First, To disguise the name of Excize, as odious to them, that do neither know the payment of Taxes to be as indispensable as eating, and as have not considered the natural justice of this way of Excizing or proportionating.
Secondly, To avoid the trouble and charge of Collecting.
Thirdly, To bring the business ad firmum, and to a certainty of all which we shall speak hereafter, when we examine the several reasons for and against the way of Excize, proceeding now to the several species of Accumulative Excizes, propounded in the world.
8. Some propound Beer to be the only Excizeable Commodity, supposing that in the proportion that men drink, they make all other Expences; which certainly will not hold, expecially if Strong Beer pay quintuple unto, (as now) or any more Excize then the small: For poor Carpenters, Smiths, Felt-makers, etc. drinking twice as much Strong Beer as Gentlemen do of Small, must consequently pay ten times as much Excize. Moreover, upon the Artizans Beer is accumulated, onely a little Bread and Cheese, leathern Clothes, Neck-Beef, and Inwards twice a week, stale Fish, old Pease without Butter, etc. Whereas on the other, beside Drink, is accumulated as many more things as Nature and Art can produce; besides this way of Excizing, though it be never so well administred, is neither so equal nor so easie, nor so examinable as the simple Poll-money before spoken of, which is also but an Accumulative Excize.
9. What hath been propounded for Beer may be of Salt, Fuel, Bread, etc. and the Proposition would all labour under the same Inconveniences; for some spend more, some less of these Commodities; and sometimes Families (each whereof are propounded to be farmed, withou descending to individual heads) are more numerous at some times then at others, according as their Estates or other Interests shall wax or wane.
10. Of all the Accumulative Excizes, that of Harth-money or Smoak-money seems the best; and that onely because the easiest, and clearest,and fittest to ground a certain Revenue upon; it being easie to tell the number of Harths, which remove not as Heads or Polls do: Moreover,'tis more easie to pay a small Tax, then to alter or abrogate Harths, even though they are useless and supernumerary; nor is it possible to cover them, because most of the neighbours know them; nor in new Buildings will any man who gives forty shillings for making a Chimney be without it for two.
11. Here is to be noted, that a Harth-money must be but small, or else 'twill be intollerable; it being more easie for a Gentleman of a thousand pound per annum to pay for an hundred Chimneys (few of their Mansion-Houses having more) then for Labourers to pay for two. Moreover, if the Land-Lord onely pay this Tax, then is it not an Accumulative Excize for all, but a particular Excize upon but one onely Commodity, namely Housing.
12. Now the Reasons for Excize are these, viz.
First, The Natural Justice that every man should pay according to what he actually enjoyeth; upon which account this Tax is scarce forced upon any, and is very light to those, who please to be content with natural Necesaries.
Secondly, This Tax if it be not farmed, but regularly collected, engages to thrift, the onely way to enrich a Nation, as by the Dutch and Jews, and by all other men, who have come to vaste Estates by Trade, doth appear.
Thirdly, No man payes double or twice for the same thing, forasmuch as nothing can be spent but once; whereas it is frequently seen, that otherwise men pay both by the Rent of their Lands, by their Smoaks, by their Titles, and by Customs, (which all men do, though Merchants chiefly talk of it) they also pay by Benevolence and by Tythes; whereas in this way of Excize no man need pay but one way, nor but once, properly speaking.
Fifthly, By this way an excellent account may be taken of the Wealth, Growth, Trade, and strength of the Nation at all times.
All which Reasons do make not for particular compoundings with Faculities, nor for letting the whole to farm, but for collecting it by special Officers, who having a full employment, will not be a fourth of the charge of our present many multiform Levies; for to put extraordinary trouble and hazzard upon the Countrey Officers, is a sorer Taxing of them, then to make them pay a small Reward unto practised Persons to be their Substitutes. All which are the common Objectives against Excize.
13. I should here adde the manner of Collecting it, but I refer this tothe practice of Holland; and I might also offer how men may be framed to be fit for this and other Publick Trusts, as to be Cashiers, Storekeepers, Collectors, etc. but I refer this Enquiry unto a more ample and fit occasion.
