Thomas Paine · Complete work
Part II: Chapter V, 3
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Before the coming of the Hanoverians, the taxes were divided in nearly equal proportions between the land and articles of consumption, the land bearing rather the largest share: but since that era nearly thirteen millions annually of new taxes have been thrown upon consumption. The consequence of which has been a constant increase in the number and wretchedness of the poor, and in the amount of the poor-rates. Yet here again the burthen does not fall in equal proportions on the aristocracy with the rest of the community. Their residences, whether in town or country, are not mixed with the habitations of the poor. They live apart from distress, and the expense of relieving it. It is in manufacturing towns and labouring villages that those burthens press the heaviest; in many of which it is one class of poor supporting another.
Several of the most heavy and productive taxes are so contrived, as to give an exemption to this pillar, thus standing in its own defence. The tax upon beer brewed for sale does not affect the aristocracy, who brew their own beer free from this duty. It falls only on those who have not conveniency or ability to brew, and who must purchase it in small quantities. But what will mankind think of the justice of taxation, when they know that this tax alone, from which the aristocracy are from circumstances exempt, is nearly equal to the whole of the land-tax, being in the year 1788, and it is not less now, L1,666,152, and with its proportion of the taxes on malt and hops, it exceeds it.—That a single article, thus partially consumed, and that chiefly by the working part, should be subject to a tax, equal to that on the whole rental of a nation, is, perhaps, a fact not to be paralleled in the histories of revenues.
This is one of the circumstances resulting from a house of legislation, composed on the ground of a combination of common interest; for whatever their separate politics as to parties may be, in this they are united. Whether a combination acts to raise the price of any article for sale, or rate of wages; or whether it acts to throw taxes from itself upon another class of the community, the principle and the effect are the same; and if the one be illegal, it will be difficult to show that the other ought to exist.
It is no use to say that taxes are first proposed in the House of Commons; for as the other house has always a negative, it can always defend itself; and it would be ridiculous to suppose that its acquiescence in the measures to be proposed were not understood before hand. Besides which, it has obtained so much influence by borough-traffic, and so many of its relations and connections are distributed on both sides the commons, as to give it, besides an absolute negative in one house, a preponderancy in the other, in all matters of common concern.
It is difficult to discover what is meant by the landed interest, if it does not mean a combination of aristocratical landholders, opposing their own pecuniary interest to that of the farmer, and every branch of trade, commerce, and manufacture. In all other respects it is the only interest that needs no partial protection. It enjoys the general protection of the world. Every individual, high or low, is interested in the fruits of the earth; men, women, and children, of all ages and degrees, will turn out to assist the farmer, rather than a harvest should not be got in; and they will not act thus by any other property. It is the only one for which the common prayer of mankind is put up, and the only one that can never fail from the want of means. It is the interest, not of the policy, but of the existence of man, and when it ceases, he must cease to be.
No other interest in a nation stands on the same united support. Commerce, manufactures, arts, sciences, and everything else, compared with this, are supported but in parts. Their prosperity or their decay has not the same universal influence. When the valleys laugh and sing, it is not the farmer only, but all creation that rejoice. It is a prosperity that excludes all envy; and this cannot be said of anything else.
Why then, does Mr. Burke talk of his house of peers as the pillar of the landed interest? Were that pillar to sink into the earth, the same landed property would continue, and the same ploughing, sowing, and reaping would go on. The aristocracy are not the farmers who work the land, and raise the produce, but are the mere consumers of the rent; and when compared with the active world are the drones, a seraglio of males, who neither collect the honey nor form the hive, but exist only for lazy enjoyment.
Mr. Burke, in his first essay, called aristocracy "the Corinthian capital of polished society." Towards completing the figure, he has now added the pillar; but still the base is wanting; and whenever a nation choose to act a Samson, not blind, but bold, down will go the temple of Dagon, the Lords and the Philistines.
