PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 733 



But notwitlistanding the early restrictions imposed by Parlia- 

 ment on the power of the crown to appropriate the property of 

 the people for its support, arbitrary exactions in the name of 

 taxation continued to characterize the rule of all the English 

 monarch s down to the time of Charles I, when the claim of the 

 king to a divine right to take taxes from subjects, with or with- 

 out their consent, was settled by the dethronement and execution 

 of the monarch and the establishment of the Commonwealth : 

 and ever since then the grants of an annual Parliament have been 

 a prerequisite to any lawful expenditure for the maintenance of 

 the English state. 



To the necessities of the Long Parliament, during its contest 

 with the crown, and when the receipts of revenue from former 

 sources were interrupted, we owe the permanent incorporation of 

 the so-called excise taxes into the tax system of England. An- 

 other most novel contrivance of this period for the raising of 

 revenue was the so-called weekly impost of a single meal ; every 

 citizen being required to retrench one meal per week and pay an 

 amount representing the saving, in the form of money, into the 

 public treasury ; a tax that yielded in six years 608,400, or more 

 than $3,000,000 ; an aggregate that represented a far larger 

 purchasing power than the same amount would at present. 



During the nineteen years that elapsed from the beginning 

 of the English Revolution to the restoration of the monarchy 

 under Charles II, the average annual expenditures of the Com- 

 monwealth were about seven times greater than those of the 

 preceding royal Government ; and as unlawful taxation was the 

 prime cause of the establishment of the Commonwealth, so ex- 

 cessive taxation furnished the prime cause of popular rejoicing 

 when the Commonwealth was got rid of. 



A circumstance of no little importance, but which historians 

 generally have overlooked, is, that the revolt of the American 

 colonies and their separation from Great Britain, were in the first 

 instance due to an effort on the part of the landholders of Great 

 Britain to transfer from themselves to the people an ever-increas- 

 ing portion of the expenses of the Government. But such was 

 the fact. In 1767 the British Parliament, which was mainly com- 

 posed of landholders, reduced the previously existing land tax to 

 the extent of about half a million pounds per annum ; and it was 

 for the purpose of making up a resulting deficiency of receipts 

 to the British treasury, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer 

 of George III resorted to the taxation of tea, glass, and other 

 articles imported into the American colonies, as well as the re- 

 quirement for the use of stamps on the paper instrumentalities 

 used by the Americans, and the payment for which the colonists 

 resisted. 



