★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
1839 Feb. 21
For Petition against Taxes on Bread, Tea and Sugar
(1)
From the Examiner of Feb 21, 1830.
From the Scotsman
Tea and Sugar may now be classed among the
necessaries of life, even to the labouring classes. The duty is
106 per cent on the average of all qualities; but the
cheaper species of sugar sold to the labouring classes,
brings only from 17s to 19s in the market; and thus an article
which is a necessary of life to these classes, & one which is
not, like beer, liable to be abused, is taxed at the enormous
rate of 150 per cent! A labourer, with a wife
and 3 children, who may be supposed to consume fully 2
pounds per week, pays 26s per annum in duty to the
Government, upon an article the cost of which is only
18s or 20s; & the 26s per annum so paid will be
equal to his wages for three weeks. The Government,
in short, takes 3 weeks' labour, or 17th part of his
year earnings from him, by means of this
single tax, beside what it takes in other
shapes! The net revenue derived from sugar
amounts to about 5,000,000£ If all the
commodities which the warm regions
of the globe furnish to Europe, sugar is
beyond comparison the most useful; and
there is no doubt that its consumption
still admits of being greatly extended, by
reducing the price.— Tea is twice taxed.
Its natural price is first doubled by the
monopoly tax of the East India Company,
and then the double price is doubled again
|
Identifier: | JB/081/424/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 81.
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
1830-02-21 |
|||
|
081 |
petition for justice |
||
|
424 |
for petition against taxes on bread, tea and sugar |
||
|
001 |
from the examiner of feb 21, 1830 / from the scotsman |
||
|
copy/fair copy sheet |
1 |
||
|
recto |
e1 |
||
|
b&m 1829 |
|||
|
arthur moore; richard doane |
|||
|
1829 |
|||
|
26211 |
|||