“People must pay for the privilege of living in London,—for the thousands of comforts and conveniences which are to be had there only. Here, if people want to send letters a few miles, two or three times a-day, they must dispatch two or three messengers, for want of a twopenny post. If they want to buy meat, they must go a good way to a butcher, and take the chance of getting what they want, if it be not market-day, instead of having an universally-stocked market at hand every day of the week. If they want to ride any distance, they must hire horses, for want of omnibuses and stages; and they have none of the luxuries of fine buildings, inexhaustible libraries, and the best of pictures, and of music, and of theatrical and other exhibitions at hand. O, people ought to pay for living in London.” “And the most natural way is to pay in rent, and therefore in house-tax also. In as far as the country improves,—as provincial towns approach more nearly to the glory of London,—rents and house-tax will rise much more certainly than by any law that shall attempt to equalize them with the metropolis. I would not interfere between the shop-owner of Charing-Cross and the shop-owner of A——. The real grievance lies between the noblemen of Charing-Cross and of Yorkshire, and the landlord of a shop in the Strand. While the shop-owner pays a house-duty of 80_l._ a-year, and the peer in the park no more, and another peer in his country palace less than half, there is certainly ample room for complaint.” “Without proving that the tax itself is bad. I should think some test of value, other than the rent they would bring, might be found out for those country palaces which, with all their splendour and convenience, might be difficult to let. Very rich men would not mind having the value of one article of their property ascertained, in order to be taxed, however disagreeable the inquisition may be to a less wealthy man, whose credit depends on the amount of his property. The house-tax would become a property-tax in this way.” “It is a property-tax already; and therefore a tax of the best kind; and therefore to be parted with only when swallowed up in a general property-tax. Yet I am afraid it will be parted with, on account of the clamour of people who live near enough to the Treasury to make their clamour seem very terrible. If the sum which will then be taken off——” “How much?” “The house and window taxes together are between two and three millions.” “That would go a great way towards relieving the poor of some really bad taxes, and particularly if great houses were taxed as they should be, so as to allow of more reduction in a right place.” “Besides that the excise,—the really bad taxes, some of which press so heavily on the poor,—cost such an amazing deal to collect, that the saving in taking them off would be much more than the amount that comes into the Treasury.”