If a house of legislation is to be composed of men of one class, for the purpose of protecting a distinct interest, all the other interests should have the same. The inequality, as well as the burthen of taxation, arises from admitting it in one case, and not in all. Had there been a house of farmers, there had been no game laws; or a house of merchants and manufacturers, the taxes had neither been so unequal nor so excessive. It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.
Men of small or moderate estates are more injured by the taxes being thrown on articles of consumption, than they are eased by warding it from landed property, for the following reasons:
First, They consume more of the productive taxable articles, in proportion to their property, than those of large estates.
Secondly, Their residence is chiefly in towns, and their property in houses; and the increase of the poor-rates, occasioned by taxes on consumption, is in much greater proportion than the land-tax has been favoured. In Birmingham, the poor-rates are not less than seven shillings in the pound. From this, as is already observed, the aristocracy are in a great measure exempt.
These are but a part of the mischiefs flowing from the wretched scheme of an house of peers.
As a combination, it can always throw a considerable portion of taxes from itself; and as an hereditary house, accountable to nobody, it resembles a rotten borough, whose consent is to be courted by interest. There are but few of its members, who are not in some mode or other participators, or disposers of the public money. One turns a candle-holder, or a lord in waiting; another a lord of the bed-chamber, a groom of the stole, or any insignificant nominal office to which a salary is annexed, paid out of the public taxes, and which avoids the direct appearance of corruption. Such situations are derogatory to the character of man; and where they can be submitted to, honour cannot reside.
To all these are to be added the numerous dependants, the long list of younger branches and distant relations, who are to be provided for at the public expense: in short, were an estimation to be made of the charge of aristocracy to a nation, it will be found nearly equal to that of supporting the poor. The Duke of Richmond alone (and there are cases similar to his) takes away as much for himself as would maintain two thousand poor and aged persons. Is it, then, any wonder, that under such a system of government, taxes and rates have multiplied to their present extent?
In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Mr. Burke, in speaking of the aristocratical law of primogeniture, says, "it is the standing law of our landed inheritance; and which, without question, has a tendency, and I think," continues he, "a happy tendency, to preserve a character of weight and consequence."
Mr. Burke may call this law what he pleases, but humanity and impartial reflection will denounce it as a law of brutal injustice. Were we not accustomed to the daily practice, and did we only hear of it as the law of some distant part of the world, we should conclude that the legislators of such countries had not arrived at a state of civilisation.
As to its preserving a character of weight and consequence, the case appears to me directly the reverse. It is an attaint upon character; a sort of privateering on family property. It may have weight among dependent tenants, but it gives none on a scale of national, and much less of universal character. Speaking for myself, my parents were not able to give me a shilling, beyond what they gave me in education; and to do this they distressed themselves: yet, I possess more of what is called consequence, in the world, than any one in Mr. Burke's catalogue of aristocrats.
Having thus glanced at some of the defects of the two houses of parliament, I proceed to what is called the crown, upon which I shall be very concise.
It signifies a nominal office of a million sterling a year, the business of which consists in receiving the money. Whether the person be wise or foolish, sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not. Every ministry acts upon the same idea that Mr. Burke writes, namely, that the people must be hood-winked, and held in superstitious ignorance by some bugbear or other; and what is called the crown answers this purpose, and therefore it answers all the purposes to be expected from it. This is more than can be said of the other two branches.
The hazard to which this office is exposed in all countries, is not from anything that can happen to the man, but from what may happen to the nation—the danger of its coming to its senses.
It has been customary to call the crown the executive power, and the custom is continued, though the reason has ceased.
It was called the executive, because the person whom it signified used, formerly, to act in the character of a judge, in administering or executing the laws. The tribunals were then a part of the court. The power, therefore, which is now called the judicial, is what was called the executive and, consequently, one or other of the terms is redundant, and one of the offices useless. When we speak of the crown now, it means nothing; it signifies neither a judge nor a general: besides which it is the laws that govern, and not the man. The old terms are kept up, to give an appearance of consequence to empty forms; and the only effect they have is that of increasing expenses.
