ARISTOCRATICAL TAXATION-THE HOUSE-TAX AND THE WINDOW-TAX.
THE House-tax is to be abolished; and as it is grossly unequal, and the Whigs lacked the sense and spirit to equalize it, in such a manner as to give it the fair character of an income-tax, on the principle laid down by ADAM Saturn its original suggestor, it is certainly high time. London, with its Metropolitan county, pays nearly a half of the whole tax; all farm-houses, consti- tuting nearly one-third of the rateable houses of Great Britain, were shamefully exempted from it; Ireland is exempted alto- gether; several counties in Wales might be quoted, which do not contribute so much as a single house in London ; while the houses of the nobility and upper class of gentry are scandalously fa- voured throughout.* Of this last source of inequality, let us cite an example. The Duke of NsweAsrce's palace of Nottingham Castle is rated at a rent of 1001., and contributes 14/. 3s. 4d. to the House-duty. The London Tavern is rated at 10001., and con- tributes 1411. 13s. 4d.; or ten times as much, although its value is not perhaps one-tenth part. Either, therefore, the London Ta- vern pays a hundred times more than it ought, or Nottingham Castle a hundred times less. About two years ago, the Duke's palace was damaged by a mob; and, for the mere damage, his Grace received 20,0001. from the hundred. At the ordinary profit of 6i per cent. on capital invested in houses, reckoned on the sum of 20,000/., his Grace's rental ought to have been 13001. instead of 1001.; or thirteen times as much as he is actually rated at. Even in London, there is the grossest inequality in the mode of assessing the House-tax. The India House is rated at a rental of 25001., and it consequently contributes to the House-tax 3541. 3s. 4d.: yet this same India House is estimated by the owners, in their an- nual returns to Parliament, as being worth 1,000,0001.: hence, at the ordinary profits on house capital, the rent ought to be 65,000/., and the House-tax 9208/. 6s. 8d. The worthy Directors, there- fore, by their own showing, are defrauding the revenue to the yearly amount of 8854/. 3s. 4d. The income of the proprietors of this great house is 630,0001. per annum ; and looking upon the House-tax as what it pretended to be, an income-tax, it may be compared with a shopkeeper's premises in the same street, Leaden- hall Street, who pays a rent of 2001. a year, and whose profits may amount to 1,0001.: the latter pays 281. 68. 8d. as his contribution to the House-duty. Therefore the great traders, who enjoyed a mo- nopoly of nearly half the globe, contributed to the public revenue about 6d. in 1001. of their income, and the shopkeeper 6d. in 1/. ;- difference, in favour of the monopolists, 100 to 1. This is the tax which was defended in the Reformed House of Commons, in order that the proprietors of land might extend the operation of the • We speak of the tax as it existed previous to the piddling of Lord ALTHORP and the extenuations of Mr. Stanto Rim frightened bum their propriety by the agitation of the Londonets.
Corn-monopoly by reducing the Malt-duty to one-half, involving the sacrifice of two millions and a half of the public revenue.
But now to the Window-tax ; which is to be continued. We shall prove that it is worse than that which is to be abolished, bad as that is. The Window-tax was imposed shortly after the Revo- lution, as a substitute for " Hearth-money," which our fastidious ancestors were pleased to consider as a badge of slavery ; although it amounted to no more than 2s. on every hearth of houses assessed to poor and church rates, whi!e its amount for the United King- dom was but 245,000/. The abolition of Hearth-money was de- scribed in the preamble of the statute abolishing it, as "a lasting monument of royal goodness for every house in the kingdom:. Alas for the ingratitude of the people for royal favours! the thing- is utterly forgotten, and now raked up only for curiosity, or to be favourably contrasted with the heavier and more impolitic tax sub- stituted. Its substitute, the Window-tax, may be described as a mo- nument which proclaims to every house in the kingdom how much royal personages and their ministers " hate the light" and love the taxes. Prrr, in that famous intrigue of his by which he turned his rival Fox out of power, in 1784, used the East India Company as the chief instrument of his purpose. One of the bribes held out to them was the reduction of the Tea-duty, from about 120 per cent. to 12 per cent. To make good the revenue, thus sacrificed for the advantage of the tea-monopolists, he wheeled round upon the people, and assessed them with an additional Window-tax to the extent of 620,000/. per annum. This happened exactly fifty years ago : so that for this famous job of "the Pilot," the nation has paid, without estimating interest, a douceur of upwards of thirty mil- lions; while the East'India Company has squandered or pocketed, but chiefly the former, in the shape of monopoly profit on tea, something like a hundred millions of the people's money-or, in other terms, something like what would enable them to sweep off about an eighth part of their public debt.
