Taxation as affecting the Agricultural Interest. 401 = 135 
The average of consumption is here, it will be seen, a strictly 
cmperate one, and does not reach anything like the level to 
ivhich intemperate outlay raises the whole class ; nevertheless 
t illustrates the relative lightness of the agricultural labourers' 
axes. 
Turning now to agriculturists of a higher grade, it will be Taxation of the 
isked, How does their taxation compare with that of their fellow- 
. . ' , . 11 1 • r, T-'i -Til- middle classes 
itizens who enjoy parallel incomes: 1 here is, 1 believe, no of agri- 
rood reason as regards taxes on individual outlay to draw any cultuiists. 
narked distinction between the expenditure on taxed com- 
nodities defrayed out of the agricultural, tlie trading, or the pro- 
essional incomes of the upper and middle classes. The peer, 
vith a rent-roll of 10,000/. a year, and the commercial magnate 
)f equal wealth, may not on the average, in spite of special 
livergences, contribute on their establishment- and household- 
)UtIays very unequally to the Exchequer. The humbler trades- 
nan and the tenant-farmer, just earning 150Z. a year, will pro- 
)ably find but little diversity in the extent of their yearly use of 
ea or of coffee, of tobacco, of wine or of spirits. There would 
1ms appear little room to doubt that agricultural incomes share 
•qually v/ith all others of the middle and upper class in the 
inperial taxes on consumption. 
This practical equality has, it is true, been challenged in one 
)articular by an asserted predominance in the agricultural con- 
umption of a beverage which is the subject of special taxation, 
before a Select Committee of the House of Lords in 184G, and 
gain in the ' Reasons for a Repeal of the Malt-Tax,' submitted 
ly a deputation from the Central Chamber of Agriculture in 
870, it was urged that the necessities of their business make 
irmers much larger users of beer than other employers, and 
lierefore special sufferers by a tax which artificially augments 
le cost of the beer used on the farm to the extent of Gd. or 
d. per acre. The evidence on this point is, however, hardly 
onclusive enough to necessitate a definite augmentation of 
lie agricultural share of taxes on consumption in excess of the 
eneral ratio above determined. 
Although the discussion of fiscal consequences more remote Slalt tax. 
han the special object of each tax lies usually beyond the scope 
t this Memoir, it is impossible to overlook other controversies 
-loud enough to have repeatedly secured the ear of Parliament 
-which have arisen on this question of the malt tax. Although 
Imed at the consumer of beer, the tax is levied by a duty of 
s. S^d. per bushel on the malt on which that beverage is 
junded. Complaints have thus arisen that one of the chief of 
•nglish farm crops is taxed in the first stage of its manufacture, 
lat the price of lower-class barleys is artificially depreciated, 
2 P 2 