Before I proceed to the means of rendering governments more conducive to the general happiness of mankind, than they are at present, it will not be improper to take a review of the progress of taxation in England.
It is a general idea, that when taxes are once laid on, they are never taken off. However true this may have been of late, it was not always so. Either, therefore, the people of former times were more watchful over government than those of the present, or government was administered with less extravagance.
It is now seven hundred years since the Norman conquest, and the establishment of what is called the crown. Taking this portion of time in seven separate periods of one hundred years each, the amount of the annual taxes, at each period, will be as follows:
Annual taxes levied by William the Conqueror,
beginning in the year 1066 L400,000
Annual taxes at 100 years from the conquest (1166) 200,000
Annual taxes at 200 years from the conquest (1266) 150,000
Annual taxes at 300 years from the conquest (1366) 130,000
Annual taxes at 400 years from the conquest (1466) 100,000
These statements and those which follow, are taken from Sir John Sinclair's History of the Revenue; by which it appears, that taxes continued decreasing for four hundred years, at the expiration of which time they were reduced three-fourths, viz., from four hundred thousand pounds to one hundred thousand. The people of England of the present day, have a traditionary and historical idea of the bravery of their ancestors; but whatever their virtues or their vices might have been, they certainly were a people who would not be imposed upon, and who kept governments in awe as to taxation, if not as to principle. Though they were not able to expel the monarchical usurpation, they restricted it to a republican economy of taxes.
Let us now review the remaining three hundred years:
Annual amount of taxes at:
500 years from the conquest (1566) 500,000
600 years from the conquest (1666) 1,800,000
the present time (1791) 17,000,000
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete English text of Parts I and II with Paine’s preface, appendix and author’s notes (Conway’s edition, 1894) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
Before the Hanoverians came to power, taxation was divided almost equally between land and goods consumed, with land carrying slightly more. Since then, almost thirteen millions in new annual taxes have been placed on consumption. The result has been a continual rise in the number and misery of the poor and in the amount collected through poor-rates. Yet this burden, too, falls less heavily on the aristocracy than on the rest of society. Their homes, in town or country, are not among the homes of the poor. They live apart from both distress and the expense of relieving it. The heaviest burdens fall on manufacturing towns and laboring villages, many of which have one class of poor people supporting another.
Several of the heaviest and most lucrative taxes are contrived to exempt this pillar while it stands guard over itself. The tax on beer brewed for sale does not touch aristocrats, who brew their own beer free of duty. It falls only on those without the space or means to brew, who must buy beer in small quantities. But what will people think of the justice of taxation when they learn that this tax alone, from which aristocrats are exempt by circumstance, nearly equals the entire land tax? In the year 1788 it came to L1,666,152, and it is no less now; add its share of taxes on malt and hops, and it exceeds the land tax. For one commodity, consumed by only some people and chiefly by working people, to bear a tax equal to the tax on all the rental income of a nation may be a fact unmatched in the history of public revenue.
This is one consequence of a legislative house constituted as a combination of people with a common interest. Whatever party differences divide its members, on this question they unite. Whether a combination raises the price of a product or the rate of wages, or shifts its own taxes onto another class, the principle and effect are identical. If the first is illegal, it will be hard to explain why the second should be allowed.
It is no answer that taxes are first proposed in the House of Commons. The other house always has a veto and can always protect itself; it would be absurd to suppose that its agreement to proposed measures had not been secured in advance. Moreover, through traffic in borough seats it has gained so much influence, and has so many relatives and associates placed on both sides of the commons, that in matters affecting their common interest it has not only an absolute veto in one house but a commanding advantage in the other.
