where they belong to the duke of Cornwall, in which case they are to be dealt with as part of the revenues of his duchy(?).

Above have been set forth reasons why the crown became entitled to the several revenues derivable from royal fish, shipwrecks, treasure-trove, waifs, and estrays. Originally these things were treated as bona vacantia, or goods in which no one else could claim a property, wherefore by the law of nature they belonged to the first occupant or finder(m); and so continued under the imperial law. But in settling the modern constitutions of most of the governments of Europe, it was thought fit (to prevent that strife and contention, which the mere title of occupancy is apt to create and continue, and to provide for *the support of public authority in a manner the least burthensome to individuals) that these rights should be annexed to the supreme [ *366] power by the positive laws of the state. And so it came to pass that, as Bracton expresses it(n), hæc quæ nullius in bonis sunt, et olim fuerunt inventoris de jure naturali, jam efficiuntur principis de jure gentium. The above various items of revenue were however formerly often granted by the crown as a royal franchise to particular subjects, ex. gr., the lords of manors or other liberties, to the perversion of their original design.

revenue of the

crown.

This may suffice for a short view of the ordinary revenue, or proper patrimony of the crown; which was very large formerly, and capable of being Extraordinary increased to a magnitude truly formidable: for there are few estates in the kingdom, which have not, at some period or other since the Norman conquest, been vested in the hands of the sovereign by forfeiture, escheat, or otherwise. But fortunately for the liberty of the subject in former times, this hereditary landed revenue, by a series of improvident management, sank almost to nothing; and the casual profits, arising from the other branches of the census regalis, became likewise almost all of them alienated from the crown. In order to supply the deficiencies thus caused, we are now obliged to have recourse to new methods of raising money, unknown to our early ancestors; which methods constitute the extraordinary revenue of the crown. For, the public patrimony having got into the hands of private subjects, it was but reasonable that private contributions should supply the public service.

The thing to be aimed at in this land of liberty is by no means the total abolition of taxes, which could not be effected, and the bare supposition of which might justly be deemed absurd. Our legislators should rather strive to keep in mind the soundest principles of taxation. For the true idea of government and magistracy will be found to consist in this, that, as some few men are deputed by many others to preside over public affairs, so [ *367] that individuals may the better be enabled to attend to their private concerns, it is necessary that those individuals should be bound to contribute a portion of their private gains, in order to support that government, and reward that magistracy which protects them in the enjoyment of their respective properties. But the things to be aimed at are wisdom and moderation, not only in granting, but also in the method of raising the necessary supplies; by contriving to do both in such a manner as may be most conducive to the national welfare, and at

the same time most consistent with economy and the liberty of the subject; who, when properly taxed, contributes only some part of his property, in order to enjoy the rest.

and supplies

voted by the commons.

These extraordinary grants (which were formerly called by the synonymous names of aids, subsidies, and supplies) are made, as we have seen (o), by the Of aids, subsidies, commons of Great Britain in parliament assembled: who when they have voted a supply to her majesty, and settled the quantum of that supply, usually resolve themselves into what is called a committee of ways and means, to consider the ways and means of raising the supply so voted. And in this committee every member (though it is looked upon as the peculiar province of the chancellor of the exchequer) may propose such scheme of taxation as he thinks will be least detrimental to the public. The resolutions of this committee, when approved by a vote of the house, are in general esteemed to be (as it were) final and conclusive. For, though the supply cannot be actually raised upon the subject till directed by an act of parliament, yet the chancellor of the exchequer is practically authorised to obtain an advance of money for the use of the government, on the credit of a bare vote of the house of commons, though no law be yet passed to establish it.

*The taxes raised upon the subject are either perpetual or for a term [ *368] certain, but disregarding this distinction, which for the purposes of the present chapter is immaterial, we shall proceed to consider seriatim the principal imposts now levied on the public.

I. The land-tax, in its modern shape, has superseded all the former methods of rating either property, or persons in respect of their property, whether by tenths or fifteenths, subsidies on land, hydages, scutages, or talla(I.) Land-tax. ges; a short explication of which will, however, greatly assist us in understanding our ancient laws and history.(98)

Tenths and fifteenths(p) were temporary aids issuing out of personal property, and granted to the crown by parliament. They were formerly the actual tenth or fifteenth part of all moveables belonging to the subject; when such moveables, or personal estates, were much less considerable than they are at this day. Tenths (0) Ante, p. 203. (p) 2 Inst. 77; 4 Inst. 34.

*

(98) "The congress shall have power * * To levy and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." U. S. Const., art. 1, § 8.

64

No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another." Ib., § 9.

