be £. 1·0369 ms. The difference, £. 200, arises from all places of figures, after the 5th, being entirely neglected in these operations.
11. The charge in the pound of the land-tax, the general taxes, and both conjointly, upon the income of land in each of the two districts, and their averages on the income of all provincial estates, are lastly to be determined.
12. The rents of the two districts are to be first sought. In the year 1774, Mr. Young found the income from the estates real to amount to £. 24·400 ms.
Chalmers, p. 178.
From this sum, if 2 millions be deducted for the rent of London,
Mr. Young, following Mr. King without variation, states the rent of buildings in the whole kingdom at 2 millions; that of London is taken above at the same sum. It might, upon the first inspection, seem to be the consequence of this, that it is supposed above, that there were in 1774 no other buildings without a proportional quantity of land annexed to them, than those contained in the city of London. But in this account, Mr. Young's object was, to give the total receipt of the landlords annually from their estates; he has, therefore, in the next article, included in a single sum with other things, the value of timber sold by them; and that being his object, it is rightly included in the total. But timber being a commodity, its value is not a rent of ground on which it grows, any more than the value of a quarter of corn is the rent of the land producing it. Now, supposing its annual value in 1688 to have been rightly assigned by Mr. King; and that it had increased from that time, until the year 1774, in the same proportion as the rent; it would in the latter year have amounted to £.903,700. The statement made above, therefore,, tacitly supposes this sum to have been the rent of the remaining buildings of the kingdom, which have no land annexed to them. It may, perhaps, be too small; but I have chosen, as the probable error in the text is thus very greatly reduced, to adopt no further correction to it.
the remainder, £. 22·400 ms. will be the sum of the rents in both districts in the year 1774; that of 1688 was 12 millions as above; from both, the income of 1792 is to be determined.
13. Now let the same assumption be made with regard to the mixed rent, as was before laid down, with respect to the rents of superior condition only; that it has increased, during the whole of this period, with one constant degree of celerity; or, which is the same thing, that it has been every year augmented at an equal rate per cent. The number of years from the Revolution to 1774 was 86; that rate was therefore £. 0·728 per cent.: for the first rent, 12 millions, multiplied by 1.007886 , is equal to (1·8666, ×£. 12,000 ms.) £. 22·400 ms. The period between 1688 and 1792 was 104 years: and by the assumption, the mixed rent at the end of the term was become (£.12·000 ms. ×1·0078104 =£.12.0 ms. 2·1271) £.25·525 ms.
14. This being the sum of the mixed rents of the two districts, that of each is now to be assigned: the rents of the superior and inferior condition in the two districts, are in both very nearly in the same proportion to each other: hence the sum of these rents, or the mixed income of each district (which is the subject here considered) will be as the value of that district; but the value of both is to the value of the remote district, as 41814 to 31814:
App. Art. I. § 13.
therefore, as 41,814 is to £. 25·525 ms. the sum of the rents of both districts, so is 31,814 to £. 19·421 ms. the mixed rent of the greater: that of the home division is therefore £. 6·104 ms.
15. Hence the amount of a tax, or set of taxes, upon either district, or both jointly, being given; the proportion of the charge to the rent, or its rate in the pound, may be found. As for example, to find the present rate of the land-tax of the home district, it will be, as its annual rent £. 6·104 ms. is to its annual tax, £. 0·6522 ms. so is £. 1 to £. 0·10685, the real rate of the tax in the pound, equal to 25·644 pence, or two shillings and one penny and two-thirds nearly. Again, to find how much in the pound is paid by the landholders of the same district to all the taxes: it will be, as its rent, £. 6·104 ms. is to £. 1.6525 ms. their total payment to the state; so is £. 1 to £. 0·27072; or shillings 5, 5, nearly. And if from this rate £. 0·27072 be subtracted £. 0·10685, that of the land-tax as above, the remainder, £. 0·16387, or 3 shillings 3⅓ pence, is the charge in the pound, of the general taxes, upon their income; and that of all the upper class in society. It is thus that the table in the text is formed; exhibiting the rate in the pound of the land-tax, the general taxes, and both conjointly, for the two districts.
OBSERVATIONS ON THIS ARTICLE.
16. This finishes the account of the computations on this branch of the subject, referred to in the Fourth Section. But if the train of reasoning be carried a little further, the conclusion we shall come to, will lend no inconsiderable evidence to the assumptions which have been made in the course of these operations; it being apparent that the total national income may be deduced from what is laid down in this article. Now the result which will be so obtained, very nearly coincides with the amount which the general estimation has assigned to that income; but it has not been hitherto calculated upon these grounds: the evidenue of these assumptions is therefore hereby increased; there is superadded to their own internal probability, the whole of that of the generally received estimate of the national income; beside the presumption of the truth of both, arising from their results, being found to be congruous parts of a whole.
17. To determine this income, let us follow an arrangement originally adopted by Mr. King; and suppose the nation to be divided into two classes, each subdivision of the first increasing its wealth in its respective proportions; and of the second, diminishing it; the expence of the maintenance of each of its subdivisions exceeding its income.
18. It has been before observed, that the income of the lower class exceeds that which would be found from the proportion of their payment to the general taxes; an observation laid down, as part of the evidence on which the assumption here proceeded upon is founded. And that income must be evidently very nearly equal to the sum of their wages, and the present amount of the national poor's rate; for most of this class have no other subsistence than what they derive from the one or the other.
19. The wages of the labourers in agriculture, was fixed by Mr. Young, in 1774, at £. 14.016 ms. This sum has since been increased, and its rate of increase is to be sought. In the year 1670, the average wages of husbandmen in all England was 8 pence a day:
Petty: Polit. Arithm. p. 124, in Political Essays, or the British Empire. 410. Strahan. 1772.
and including extraordinary wages in harvest, turnip-hoeing, and similar incidents, it is here taken to have been, in the year 1770, 14 pence a day. This charge therefore increased at the rate of £. 0.5612 per cent annually, in this interval of 100 years; and in 18 years, elapsed from 1774 to 1792, the wages of these labourers became increased to (1.0056181• × £. 14.016 ms. =1.0818 × £. 14.016 ms.) £. 15.501 ms. upon a supposition that their number continued absolutely stationary.
20. The wages of the remainder of this class is now to be sought. Mr. Sulmioch, a German writer on population, of great celebrity, has determined the average decrements of human life for a whole kingdom, similar in circumstances to the Kurmark of Brandenburgh; on a supposition, that one third of the inhabitants are resident in great towns, and the remainder in country parishes and villages. Now, in all kingdoms, the labouring poor of great towns are as numerous in proportion to the upper class, as in the country; but the great towns are generally the seats of manufactures for foreign commerce; and their numbers of every description in this kingdom, taken collectively, greatly exceeds that proportion of our total population, which takes place in Brandenburgh. Again, the husbandman supplies our natural wants only; all our artificial wants are supplied by labouring artizans and manufacturers; and as they much exceed those of that part of Germany, the number of persons employed in the supply of them here, must be a proportionably greater part of the people. Hence it is to be concluded, that more than one third part of the labouring class are inhabitants of great towns; the average of their wages is also more than that of labourers in husbandry; and upon these two accounts alone, the annual income of the sets of men already enumerated, must exceed that of one third of the whole class: and if to the expence of their maintenance, we add, that of the labouring manufacturers and artisans, residing in villages; of servants in the country, not employed in husbandry; of our sailors in the foreign and coast trades, and in the navy; the soldiers; and the men whom our home fisheries employ; the sum of their income by wages, may very well be taken equal to that of the labourers in husbandry.
21. The amount of the poor's rate remains to be added to this sum: it may be said, that being paid to them from the income of the upper class, it is included in it; and thus the same sum will be brought twice to account, in the amount of the national income sought. But all income is rightly brought to the account of that class, which ultimately expends it for its own support; not of that which pays it to them by law or contract; otherwise rent would be the income of farmers, not of landlords. Accordingly, in Mr. King's table of national income,
Davenant, v. 2. p. 184.
the amount of the national poor's rate is taken from the income of the upper, and inserted in that of the inferior class; as appears from its construction. This rate is an increasing rate; its annual increment in the city of Bristol, for 20 years, had been found to be £. 4.688 per cent.; in a country district, comprehending many parishes, £. 3.885 per cent. in two contiguous hundreds, in 7. years, £.4.58 per cent. and in 10 parishes, in 22 years, £. 2.39 per cent.
Observations on Mr. Gilbert's bill, 1776, p. 9
.
Let the average rate of increase be therefore taken at £. 3 per cent. and in 18 years the charge will be augmented in the proportion of 1.6047 (the amount of one pound at that interest for that term) to unity. The charge for the maintenance of the poor, for the year ending at Easter 1776, was £. 1.5568 ms. and in 10 years, ending at Easter 1792, it had thus become increased to (£. 1.5568+1.6047) £. 2.4981 ms. Hence the income of the whole class is (£. 15.501×2,
Annual Register. Dodsley. v. 20, p. 259.
£. 2.4981) £. 33.500.
22. That of the upper class is now to be found. From the result of the assumption made at the beginning of this article, that income appears to be, to the part of the general taxes paid out of it, as unity to 0.16386:
Section 15.
the charge of those taxes upon it is therefore to be assigned. The total amount of the income of this class in 1688, was £. 34.488 ms.
Davenant, v. 2, p. 184, table.
and of the national income, £. 43.498 ms. Therefore, by the assumption, it shall be as £. 43.498 ms. is to £. 15.162 ms. the present amount of all the national general taxes; so is £. 34.488 ms. to £. 12.021 ms. the amount of those taxes, now paid out of the income of the upper class. And again, as 0.16386 is to unity, so is £. 12.021 ms. to £. 73.363 ms. the income sought.
23. Hence the income of the upper class being £.73.363 ms. and that of the lower class £. 33.500 ms. the national income is £. 106.863 ms. At the end of the last, and the commencement of the present peace, it was generally stated at £. 100 ms. and with this, the amount here found is in perfect coincidence. And the evidence of the assumptions made at the beginning of this article, is the amount of their own internal probability, combined with the probability that the commonly received opinion of the amount of the national income, is near the truth.
ARTICLE VIII.
On the Proportion of the Taxes paid by the upper Rank of the Proprietors of Land, to their Income; and of that of the other Classes.
1. THE income of the upper class of the proprietors of land, in the year 1688, was stated by Mr. King as follows:
Davenant, v. 2: p. 184.
 
