The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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126 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM from money subjected to direct taxation, which might corre- spond to the tax on the rental of land’; but the times were not yet ripe for anything of the nature of an income tax? As an alternative expedient for distributing the incidence of taxation more widely, he had to fall back upon an excise®. This had been the favourite expedient of Charles L's advisers, though it had not been enforced till Pym took it in hand‘. Davenant was aware that the scheme might prove im- practicable ; “unless the nation does unanimously and freely give into excises, upon the full conviction that they are the best ways and means of supplying the government, it will not be the interest of any king to desire such a revenue. For if they are carried but by a small majority, against the sense and grain of a considerable part of the House of Commons, they will come so crampt in the act of Parliament, and loaded with so many difficulties, that they will only occasion great clamours in the kingdom, and not yield much money?” There was much ingenuity in his scheme for graduating it, so that it might fall chiefly upon the luxuries of the rich, and to only a small extent upon the necessities of the poor®, He hoped that, by a strict enforcement of the assize of bread and beer, it might be possible to prevent such a tax from having a serious effect upon prices’; and that the machinery of collection might be organised without the necessity of inquisitorial interference with private life® But, when the advocate of the scheme admitted that so many difficulties had to be faced, there need be little surprise that responsible statesmen made little attempt to follow though his advice. There were besides two objections to the ex- objected to tension of the excise. Economic theorists like Locke® were eho opposed to it; they held that all such taxation fell ultimately upon the land; they argued that it was wiser to levy it A.D. 1689 —1776. hy develop ing the EXCISE, 1 He calculates the money lent in interest at £20,000,000; and takes the rate of interest as 59/¢ and the income as £1,000,000. A four shilling rate on this sum would yield £200,000 (Works, 1. p. 58). A similar proposal was revived in 1759 by the author of Thoughts on the pernicious consequences of borrowing money (Trin. Coll. Lib. T. 2. 133). 2 See p. 839 below. 8 Davenant was himself a commissioner of excise. 4 Dowell, Taxation, 11. 9. § Ways and Means, in Works, 1. TL. 8 Ib. 63. 7 Ib. 64. 8 Ib. 67. 3 Considerations, in Works, v. 57. 19 Davenant did not deny that * all taxes whatsoever are in their last resort

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