The Window-duty, in its mode of assessment, is not less clumsy, nor in its operation much less unequal and pernicious, than the Inhabited House-duty itself. A house with eight windows pays a tax of 16.s. Gd.-or better than 2s. for every window ; one addi- tional window is charged not at 2s., but at 5s. 6d ; two additional windows will cost 5s. 9d. a piece; a house with 16 windows, instead of being charged with 2s. for every window, is charged at more than double that rate, or above 4s. 3d.; a house with 3'2 windows is charged, not with 2s., nor with 4s. 3d., but with 6s. 8d. The scale rises gradually in this manner, by window and window, until 39 windows are attained, when the duty on each is about From 40 to 99 windows, the scale jumps by fives, there being no difference in the taxation of the intermediate numbers; and when it reaches 100, we have ten windows at a bound, up to 180; be- yond which the rate of duty drops to Is. 6d. per window. Beyond the poor man's house up to eight windows, which comes first under the operation of the tax, and the houses of the middle classes up to 32 windows, the difference in the tax is that between 2s. and 6s. 8d.-or 4s. 8d., an increase of 233 per cent. in the rate. In the case of the aristoeratie mansion, the scale takes an opposite direction. It is said there are some noblemen's mansions in Eng- land with a window for every day in the year. Such a palace. would be charged to the Window-duty at the rate of 3s. 3td. per window ; which is about one-half the rate charged on the houses of the middle classes, and above 20 per cent. less than that charged on the house of the petty shopkeeper with 15 windows. The luxury of having more windows than 180, is charged at the rate of Is. 6d. to the nobleman; that of 39 windows to the middle classes, at 7s., or near five times as much. A house with eight windows, as has been already seen, pays 2s. for each window, and one with 16, more than twice as high a rate. This rule is far from being applied to the highest classes of houses : a house with 50 windows pays nearly 7s. per window ; whereas a mansion with 100 windows, instead of paying double the rate, pays less than 6s. per window ; while a house with 180 windows pays little more than 5s. per window.
The next subject of inequality in the operation of the Window- duty refers to the size and quality of the window. Except in a few peculiar circumstances, there is no difference between a large window and a small one, and none whatever according to their respective values. A window of four panes will pay the same- duty as one of four-and-twenty. A window of twelve panes, glizerl with ordinary crown glass at 2s. a pane, and worth in all but 24s., is charged the same duty as a window with the same number of panes of plate glass, each costing five guineas, and worth in all 63/. The duty in the first case may be as high as 30 per cent., and in the others, as low as little more than one- half per cent. As the panes in the latter case are double the size of those in the former, and afford double the light, or areas goods* two windows, the actual tax is but one-half. If, as is often the ease, the better window belong to the houses of the aristocracy,. say to the house of a nobleman with '250 windows, then the real tax paid by the latter will not exceed one-fourth part what is paid by the middle classes of society. In the one case, the duty may be as high as 30 per cent. on the value, and in the other may not even amount to one per cent.