Annual Income.
Total.
 
£.
£.
Temporal Lords
3,200
512,000
Spiritual Lords
1,300
33,800
Baronets
880
704,000
Knights
650
390,000
Esquires
450
1,200,000
Gentlemen
280
2,880,000
Eminent Clergymen
72
144,000
Freeholders of the better sort
91
3,640,000
Proprietors of land, upper class
 
9,503,800
2. The remainder of the income of the upper class, consisting of those who are engaged in the greater commerce, the individuals of the several liberal professions not included in the account given above, together with the whole of the middle class, was in that year calculated by Mr. King, at £. 24·985 ms. that of the lower class comprehending soldiers, sailors, and labourers of all denominations, at £. 9·010 ms. And he computed the whole income of the people at £. 43·498 ms. Whence the proportion of that of the three great divisions of the people here classed together, being supposed to remain constant to this time; if the present national income be taken as 1000; that of the greater landed proprietors will be as 218; that of the lowest class as 207; and the remainder of society as 574.
3. The general taxes (or those to which every class contributes, in proportion to its income) amount to
App. Art. 7. § 3.
£. 15·162 ms. a year; and the contribution of the greater land-owners to that total, is 0·218 thereof yearly; or 3·3124 ms.
4. This would be their payment to the public expences, if their income were taxed only in the same proportion as that of the rest of the people: but in addition, they pay their share of the land-tax; and here, by the constant assumption, let their present rents be taken as bearing the same proportion to the whole national rent, which took place in 1688; and it will be as 13 millions,
Whitworth's Davenant, v. z. p. 216.
the total rent of estates real in 1688, is to £. 1·9622 ms. the present amount of the land-tax; so is £. 9·5038 ms. the income of this class in 1688, to £. 1·4344, their present payment to that tax; or the excess of their charge above what is paid out of any other equal income. And the amount of their general taxes being £. 3·3124, the sum of both is £.4·7468 ms. which exceeds their proportional charge, £. 3·3124 ms. in the proportion of 14330 to 10000.
5. This is the average rate of the excess of taxes upon rent throughout the kingdom; but in the home counties, it is more, and in the remote counties less, than here assigned; the proportion of land-tax to income in the latter, being one-half that of the former only. And it may be added, that the present total burthen of taxes upon the income of land in the home counties, is very near the limit which the whole landed interest can properly bear.
ARTICLE IX.
On the Effect of the Equalization of the Land-Tax, on the Price of the Products of the Soil.
THE increase of the charge in the pound on the landlords of the remote district, is to be sought. The charge on the home district is £. 0·10685; and of the other, £. 0·05345:
See comparative Table, Section IV. in the Notes.
the augmentation upon them to equalize the tax, will therefore be £.0·0534, or one shilling and ⅘d. in the pound, amounting to £. 5: 3: 9⅗ per cent.
2. Half this charge (by the assumption in the text) is taken as the augmentation of the rent, which is thus increased in the ratio of £.1·0267 to unity, or £. 2·67 per cent. Now, if the former rent of a farm had been £. 19·2 the proportional poor's rate would have amounted to £.1·9266; and the other parish charges, £.0·31.
Chalmers. p. 178.
Now their sum £. 21·4366, multiplied by 1·0267, as above, will give the augmented disbursement of the tenant on these three articles, £. 22·008: and these are the only parts of his annual expence which will be initially affected by the advance of his rent. Hence the annual increase thereof is £. 0·572: his total expenditure before amounted to £. 60·331, and is now become £. 60·903.
3. Suppose him to augment the price of his products, in the same proportion as these expences are increased; their former selling value was £. 72·826;
Chalmers. p. 178.
it is now become £. 73·516; or augmented in the proportion of 1·200948 to unity; that is, 18 shillings and 11½d. per cent. And if before, he sold a quarter of wheat for 44 shillings, he must now add 5 pence and 1/230d. to its price.
ARTICLE X.
On the Tonnage of the English Ships cleared outward, from the Port of London, the four greater Ports of the Remote District, and the other Ports of the Kingdom.
1. THE computations to be given in this article, require two observations to be placed before them, by way of introduction: the first is, that although the existence of a great decrease of the shipping of the ports of the home district (exclusive of that of London) be clearly proved by the accounts to be produced, its exact measure is not thereby assignable; and the other, that the first application made of them (as I afterwards found) was not the best approximation to the purpose in view. The process, however, so employed, presented some conclusions, which seem to have importance enough, to be preserved in an article of a miscellaneous Appendix. Here will, therefore, be found other matter, beside what is referred to as proved, in the body of this tract, or what is necessary to its support.
2. In this subject, it becomes requisite to consider the total tonnage
By the tonnage of a port or ports, is here uniformly meant, tons English, cleared outward in a year, without regard to repeated voyages.
But the number of tons of shipping belonging to any port exceeds the tonnage annually cleared outward; and on an average of the whole kingdom, by one third of the latter amount. (Chalmers, p. 29.) Hence the tons of shipping, and the tonnage cleared outward, are on an average proportional in different years.
of the kingdom as divided into three parts: the first, that of the port of London; the second, that of the four ports next to it in consequence; or Whitehaven, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Bristol, all situated in the remote district; and the third, that of all the remaining and smaller ports, taken collectively.
3. The amounts of these three parts of the tonnage, for the years 1750 and 1772, may be determined from two tables given by Mr. Chalmers; whence the increase or decrease of any one may be assigned, for a term of time of sufficient duration. In the first table, he shews the tonnage of England for 1772, and its average for the years 1749, 1750, 1751; here to be taken as the tonnage of 1750. The circumstance which led him to choose those years is evident; but if the average had begun with the year 1750, the comparisons here to be given might have been instituted upon averages of 3 years for every article; and the matter of the account would have been somewhat more perfect: as it is, we must rely on the consequences to be drawn from the entries of 2 single years; but from an inspection of his tables, it is evident, that any error to proceed from this circumstance, must be very minute. It ought however to be subjoined to this observation, that it must be the fate of writers, who are so much more full of information than others, as to present us with almost every thing we can want, that if we miss a single article of it, our disappointment is more marked: it is somewhat like that of the purchaser of a ticket in the lottery, which is either the number immediately above or below a considerable prize.
4. The two first columns of the following account of tonnage, are compounded from the two tables given by Mr. Chalmers.
Tons—Kingdom total, Chalmer's Estimate, table, p. 37. The five ports, ibid, p. 46.
5. The third column in the table, is the difference of the tonnage of the whole kingdom, and the several parts thereof
Places, Tonnages
1750.
1772.
Difference.
1750.
1772.
Increasing Kingdom total
609,798
716,861
107,063
Tons in 1750 as 10000.
As 11755
London
Whitehaven
Liverpool
Newcastle
Bristol
146,187
198,758
52,571
13596
100,068
192,436
92,368
19231
33,233
76,036
42,803
22879
41,826
61,603
19,777
14728
24,411
31,529
7,118
12915
The 4 Ports
199,538
361,604
162,066
18122
London & the 4 ports
345,725
560,362
214,637
6208
Decreasing on Aver. Small ports of England
264,071
156,499
107,574
As 10000
As 5926
London, with smaller ports
410,260
355,257
55,003
10000
8659
respectively, at the beginning and end of the term of 22 years.
6. The two last columns exhibit, first, the proportion in which the tonnage has increased in that term, where any such augmentation took place. And here, that of the year 1750 is constantly made the standard of comparison: this is done by taking it as 10000; and finding a fourth number, bearing such proportion to 10000, as the actual tonnage of 1772 bore to that of 1750; which fourth number will be as the tonnage of 1772. Or it may be conceived another way: if the tonnage of 1750 be supposed to be divided into 10000 equal parts, the fourth number, or the proportional, shall be the number of such parts, of which the tonnage of 1772 consisted. Let the first article in the table, or the total tonnage, be the example of this process: then as 609,798 tons, the tonnage of 1750, is to 10000; so is 716,861, the national tonnage in 1772, to 11,755, the fourth proportional. Here the tonnage of 1750 being taken as 10000, that of 1772 will be as 11,755; or if the tonnage of the first term be supposed to be divided into 10,000 equal parts, that of the second will consist of 11,755 such parts.
7. And in the two last articles, which relate to the smaller ports, first, separately, and secondly, in conjunction with London, where the tonnage is seen to have decreased in the same period; that of 1750 again is made the standard of comparison, to determine its proportional decrease.
The following observations suggest themselves on this table:
8. Firstly, The celerity of the increase of tonnage of the five greater ports conjointly, exceeded that of the kingdom in general, in this period of 22 years; and upon an average, in the proportion of 162 to 118 nearly.
9. Secondly, The proportion of increase of the tonnage of London exceeded that of the whole kingdom, in the ratio of 136 to 118 nearly. The disproportion of the head to the body of the kingdom is a real evil; and that it is augmenting with the celerity that this proportion implies, is at least a drawback from the advantage derived from the increase of its shipping. Cities may attain such a degree of population and riches, that the sources of their further augmentation would be attended with much greater advantage, if their operation could be transferred to new seats. If that part of its superabundant waters, which renders one place a rank and putrid marsh, should work its way to some other where it was wanted, it would diffuse life and fertility over it; and the first retain all that luxuriance, and all that luxuriance only, which is wholesome.
10. However it appears, that even in 1772, the proportion of the shipping belonging to the port of London, compared with that of all England, was not so great as in the beginning of the century; by a survey taken in 1701, which is preserved in the Plantation office, we see that the tonnage of all the trading vessels in England amounted to 261,222, and of the port of London to 84,882 tons;
Chalmer's Estimate, p. 9.
the former of which numbers is to the latter, as 10,000 to 3,249. It therefore had relatively fallen, even in 1772, in the proportion of 3249 to 2772; but in 1750, in the ratio of 3249 to 2397, as will be seen in the next table. In which state, if it had continued, and its re-augmentation pointed out above had been divided among the smaller ports of the kingdom, whereby the quantity of our shipping would have remained the same, it might have been of much greater general advantage.
11. The table here given, shows the proportion of the tonnage of English ships cleared outward, in the kingdom in general, and the port of London, at sundry periods, since the Revolution.
 
