Thomas Paine · Complete work
Part II: Chapter V, 6
Part II: Chapter V, 6 of 41. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
Open the complete readerOriginal 18th-century English
Cases are continually occurring in a metropolis, different from those which occur in the country, and for which a different, or rather an additional, mode of relief is necessary. In the country, even in large towns, people have a knowledge of each other, and distress never rises to that extreme height it sometimes does in a metropolis. There is no such thing in the country as persons, in the literal sense of the word, starved to death, or dying with cold from the want of a lodging. Yet such cases, and others equally as miserable, happen in London.
Many a youth comes up to London full of expectations, and with little or no money, and unless he get immediate employment he is already half undone; and boys bred up in London without any means of a livelihood, and as it often happens of dissolute parents, are in a still worse condition; and servants long out of place are not much better off. In short, a world of little cases is continually arising, which busy or affluent life knows not of, to open the first door to distress. Hunger is not among the postponable wants, and a day, even a few hours, in such a condition is often the crisis of a life of ruin.
These circumstances which are the general cause of the little thefts and pilferings that lead to greater, may be prevented. There yet remain twenty thousand pounds out of the four millions of surplus taxes, which with another fund hereafter to be mentioned, amounting to about twenty thousand pounds more, cannot be better applied than to this purpose. The plan will then be:
First, To erect two or more buildings, or take some already erected, capable of containing at least six thousand persons, and to have in each of these places as many kinds of employment as can be contrived, so that every person who shall come may find something which he or she can do.
Secondly, To receive all who shall come, without enquiring who or what they are. The only condition to be, that for so much, or so many hours' work, each person shall receive so many meals of wholesome food, and a warm lodging, at least as good as a barrack. That a certain portion of what each person's work shall be worth shall be reserved, and given to him or her, on their going away; and that each person shall stay as long or as short a time, or come as often as he choose, on these conditions.
If each person stayed three months, it would assist by rotation twenty-four thousand persons annually, though the real number, at all times, would be but six thousand. By establishing an asylum of this kind, such persons to whom temporary distresses occur, would have an opportunity to recruit themselves, and be enabled to look out for better employment.
Allowing that their labour paid but one half the expense of supporting them, after reserving a portion of their earnings for themselves, the sum of forty thousand pounds additional would defray all other charges for even a greater number than six thousand.
The fund very properly convertible to this purpose, in addition to the twenty thousand pounds, remaining of the former fund, will be the produce of the tax upon coals, so iniquitously and wantonly applied to the support of the Duke of Richmond. It is horrid that any man, more especially at the price coals now are, should live on the distresses of a community; and any government permitting such an abuse, deserves to be dismissed. This fund is said to be about twenty thousand pounds per annum.
I shall now conclude this plan with enumerating the several particulars, and then proceed to other matters.
The enumeration is as follows:—
First, Abolition of two millions poor-rates.
Secondly, Provision for two hundred and fifty thousand poor families.
Thirdly, Education for one million and thirty thousand children.
Fourthly, Comfortable provision for one hundred and forty thousand aged persons.
Fifthly, Donation of twenty shillings each for fifty thousand births.
Sixthly, Donation of twenty shillings each for twenty thousand marriages.
Seventhly, Allowance of twenty thousand pounds for the funeral expenses of persons travelling for work, and dying at a distance from their friends.
Eighthly, Employment, at all times, for the casual poor in the cities of London and Westminster.
By the operation of this plan, the poor laws, those instruments of civil torture, will be superseded, and the wasteful expense of litigation prevented. The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by ragged and hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of age, begging for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to place to breathe their last, as a reprisal of parish upon parish. Widows will have a maintenance for their children, and not be carted away, on the death of their husbands, like culprits and criminals; and children will no longer be considered as increasing the distresses of their parents. The haunts of the wretched will be known, because it will be to their advantage; and the number of petty crimes, the offspring of distress and poverty, will be lessened. The poor, as well as the rich, will then be interested in the support of government, and the cause and apprehension of riots and tumults will cease.—Ye who sit in ease, and solace yourselves in plenty, and such there are in Turkey and Russia, as well as in England, and who say to yourselves, "Are we not well off?" have ye thought of these things? When ye do, ye will cease to speak and feel for yourselves alone.
