104] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1812. 



the metropolis or the provincial 

 post offices. He certainly regret- 

 ted the necessity of increasing this 

 tax, wliich operated as a consider- 

 able charge on commercial corre- 

 spondence , yet, when he consider- 

 ed the satisfaction and convenience 

 derived from the establishment of 

 the post-office, and the progressive 

 increaseofcoriespondence through- 

 out the country, he really believed 

 that he could suggest no duty 

 which, on the whole, would be 

 paid with less reluctance. This 

 proposed increase might be esti- 

 mated, according to the present 

 extent of correspondence, at 

 220,000/. 



All the articles which he had 

 hitherto submitted to the consider- 

 ation of the commitee, were such 

 as had been selected by his late 

 right hon. friend, and would have 

 formed part of the plan which he 

 would have proposed to parlia- 

 ment. The remainder of the 

 budget would, according to his 

 intention, have been supplied by a 

 tax on private brewing. The 

 committee would recollect that, in 

 the year 180G, when u noble lord, 

 now a member of the other house 

 (the Marquis of Lansdowne) held 

 the office which he had now the 

 honour to fill, that noble lord had 

 suggested a similar tax, which was 

 strongly opposed, principally on 

 the ground of its bringing private 

 families under the jurisdiction of 

 the excise ; an objection, the full 

 force of which he should have ad- 

 mitted, if the means had not been 

 aiForded of avoiding that jurisdic- 

 tion by an easy commutation, upon 

 the principle of the assessed taxes. 

 The plan of his late right hon. 

 friend was, indeed, free from the 

 objection which he h^d stated, as 



it had no reference to the excise, 

 but proceeded upon the principle 

 of a rate, according to the number 

 of each family ; to the proposition 

 so modified, he (the Chancellor of 

 the Exchequer) still, however, 

 thought he saw an insuperable ob- 

 jection. In the first place, he had 

 reason to believe that the produce 

 of the intended duty, taken at the 

 rate of five shillings a head, which 

 he understood to be the proposed 

 assessment, had been greatly mis- 

 calculated, and that, instead of 

 500,000/. which was the sum re- 

 quired, it would only produce 

 250,000/ or at the most 300,000/. 

 But he felt a still stronger objec- 

 tion to the tax in its unequal ope- 

 ration on the poorer classes. A 

 poor man would only brew the 

 exact quantity required for the 

 consumption of his family, calcu- 

 lated upon the most frugal rate ? 

 while a rich man would provide 

 for the entertainments of many 

 visitors, and for the much more 

 liberal consumption of his house- 

 hold. The consequence, there- 

 fore, would be, that the tax be- 

 ing taken at an equal rate upon 

 each person in the family, the 

 poor man would pay upon each 

 barrel of a much inferior liquor, a 

 higher rate of duty than the 

 rich would be charged with, for 

 the best which could be pre- 

 pared. 



Upon the whole therefore, he 

 had judged it advisable to abandon 

 this tax, and to propose a moderate 

 addition on the scale of several of 

 the assessed taxes. He knew 

 that a proposition for the increase 

 of the assessed taxes could not fail 

 to excite some alarm ; but that 

 branch of the revenue compre- 

 hended duties of very different 



kinds. 



M 



