An estimate of the comparative strength of Britain during the present and four preceding reigns; and of the losses of her trade from every war since the Revolution ... To which is added an essay on population / by the Lord Chief Justice Hale.
- George Chalmers
- Date:
- 1782
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An estimate of the comparative strength of Britain during the present and four preceding reigns; and of the losses of her trade from every war since the Revolution ... To which is added an essay on population / by the Lord Chief Justice Hale. Source: Wellcome Collection.
170/210 page 156
![Howlet to ftate the produce of other taxes ariling from confump- tion, as the duty on malt, leather, and candles, which all equally . eftabltfh the pofition of a greater confumption in the prefent times than during the former. It is however apparent, that unlefs cir- cumftances continued the fame, both as to number of articles ex- cifed, and as to the amount of the duties, no rational comparifon can be made between any two given periods. But, have not ad- ditional excifes been continually impofed fince the Revolution : does not the weight of the general aggregate naturally tend to prefs down the amount of any individual clafs ? And this con- fequence was early forefeen and greatly deplored by contemporary minifters, becaufe its effedls had been powerfully felt. Davenant, whofe documents fuggefted to Dr., Price his argument of a di- minilhed confumption, remarked in 1695, ** great decreafe [of the hereditary excife] is by the commiffioners of that revenue chiefly attributed to the new additional dutiesy which in the coun- try have made numbers of vidiuallers in every county leave off their tradcy and in London put many private families to brew their own drink*.” If we would bring this queftion to a fatisfadtory determination, we muft compare the net produdt of the whole revenue of excife, which arifes altogether from confumption, du- ring the reign of King William, with the net produd: of the whole excife in the prefent t The “ Eflay on Ways and Means, vol. i. p. 46.—A greater perfonage than Davenant,, and furely as well informed as he in every thing with regard to the public revenue, may be now allowed to give his teftimony on this fubjeft. The Lord Godolphin informed King William, in 1693 : “ That the two ntne-pences granted this year upon the excife, with that which was laft year given upon the fame revenues for raifing a million of money upon lives, are allowed to. Jink the hereditary excife above f. 2^0,000 per annum ; and the remainder, being made a collateral fecurity, that the fait and tonnage fhall anfwer f, 280,000 per annum till May 1695,, will in all probability be thereby funk above f. ioo,OOC a year morefor that from the fait branch muft not be hereafter expefted more than f. 300,000 per annum; though formerly it yielded, when the half-crown ftood fingly, (and that is only hereditary) 650,000 a year.” [See Lord Godolphin’s letter to King William, in the Appendix to Sir John Dalrymple’s Mem, of Great Britain and Ireland,^ part ii. p. 7.] 6](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28757671_0170.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
