[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.")
Sra,—The editor of the Spectator would confer a favour on a constant reader who wishes for enlightenment if be would kindly answer this question :—If, for the sake of revenue, it is wrong to impose a small duty on corn, why is it right to obtain a revenue by a duty on tea, which is a much greater burden on the very poor, as the duty on tea costs them more than one on corn ? and is the Chancellor Of the Exchequer in future to depend solely upon the Income-tax to meet the alarmingly increasing expenditure of the country, and is it not possible, as a portion of this revenue is dependent upon sources outside the United Kingdom, it may drive this part [We have never denied that a duty might be levied on corn in case of a great emergency, but we maintain that since some indirect taxation must be levied on things consumed by the poor in order to raise revenue, it had much better be on a secondary necessary like tea than on an absolute necessary like corn. To put it shortly, it is better to make dearer by taxation a thing without which a man can live than one without which he dies. We of course agree that it would be unwise to raise the Income-tax so high as to drive away capital. But who is proposing to do that? Certainly not Mr. Ritchie, who took fomirence off the Income-tax.—En. Spectator.]
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