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