The plan is easy in practice. It does not embarrass trade by a sudden interruption in the order of taxes, but effects the relief by changing the application of them; and the money necessary for the purpose can be drawn from the excise collections, which are made eight times a year in every market town in England.
Having now arranged and concluded this subject, I proceed to the next.
Taking the present current expenses at seven millions and an half, which is the least amount they are now at, there will remain (after the sum of one million and an half be taken for the new current expenses and four millions for the before-mentioned service) the sum of two millions; part of which to be applied as follows:
Though fleets and armies, by an alliance with France, will, in a great measure, become useless, yet the persons who have devoted themselves to those services, and have thereby unfitted themselves for other lines of life, are not to be sufferers by the means that make others happy. They are a different description of men from those who form or hang about a court.
A part of the army will remain, at least for some years, and also of the navy, for which a provision is already made in the former part of this plan of one million, which is almost half a million more than the peace establishment of the army and navy in the prodigal times of Charles the Second.
Suppose, then, fifteen thousand soldiers to be disbanded, and that an allowance be made to each of three shillings a week during life, clear of all deductions, to be paid in the same manner as the Chelsea College pensioners are paid, and for them to return to their trades and their friends; and also that an addition of fifteen thousand sixpences per week be made to the pay of the soldiers who shall remain; the annual expenses will be:
To the pay of fifteen thousand disbanded soldiers
at three shillings per week L117,000
Additional pay to the remaining soldiers 19,500
Suppose that the pay to the officers of the
disbanded corps be the same amount as sum allowed
to the men 117,000
———— L253,500
To prevent bulky estimations, admit the same sum
to the disbanded navy as to the army,
and the same increase of pay 253,500
————
Total L507,000
Every year some part of this sum of half a million (I omit the odd seven thousand pounds for the purpose of keeping the account unembarrassed) will fall in, and the whole of it in time, as it is on the ground of life annuities, except the increased pay of twenty-nine thousand pounds. As it falls in, part of the taxes may be taken off; and as, for instance, when thirty thousand pounds fall in, the duty on hops may be wholly taken off; and as other parts fall in, the duties on candles and soap may be lessened, till at last they will totally cease. There now remains at least one million and a half of surplus taxes.
The tax on houses and windows is one of those direct taxes, which, like the poor-rates, is not confounded with trade; and, when taken off, the relief will be instantly felt. This tax falls heavy on the middle class of people. The amount of this tax, by the returns of 1788, was:
Houses and windows: L s. d.
By the act of 1766 385,459 11 7
By the act be 1779 130,739 14 5 1/2
———————————
Total 516,199 6 0 1/2
If this tax be struck off, there will then remain about one million of surplus taxes; and as it is always proper to keep a sum in reserve, for incidental matters, it may be best not to extend reductions further in the first instance, but to consider what may be accomplished by other modes of reform.
Among the taxes most heavily felt is the commutation tax. I shall therefore offer a plan for its abolition, by substituting another in its place, which will effect three objects at once: 1, that of removing the burthen to where it can best be borne; 2, restoring justice among families by a distribution of property; 3, extirpating the overgrown influence arising from the unnatural law of primogeniture, which is one of the principal sources of corruption at elections. The amount of commutation tax by the returns of 1788, was L771,657.
When taxes are proposed, the country is amused by the plausible language of taxing luxuries. One thing is called a luxury at one time, and something else at another; but the real luxury does not consist in the article, but in the means of procuring it, and this is always kept out of sight.
I know not why any plant or herb of the field should be a greater luxury in one country than another; but an overgrown estate in either is a luxury at all times, and, as such, is the proper object of taxation. It is, therefore, right to take those kind tax-making gentlemen up on their own word, and argue on the principle themselves have laid down, that of taxing luxuries. If they or their champion, Mr. Burke, who, I fear, is growing out of date, like the man in armour, can prove that an estate of twenty, thirty, or forty thousand pounds a year is not a luxury, I will give up the argument.
