n of one class, for
the purpose of protecting a distinct interest, all the other interests
should have the same. The inequality, as well as the burthen of
taxation, arises from admitting it in one case, and not in all. Had
there been a house of farmers, there had been no game laws; or a house
of merchants and manufacturers, the taxes had neither been so unequal
nor so excessive. It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of
those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that
it has raged without a check.

Men of small or moderate estates are more injured by the taxes being
thrown on articles of consumption, than they are eased by warding it
from landed property, for the following reasons:

First, They consume more of the productive taxable articles, in
proportion to their property, than those of large estates.

Secondly, Their residence is chiefly in towns, and their property in
houses; and the increase of the poor-rates, occasioned by taxes on
consumption, is in much greater proportion than the land-tax has
been favoured. In Birmingham, the poor-rates are not less than
seven shillings in the pound. From this, as is already observed, the
aristocracy are in a great measure exempt.

These are but a part of the mischiefs flowing from the wretched scheme
of an house of peers.

As a combination, it can always throw a considerable portion of taxes
from itself; and as an hereditary house, accountable to nobody, it
resembles a rotten borough, whose consent is to be courted by interest.
There are but few of its members, who are not in some mode or
other participators, or disposers of the public money. One turns a
candle-holder, or a lord in waiting; another a lord of the bed-chamber,
a groom of the stole, or any insignificant nominal office to which a
salary is annexed, paid out of the public taxes, and which avoids the
direct appearance of corruption. Such situations are derogatory to the
character of man; and where they can be submitted to, honour cannot
reside.

To all these are to be added the numerous dependants, the long list of
younger branches and distant relations, who are to be provided for
at the public expense: in short, were an estimation to be made of the
charge of aristocracy to a nation, it will be found nearly equal to that
of supporting the poor. The Duke of Richmond alone (and there are cases
similar to his) takes away as much for himself as would maintain two
thousand poo