“I do; but I hold them to be so much smaller than those we have been submitting to all this while as to be almost lost in the comparison,— except for the difficulty that there always is in changing taxes. As for the defining of what property is, distinctions have been made quite as subtle as between investments that are too transient to come under the title of property, and those that are not; between the landlord’s possession of a field that yields rent, and the tenant’s investment in marl which is to fertilize it for a season or two. Wherever legislation interferes with the gains of industry, nice distinctions have to be made; and this case will hardly rival our excise regulations. As for the small annuitants, though their case may be a less favourable one than that of richer men, it will be a far more favourable one than it is now, when their small incomes must yield enormously to the state through the commodities they buy. As for the tendency to check accumulation, it is also nothing in comparison with that which at present exists. What can check accumulation so much as the enhancement of the price of every thing that the capitalist and labourer must buy, when part of the added price goes to pay for the trouble and trickery attendant on a roundabout method of taxation? No, no. While, besides this enhancement of price, five or six sevenths of the taxation of the kingdom is borne by the labouring and accumulating classes, I cannot think that our capital would grow the slower for the burden being shifted upon the class of proprietors who can best afford the contribution, which would, after all, leave them in the same relation to other individuals in which it found them.” “It would certainly issue in that equality, since income from skill and labour would proportion itself presently to the amount of property. The physician who received a guinea-fee from the till now lightly-taxed proprietor, would then receive a pound; and so on, through all occupations. All would enjoy the relief from the diminished cost of collection, as I hope we shall all do under our present commission, sir. Well, you will not oblige us to put you upon your oath as to your amount of income. You really have not an income above 60_l._ a year, Mr. Farrer? that is our lowest denomination, sir; we tax none under 60_l._ a year.” “If you choose to swear me, you may; but my wife and I can assure you that we have no income beyond the few guineas that I may chance to earn from week to week. We have not been married many months; and we have never dared yet to think of such a thing as a regular yearly income. Well, it might be imprudent; but that is all over, I believe. If I find that I now am to have money——”