1798.] 
tripled rate; and that thofe whofe affeffed- 
taxes amounted to a ftill higher fum, 
fhould have their annual contribution 
quadrupled. Thus far all was wile and 
juk. , » 
It was one fault of this bill, that it 
made paft expenditure a criterion of af- 
&ffinent. It is true, that in the oppoute 
cafe, a fudden frugality would have over- 
{pread the country, which would have 
diminifhed the immediate produce; but 
as all the expenditure of the people would 
then have been calculated on their per- 
manent, and not on their temporary re- 
fources, the law could in that cafe have 
been prolonged, or made perpetual, where- 
as it muft now be tranfient. 
It was another fault of this bill, that 
it granted a number of fooliff exemptions, 
ene to immediate dependents of the royal 
family, as if even the king himfelf ought 
not on every occafion to fet, as firlt citi- 
zen, the example of the civic duties, and 
particularly that of contributing to the 
public neceflities. 
ception was made in favour of fhop- 
keepers, merely froma paltry minifterial 
fear of contiguous unpopularity; a fear 
which often enables the metropolis to 
fhift (as in the cafe of unftamped banker’s 
cheques) a part of its fair burdens on 
the provinces. If the bufinefs of a thop- 
kezper is not fufficiently profitable, or his 
mode of living not fufficiently frugal, to 
enable him to pay the fame rate ot tax as 
ether perfons dwelling in equal ftate—let 
capitals be forced out of fuch employ till 
its profits rife, and the trade recovers its 
natural level, or let the fhopkeeper be 
inured to more privations. All other 
houfes in the kingdom have been reduced 
in capital value by this tax—why are 
fhop-rentals to be {pared? Another un- 
juft exemption was made in favour of 
Jodging and boarding-houfes. Why was 
not the price of lodgings and board fuf- 
fered to rife in proportion to the increafed 
expence of keeping fuch houfes? It is 
now become the intereft of young mar- 
ried perfons of {mall income to go cut to 
board inftead of keeving houfe, to the 
immenfe lofs of the itate in the number 
et taxable families, But of all the ex- 
emptions, the moft abjurd—tor it is a 
complete dereliftion of every principle of 
the bill—the mott fraudulent, moft mif- 
chievous, meft unjuft, and to the {tate the 
-mott coftly, is that which permits ail 
perfons to commute their afleflments for 
atenth of their income @eclared eon 
@ath. . 
Concerning the Ajzijed-Taxes. | 
Another unjuft ex-. 
33h 
What has been the confequemre? Mer- 
chants, tradefmen, and manufatturers of 
vait capital, who for the laft year or two 
happen to have loft by their concerns, have 
exempted themielves, notwithftanding a 
continued profule expenditure, from alk 
fhare in this heavy contribution. Land- 
owners of immente eftates, who happen to 
have recently increafed the value of theit- 
property by a large expenditure for. re- 
pairs and improvements ; have exempted. 
themfelves again almoft totally from a 
burden, which the late vaft rife of rents 
enables them above all other perfons to 
fupport. Farmers are permitted to efti- 
mate their income by a rule of defalca- 
tion which degrades a thriving and opu- 
lent fet of men into the lowelt ranks of 
taxation. Finally, miftatements have 
abounded—revenue-oaths have never been 
confidered in this country as of the moit 
facred kind—it is the fafhion to live be- 
yond one’s income—one neighbour en- 
courages another—a tythe is the proffered 
reward of perjury—and whole parithes 
are ftartled at the attefted poverty of their 
moft {plendid inhabitants—honefty is not 
even profeffed, men had rather feem for- 
{worn than poor. ‘Thus it has happened, 
that almoft all the high-rated have been 
freed from the operation of a tax more 
enormous than was ever inflicted by the 
requifitien of an invading army; and fo 
egregioufly inequitable in its eventual 
levy, that if the lift of fums contributed 
had been, in every parifh or hundred, 
printed and difperied, it is probable the 
whole tax would have been treated as the 
Quakers treat the tythe, from indignation 
at its difproportion. 
pes 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
BIR, y 
HE prefent fate of parties in. this 
country, though on the whole tar 
from heing an agreeable fubje& of f{pecu- 
lation, has, however, the merit of exhibit- 
ing’ a conultency unknown in the two’ 
preceding reigns. The {fupporters of 
things as they are in church and-ftate, no 
longer affect the language and conduct of 
improvers and reformers. The fpirit 
of tree enquiry is become a juit object of 
dread to them, “Lhe tendency ot -initi- 
tutions for the promiction of knowledge 
is clearly difcerned ; and, in confequence, 
difcouragements are thrown in the way 
of plans which*not long ago were thought 
objeéts of unqualified approbation. A- 
mong thefe may be reckoned readizg fo- 
e1etics, 