Admitting that any annual sum, say, for instance, one thousand pounds, is necessary or sufficient for the support of a family, consequently the second thousand is of the nature of a luxury, the third still more so, and by proceeding on, we shall at last arrive at a sum that may not improperly be called a prohibitable luxury. It would be impolitic to set bounds to property acquired by industry, and therefore it is right to place the prohibition beyond the probable acquisition to which industry can extend; but there ought to be a limit to property or the accumulation of it by bequest. It should pass in some other line. The richest in every nation have poor relations, and those often very near in consanguinity.
The following table of progressive taxation is constructed on the above principles, and as a substitute for the commutation tax. It will reach the point of prohibition by a regular operation, and thereby supersede the aristocratical law of primogeniture.
TABLE I
A tax on all estates of the clear yearly value of L50,
after deducting the land tax, and up
To L500 0s 3d per pound
From L500 to L1,000 0 6
On the second thousand 0 9
On the third " 1 0
On the fourth " 1 6
On the fifth " 2 0
On the sixth " 3 0
On the seventh " 4 0
On the eighth " 5 0
On the ninth " 6s 0d per pound
On the tenth " 7 0
On the eleventh " 8 0
On the twelfth " 9 0
On the thirteenth " 10 0
On the fourteenth " 11 0
On the fifteenth " 12 0
On the sixteenth " 13 0
On the seventeenth " 14 0
On the eighteenth " 15 0
On the nineteenth " 16 0
On the twentieth " 17 0
On the twenty-first " 18 0
On the twenty-second " 19 0
On the twenty-third " 20 0
The foregoing table shows the progression per pound on every progressive thousand. The following table shows the amount of the tax on every thousand separately, and in the last column the total amount of all the separate sums collected.
TABLE II
An estate of:
L 50 per annum at 3d per pound pays L0 12 6
100 " " " " 1 5 0
200 " " " " 2 10 0
300 " " " " 3 15 0
400 " " " " 5 0 0
500 " " " " 7 5 0
After L500, the tax of 6d. per pound takes place on the second L500; consequently an estate of L1,000 per annum pays L2l, 15s., and so on.
Total amount
For the 1st L500 at 0s 3d per pound L7 5s
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.
In a metropolis, cases constantly arise that differ from those in the countryside and call for a different—or rather, an additional—form of relief. In the country, even in large towns, people know one another, and hardship never reaches the extreme it sometimes does in a metropolis. In the country no one literally starves to death or dies of cold for want of lodging. Yet this happens in London, along with other suffering just as severe.
Many a young person comes to London full of hope and with little or no money; unless he finds work at once, he is already halfway to ruin. Boys raised in London without any means of livelihood, often by dissolute parents, are in still worse circumstances; and servants long out of work fare little better. In short, a whole world of small misfortunes, unknown to the busy or prosperous, constantly arises to open the first door to distress. Hunger cannot be put off. A day, even a few hours, in such a condition can become the turning point toward a ruined life.
These circumstances, the common cause of petty thefts and pilfering that lead to greater crimes, can be prevented. Twenty thousand pounds remains from the four millions of surplus taxes. Joined to another fund, to be described later, of about twenty thousand pounds more, it could not be better spent. The plan is this:
First, build two or more houses, or take over existing buildings, with room for at least six thousand people. Provide as many kinds of employment as can be devised in each, so that everyone who comes can find something he or she is able to do.
Second, admit all who come, without asking who or what they are. The sole condition will be that for a given amount of work, or number of hours, each person receives a given number of wholesome meals and warm lodging at least as good as a barracks. Reserve a certain share of the value of each person's work and give it to that person on departure. Each may stay for as long or short a time as desired, and return as often as desired, on these terms.
If each stayed three months, the system would help twenty-four thousand people a year in rotation, though only six thousand would be there at any time. Such a refuge would let those in temporary distress regain their strength and look for better work.
Even if their labor covered only half the expense of their support, after setting aside a share of their earnings for them, an additional forty thousand pounds would cover all other costs for more than six thousand people.
The fund properly available for this purpose, in addition to the remaining twenty thousand pounds from the former fund, is the yield of the tax on coal, so unjustly and wantonly applied to support the Duke of Richmond. It is appalling that anyone should live on the hardships of a community, especially when coal costs what it does now; any government that permits such an abuse deserves to be dismissed. The fund is said to yield about twenty thousand pounds a year.