It is hard to see what “the landed interest” means if not a combination of aristocratic landlords setting their financial interests against those of farmers and every branch of trade, commerce, and manufacturing. In every other respect, land is the one interest that needs no special protection. It has the protection of the world at large. Everyone, high or low, has a stake in what the earth produces. Men, women, and children of every age and station will come to a farmer's aid rather than leave a harvest uncollected; they do not act that way for any other kind of property. It alone receives the common prayers of humanity, and it alone can never fail for want of means. It concerns not human policy but human existence; when it ends, humanity must end with it.
No other national interest enjoys such united support. Commerce, manufacturing, the arts, the sciences, and everything else have only partial support by comparison. Their prosperity or decline does not touch everyone in the same way. When the valleys laugh and sing, the farmer does not rejoice alone: all creation rejoices. This is prosperity that provokes no envy; no other prosperity can claim as much.
Why, then, does Mr. Burke call his house of peers the pillar of the landed interest? If that pillar sank into the earth, the land would remain, and people would continue plowing, sowing, and reaping as before. Aristocrats are not the farmers who work the soil and grow its produce; they merely consume the rent. Compared with the working world they are drones, a seraglio of males who neither gather honey nor build the hive, existing only to enjoy their idleness.
In his first essay, Mr. Burke called aristocracy “the Corinthian capital of polished society.” He has now supplied the pillar to complete the image, but still lacks a base. Whenever a nation chooses to act as Samson, not blindly but boldly, the temple of Dagon will fall, taking down the Lords and the Philistines with it.
If a legislative house is to consist of men from one class to protect a separate interest, all the other interests should have their own houses too. Both the unequal distribution and the weight of taxation arise from allowing this privilege to one class but not all. Had there been a house of farmers, there would have been no game laws; had there been a house of merchants and manufacturers, taxes would have been neither so unequal nor so excessive. Taxation has raged unchecked because those holding the power to tax can shift so much of it from their own shoulders.
People with small or moderate estates suffer more from taxes on goods they consume than they gain from sparing landed property, for these reasons:
First, relative to their property, they consume more of the taxed products than people with large estates do.
Second, they live chiefly in towns, with their property invested in houses. The increase in poor-rates caused by taxes on consumption is far greater in proportion than the relief afforded to the land tax. In Birmingham poor-rates amount to no less than seven shillings in the pound. As already noted, the aristocracy are largely exempt from this burden.
These are only some of the evils arising from the miserable scheme of a house of peers.
As a combination, it can always shift a considerable share of its taxes elsewhere. As an hereditary house accountable to no one, it resembles a rotten borough whose agreement must be purchased through favors. Few of its members fail to receive or distribute public money in one way or another. One becomes a candle-holder or a lord in waiting; another a lord of the bedchamber, a groom of the stole, or the holder of some equally insignificant nominal post with a salary paid from public taxes, concealing the plain appearance of corruption. Such positions degrade human character; where people submit to them, honor cannot live.
Add to these the numerous dependents and the long list of younger children and distant relatives who must be provided for at public expense. In short, an estimate of the cost of aristocracy to a nation would show it almost equal to the cost of supporting the poor. The Duke of Richmond alone—and there are others like him—takes for himself enough to support two thousand poor and elderly people. Under such a government, is it surprising that taxes and rates have multiplied to their present extent?
In setting out these matters, I speak openly and without self-interest, moved by no passion except humanity. I have refused offers I thought improper and declined rewards I could honorably have accepted; naturally, meanness and fraud disgust me. Independence is my happiness. I see things as they are, regardless of office or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Speaking of the aristocratic law of primogeniture, Mr. Burke says, “it is the standing law of our landed inheritance; and which, without question, has a tendency, and I think,” he continues, “a happy tendency, to preserve a character of weight and consequence.”
Mr. Burke may call this law whatever he likes, but humanity and impartial judgment will condemn it as brutally unjust. If we were not used to seeing it practiced every day, and heard of it only as a law in a distant part of the world, we would conclude that the legislators there had not yet become civilized.
