1 62 History of the English Landed Interest. 



to be paying Ws. for taxes out of every 20.§. gained by their 

 industry or labour. 



In 1756, a statistician made out an estimate, showing the 

 liability of each class on this head, from which the following 

 table is derived.^ 



Total Taxes. Rute in the &. 



A nobleman or gentleman £' s. d. s. d. 



possessing an estate of £20,000 a year in land paid 6.378 18 being 6 5 



10.000 



6,000 



2,000 



600 



300 



„ Freeholder .. 100 



n J) n V 50 '1 



„ Farmer ,, ., 150 .; 



„ London tradesman ., 300 



100 



„ Country tradesman „ 100 „ 



„ London citizen ,, 12/- per week 



„ Country „ ., 9/- ,, 



3 „ labourer ., 5/- „ 



From this it will be seen that the landed proprietor paid 

 on his income about three times as much taxes as the mer- 

 chant did on his. 



As early as 1689, Dr. Chamberlaine had directed adverse 

 attention to the same anomaly, reminding the Government 

 that it had long been England's boast that neither new laws 

 nor new taxes could be imposed upon the subject without his 

 consent, given personally or by deputy in Parliament ; and 

 showing how leaseholders and copyholders, though not ad- 

 mitted to the privilege of the franchise, were often far more 

 heavily taxed in proportion to their incomes than the smaller 

 freeholders. He further maintained that if Parliament must 

 have recourse to taxation it should levy it on other forms of 

 property than the land, and begged it to take an example 

 from Holland, where every monied individual was taxed by 



' CalculationH of Taxes for a Family of cadi Ranlc, Decree i or Class 

 for Olid Y(;ar. Preface. Joseph Massie, 175(). 