I shall close this plan by listing its separate provisions, and then turn to other matters.
The provisions are these:
First, abolish two millions in poor rates.
Second, provide for two hundred and fifty thousand poor families.
Third, provide education for one million and thirty thousand children.
Fourth, provide a comfortable living for one hundred and forty thousand elderly people.
Fifth, grant twenty shillings each for fifty thousand births.
Sixth, grant twenty shillings each for twenty thousand marriages.
Seventh, allow twenty thousand pounds for the funerals of people who travel for work and die far from their friends.
Eighth, provide employment at all times for people in temporary poverty in the cities of London and Westminster.
Under this plan the poor laws, those instruments of civil torture, will be replaced, and wasteful litigation prevented. Humane hearts will no longer be wounded by the sight of ragged, hungry children and people seventy and eighty years old begging for bread. Dying poor people will no longer be dragged from parish to parish to breathe their last, as one parish exacts a reprisal against another. Widows will have the means to support their children instead of being carted away like criminals when their husbands die; children will no longer be regarded as adding to their parents' distress. The places where the unfortunate live will become known, because revealing them will serve their interests, and petty crimes born of poverty and distress will diminish. The poor, like the rich, will then have a stake in supporting government, and both the cause and the fear of riots and unrest will cease.—You who live in comfort and enjoy abundance—there are such people in Turkey and Russia as well as England—and ask yourselves, "Are we not well off?" Have you thought about these things? When you do, you will cease to speak and feel for yourselves alone.
The plan is easy to put into practice. It will not disrupt trade by abruptly changing the tax system, but will bring relief by changing how taxes are spent. The necessary money can be taken from excise collections, made eight times a year in every market town in England.
Having settled and concluded this subject, I turn to the next.
Take current expenses at seven and a half millions, the lowest they can now be reckoned. After setting aside one and a half millions for the new current expenses and four millions for the purposes just described, two millions will remain, part to be applied as follows:
Though an alliance with France will make fleets and armies largely unnecessary, the people who have devoted themselves to these services, and thereby become unsuited to other occupations, must not suffer through the very measures that make others happy. They are not the sort of people who form or haunt a court.
Part of the army, and also the navy, will remain at least for some years. One million has already been provided for them in the earlier part of this plan, almost half a million more than the peacetime establishment of the army and navy in the prodigal reign of Charles the Second.
Suppose, then, fifteen thousand soldiers are discharged and each is given three shillings a week for life, without deductions, paid in the same manner as pensions to Chelsea College pensioners, so that they can return to their trades and friends. Suppose, too, that the pay of the soldiers who remain is increased by fifteen thousand sixpences a week. The annual cost will be:
Pay for fifteen thousand discharged soldiers at three shillings a week L117,000
Additional pay for the remaining soldiers 19,500
Assume that pay for officers of the disbanded units equals the sum allowed the men 117,000
L253,500
To avoid cumbersome estimates, allow the same sum for the disbanded navy as for the army, including the same pay increase 253,500
Total L507,000
Every year some part of this half million—I omit the additional seven thousand pounds to keep the account simple—will become available, and in time all of it will, since it is based on lifetime pensions, except for the increased pay of twenty-nine thousand pounds. As it becomes available, taxes can be removed: when thirty thousand pounds is freed, for example, the duty on hops can be abolished entirely; as further sums become available, duties on candles and soap can be reduced until they too disappear. At least one and a half millions in surplus taxes still remains.
The tax on houses and windows is a direct tax like the poor rates, not entangled with trade; its removal will be felt immediately. It weighs heavily on the middle class. According to the returns of 1788, it yielded:
Houses and windows: L s. d.
By the act of 1766 385,459 11 7
By the act be 1779 130,739 14 5 1/2
Total 516,199 6 0 1/2
If this tax is abolished, about one million in surplus taxes will remain. Since it is always wise to retain a reserve for unforeseen needs, it may be best not to make further reductions at first, but instead to consider what other reforms can accomplish.