As for preserving a character of weight and consequence, the truth seems to me exactly the reverse. It stains character; it amounts to privateering against a family's property. It may give a person weight among dependent tenants, but none on a national scale, still less in the eyes of the world. For myself, my parents could not give me a shilling beyond the education they gave me, and that cost them hardship. Yet I possess more of what is called consequence in the world than anyone on Mr. Burke's list of aristocrats.
Having surveyed some defects of both houses of parliament, I turn to what is called the crown, on which I shall be brief.
It means a nominal office worth a million sterling a year, whose work consists of receiving the money. Whether its occupant is wise or foolish, sane or insane, native-born or foreign, makes no difference. Every ministry acts on the principle Mr. Burke writes by: that people must be blindfolded and kept in superstitious ignorance by one frightening phantom or another. What is called the crown serves that purpose, and therefore serves every purpose that can be expected of it. More than that cannot be said of the other two branches.
The risk this office faces in every country arises not from what may happen to its occupant but from what may happen to the nation: the danger that the nation may come to its senses.
It has been customary to call the crown the executive power. The custom persists, though the reason for it has disappeared.
It was called executive because the person it signified formerly acted as a judge, administering or executing the laws. At that time the tribunals formed part of the court. The power now called judicial, then, is the power formerly called executive. One of the two terms is therefore redundant and one of the offices useless. Today, to speak of the crown is to speak of nothing: it signifies neither judge nor general. Besides, laws govern, not a person. Old terms survive to give empty forms an appearance of importance; their only effect is to increase expense.
Before I discuss how governments can serve humanity's general happiness better than they now do, it will be useful to review the course of taxation in England.
People generally believe that once taxes are imposed, they are never removed. That may have been true recently, but it has not always been so. Either the people of former times watched their government more closely than people now do, or their government was administered less extravagantly.
Seven hundred years have now passed since the Norman conquest and the establishment of what is called the crown. Divide that time into seven periods of one hundred years, and the annual taxes at each point stand as follows:
Annual taxes levied by William the Conqueror,
beginning in the year 1066 L400,000
Annual taxes at 100 years from the conquest (1166) 200,000
Annual taxes at 200 years from the conquest (1266) 150,000
Annual taxes at 300 years from the conquest (1366) 130,000
Annual taxes at 400 years from the conquest (1466) 100,000
These figures and those that follow come from Sir John Sinclair's History of the Revenue. They show taxation falling over four hundred years, until at the end of that period it stood at a quarter of its earlier level: down from four hundred thousand pounds to one hundred thousand. Today's English people inherit stories and histories of their ancestors' courage. Whatever their virtues or faults, those ancestors certainly would not submit to being imposed upon, and kept governments in fear over taxation if not over principle. Though they could not drive out monarchical usurpation, they confined it to a republican economy in taxation.
Let us now consider the remaining three hundred years:
Annual amount of taxes at:
500 years from the conquest (1566) 500,000
600 years from the conquest (1666) 1,800,000
the present time (1791) 17,000,000
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete English text of Parts I and II with Paine’s preface, appendix and author’s notes (Conway’s edition, 1894).
Before the Hanoverians came to power, land and consumer goods bore nearly equal shares of the taxes, with land bearing a little more. Since then, nearly thirteen millions a year in new taxes have been placed on consumer goods. As a result, the poor have steadily become more numerous and more miserable, and poor-relief rates have risen. Even here, the aristocracy does not bear the same share of the burden as everyone else. Whether in town or country, their homes are away from poor people's homes. They live apart from the suffering and from the cost of relieving it. The burden falls heaviest on manufacturing towns and working villages. In many of them, one group of poor people supports another.
Several of the heaviest taxes, which bring in the most money, are designed to exempt this supposed pillar as it protects itself. The tax on beer brewed for sale does not affect aristocrats, who brew their own without paying it. Only those who lack the space or means to brew and must buy beer in small amounts pay the tax. What will people think of the fairness of taxation when they learn that this one tax, which the aristocracy escapes because of its circumstances, nearly equals the entire land tax? In 1788 it brought in L1,666,152, and it brings in no less now. Add its share of taxes on malt and hops, and it exceeds the land tax. For a tax on a single product, consumed mainly by working people, to equal the tax on all the rent collected in a nation may be unmatched in the history of public revenue.
