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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



town. Clergymen have left their sacred duties, to bear 

 witness to their distress, and join tliem in their 

 prayers — their entreaties — their supplications for a 

 short postponement. Members of Parliament of all 

 politics have waited in the same room for the same 

 cause. But, no ! the Minister is inexorable — "Pay," 

 " Pay," " Pay." Men grown grey in improving their 

 land — young couples just settled, as they fondly 

 imagined, for life — large farmers, little farmers — all 

 are involved in one common ruin from one common 

 cause. Because, forsooth! William Ewart Glad- 

 stone imagines he can extract "blood from flint 

 stones." 



Their very virtues are used as arguments against 

 them. " You paid before, when we granted you time; 

 you found means to do so then, and no doubt you can 

 do so now." Because you kept your word before — 

 because you were ever honest to the very farthing 

 before, we will not give you credit now ! What a 

 conclusion ! What a sequitur ! In these days of 

 Robsons and Redpaths — of Pauls and Pullingers — of 

 Burdens and Davidsons in commercial life, to doom 

 to ruin the unfortunate planters of Kent and Sussex, 

 whose probity and perseverance are everywhere ac- 

 knowlidged, is to revolutionize all the principles 

 upon which the English character has been hitherto 

 constituted. 



And the tax itself — what a tax! There is, or ought 

 to be, a philosophy of taxation. Taxes impede, and 

 no tax therefore should be imposed which is an im- 

 pediment to that which is good. Impede evil as much 

 as you like, and get from such impediment as much as 

 you can. For instance, tax and therefore impede 

 gaming-houses; but to tax hops is to promote gam- 

 bling. Tax and impede the growth of noxious weeds 

 that exhaust the soil, as well as the health of those who 

 use them ; but hop land is the very perfection of cul- 

 tivated soil, and produces a bitter that is most bene- 

 ficial to the human constitution. Moreover, it is a 

 raw material, and one of the constituents of the liquid 

 food of the country. What say Adam Smith and 

 Sir Robert Peel as to the impolicy of taxing and 

 impeding the production of raw material ? Yet William 

 Ewart Gladstone, who professes to be a disciple of 

 both — a free-trader par excellence— not only taxes 

 this raw material, but dooms to certain and swift 

 destruction those who produce it ! 



Another element of taxation is, that it should not be 

 subjected to great and frequent fluctuation. If a Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer cannot tell whether he will 

 get from any particular tax a million, or a quarter 

 of a million, or the tenth part of a million, or even 

 less than that, how can he properly shape his " Ways 

 and Means" to his " Estimates" ? The hop duty has 

 varied, during the last six years only, from £700,000 

 per annum to £70,000 per annum ! Can this great 

 trading and commercial country suffer, or run the risk 

 of, blundering Budgets every year ? Yet where is the 

 financier who can calculate upon the returns of the 

 hop duty ? and if he cannot, how can he help blun- 

 dering, or leaving to chance, or rather unseen Pro- 

 vidence, that which ought to be as nearly as possible 

 certain, definite, and equably productive ? 



Another element of taxation is, that it should not 

 prevent the employment of labour; as the labourer, if 

 not emplo\ ed, must be fed by another and larger tax 

 on the community. Now, the hop planter has to spend 

 £80 per acre, and often more, in draining, planting, 

 poles, along with rent, tithes, taxes, &c. ; and it 

 is two or three years before he gets any adequate 

 return. The manual labour alone, of plantations in 

 fall operation^ creates au expenditure of about £U per 



acre, besides the hop -picking, when hundreds of 

 thousands of women and children are employed, who 

 might otherwise be in the union workhouses, creating 

 an additional taxation, from which the revenue of the 

 State receives not one farthing. 



Again, it is an important element that a tax should 

 never do any farther injury to the tax-payer than in 

 merely depriving him of the money which the State 

 requires. Now, the duty on hops does incalculably 

 more injury than this — it stops any improvement the 

 hop-planter may be disposed to make, by vexatious 

 restrictions upon his time and convenience. When he 

 is disposed to commence his picking and to use his 

 buildings, he must give 24 hours' notice of his inten- 

 tion to the " hop assistant." He must give a like 

 notice of 24 hours when he intends to "bag" his pro- 

 duce ; and should the exciseman at any time see his 

 " frame" without a bag in it, he can compel a renewed 

 notice, and the "bagging" must stand still till that 

 notice be expired. He cannot take his fruit from one 

 of his farms to another of them for the purpose of curing, 

 without another vexatious notice. When he wishes to 

 weigh his hops he must give notice to the "hop 

 assistant;" and then, when they are weighed, they must 

 remain a certain period until a superior officer arrives, 

 who can, and often does, demand that they shall be 

 weighed over again. These impediments create delay, 

 and delays are proverbially dangerous to the irritated 

 and worried planter when he finds he is too late for 

 market. In addition to these obstructions and injuries 

 the Sussex planter has a special and particular cause 

 of complaint as well as the community at large. 

 Positive fraud is promoted by the annoying accessories 

 to the hop-tax. The name of the county is required to 

 be placed on each " pocket" of hops before it is de- 

 livered to the factor ; and as some brands are con- 

 sidered more valuable, or at all events more popular 

 than others, many of the Sussex brands are picked 

 out by the merchants, and Kent substituted. The 

 hop-planter gets a smaller, and the hop-merchants a 

 larger price than that to which they are severally en- 

 titled — the buyer is swindled, the grower defrauded, 

 while the Government extracts from the low-priced 

 and low-charactered hops just the same duty they im- 

 pose upon the high. Thus, taking the average price 

 from 1855 to 1859 of the low-charactered brands at 50s. 

 the cwt., and the highest-charactered brands at 100s. 

 the cwt., the poor Sussex planter is twice taxed — on 

 the one side in the full amount of the duty, and on the 

 other in getting a much smaller price for his produce. 

 Is this just? Is it wise? Can it be expected to bo 

 much longer submitted to ? 



Another important element of taxation is that it 

 should never place our own countrymen in a worse 

 position than their foreign rivals. The men of Kent, 

 with " Invicta" on their glorious banner, need not and 

 do not fear any rivalry. All they ask is " a fair field 

 and no favour." Can they have, with their brother 

 hop-planters', such " fair field and no favour" ? They 

 cannot while this tax lasts. It stops all improvement, 

 while the Belgians and Bavarians have no such im- 

 pediments to any improvement they may devise or 

 desire. They can dry their hops on the poles, or in 

 large rooms; they can employ the mighty agency of 

 steam ; they can, and they do, tax our hops, as by a 

 recent Bavarian law very emphatically appears. And 

 yet this tax on our own producers, and on our own pro- 

 ductions, continues to disgrace the legislation of Eng- 

 land alone, of all the nations of the earth ! 



Nor is this all. There is a fixed and definite day 

 named for the payment of the hop duties, and there are 

 always plenty of persons ready to take advantage of the 