Among the taxes felt most heavily is the commutation tax. I therefore propose abolishing it and replacing it with another that will serve three purposes at once: 1, placing the burden where it can best be borne; 2, restoring justice within families through the distribution of property; 3, rooting out the overgrown influence produced by the unnatural law of primogeniture, one of the chief sources of corruption in elections. According to the returns of 1788, the commutation tax amounted to L771,657.
When taxes are proposed, the country is entertained with plausible talk of taxing luxuries. One thing is called a luxury at one time, another at another. But the true luxury is not the thing itself; it is the means of buying it, and those means are always kept out of sight.
I do not know why a plant or herb from the field should be more of a luxury in one country than in another. An enormous estate, however, is a luxury in either country at all times, and is therefore a proper object of taxation. We should take those gentlemen who devise taxes at their word, and argue from their own principle of taxing luxuries. If they, or their champion Mr. Burke—who, I fear, is going out of fashion like the man in armor—can prove that an estate yielding twenty, thirty, or forty thousand pounds a year is not a luxury, I shall abandon the argument.
Suppose an annual sum—one thousand pounds, say—is necessary or sufficient to support a family. The second thousand is therefore a luxury, the third still more so; and as we proceed, we eventually reach an amount that may reasonably be called a luxury to be prohibited. It would be unwise to limit property earned by industry, so the prohibition should be set beyond what industry can probably acquire. But property acquired or accumulated through bequests ought to have a limit: it should pass to another branch of the family. The richest people in every nation have poor relatives, often very close ones.
The following progressive tax table is based on these principles and is intended to replace the commutation tax. Its regular progression will reach the point of prohibition and thereby supersede the aristocratic law of primogeniture.
TABLE I
A tax on all estates with a clear yearly value of L50, after deduction of the land tax, up to the following amounts:
To L500 0s 3d per pound
From L500 to L1,000 0 6
On the second thousand 0 9
On the third thousand 1 0
On the fourth thousand 1 6
On the fifth thousand 2 0
On the sixth thousand 3 0
On the seventh thousand 4 0
On the eighth thousand 5 0
On the ninth thousand 6s 0d per pound
On the tenth thousand 7 0
On the eleventh thousand 8 0
On the twelfth thousand 9 0
On the thirteenth thousand 10 0
On the fourteenth thousand 11 0
On the fifteenth thousand 12 0
On the sixteenth thousand 13 0
On the seventeenth thousand 14 0
On the eighteenth thousand 15 0
On the nineteenth thousand 16 0
On the twentieth thousand 17 0
On the twenty-first thousand 18 0
On the twenty-second thousand 19 0
On the twenty-third thousand 20 0
The foregoing table gives the progressive rate per pound on each successive thousand. The next table gives the tax on each amount separately, and its last column shows the combined total of those separate amounts.
TABLE II
An estate of:
L 50 per annum at 3d per pound pays L0 12 6
100 per annum at 3d per pound pays 1 5 0
200 per annum at 3d per pound pays 2 10 0
300 per annum at 3d per pound pays 3 15 0
400 per annum at 3d per pound pays 5 0 0
500 per annum at 3d per pound pays 7 5 0
After L500, the rate of 6d. per pound applies to the second L500. Thus an estate yielding L1,000 a year pays L2l, 15s., and so on.
Total amount
For the 1st L500 at 0s 3d per pound L7 5s
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).
Cities constantly face problems that differ from those in the countryside. They need a different, or rather an additional, way to help people. In the countryside, even in large towns, people know one another. Hardship never reaches the extremes it sometimes reaches in a city. In the countryside, people do not literally starve to death or die of cold because they have nowhere to sleep. Yet this and other equally miserable things happen in London.
Many young people arrive in London with high hopes and little or no money. Unless they find work at once, they are already halfway to ruin. Boys raised in London with no way to earn a living, often by irresponsible parents, are in an even worse position. Servants who have been out of work for a long time are hardly better off. In short, small problems constantly arise that busy or wealthy people know nothing about. They open the first door to hardship. Hunger cannot be put off. A day, or even a few hours, in such a state can be the turning point toward a ruined life.
These circumstances often cause the small thefts that lead to greater crimes, and they can be prevented. Twenty thousand pounds of the four million in surplus taxes still remains. Together with another fund of about twenty thousand pounds, which I will describe later, it could not be put to better use. Here is the plan:
First, build two or more facilities, or use buildings already standing, with room for at least six thousand people. Provide as many kinds of work as possible in each, so that everyone who arrives can find something he or she can do.