 
Tons kingdom as 10000
London
Tons London as
War
1693, 1694. Chalmers, p. 6.
1693
118,088
44,912
3812
1694
73,056
39,648
5427
1701, Ib. p. 9. The tonnage of all shipping this year was 261,222, of ships of the port of London, 84,882 tons: the English tonnage cleared outward was 273,693; and the proportional quantity for London, 88,934 tons, as in the table. It was necessary to calculate this amount, that all the articles therein might be of one denomination; that is, of tons English cleared outward in each year.
1701
273,693
88,934
3249
1719, 1779. Chalmers, p. 5.
1719
421,431
187,122
4440
 
1750
609,798
146,187
2397
 
1772
716,861
198,758
2772
1719, 1779. Chalmers, p. 5.
1779
590,911
236,659
4004
12. In war, the tonnage of shipping cleared outward from the port of London, decreases; but its proportion to the whole tonnage of the kingdom increases: this appears from the two first articles of the table. In 1779, the tonnage of English cleared from London, was in all probability considerably less than it had been in 1776: it amounted, in the first-mentioned year, to 2-5ths of the tonnage of the whole kingdom; in 1776, it probably might be about 1-3d of the whole: its increase, therefore, in the latter end of the peace, was extremely rapid.
13. I am not without suspicion of some error of the press in the authority I follow, in the account of the tonnage of London for the year 1719.
14. Thirdly, The tonnage of the four great out-ports, had, upon an average, increased during 22 years, with a greater celerity than that of London, and in the proportion of 181 to 136. And their increase, simply considered, exhibits nothing which is not advantageous. It points out the spirit of enterprize to be diffused: a great town increasing rapidly in commerce, is a
punctum vitae
to the whole country round it; and these advantages continue, until its increasing opulence begin to have a bad effect on manners, and its increasing number on population.
15. Fourthly, The tonnage of Whitehaven, which appears, in the table, to have very nearly obtained an equality with that of London, had actually, upon an average of three years, ending with the year 1772, somewhat exceeded it; that of London, for those three years, having been 191,069; and of Whitehaven, 194,417 tons.
Chalmer's Estimate, table, p. 46.
16. Fifthly, The proportional increase of the commerce of Liverpool, appears to have been somewhat more than double that of the kingdom in general; and to have exceeded that of all other ports.
17. Sixthly, With respect to shipping,
Bristol, which is only the fifth, has been hitherto deemed the second port in relative importance.
Chalmers, p. 46.
18. Seventhly, Although the port of London is situated in the home district, it is to be considered as the emporium of the kingdom in general: both are interested in what regards the extension of its commerce, and nearly perhaps in proportion to the importance of their own fabricks and manufactures; and it cannot be said to belong exclusively to either; but considering the consequences to be drawn from this statement, it is highly probable that there will not be wanting some, who paying a greater regard to the geographical situation of that city, than its relation to the whole kingdom as its capital, will argue for taking the increase of its shipping to the account of the tonnage of the home district. Now, this cannot be separated from the general total of that of the smaller ports: but being joined with them, it appears, that the tonnage of London, and the smaller ports, had decreased in 22 years, 55.003 tons; and if the tonnage of 1750 be taken as 10000, that of 1772 will be 8659 only. Hence there appears a very considerable decrease of tonnage, even in this mode of stating it.
19. Eighthly, The observations on the decrease of the shipping of the smaller ports, the object for which these inquiries were instituted, are given in the body of this tract.
20. Ninthly, The proportion of the tonnage of any one or more ports, to that of the kingdom in general, or any other port or ports made the standard, that is taken as 10000, is the measure of the proportion of their shipping nearly, or of their maritime importance:
See note, § 2.
and the difference of those measures, at distant terms of time, of their relative progression or retrogression, and both these points, in every necessary instance, may be determined for the years 1750 and 1772. This is done in the divisions of the following table; the tonnage of the first article of each, being made the standard in both those years. Thus, in the fourth division, in the year 1750, the tonnage of the four greater out-ports, 199,538 tons, being made the standard, or taken as 10000, that of the smaller out-ports having been 264,073 tons; the proportion they then bore to the former, will be defined by the fourth proportional to these three numbers; or be as 13234: but in the year 1772, that measure of their relative importance had become diminished to 4327.
A Comparison of the Tonnage of particular Ports (chiefly the smaller Out-ports) with sundry Standards.
 