This is one result of filling a legislative house with people who share a common financial interest. Whatever parties they belong to, on this issue they stand together. Whether a group joins forces to raise a product's price or the wage rate, or to shift its own taxes onto another part of society, the principle and effect are the same. If one practice is illegal, it is hard to see why the other should be allowed.
It does no good to say that tax measures begin in the House of Commons. The other house can always reject them, so it can always protect itself. It would be absurd to suppose its agreement was not secured beforehand. Besides, buying and selling influence over borough elections has given it so much power, and its relatives and associates are so widespread on both sides of the Commons, that it has more power there too on matters affecting its shared interests. That is in addition to its absolute power to reject measures in its own house.
It is hard to know what "the landed interest" means unless it means aristocratic landowners joining forces to put their financial interests against those of farmers and every branch of trade and manufacturing. In every other respect, the land is the one interest that needs no special protection. The whole world protects it. Everyone, whatever their standing, depends on what the earth produces. Men, women, and children of every age and position will turn out to help farmers rather than let the harvest go uncollected. They would not do this for any other kind of property. It is the only interest everyone prays for and the only one that can never fail for lack of help. It concerns not merely human policy but human existence. If it ends, humanity ends with it.
No other interest in a nation has such united support. By comparison, trade, manufacturing, the arts, the sciences, and everything else have only partial support. Their success or decline does not affect everyone in the same way. When the valleys are full of joy, farmers are not the only ones rejoicing: all living things do. This is a kind of prosperity no one envies, which cannot be said of anything else.
Why, then, does Mr. Burke call his House of Peers the pillar of the landed interest? If that pillar sank into the earth, the land would remain. People would still plow, sow, and reap. Aristocrats are not the farmers who work the land and grow its produce. They merely spend the rent. Compared with working people, they are drones: a male harem that neither gathers honey nor builds the hive, and exists only to live in idleness.
In his first essay, Mr. Burke called the aristocracy "the Corinthian capital of polished society." He has now added a pillar to complete the picture, but the base is still missing. Whenever a nation chooses to act like Samson—not blind, but brave—the temple of Dagon will fall, along with the Lords and the Philistines.
If a legislative house is to consist of one class of people to protect a separate interest, every other interest should have its own house too. Both the unfairness and the weight of taxation come from allowing this for one group but not the others. If farmers had a house, there would be no game laws. If merchants and manufacturers had a house, taxes would be neither so unfair nor so high. Taxes have grown unchecked because taxing power belongs to people who can shift so much of the burden off themselves.
People with small or moderate estates lose more from taxes on consumer goods than they gain from keeping taxes off land. There are two reasons:
First, compared with the size of their property, they consume more of the taxable goods produced than people with large estates do.
Second, they mostly live in towns and own houses. The increase in poor-relief rates caused by taxes on consumer goods is far greater than the reduction they receive in land tax. In Birmingham, the poor-relief rates are no less than seven shillings in the pound. As already noted, the aristocracy is largely exempt from this burden.
These are only some of the harms caused by the wretched system of a House of Peers.
As a group with shared interests, it can always shift a large share of taxes away from itself. As an inherited house answerable to no one, it resembles a rotten borough whose agreement must be bought with favors. Few of its members do not receive or distribute public money in some way. One becomes a candle-holder or a lord in waiting. Another becomes a lord of the bedchamber, a groom of the stole, or takes some other meaningless title with a salary paid from public taxes. Such positions hide the obvious appearance of corruption. They degrade human character. Anyone willing to accept them cannot have honor.
