ns between the land and articles of consumption, the land
bearing rather the largest share: but since that era nearly thirteen
millions annually of new taxes have been thrown upon consumption. The
consequence of which has been a constant increase in the number and
wretchedness of the poor, and in the amount of the poor-rates. Yet here
again the burthen does not fall in equal proportions on the aristocracy
with the rest of the community. Their residences, whether in town or
country, are not mixed with the habitations of the poor. They live apart
from distress, and the expense of relieving it. It is in manufacturing
towns and labouring villages that those burthens press the heaviest; in
many of which it is one class of poor supporting another.

Several of the most heavy and productive taxes are so contrived, as to
give an exemption to this pillar, thus standing in its own defence. The
tax upon beer brewed for sale does not affect the aristocracy, who brew
their own beer free from this duty. It falls only on those who have
not conveniency or ability to brew, and who must purchase it in small
quantities. But what will mankind think of the justice of taxation,
when they know that this tax alone, from which the aristocracy are from
circumstances exempt, is nearly equal to the whole of the land-tax,
being in the year 1788, and it is not less now, L1,666,152, and with its
proportion of the taxes on malt and hops, it exceeds it.--That a single
article, thus partially consumed, and that chiefly by the working part,
should be subject to a tax, equal to that on the whole rental of a
nation, is, perhaps, a fact not to be paralleled in the histories of
revenues.

This is one of the circumstances resulting from a house of legislation,
composed on the ground of a combination of common interest; for whatever
their separate politics as to parties may be, in this they are united.
Whether a combination acts to raise the price of any article for sale,
or rate of wages; or whether it acts to throw taxes from itself upon
another class of the community, the principle and the effect are the
same; and if the one be illegal, it will be difficult to show that the
other ought to exist.

It is no use to say that taxes are first proposed in the House of
Commons; for as the other house has always a negative, it can
always defend itself; and it would be ridiculous to suppose that its
acquiescence in the measures to be proposed were not understood
be