1750
1772
Ports, London included.
Tonnage equal to
Tonnage as
Tonnage as
Tonnage equal to
Kingdom(standard)
609,798
10000
10000
716, 61
London
146,187
2397
2772
198,758
4 greater out-ports
199,538
3272
5044
361,604
Smaller out-ports
264,073
4330
2182
156,499
London, and four greater out-ports
345,725
10000
10000
560,362
Smaller out-ports
264,073
7638
2792
156,
99
London excluded Total out-ports(st.)
463,611
10000
10000
518,103
Smaller out-ports
264,073
5695
3020
156,499
4 greater out-ports (standard)
199,538
10000
10000
361,604
Smaller out-ports
264,073
3234
4327
156,499
21. Tenthly, Again, the different proportions which the tonnage of any port or ports bear to that of any other or others, at any two periods, may become a subject of inquiry, as was intimated in the account of the construction of the last table. Thus the tonnage of the four greater out-ports being taken as 10000, it is seen by the last table, that in 1750 the tonnage of the smaller out-ports was as 13234; and in 1772, as 4327. Their relative importance, compared with that of the four greater ports, had therefore, in twenty-two years, diminished in the proportion of those numbers: and taking its measure in the year 1750, or 13234, as the standard, or as 10000; in the year 1772, it had become diminished in the proportion of 3269 to 10000; or to something less than 1-3d of its former measure; for as 13234 is to 10000, so is 4327 to 3269.
22. The variations of the tonnage of the smaller out-ports being the principal object of investigation in this article, its decrease, when compared with the total shipping of the kingdom and the greater subdivisions, is given in the third column of the following table. The first two are copied from the preceding table; and by taking each number in the first as 10000, the corresponding number in the third is a fourth proportional to the number in the first column, the common standard 10000, and the number in the second column.
Proportions of the Tonnage of the smaller Out-ports, to sundry others as Standards; and the Decrease of those Proportions, that of the Year
1750
being made the Standard.
 
 
Smaller Out-ports Proportions.
 
 
 
 
Ratio of decrease
 
 
1750 As
1772 As
 
1772 as
Tonnage of England
 
4330
2182
1750
5040
5 greater ports
As 10000
7638
2792
as
3656
All the out-ports
5695
3020
10000
5302
4 greater ports
13234
4327
 
3269
I conclude this Article with a comparative table of the tonnage of the port of London with divers ports; its construction is the same as that of the third.
Tonnage of the Port of London and the greater Out-ports, compared.
 
1750
1772
Places
Tonnage equal to
Tonnage As
Tonnage As
Tonnage equal to
London standard
146,187
10000
10000
198,758
4 greater out-ports
199,538
13649
18193
361,604
Mean of 3yrs. or yr.
1751
1771
London standard
144,231
10000
10000
191,060
Whitehaven alone
112,104
7772
10017
194,417
ARTICLE XI.
On the Amount and Operation of the Fund for the Discharge of Debt, here called the Adequate Fund.
1. TO calculate the adequate fund, there must be given the money to be borrowed at interest in war; the mean length of a term of war and a term of peace; the price of stock in each; and the douceur, or premium given for the actual advance of £. 100 to the State in war.
2. The sum to be borrowed in war, and for which interest is to be paid, was formerly all advanced by individuals; but in future, money is to be borrowed from the appropriated sinking fund; and taxes raised to pay the interest thereof. The amount to be obtained from both these sources, or the extraordinary expence of a future war, is taken at £. 80.000 ms.
3. The mean length of a term of peace is supposed to be 10 years; and that of war 8 years, as before.
App. Art. VI. §
& 6.
4. The price of stock in the two half terms of peace is taken at £. 75 per cent.; the tables given in periodical works, exhibit always the gross price of stock, which is divisible into two parts; its neat market value, and the interest accrued thereon since the last dividend. The following table shews the neat values of the consolidated 3 per cents. from the commencement of the present peace to December 1791.
1783
63.23
1786
72.78
1784
56.09
1787
74.00
1785
59.09
1788
74.26
Average
59.47
1789
75.00
—
—
1790
76.25
1791
83.04
—
—
 
