four sums he should first move were sums to reimburse the civil list for like sums, ordered to be

To Mathew Martus, esq.

To Ch. Th. Felton, esq.

advanced therefrom by his majesty, pursuant to votes of that house; and he therefore moved

convicts

To the board of agriculture

To the British museumi
To the veterinary college

In a committee of supply, on the 1st of August, the chancellor of the exchequer moved that the petitions of Mr. Martin and Mr. Dubois be referred to it. The claim of Mr. Martin, he said, had been already admitted and voted by the house; that of Mr. Dubois came recommended by nothing so much as the peculiar hardship of the case. When the British forces were in the southern part of the American states, very essential services were performed by the family of Mr. Dubois; and the petitioner himself, though very young at that time, displayed so much alacrity and zeal, that they were warmly acknowledged by generals Balfour and Craig. This claim, as an American loyalist, might have been proved, and would have been admitted before the commissioners, but Mr. Dubois, who was then a minor, received intelligence that his estates

725 0 300 0

0

COOO

3000 0 0 1500 0 0

in America had not been confiscated. In order to regain them, he went over to that country, and, after long delays and numerous applications, failed of obtaining the benefit of the treaty from the American government, and did not return to England till the year 1800.

What he meant to . propose was by no means an equivalent to his losses; for he did not even expect any thing like a compensation; and he should therefore propose that 53201. be granted to make good the claims of Mr. Dubois, as an American loyalist. The motion was seconded by Dr. Lawrence, and the resolution agreed to.

Agreeably to the resolutions of the committee of supply, a bill was introduced into the house for a tax on property. On the question for going into a committee on this bill, the 5th of July, the chancellor of the exchequer, in

answer

answer to a question, how far the bill was intended to affect landed property, said, that in all circumstances where the owner of land let it out, only five per cent. was payable—that is, Is. in the pound; where the owner of land had the same in his own hands, and was, in fact, his own tenant, then he was to pay 1s. 9d. that is, 1s. as landlord, and 9d. as tenant. He afterwards proceeded to observe, that the present tax was to be applied to the same purposes, and hinged on the same principle, as the old income tax; but the mode of collecting it was better, because it was calculated to avoid any disclosure of the circumstances or property of the parties paying the tax. By the mode of charging land and money at interest, no disclosure whatever took place. In a commercial country, it was unquestionably most desirable, that no disclosure of circumstances should be made, further than was absolutely necessary to secure the payment of the tax; and a plan would shortly be submitted to parliament on that head, which he hoped would meet with general approbation. Another advantage was, that the execution was infinitely more easy and simple to the commissioners than it was before, as persons now would not be in a situation in which they would have to decide between their interest and their duty. Another circumstance highly in favour of the present measure was, the mode of levying the tax on money borrowed on mortgage, bond, &c. In the present case, the debtor was to pay the whole of the tax, and deduct it out of the sum borrowed, when called on to pay the same by his creditor; so that 19s. in the pound would, in all cases, be a

legal tender; and it would be attended with the advantage of con-, cealing the circumstances of the debtor's case.

These, he said, were some of the leading features of the bill. The measure he now submitted to the house was such as he thought would draw fair and equal contributions, by taxing income and other species of property as nearly on a par as might be.

Mr. William Smith opposed the tax. He observed that, if every man in the state were to be taxed, in order to contribute equally to the present exigencies, the present method was not the proper one to be adopted; for it was not consistent with the usage of the house, except in one instance: for though the title of the bill expressed that it was a tax on property, it was, in fact, a tax of five per cent. on income; a tax which would undoubtedly bear heavily on all ranks of society. There were two species of property embraced by this bill; the one was the produce of labour and exertive industry, and the other that kind of property which was enjoyed by the rich without labour. It generally happened in such a tax, that the species of property acquired by industry was liable to be taxed with the greatest uncer tainty. In his apprehension, a person who contributed by his personal industry toward the welfare of the state, ought not to be burdened equally with the person who did nothing. The dispropor tion was really enormous, and it was impossible for any man cordially to say that he thought such a tax equal. It was also highly objectionable with respect to the disclosure of the incomes of pro fessional men; for, whatever the convenience

convenience arising from that disclosure in other cases, it must certainly fall peculiarly hard on that class of individuals; and he thought that even on that account it ought not to pass. The raising of money was not the only object properly in view: we ought to adopt those modes which most aptly tended to keep the people in good humour, and exact those taxes which would make the nearest approach towards equality and impartiality; for, though such might not be most convenient to the state, he was certain they would be most convenient and agreeable to the people. He spoke not merely his own sentiments on this occasion, for he had consulted various authors on the subject. He had found that scarcely one writer gave sentiments favourable to a tax on property. Hume was of opinion, that though such taxes were liable to less expense or trouble in the collection, yet they were the most unequal. Mr. Adam Smith said, that in every state it had been a maxim of every wise government to avoid the disclosure of the property of individu als; and that author had repeated his opinion over and over, in various parts of his work; making only one exception of a small aristocratical state in Switzerland, where such a mode was followed without any detrimental conse quences, owing to its having no trade.

He was convinced in his conscience that the merchants of London would rather pay a tax to double the amount of that proposed, than submit to the disclosure proposed by this bill.

Lord Hawkesbury observed that the grounds of the hon. gentle tleman's objections appeared to be

two, in which he agreed with him-namely, that no tax which could be proposed would be found perfectly equal: secondly, that when that was the case, we should endeavour to make them as equal as possible. The hon. member, however, after having laid down these principles, appeared to have lost sight of them. He had by no means proved that this tax was more unequal than any other he could devise: but whether this tax be more unequal than a tax on consumption, he had to observe, that, knowing it all along to be the object of government in laying on taxes on consumption, that they might bear equally on different classes of the community, he conceived that one of those methods was quite as impartial as the other. In such cases, it had been found expedient to tax one or two articles, while others were left unaffected. This might be the subject to many complaints of partiality from individuals. In the present, however, the tax was not laid on one or two articles; it would bear as equally as possible on all classes of the community. He would admit that the class of articles might be fully as unequal in its effects; yet he would call on that hon. gentleman to prove that it was more unequal than any other that could be devised in the present situation of the country. The objections made against the bill, therefore, appeared to him not founded in argument against either its principles or application; but be cause it did not go nearer to that which might be styled perfection. The hon. member had alluded to its pressure on the laborious and industrious classes: this, however, was a principle never acknow ledged by the legislature of this

country,