Second, accept everyone who comes, without asking who they are or what they do. The only condition would be this: for a set amount of work or a set number of hours, each person gets a set number of wholesome meals and a warm place to sleep, at least as good as a barracks. Keep aside a portion of the value of each person's work and give it to that person when he or she leaves. On these terms, people may stay as long or as briefly as they wish and return as often as they wish.
If everyone stayed three months, the facilities would help twenty-four thousand people in a year, though only six thousand would be there at any one time. A refuge like this would give people facing temporary hardship a chance to recover and find better work.
Suppose their work paid for only half their support, even after part of their earnings had been set aside for them. An additional forty thousand pounds would still cover all the other costs for more than six thousand people.
A suitable fund for this purpose, besides the remaining twenty thousand pounds, is the revenue from the coal tax. That tax is outrageously and recklessly used to support the Duke of Richmond. With coal at its current price especially, it is appalling that anyone should live off a community's suffering. Any government that allows such an abuse deserves to be removed. This fund is said to bring in about twenty thousand pounds a year.
I will finish this plan by listing its parts, then move on to other matters.
Here is the list:
First, abolish two million pounds in poor-rates.
Second, provide for two hundred and fifty thousand poor families.
Third, educate one million and thirty thousand children.
Fourth, provide a comfortable living for one hundred and forty thousand older people.
Fifth, give twenty shillings each for fifty thousand births.
Sixth, give twenty shillings each for twenty thousand marriages.
Seventh, set aside twenty thousand pounds for the funeral expenses of people who travel for work and die far from their friends.
Eighth, provide work at all times for people who fall into poverty in the cities of London and Westminster.
Under this plan, the poor laws—tools of public cruelty—would be replaced, and the waste of money on lawsuits would stop. Compassionate people would no longer have to see ragged, hungry children or people aged seventy and eighty begging for bread. Poor people near death would no longer be dragged from one parish to another to spend their last moments there, as each parish sought to make another bear the cost. Widows would have money to support their children instead of being carted away like criminals when their husbands died. Children would no longer be seen as adding to their parents' hardship. We would know where people in desperate circumstances live, because it would be in their interest to make themselves known. Minor crimes born of hardship and poverty would decrease. Poor people, like rich people, would then have a stake in supporting the government. The reasons for riots and unrest, and the fear of them, would end. You who live comfortably and enjoy plenty—and there are such people in Turkey and Russia as well as England—and say to yourselves, "Aren't we well off?" have you thought about these things? When you do, you will stop thinking and speaking only for yourselves.
The plan is easy to carry out. It does not disrupt trade by suddenly changing the tax system. It brings relief by changing how the taxes are spent. The necessary money can come from excise taxes, which are collected eight times a year in every market town in England.
I have now set out and finished this subject. I turn to the next.
Suppose current annual expenses are seven and a half million pounds, the lowest estimate of what they now cost. After allowing one and a half million for the new current expenses and four million for the measures just described, two million remains. Part of it should be used as follows:
An alliance with France would make fleets and armies largely unnecessary. But the people who have devoted their lives to those services, and so have become unprepared for other work, must not suffer because of changes that benefit others. They are not like the people who make up a royal court or hang around one.
Part of the army and navy will remain, at least for some years. The earlier part of this plan already sets aside one million pounds for them. That is almost half a million more than the peacetime cost of the army and navy in the wasteful days of Charles the Second.
Suppose fifteen thousand soldiers are discharged. Give each a lifetime allowance of three shillings a week, with no deductions, paid as the Chelsea College pensioners are paid. Let them return to their trades and friends. Also increase the pay of the remaining soldiers by fifteen thousand sixpences a week. The yearly expenses would be:
Pay for fifteen thousand discharged soldiers
at three shillings a week L117,000
Additional pay for the remaining soldiers 19,500
Suppose the pay for officers of the
discharged units equals the amount given
to the men 117,000
———— L253,500
To avoid a long calculation, allow the discharged
navy the same sum as the army,
and the same increase in pay 253,500
————
Total L507,000
Some of this half million pounds will become available every year as recipients die. I leave out the extra seven thousand pounds to keep the calculation simple. Eventually all of it will become available except the twenty-nine thousand pounds in increased pay. As money becomes available, taxes can be removed. For example, when thirty thousand pounds becomes available, the tax on hops could be removed completely. As more becomes available, the taxes on candles and soap could be reduced until they disappear altogether. At least one and a half million pounds in surplus taxes remains.