 
Average
74.45
5. The average of these nine years has been £. 70.52 per cent.; of the present I have no account. That of the whole term of peace hitherto elapsed, may probably amount to £. 72½. It has been necessary for
Maseres's Annuities, p. 290. Sir John Sinclair's Hist. p. 3, p. 267.
Baron Maseres and Sir J. Sinclair, in their disquisitions on some subjects, collateral to that here treated of, to assume hypothetically some rate for the average of this peace; they have concurred in assuming £. 75 per cent. as that rate; in which they are here followed.
6. In the last peace, the mean price of the same stock, so taken, was £. 87.05; and in the following war, £. 65.75 per cent. the first of which rates is to the second, as £. 75 to £. 56.64; supposing therefore that the proportion of the prices of peace and war will continue the same, £. 56.64 per cent. will be the average value of the stock next war.
7. The douceur, or premium given for the actual advance of £. 100 to a loan, is the excess of the market value of all the heterogeneous securities granted to the lender, and every other beneficial condition of his contract, which has a value in money, above the sum advanced, £. 100. From calculations of all the loans of each, it appears, that the average douceurs of the wars of 1739, 1755, and 1776, were £. 7.789, £. 5.716, and £. 7.947 per cent. respectively; the mean of which is £. 7.150 per cent. It is taken here at 7 per cent.
8. The amount of an adequate fund, to be established immediately upon the expiration of the fifth year of a peace, is here sought. This will be applied to the payment of the debt during 5 years; be taken during the next 8 years to the current service, the remaining supplies necessary for which are to be advanced by loans: and thus, during the war, the debt will increase; at its termination, the fund is again to be applied to the discharge of the debt for the term of 5 years. In peace, it is annually augmented, with the interest of the capital of the public debt paid off thereby; and in war, by a rate of interest equal to that effectively made, by those who lend money to government. Now, the amount of the adequate fund is required to be such, that the capital of the debt, at the beginning and end of the whole term of 18 years, shall be equal.
9. The elements for its computation being stated above, according to these conditions, the amount of the adequate fund will be found to be £. 3.485 ms.
Call the initial amount of the fund F. it will be found by this general form.
Where E= the extraordinaries of war (80 ms.): d= £. 100 increased by the douceur, (£. 7): P= the amount of an annuity of £. 1, for the number of years to expire in the first peace (5 years); improved at the cotemporary rate of interest of the stocks (4 per cent.): s= the price of the 3 per cents. in war (£. 56.64): p= the amount of one pound improved at compound interest, during the unexpired term of the first peace (5 years); at the rate of that term (£. 4 per cent.): q= the like amount of £. 1, during the number of years the war is to continue (8 years); at the interest made by subscribers to the loans (5⅔ per cent.): Q= the amount of an annuity of £. 1, for the same
of time, and at the same rate of interest.
For in the first half term of peace, 5 years, the amount of an annuity of £. 1, at 4 per cent, will be £. 5.4163; and of £. 3.485 ms. £. 18.876 ms. which is the sum furnished by the fund in that time, to pay off the existing capital. But the price of stock being £. 75 per cent. the capital extinguished will be one third part, or £. 6.292 ms. more than that amount of the fund, or be equal to £. 25.168 ms. The fund likewise will be increased during the 5 years of peace, at the rate of £. 4 per cent. yearly. Now, £. 1 so increased, amounts at the end of the term to £. 1.2166; the initial fund, £. 3.485 ms. will become £. 4.2399 ms. This sum will be advanced by the trustees of the fund, the first year of the war, in part of the extraordinary expences.
10. Let it be supposed that the remainder of the money to be borrowed is funded in the 3 per cent. stocks; and that the douceur for every £. 100 actually advanced, is £. 7; or the public creditors for every such sum advanced, are to be supposed to receive a capital in the 3 per cents. whose value is £. 107. The interest, therefore, made by advancing money to government, will be to that made by the purchase of stock at the market price, as 107 to 100. The price of the stock in war is taken at £. 56.64 per cent. and the interest made by such purchases, is £. 5.2958 per cent. That made by the advance of money to the loans, is therefore (£. 5.6665) £. 5⅔ per cent.
11. It is this latter rate of interest, which is to be allowed to the trustees of the fund for its augmentation, when it is taken to the current service in war; and which is to be provided for by new taxes. We must enquire now, how much the fund will supply toward the charge of the war, during the whole eight years of its continuance. Now, this sum will be equal to the amount of an annuity of £.4.2399 ms. increasing at the rate of 5⅔ per cent. during 8 years: the amount of £. 1 for that term, at £. 5 per cent. is £. 9.5491; at £. 6 per cent. £. 9.8974; and at £. 5⅔ per cent. £. 9.7813 very nearly. Hence the total of the sums advanced by the trustees in eight years, will be (9.7813 × £. 4.2392 ms.) £. 41.471 ms.
12. The whole of the extraordinary charge of the war is taken at £. 80 ms. and the advances of the common creditors must therefore be £. 38.528 ms. for every £.100 of which sum, they will obtain a new capital in the 3 per cents, whose value is £. 107. The selling price of the whole of the new capital will therefore be £. 41.224 ms. and the stock being £. 56.64 per cent, the whole of the new capital will amount to £. 72.771.