"No state shall, without the consent of congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of congress. No state shall, without the consent of congress, lay any duty on tonnage," etc. Ib., § 10. "No capitation, or other direct tax, shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken." Ib., § 9. Congress has, at various times, exercised the power thus conferred, but this is not the place to specify them, as the object is merely to show that such a power is conferred by the constitution.

are said to have been first granted under Henry II., who took advantage of the fashionable zeal for crusades to introduce this new taxation, in order to defray the expense of an expedition to Palestine, which he really or seemingly had projected against Saladin, emperor of the Saracens ; whence it was denominated the Saladin tenth(g). But afterwards fifteenths were more often granted than tenths. Originally the amount of these taxes was uncertain, being levied by assessments newly made at every fresh grant of the commons, a commission for which is preserved by Matthew Paris(r): but it was at length reduced to a certainty in the eighth year of Edward IIL, when, by virtue of the king's commission, new taxations were made of every township, borough, and city in the kingdom, and recorded in the exchequer: which rate was, at the time, *the fifteenth part of the value of every township, the whole amounting to about [*369] 29,000., and therefore it still kept up the name of a fifteenth, when, by the alteration of the value of money and the increase of personal property, things came to be in a very different situation. So that when, of later years, the commons granted the king a fifteenth, every parish in England immediately knew the proportion of it which its inhabitants would have to pay, viz. the identical sum that was assessed by the same aid in the eighth year of Edward III.; and then raised it by a local rate, and returned it into the royal exchequer.

The other ancient levies were in the nature of a modern land-tax: for we may trace up the origin of that charge to the introduction of our military tenures(s); when every tenant of a knight's fee was bound, if called upon, to attend the king in his army for forty days in every year. But this personal attendance growing troublesome in many respects, the tenants found means of compounding for it, by first sending others in their stead, and in process of time by making a pecuniary satisfaction to the crown in lieu of it. This pecuniary satisfaction at last came to be levied by assessment, at so much for every knight's fee, under the name of scutage; which appears to have been levied for the first time in the fifth year of Henry II., on account of his expedition to Toulouse, and was then a mere arbitrary composition, such as the king and the subject could agree upon. But this precedent being afterwards abused into a means of oppression (in levying scutages on the landholders by the royal authority only, whenever our kings went to war, in order to hire mercenary troops, and pay their contingent expenses), it became thereupon a matter of national complaint; and king John was obliged to promise in his magna carta(t), that no scutage should be imposed without the consent of the common council of the realm. This clause was indeed *omitted in the charter of Henry III.(u), where we only find it stipulated, that scutages should be taken as they were used to be in the time of Henry II. Yet afterwards, by a variety of statutes under Edward I., and his grandson(x), it was provided that the king should not take any aids or tasks, any tallage or tax, but by the common assent of the great men and commons in parliament.

[ *370]

Of the same nature with scutages upon knight's fees were the assessments of hydage upon all other lands, and of tallage upon cities and boroughs(y). But they all gradually fell into disuse upon the introduction of subsidies, about

Hoved. A. D. 1188; Carte, i. 719.

A. D. 1232.

Post, vol. ii.

(t) Cap. 14.

(u) 9 Hen. 3, c. 37.

(x) Confirmatio Cartarum, 25 Edw. 1, cc.

5 & 6; Stat. de tallagio, c. 1; 14 Edw. 3, st. 2, c. 1.

(y) Madox, Hist. Exch. 2nd. ed. vol. i. 694.

the time of Richard II. and Henry IV. These were in effect taxes, not immediately imposed upon property, but upon persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of 4s. in the pound for lands, and 28. 8d. for goods; and for those of aliens in a double proportion. But this assessment was also made according to an ancient valuation; wherein the computation was so very moderate, and the rental of the kingdom was supposed to be so exceedingly low, that one subsidy of this sort did not, according to sir Edward Coke(z), amount to more than 70,000l. It was anciently the rule never to grant more than one subsidy and two fifteenths at a time: but this rule was broken through for the first time on a very pressing occasion, the Spanish invasion in 1588; when the parliament gave queen Elizabeth two subsidies and four fifteenths. Afterwards, as money sunk in value, more subsidies were given; and we have an instance in the first parliament of 1640, of the king's desiring twelve subsidies of the commons, to be levied in three years; which was looked upon as a startling proposal: though lord Clarendon says (a), that the speaker, serjeant Glanville, made it manifest to the house, how inconsiderable a *sum twelve subsidies amounted to, by telling them he had computed [*371] what he was to pay for them himself; and when he named the sum, he being known to be possessed of a great estate, it seemed not worth any further deliberation.

The grant of scutages, tallages, or subsidies by the commons did not extend to spiritual preferments; those being usually taxed at the same time by the clergy themselves in convocation: which grants of the clergy, however, unless confirmed in parliament, were not binding: as the same noble writer observes of the subsidies granted by the convocation, which continued sitting after the dissolution of the first parliament in 1640. A subsidy granted by the clergy was after the rate of 4s. in the pound according to the valuation of their livings in the king's books: and amounted, as sir Edward Coke tells us(b), to about 20,0007. While this custom continued, convocations were wont to sit as frequently as parliaments: but the last subsidies, thus given by the clergy, were those confirmed by statute 15 Car. 2, c. 10, since which another method of taxation, taking in the clergy as well as the laity, has generally prevailed.