The tax on houses and windows is a direct tax. Like the poor-rates, it is separate from trade. Remove it, and people will feel the benefit at once. This tax falls heavily on the middle class. According to the returns for 1788, the amount was:
Houses and windows: L s. d.
Under the act of 1766 385,459 11 7
Under the act of 1779 130,739 14 5 1/2
———————————
Total 516,199 6 0 1/2
Removing this tax would leave about one million pounds in surplus taxes. It is always wise to keep some money in reserve for unexpected needs. So it may be best not to cut taxes further at first, but to consider what other reforms can achieve.
One of the taxes people feel most heavily is the commutation tax. I propose abolishing it and replacing it with another tax that would do three things at once: 1, shift the burden to people best able to bear it; 2, bring fairness to families by distributing property; 3, end the excessive influence created by the unnatural law of primogeniture, a major source of corruption in elections. According to the returns for 1788, the commutation tax brought in L771,657.
When taxes are proposed, the country is entertained with attractive talk about taxing luxuries. One thing is called a luxury today and something else tomorrow. But what makes something a luxury is not the thing itself. It is the wealth that lets someone buy it, and that is always left out of the discussion.
I do not see why a plant or herb growing in a field should be more of a luxury in one country than another. But an enormous estate is a luxury in any country, at any time, and is therefore a proper thing to tax. We should take those gentlemen who devise taxes at their word and argue from their own principle of taxing luxuries. If they, or their defender Mr. Burke—who I fear is going out of fashion like the man in armor—can prove that an estate bringing in twenty, thirty, or forty thousand pounds a year is not a luxury, I will drop my argument.
Suppose one thousand pounds a year is necessary or sufficient to support a family. The second thousand is therefore a luxury, the third more so. Continuing this way, we eventually reach an amount that could fairly be called a luxury that ought to be prohibited. It would be unwise to limit property earned through work, so the point at which a prohibition begins should be above what anyone is likely to earn that way. But there should be a limit on property accumulated or passed down by inheritance. It should go to other relatives instead. The richest people in every nation have poor relatives, often close ones.
The following table sets out progressively higher taxes on these principles, as a replacement for the commutation tax. Through its gradual increase, the tax will eventually make very large estates impossible and replace the aristocratic law of primogeniture.
TABLE I
A tax on every estate with a net yearly value of L50,
after subtracting land tax, and up
To L500 0s 3d per pound
From L500 to L1,000 0 6
On the second thousand 0 9
On the third " 1 0
On the fourth " 1 6
On the fifth " 2 0
On the sixth " 3 0
On the seventh " 4 0
On the eighth " 5 0
On the ninth " 6s 0d per pound
On the tenth " 7 0
On the eleventh " 8 0
On the twelfth " 9 0
On the thirteenth " 10 0
On the fourteenth " 11 0
On the fifteenth " 12 0
On the sixteenth " 13 0
On the seventeenth " 14 0
On the eighteenth " 15 0
On the nineteenth " 16 0
On the twentieth " 17 0
On the twenty-first " 18 0
On the twenty-second " 19 0
On the twenty-third " 20 0
The table above gives the tax rate per pound for each successive thousand pounds. The next table gives the tax on each amount separately. Its last column gives the combined total of those separate amounts.
TABLE II
An estate of:
L 50 per year at 3d per pound pays L0 12 6
100 " " " " 1 5 0
200 " " " " 2 10 0
300 " " " " 3 15 0
400 " " " " 5 0 0
500 " " " " 7 5 0
After L500, a tax of 6d. per pound applies to the second L500. An estate earning L1,000 a year therefore pays L2l, 15s., and so on.
Total amount
For the 1st L500 at 0s 3d per pound L7 5s