13. We are now to enquire how much 3 per cent. capital will be paid off by the fund, in the first five years of peace; its amount for the first year must be therefore determined. £. 1 annually increasing at the rate of 5⅔ per cent. will, at the end of 8 years, become £. 1.5550 very nearly; for increasing at £. 5 per cent. it would have become £. 1.4774; and at £. 6, it would have increased to £. 1.5938. Hence £. 4.2399 ms. the fund at the beginning of the war, will, at the termination thereof, be augmented to (1.5550 × £. 4.2399 ms.) The interest and price of stock in the first 5 years, or half term of this peace, are taken at the same rates as in the latter 5 years of the preceding; or at £. 4, and £. 75 per cent. respectively: and proceeding as before, it will be found, that the fund will produce in money, in 5 years, (5.4163 × £. 6.593 ms.) £. 35.710 ms. which sum (the 3 per cents being at £. 73) will discharge a capital (£. 35.710 ms. + £. 11 903 ms.) £. 47.613 ms. and the capital discharged by the operation of the fund in the former peace, was shewn to be £. 25.168 ms. and in both conjointly, £. 72.781 ms. the new capital generated by the intervening war.
END OF THE APPENDIX.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECREASE OF THE SHIPPING
OF THE HOME-DISTRICT,
AS STATED IN THE FOURTH SECTION OF THE TEXT, AND THE TENTH ARTICLE OF THE APPENDIX.
SINCE this Tract has been printed off, a new edition of Mr. Chalmers's estimate (so often quoted in it) has been put into my hands. In this, the table of the yearly tonnage of the five greater ports is omitted—the foundation of every thing laid down above, concerning the shipping of the ports of the home counties. This omission is of too much consequence to be passed over without some observations upon it.
Although the matter of the table be in itself very curious, it appears to have been inserted in the original edition principally on account of two inferences there drawn from it. These appear to me to have been afterwards discovered by this candid Writer, not to be legitimately founded thereon; and it was (as I suppose) omitted in the edition of 1786, as no longer lending support to any thing there advanced, and consequently become superfluous.
In the observations which introduce it, he states the
five principal ports as representatives of the whole;" and as demonstrating the great progress of our navigation in twenty years:
Edition of 1782, Table, p. 47.
hence it is evident that he supposed the tonnage of the smaller ports had increased, in some proportion, not very dissimilar to that of the greater. In suppressing the table, together with his remarks upon it, he has tacitly given up this induction. It has been shewn above (and from this
Extract from the Register of Shipping,
Edition of 1782, Table, p. 47.
joined with others contained in the same work), that while the tonnage of these ports increased with an assigned celerity, that of the smaller had decreased with much more.
His second greater inference from the table is of an importance, on this subject, which demands a fuller consideration of it. From the equality of the tonnage cleared outward in 1772, he lays it down, that in that year
Whitehaven claimed an equality with London, in respect to the numbers of native shipping.
Edition of 1782, Table, p. 47.
This deduction, which is likewise erroneous, he appears desirous of disavowing more explicitly in the Preface to his improved edition of 1786;
Edition of 1786, Preface, p. 9.
by stating, that the colliers of Whitehaven and Newcastle enter and clear at the Custom-House several times in one year. Hence, from a given increase of tonnage annually cleared outward from one of these ports, the same increase of its shipping is not to be inferred, as from an equal augmentation of that of the other ports of the kingdom, taken on the average.
Now many of the considerations on the decrease of the shipping of the home district given above, admit the assumption which Mr. Chalmers seems to have rightly now guarded against, by a protest in form; and it is impossible to conceive the error it may lead to on this subject as of no consequence. It is evidently of that magnitude, that it may either greatly exaggerate the appearance of the growing depression of the shipping of the smaller ports, or operate so on the result, as to conceal a very great part of its true amount.
It shall therefore be here shewn, that the latter has been the case; and that if any allowance be made to counter-balance the effect of this erroneous principle in the preceding computations, what has been laid down on this subject in the fourth section will hold good
à fortieri.
This is proved as follows: Whitehaven and Newcastle being excluded, the proportion of the whole tonnage of the greater ports annually cleared outward, to the shipping they possess, may be taken to be very nearly the same as that of the smaller ports; but the annual tonnage of those two ports bears a greater proportion to the quantity of their shipping. Now here let there be assumed, as successive hypotheses, that the voyages made by the shipping of those two ports, are to those made by that of the other ports of the kingdom in equal terms of time, first, in the ratio of equality; secondly, in that of two to one; and lastly, in that of three to one: it follows, that the quantity of shipping in the rest of the kingdom, being as the tonnage cleared therefrom annually, that of the two ports shall be, on the first supposition, as their annual tonnage; on the second, as one half thereof; and on the third, as one third part thereof.
By the Table in the 30th page of the Appendix, we find, that in the years
1750
1772
The total tonnage of the kingdom was
609,798
716,861
Of Whitehaven and Newcastle
181,894
254,039
Of the remainder of the kingdom
467,904
462,822
The difference of the latter numbers, 5,082 tons, may very well be taken as accidental: hence it follows (the two coal ports being set out of the great question), that if the remaining ports of the kingdom be taken, as divided into two sets, the first increasing in shipping, and the second decreasing, the gain of the one has, in this term of twenty-two years, been equal to the loss of the other.
According to the first hypothesis, the shipping of Whitehaven and Newcastle, in the years 1750 and 1772, are to be taken as 141,894, and 254,039 respectively; according to the second, as one half thereof, or 70,947, and 127,019; and according to the third, as one third thereof, or 47,298, and 84,679; to render the total national tonnage, and its principal divisions, proportional to the total shipping, and its corresponding divisions respectively, according to the condition of each hypothesis.
The Table quoted above, being extended to comprehend the results of the second and third hypothesis, will stand thus—
PORTS.
TONNAGE.
 
