the principle themselves have laid down, that of
taxing luxuries. If they or their champion, Mr. Burke, who, I fear, is
growing out of date, like the man in armour, can prove that an estate of
twenty, thirty, or forty thousand pounds a year is not a luxury, I will
give up the argument.

Admitting that any annual sum, say, for instance, one thousand pounds,
is necessary or sufficient for the support of a family, consequently the
second thousand is of the nature of a luxury, the third still more so,
and by proceeding on, we shall at last arrive at a sum that may not
improperly be called a prohibitable luxury. It would be impolitic to set
bounds to property acquired by industry, and therefore it is right to
place the prohibition beyond the probable acquisition to which
industry can extend; but there ought to be a limit to property or the
accumulation of it by bequest. It should pass in some other line. The
richest in every nation have poor relations, and those often very near
in consanguinity.

The following table of progressive taxation is constructed on the above
principles, and as a substitute for the commutation tax. It will reach
the point of prohibition by a regular operation, and thereby supersede
the aristocratical law of primogeniture.

TABLE I
A tax on all estates of the clear yearly value of L50,
after deducting the land tax, and up

To L500 0s 3d per pound
From L500 to L1,000 0 6
On the second thousand 0 9
On the third " 1 0
On the fourth " 1 6
On the fifth " 2 0
On the sixth " 3 0
On the seventh " 4 0
On the eighth " 5 0
On the ninth " 6s 0d per pound
On the tenth " 7 0
On the eleventh " 8 0
On the twelfth " 9 0
On the thirteenth " 10 0
On the fourteenth " 11 0
On the fifteenth " 12 0
On the sixteenth " 13 0
On the seventeenth " 14 0
On the eighteenth " 15 0
On the nineteenth " 16 0
On the twentieth " 17 0
On the twenty-first