The Window-duty is not of' course a charge on the rental, even supposing all windows were the same size and the same value. A house in Grosvenor Square fetches double the rent that a house of the same size and the same number of windows does in Russell Square. Of course, the tax on the rental is double in the one case to what it is in the other. A house, with the same number of window,', in au obscure purlieus of London, will not fetch emeltalf the unit of one in Russell Square. The Window- tax,• therefore, is twice us heavy as in Russell Square, and four tithes as heevy as in the fashionable quarter of Grosvenor Square. But, setting the value arising from locality out of the ques- tion, the operation of the duty is quite unequal upon hatees of diPrent rentals. , Thus, a house worth 101. per alumni, with t ight a hickeys, pays a duty equal to 8 per cent. on the metal ; a house f 100/., with 30 windows, will pay above 12 per cent. of the rental; a house of 3e0/., with 50 windows, will pay 5.4 per cent. on the rental : a house of SOUL, with GO windows, will pay only 4 per cent.; a blie. of 1500/., with 100 windows, a ill pay only e per cent.; a house of 30001., with 180 windows, will pay but 11 per cent.; and the palace with 365, estimated at a rental of 10,00e/., will not pay more than one-half per cent. on its rental.
The only advantage which the Winduweluty possesses over the itileibited House-tax. is, that its operation is inure equal, and that tt is Dot centined to the population of towns, but equally affects the country. Then, it is less productive than the first. Such is the tax which some financiers have thought defensible. It may be described as a tax On architectural taste; a tax on ventilation, health, and comfort; a tax on light; a clumsy and preposterous capitation-tax. unequal in its operation, in every way in which it can be viewed arbitrary and unprincipled i,t its mode of assess- ment; and vexatious in the collection.
The gross anemia of these two taxes—which, in round numbers, was about 2,4inlVOI. befico the Chancellor of the Exchequer began his piddling work a ith theta last year—is very far indeed teem being the all.ile tax u high we pay for inhabited houses. It is, probably, not above one-half. All the raw materials of ordinary house-building u re taxed, or at least were taxed until nm ithin the last two years. Tiles and slates were taxed. Bricks are still taxed. Paper hangings are taxed three times over,—first, the rags, constituting the raw reatecnil, are taxe4 on importation ; then courses the very heavy and unequal Exciseeluty ; and lastly, the Stamp duty on stained paper. Timber is not oaly heavily taxed, but pays a monopoly price, estimated at a million and a half a year, in order to thrust bad timber upon us instead of good, and in order to deprive us of the good trade of the Baltic and protect the peer trade of the Canadas. Inferior Swedish fir pays a duty of 21. 15s. per load, equal generally to au ad va'arem duty of about 70. per cent. ; whilst line Riga fir pays the same duty, which reduces the tax on the value to 40 percept. Coarse rose-wood is charged with a duty of 101. per ton, which will make the ad valorem duty above 80 per cent.; while the limiest rose-wood being charged with the same, the duty on the value drops down to 30 per cent. Birch, a plebeian wood, is charged with a duty which, on the ordinary price, rises to near 50 per cent.; whereas the finest Honduras ma- hogany will not pay above 7 per cent., or one-ninth part of the amount. The duty on glass is still worse : on the unwrought immaterial, owing to the manner in which the Excise is levied, the tax rises to the enormous amount of from 700 to 800 per cent.; on the finished article, it never falls short of cent. per cent.; while it is always highest upon the coarsest article. A few of the articles here enumerated do not constitute the materials of ordinary house-
although they do of the dwellings of the rich; and we have referred to them chiefly as examples of the gross inequality of our taxes in their respective incidence on the wealthy and on the middle and poorer classes of society.
Have we any plan of our own to suggest, for a more fair and equitable mode of assessing the Window-duty? We have not. It appears to us an improper and an impolitic tax, which can neither be reduced nor modified with any prospect of advantage to the State or to the contributor. Moreover, it is highly unpopular ; and considering the trouble and vexation with which it is collected, its amount, which is under 1,200,0001., is paltry; while, after the House-tax is abolished, it must be recollected that the same ma- • chinery or assessors, surveyors, and collectors must be continued, when much less than one-hall' the present revenue is to be collected. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has now, providentially, a sur- plus revenue; and therefore we would recommend it to his Ma- jesty's Ministers, as a laudable and popular measure, at once to
• abolish the Window-tax along with the House-tux. This will bring some popularity to men who would be eminently benefited by the smallest share of it.
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