 
By Ist
By IId
By IIId
 
By
1772
 
Years
HYPOTH.
HYPOTH.
HYPOTH.
 
HYP
As
Whitehaven and Newcastle
1750
141,894
70,947
47,298
TONNAGE of 1,750 as 10,000
I.
 
1772
254,039
127,019
84,679
II.
17,903
Increase
 
112,145
56,072
37,381
III.
 
Liverpool
1750
33,233
 
 
 
 
1772
76,036
Same
Same
 
22,879
Increase
 
42,803
 
 
 
 
Bristol
1750
24,411
 
 
 
 
1772
31,529
Same
Same
 
12,915
Increase
 
,118
 
 
 
 
Four Great Out-Ports
1750
1
9,538
128,591
104,942
I.
18,122
1772
361,604
234,384
192,244
II.
18,242
Increase
 
162,066
105,993
87,302
III.
18,319
London
1750
146,187
 
 
 
 
1772
198,758
Same
Same
 
13,596
Increase
 
52,571
 
 
 
 
Five Great Ports
1750
345,725
274,778
251,129
I.
16,208
1772
560,362
433,342
391,002
II.
15,771
Increase
 
214,637
158,564
139,873
III.
15,570
Smaller Ports
175
264,073
 
 
 
 
1772
156,499
Same
Same
 
5,926
DECREASE
 
107,574
 
 
 
 
Kingdom Total
17
600,789
538,851
515,202
I.
11,755
1772
16,861
589,841
547,501
II.
10,946
Increase
 
,063
50,990
32,299
III.
10,626
Increase Smaller
 
 
 
 
 
 
Port Stationary
 
214,637
158,564
130,873
 
 
The decrease of the annual tonnage of the smaller ports, and that of their shipping proportional thereto, must remain the same, on each of the three hypotheses; or on any other which can be laid down, whereby allowance is made for the greater number of repeated voyages of the shipping of Whitehaven and Newcastle: for, by every such hypothesis, the sum of the annual tonnage of those ports must be diminished; and that of the five great ports, and the total tonnage of the kingdom, will each be diminished by the same amount as that of those two ports. Hence the difference of those two great aggregates, being the tonnage of the smaller ports, will be constantly the same at any two assigned times, on any such hypothesis; and its increase or decrease in the interval between them remain constant and unaffected thereby.
The proportion which the decrease of the tonnage of the less ports in twenty-two years, as given in the Table, bears to the increase of the total national tonnage in that term, according to each of the three hypotheses, is comparatively shewn as follows:
The increase of the national tonnage in twenty-two years, would have been
Hyp.
I. — 214,637
II. — 158,564
III. — 139,873
tons, if the small ports had retained the shipping they possessed in 1750. By its decrease, this augmentation was reduced to
Hyp.
I. — 107,063
II. — 50,990
III. — 32,299
tons, or to less than
Hyp.
I. one half
II. one third
III. one fourth
of that amount; and thus
Hyp.
I. one half
II. two thirds
III. three fourths
of the increase of our commercial shipping and naval force, generated by the increase of the trade of the five great ports, has been annihilated by the decline of the trade of the smaller, taken conjointly: wherefore, if they had been able only to retain the trade they possessed at the beginning of the term, the augmentation of our shipping for trade and war (considerable as it was), would have been more than
Hyp.
I. doubled
II. trebled
III. quadrupled
in the above term of twenty-two years.
Hence the increase of the national shipping, and its naval force, appears to have been much more retarded by the decline of the smaller ports upon the second and third hypotheses, than on the first; that is, than on the statement of the same matter, given in the third paragraph of the 76th page of this tract. As, therefore, some allowance must be made for the repeated voyages of the colliers of the two ports, the bad consequences of that decline are there stated at less than their true magnitude.
Its celerity was likewise such, that the tonnage of the smaller ports was, in twenty-two years, reduced in the proportion of 10,000 to 5,926: an unparalleled and afflicting contrast to the prosperity of the four great out-ports; the annual tonnage of which increased in the same time, in the proportion of
Hyp.
I. — 18,122
II. — 18,242
III. — 18,319
to 10,000.
Here again, the first hypothesis is that on which the celerity of the decrease of the former, and the increase of the latter, is given, p. 77, l. 13, &c. and its result is confirmed by that of the two last hypotheses,
à fortiori.
The shipping of the greater ports of the remote district having increased in the above proportion, it may with great moderation be assumed, that the small ports of that district, by situation partaking of the same common advantages, have, in the same time, increased in the proportion of
Hyp.
I. — 11,755
II. — 10,946
III. — 10,626
to 10,000; which is the average rate of the increase of the tonnage of the whole kingdom; their advantages being above the general average: and hereby the argument made use of, p. 79, l. 6, receives an additional strength.
Thus it is evident, in the three last comparative statements, that every thing on the decline of the smaller ports, deduced from the first hypothesis, follows,
à fortiori,
from the second and third: but these consequences of Hyp. I. contain the whole arithmetical matter brought forward on the subject in the fourth Section; whence any allowance to be made on account of the repeated voyages of the shipping of the coal ports, adds to the strength and conclusiveness of that branch of the general argument.
In the table here annexed, are contained such of the articles of that in the 35th page of the Appendix, and the first table of page 36th, as relate to the smaller ports, on each of the three hypotheses.
 
