POSSIBLE SOURCES OF REVENUE 429
their being taken off, will be found so inconsiderable, as to A.D. 1689
leave little room for any difficulties or objections.” He ie.
practically took off all import duties on naval stores and
drugs, and the other materials of our manufactures, and
arranged that all the products of our industry should be
exported duty free. The creation of the Bank of England
had led the moneyed men to rally round the Whigs, but
Walpole’s reforms cemented the attachment of the manu-
facturers to the same interest.
Nor were the commercial men forgotten. Walpole was and
anxious to leave the carrying trade as free as possible, and commerce.
to substitute, for duties on the importation of foreign goods,
excises on their consumption at home? He hoped by this
means to render the whole island “one general free port and
a magazine and common storehouse for all nations®.” He
managed to effect this change in regard to tea, coffee, and
chocolate, which were deposited in bonded warehouses and
charged with duty when taken out for home consumption,
and he was able to increase the revenue from these com-
modities £120,000 a year. When he attempted to extend
the principle, however, to all imported goods as well as
to articles of home production, like salt, the deep-seated
prejudice against an excise was at once aroused. Walpole
endeavoured to allay the excitement by a pamphlet entitled
Some general considerations concerning the alteration and
improvement of the Revenues*; and a commitee of the House
of Commons exposed the frightful amount of fraud and illicit
trade which went on under the existing system? and which
Walpole hoped to check. How far he would have been
successful in this last aim must always be doubtful, for he
never had the opportunity of carrying his views into effect.
The dislike of an excise as inquisitorial was intense, and
coupled with this was the curious allegation that the
citizens, if once accustomed to it, would feel it so little
that they would cease to take an interest in checking
the vagaries of the Government. Walpole explained his
l Parl. Hist. vir. 913. 2 Coxe, op. cit. 111. 66.
3} Tucker, Elements of Jommerce, 148 n.
i Coxe, op. cit. IIL, 68.
& 7b. 71.