The lay subsidy was usually raised by commissioners appointed by the crown, or the great officers. of state: and therefore in the beginning of the civil wars between Charles I. and his parliament, the latter having no other sufficient revenue to support themselves and their measures, introduced the practice of laying weekly and monthly assessments(c) of a specific sum upon the several counties of the kingdom; to be levied by a pound-rate on lands and personal estates; which were occasionally continued during the conflict, sometimes at the rate of 120,000l. a month, sometimes at inferior rates(d). After the Restoration the ancient method of granting subsidies, *instead of such monthly assess[ *372] ments, was once, and once only, renewed; viz. in 1663, when four subsidies were granted by the temporality, and four by the clergy.

The statute 22 & 23 Car. 2, c. 3, was indeed entitled "An act for granting a subsidy to his majesty for supply of his extraordinary occasions "(e), and by this act, inter alia, a tax of 18. in the pound was imposed on land, but the mode of

(2) 4 Inst. 33.

(a) Hist. bk. 2.

(b) 4 Inst. 33.

(c) 29 Nov.; 4 Mar. 1642.

(d) One of these bills of assessment, in 1656, is preserved in Scobell's collection, 400.

(e) Stats. Realm.

levying it was not similar to that of levying the true subsidy. Yet a popular opinion has prevailed, that the land-tax was first introduced in the reign of William III.(f); because in the year 1692 a new assessment or valuation of estates was made throughout the kingdom: which, though by no means perfect, had this effect, that a supply of 500,000l. was equal to 1s. in the pound of the value of the estates given in. And according to this enhanced valuation, from the year 1693 to the present time, the land-tax has continued a charge upon the subject; varied in amount at different periods, but without any total intermission. The method of raising it is by charging a particular sum upon each county, according to the valuation given A. D. 1692: and this sum is assessed and raised upon individuals(g), by commissioners appointed in the act, being the principal landholders of the county, and their officers. This tax which for upwards of a century was annual, is now made perpetual, and subject to redemption (h).

(II.) Income tax.

*II. The income tax is an impost on individuals according to the [ *373] amount of annual income which they possess, those being exempt whose income is under 1007. per annum. This tax was first introduced by Mr. Pitt in 1798 at the rate of ten per cent. to meet the expenses of the war, which he had failed to do by tripling the assessed taxes in the previous year. The tax was removed in 1802 after the peace of Amiens, and was again imposed under the name of the property tax in 1803, and remained in force till 1816. It was re-imposed by sir Robert Peel in 1842 for three years(i), and from that time to the present has been continued (though varied in amount) by numerous statutes, of which the last are the 31 & 32 Vict. cc. 2 & 28*.(99)

(f) 4 Will. 3, c. 1.

Personal as well as real property was assessed, until the former was relieved from this burden by 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 12.

(h) The last annual act for granting a landtax, was the 38 Geo. 3, c. 5. This act was amended and extended by 38 Geo. 3, c. 48, and the tax was made perpetual and subject to redemption by 38 Geo. 3, c. 60; which last mentioned act was amended by 42 Geo. 3, c. 116. The consideration for redemption of the land-tax, is, with some exceptions, so much capital stock of the three per cent. consolidated annuities, or reduced annuities, as will yield a dividend exceeding the amount of the land-tax redeemed by one-tenth part thereof. This stock may be transferred by the purchaser at once, or by instalments, and in certain cases, the redemption may be made by payments in money. The land-tax acts were further amended by 53 Geo. 3, cc. 123 and 142, and new commissioners were appointed by

various acts, from 31 Geo. 2, c. 7, to 30 & 31 Vict. c. 51.

(i) This tax imposes (1) a duty of a certain sum in the pound, on all lands, tenements, and hereditaments, or heritages in Great Britain, in respect of the property thereof;-(2) a duty on all such lands, &c., in respect of the occupation thereof;-(3) a duty upon all profits arising from annuities, dividends, and shares of annuities payable out of any public revenue; (4) a duty upon the annual profits or gains arising or accruing from any kind of property whatsoever, whether situate in Great Britain or elsewhere, or from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation; and

(5) a duty upon the annual amount of any public office or employment of profit, and upon every annuity or stipend payable by her majesty, or out of the public revenue, except annuities before charged under class (3).*

(99) By the act of July 1, 1862, congress provided a law for the collection of taxes, etc., for the support of the government and to pay the interest on the public debt. 12 Stat. at Large, 432; see the amendment of March 3, 1863, 12 id. 713; act of March 7, 1864, 13 id. 14; act of March 3, 1865, 13 id. 469; act of July 13. 1866, 14 id. 98; act of March 2, 1867, 14 id. 471; act of July 20, 1868, 15 id. 125; act of July 14, 1870, 16 id. 256; act of June 6, 1872, 17 id.

These various acts and the amendments to them constitute an extensive system of raising revenue, an analysis of which would be entirely impracticable in a work of this character. *As to the income tax and licenses, see 82 & 33 Vict. c. 14. VOL. I.-31