 
TONNAGE Of Smaller Ports as
Their Ratio of Decrease
Standard Tonnage of
 
1750
1772
 
In 1772, as
 
HYP.
 
 
Their Proportion of Tonnage in 1750, as 10,000
 
Kingdom Total
I.
4330
2182
5040
II.
4900
2653
5413
III.
5125
2858
5576
Five Greater Ports
I.
7638
2792
3656
II.
9610
3611
3757
III.
10515
4002
3806
Four Greater Out-Ports
I.
13234
4327
3269
II.
20535
6671
3248
III.
25163
8140
3234
Out-Ports (London excluded)
I.
5695
3020
5302
II.
6725
4001
5950
III.
7156
4487
6270
By the second and third hypotheses, the annual tonnage of the sets of ports, successively made standards, being diminished by the reduction of that of the two coal ports; the proportion of the annual tonnage of the smaller ports (the quantity of which is the same on each hypothesis) appears increased in each successively. But it is not the absolute proportion of the shipping of the smaller out-ports at any one time, to that of any other set of ports, as a standard, which is here to be considered; but the variation of that proportion in twenty-two years: representing the relative celerity of their decline, compared successively with each standard; and the measure of their variation is very little changed upon any of these hypotheses. Thus the proportion of the shipping of the smaller ports, to that of the whole kingdom, appears, upon the first, to have decreased in twenty-two years in the ratio of 5,040 to 10,000; and by the third, in that of 5,576 to the same number, which is its greatest difference. Here, although their relative decline appears, by the second estimate, somewhat less than before, that difference of these results is not enough to have any weight against any general conclusion which might have been drawn from the first: but in the Fourth Section, no argument has been brought forward from the decrease of the tonnage, considered in this point of view.
As by the two last hypotheses, the total annual tonnage of the kingdom is diminished, that of London remaining the same as before in every period; hence it follows, that what is said of the great proportion of the national commerce concentrated in that vast city, holds good,
à fortiori.
If it had been judged necessary, the table in which it is particularly given might have been extended to comprehend the results of the two last hypotheses, and enlarged from the later collections of Mr. Chalmers.
Estimate, Edition of 1786, p. 61.
THERE are some further Variations in the edition of Mr. Chalmers's Estimate of 1786, from that of 1782, which must be likewise here noticed.
In the 178th page of the first edition, Mr. Chalmers has given a Table of the annual produce of the land of England, and the annual expence of it to the farmer. It is copied from Young's Political Arithmetic, part II. page 32. This Table likewise is not reprinted in the subsequent publication of his Estimate in 1786. The edition I possess of this work of Mr. Young, has no second part; nor have I been able to find one in which it is contained; but from the correspondence of the general totals to the articles of which they are compounded, it is evident that the whole was accurately copied in the first publication of Mr. Chalmers. From a comparison of Mr. Young's Northern and Eastern Tour, I have verified the first article of the farmer's expenditure, the rent of the land of England, and the sum of the three following—the tithes, poor's rate, and parish charges: the amount of the two last articles, the annual expence of seed-grain and labour, as deduced, in the same mode, from these Tours,—are sufficiently near to those in this account, for the purposes for which I have quoted it. Even if the difference of these articles be an error in the latter, which however ought to be understood as a correction of the average of the Tours, made upon reason by Mr. Young, these several amounts are determined from the minutes he took in his journeys; and there is no reason to suppose them not to be as accurate as those he collected at the same time, to determine the number of persons engaged in farming. These Mr. Chalmers, in the improved edition of his Estimate, states to have been of sufficient accuracy for that purpose. It may be supposed, therefore, that although he did not find it necessary to the improved and abridged plan of his work, to retain the Table, he notwithstanding had not changed his former opinion of the several articles thereof, that they
were satisfactory, because the data were good.
This Table is quoted in the 5th, 8th, 21st, and 28th pages of the Appendix of this Tract.
IN his first Edition, Mr. Chalmers had stated the value of land in 1729, at twenty-five and twenty-six years purchase: in support of which he quotes Anderson's History of Commerce, Vol. II. p. 322. In the edition of that Work printed in 1787 (Vol. III. p. 156) it is said, that land then sold at twenty-five, twenty-six, and twenty-seven years purchase: but the two first of these are to be esteemed as the ordinary rates, and the last as the highest price of land at that time; and its average value may, in all contracts, very well be taken to have been, at that time, twenty-five and a half years purchase, as stated in the first section of this Essay, p. 18. If we compare Mr. Chalmers's extract from Anderson, in p. 138 of the edition of 1782, with the corresponding passages of that of 1786 (p. 98 and 167), the necessity of this observation will be evident.
I have followed the first copy of the Estimate in this Pamphlet, in other places besides those already noticed; but the passages I have made use of are repeated in the improved edition of his work, printed in 1786.
ERRATUM.
Notes to p. 8 and p. 12 of the Text, for
Molesworth,
read
Molleson.