the Second Letter of Inquiry, 103 



their horses, and not 9 man need eat a loaf less of bread through the kingdom. 

 The malt tax and the horse tax certainly act as prohibitory laws against both the 

 use of horses and beer. The effect of the one is, that beer is banished from the 

 fanner's table, and in no community was a greater sacrifice perhaps ever made to 

 revenue ; a tax, high enough to drive people from the use of wheat, in the shape of 

 bread, as of barley in the shape of drink, could scarcely have produced a greater 

 diminution of comfort, or of agricultural profit. 



Almost as great a sacrifice to revenue, is that which the farmer makes when he 

 gives up his riding horse, which in many instances he is induced to do ; he may 

 ride, if he pleases, the advocates for the tax will say ; look to the effect, and see' 

 whether a fine of £^2. for every horse used, acts as prohibitory or not ; but he loses 

 also by the diminished demand for corn, which the lessened quantity of horses in 

 the island has occasioned. Horses have ever been considered as a most essential 

 part of the real wealth of every nation, and as necessary for its safety, comfort, and 

 improvement, as ships, powder, houses, roads, canals, wood, men, or money; 

 horses form a component part, not only of the agricultural but of the military 

 strength of a people. It has been the boast of this country, that on an emergency 

 our force in cavalry could be instandy trebled or quadrupled ; that Englishmen 

 were naturally all horsemen, and had every man his horse. Can it be politic for 

 the comparatively trifling sum the tax gives government, to discourage this propen- 

 sity ? Is it not to a great degree desirable, that every gendeman, every farmer, 

 every farmer's son, servant, and labourer, should love horses, understand their 

 breed and management, and use them, how, where, and when they please; their 

 use saves time; they give locomotive power; they promote intercourse. All 

 kinds of horses have been taxed ; the horse even that draws the farmer's cart and 

 plough. It is no perversion of language to say the plough and the cart are 

 taxed. The loom, the labourer's spade, might as well be taxed. One argument 

 used for this last part of the tax, is, that it might force the farmers to use oxen 

 instead of horses, but cui bono. It is a doubtful point, amongst both the practical 

 and theoretical farmers, whether on any farm, oxen are (all things considered) 

 preferable to horses. Let food be valued on one side, lime on the other, and two 

 opinions may perhaps never exactly meet; but on many farms, in many cases, in 

 many counties, horses must be used, no choice can be exercised. 



If these means, namely, a permission to the people of Great Britain, of drinking 

 beer as their ordinary beverage, and to keep as many horses as they pleased, were 



