184 History of the English Landed Interest. 



owner of the funded or landed property on his permanent 

 income, — obviously the conditions of equality were far from 

 being established. But the tax, certainly at this time, was not 

 considered permanent, for it was suggested for only two years, 

 and actually repealed when the Peace of Amiens put an end 

 to its necessity. Even under these conditions statesmen re- 

 fused to face the complications in which the differentiation 

 of the rate of interest between permanent and temporary 

 incomes would have involved them. It is imperative on every 

 finance minister to keep the tax as far as possible from being 

 levied on capital, whether circulating or fixed, as, in either 

 case, it would, to a certain extent, damage the interests of 

 labour. The possibility of confusing the two terms, " capital" 

 and " income," weighed heavily on the minds of Pitt and his 

 colleagues. " Income as income," said Lord Auckland,^ " can- 

 not be distinguished and brought into a scale of taxation, 

 whatever may be the nature and value of the fund from 

 which it is derived. The moment that income is rated by its 

 value in the market, it ceases to have the properties of income 

 and becomes capital." A tax on capital was unattainable, for 

 no man could value the different estates of the owners and 

 occupiers of land, with all the modifications, conditions, settle- 

 ments, remainders, and reversions to which real property is 

 liable. Worse difficulties still would have been encountered 

 in attempts to value the fortunes of artists, merchants, and 

 professional men. 



Rightly, therefore, Lord Auckland's fear of causing a con- 

 fusion in the public mind between capital and income has 

 never been banished from the financier's thoughts. Not even 

 the justice of rating incomes derivable from man's individual 

 industry lower than those derivable from "the unearned in- 

 crement" can induce our Treasury to venture on a step which 

 would menace the interests of capital. Try how they would, 

 statesmen could never shape this impost to the conditions de- 

 manded by Smith's canons. How, for instance, could it have 

 been adjusted according to the means of the individual ? Does 



* Vide, his speech, in the House of Peers, Jan. 8th, 1799. 



