1 86 History of the English Lartded Interest. 



It remains for us to examine more in detail a great finan- 

 cier's desperate expedients during a period of dire emergency. 

 Pitt had not perused the pages of the Wealth of Nations to no 

 purpose. Adam Smith's fiscal principles became by adoption 

 as much the offspring of the statesman's mind as by creation 

 they had been of the philosopher's. The Wealth of Nations 

 contains a careful study of Dutch finance, much of which now 

 came to form the model of our EngUsh fiscal system. " North," 

 Dr. Cunningham tells us, " borrowed therefrom not a few 

 suggestions when obliged to procure funds for the American 

 War." Advised from the same source, Pitt had set to work to 

 simplify our machinery of finance. This he partly effected by 

 the Assessed Taxes in 1785, and the Consolidated Fund in 

 1787. By means both of the Inhabited House Duty and the 

 Assessed Taxes he attempted to equalise taxation and force 

 owners of personalty to contribute. He also sought to free the 

 labouring classes by repealing as far as possible such taxation 

 as affected their interests. All three objects jtist cited were 

 in his mind when, in 1797, he designed what was called the 

 Triple Assessment ; and, a year later, that 10 per cent. Income 

 Tax which we have already discussed. 



But the exigencies of warfare forced him off the paths of 

 sound finance. In his anxiety to avoid tampering with the 

 necessaries of labour, he overstepped the legitimate bounds 

 of property taxation, and by the re- establishment of North's 

 scheme of a Succession Duty on a more practicable basis, not 

 only invaded the sacred precincts of Capital, but levelled the 

 first blow at Thrift. When we come to sum up evidences in 

 our last chapter, we shall cite this example of Pitt's as one 

 among many other causes of the present agricultural depres- 

 sion.^ It was all very well for short-sighted squires, whose 

 fortunes had been exempted from the purview of the Act of 

 1780, to welcome it as a set-off against the Land Tax. There 

 were, if they had chosen to listen, ominous growls of discon- 

 tent emanating from mercantile circles, where the measure 

 was regarded as " a scandal of class legislation." In their time 



' History of Taxation^ jmsslm, Dowell's. 