Add to these the many dependents, younger relatives, and distant relations who must be supported at public expense. If we estimated the cost of the aristocracy to a nation, we would find it almost equal to the cost of supporting the poor. The Duke of Richmond alone—and there are others like him—takes for himself as much as would support two thousand poor and elderly people. Is it any wonder that taxes and poor-relief rates have grown so high under this system of government?
I speak openly and without seeking personal gain. My only passion in describing these matters is concern for humanity. I have turned down offers because I thought them improper, and even refused rewards I could honorably have accepted. It is no wonder that petty self-interest and deceit disgust me. Independence makes me happy. I see things as they are, without favoring any office or person. The world is my country, and doing good is my religion.
Speaking of the aristocratic law of primogeniture, Mr. Burke says, "it is the standing law of our landed inheritance; and which, without question, has a tendency, and I think," he continues, "a happy tendency, to preserve a character of weight and consequence."
Mr. Burke can call the law whatever he likes. Anyone moved by humanity and thinking fairly will call it a law of brutal injustice. If we were not used to seeing it every day and heard of it only as a law in a distant country, we would conclude that its lawmakers had not yet become civilized.
As for preserving a person's importance and standing, I think it does the opposite. It damages character. It is a kind of private plunder of family property. It may make a person seem important to tenants who depend on him, but not to the nation, much less to the world. My own parents could give me nothing beyond my education, and providing that was a hardship for them. Yet I have more standing in the world than anyone on Mr. Burke's list of aristocrats.
Having briefly examined some faults of the two houses of Parliament, I turn to what is called the crown. I will be brief.
The crown is an office in name only, paid a million sterling a year to receive money. It makes no difference whether the person holding it is wise or foolish, mentally sound or not, born here or abroad. Every ministry follows the idea Mr. Burke writes about: people must be kept in the dark and made fearful and superstitious by some imagined threat. The crown serves that purpose, so it does everything expected of it. More than that cannot be said of the other two branches.
In any country, the danger to this office is not what may happen to its holder. It is what may happen to the nation: people might come to their senses.
People have long called the crown the executive power. They continue using that name even though the reason for it has disappeared.
It was called executive because the person it represented once acted as a judge, administering and enforcing the law. Courts of law were then part of the royal court. So the power now called judicial used to be called executive. One of those terms is therefore unnecessary, and one of the offices serves no purpose. When we speak of the crown today, it means nothing. It represents neither a judge nor a general. Besides, laws govern, not the person who holds the office. The old terms remain to make empty forms seem important. All they do is raise costs.
Before I explain how governments could serve humanity's general happiness better than they do now, it is worth looking back at the history of taxation in England.
People generally think that once a tax is imposed, it is never removed. That may have been true recently, but it was not always true. Either people in earlier times watched their government more closely, or governments spent less wastefully.
It is now seven hundred years since the Norman conquest and the establishment of what is called the crown. Divide that time into seven periods of one hundred years. The annual taxes at each period were as follows:
Annual taxes levied by William the Conqueror,
beginning in the year 1066 L400,000
Annual taxes at 100 years from the conquest (1166) 200,000
Annual taxes at 200 years from the conquest (1266) 150,000
Annual taxes at 300 years from the conquest (1366) 130,000
Annual taxes at 400 years from the conquest (1466) 100,000
These figures and the ones that follow come from Sir John Sinclair's History of the Revenue. They show that taxes kept falling for four hundred years. By the end of that period they had fallen three-fourths, from four hundred thousand pounds to one hundred thousand. People in England today have inherited an idea, supported by history, of their ancestors' bravery. Whatever their virtues and faults, those ancestors certainly would not tolerate being taken advantage of. They kept governments cautious about taxation, even if not about governing principles. They could not remove the monarchy's claim to power, but they kept its taxes down to a level fit for a republic.
Let us look at the remaining three hundred years:
Annual amount of taxes at:
500 years from the conquest (1566) 500,000
600 years from the conquest (1666) 1,800,000
the present time (1791) 17,000,000