Taxes — Monopolies — Poverty 



fifteen per cent., flings himself back upon his 

 chintz bed, which has paid twenty-two per cent., 

 and expires in the arms of an apothecary, who 

 has paid a licence of a hundred pounds for the 

 privilege of putting him to death." 



These duties can hardly be described as pro- 

 tective, because with the exception of certain 

 minor articles, such for example as furniture 

 and boots, few things in general use are manu- 

 factured in the island. It must be acknow- 

 ledged that they act as protective of certain 

 industries on the mainland of Portugal ; but to 

 judge from the predominance of foreign (chiefly 

 German) goods in the shops, this protection is 

 of no great eflfect. The duties are in practice 

 rather restrictive than protective. Every one 

 gets in the way of doing without many things 

 which in other countries are in quite ordinary 

 use. And to some extent they account for the 

 backward state of the island in such matters as 

 sanitation. The enormous duty on iron pipes, 

 for example, discourages very effectually private 

 enterprise in the laying on to houses of water 

 from springs, and so on. The result in revenue 

 of these duties is therefore quite incommensu- 

 rate with the damage they do to trade, and to 



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