Six Speeches on Financial Reform (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Six Speeches on Financial Reform

Increased in number and extent with a frightful rapidity, until, in the reign of George III, taxes became so numerous that there was nothing further left to tax; and although premiums were offered for fresh subjects for taxation, none could be found. This state of affairs is thus graphically described by Sidney Smith We must pay taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon everything which is plea sant to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion; taxes upon everything on earth, and the waters under the earth; on every thing that comes from abroad, or is grown at home; taxes on raw material; taxes on every value that is added to it by the industry of man taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug which restores him to health on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal; on the brass nails of the coffin, and on the ribands of the bride; at bed or at board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent., into a spoon which has paid thirty per cent, throws himself back upon his chintz bed.

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