of the casual and uncertain produce of the ancient prerogative rights of the Crown, it should be observed, that the statutes by which this arrangement has been effected are careful to confine it to the lifetime of the king or queen by whom it is sanctioned. In theory, therefore, it would be open to any future monarch at his accession, to insist upon his ancient rights.

We come now to the Extraordinary Revenue.--This is the revenue from taxation, which at one time was looked upon as a desperate resource, only to be resorted to on occasions of national urgency, but which has now, for at least three centuries, been a regular feature of national economy.

[Contributions by way of taxation, which have been diversely called by the names of aids, subsidies, and supplies, are granted on the request of the Crown, by the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled; who, after they have in committee of supply, voted a supply to the Crown, and settled the quantum of that supply, resolve themselves into what is called a committee of ways and means, to consider the ways and means of raising the supply so voted. In this committee, any member may propose such scheme of taxation as he thinks will be least detrimental to the public, though this matter is looked upon as the peculiar province of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whom it belongs to bring forward annually his Budget, i.e., his financial statement for the year.]

The following are the chief taxes now imposed by law, namely, -I. The Land-tax; II. The Customs; III. The Excise and Assessed Taxes; IV. The Post-Office Duties; V. The Stamp Duties (including the Death Duties); VI. The Duty on Offices and Pensions; and VII. The Income Tax.

I. [The Land-Tac-This has come in the place of the antient tenths or fifteenths, subsidies, scutages, and tallages, a brief explanation of which shall here be given.

[Tenths and fifteenths were temporary aids issuing out of personal property and granted to the king by parliament (m); and they were formerly the real tenth or fifteenth part of all the moveables belonging to the subject, at a time when such moveables were a much less considerable thing than they are at this day. Tenths are said to have been first granted under Henry the Second ; but afterwards fifteenths were more usually granted than tenths. Originally, the amount of these taxes was uncertain, as they were levied by assessments newly made at every fresh grant of the commons, a commission for which is preserved by Matthew Paris (n); but it was at length reduced to certainty, in the eighth year of Edward the Third (1334), when, by virtue of the king's commission, taxations were made of every township, borough, and city in the kingdom, which were recorded in the exchequer, and such rate was, at the time, the fifteenth part of the value of every township, the whole amounting to about 39,000l. The name of a fifteenth was still kept up, although, by the increase of personal property, things came to be in a very different situation; and thus when, of later years, the commons granted the king a fifteenth, every parish in England immediately knew its proportion of the tax, for it was the same identical sum that was assessed by the same aid, in the eighth year of Edward the Third. And each parish raised it by a rate among themselves and returned it into the exchequer.

The other antient levies above specified were taxes on the real, and not on the personal, estate, and were in fact in the nature of a land tax. Every tenant of a knight's fee, it will be remembered, was bound, if called upon, to attend the king for forty days in each year (o). This personal attendance growing troublesome, the tenants found means of compounding for it, first by sending others in their stead, and in process of time by making a

(m) 2 Inst. 77; 4 Inst. 34. (n) A.D. 1232.

S.C.-II.

2N

(0) Vol. i. p. 106.

[pecuniary satisfaction to the crown in lieu of it. The pecuniary satisfaction at last came to be levied by assessments, at so much for every knight's fee, under the name of scutage; and these were levied for the first time in 1156 (p), and confirmed in the fifth year of Henry the Second (1159), on account of his expedition to Toulouse. Such assessments were then mere arbitrary compositions, and were sometimes levied on the landholders by the royal authority only, to the great impoverishment and vexation of the people; wherefore King John was obliged to promise in his Magna Carta (c. 12), that no scutage should be imposed without the consent of the common council of the realm, and in the charters of Henry the Third, it was stipulated, that scutages should be taken only as they were used to be taken in the time of King Henry the Second (q). Afterwards, by a variety of statutes under Edward the First and his grandson (r), it was provided, that the king should not take any aids or tasks, any tallage or tax, but by the common assent of the great men and commons in parliament. Of the same nature with scutages upon knights' fees were the assessments of hidage upon all other lands, and of tallage upon cities and burghs (s); but they all gradually fell into disuse upon the introduction of subsidies about the time of King Richard the Second and King Henry the Fourth.

Subsidies were a tax, not immediately imposed upon property, but upon persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of 4s. in the pound for lands, and 2s. 8d. for goods; and for those of aliens in a double proportion. It was antiently the rule, never to grant more than one subsidy and two fifteenths at a time; but afterwards, as money sank in value, more subsidies were given, as many as twelve subsidies, to be

(p) Medley, English Constitutional History, 504.

(7) 9 Hen. 3 (1225), c. 37.
(r) Confirmatio Cartarum (1297),

cc. 5-7; 34 Edw. 1 (1306), st. 4, c. 1; and 14 Edw. 3 (1340), st. 2, c. 1.

(8) Madox, Hist. Exch. 480.

[levied in three years, being demanded of the commons in the first parliament of 1640.

The grant of scutages, tallages, or subsidies, by the commons, did not extend to spiritual preferments, the clergy in those days taxing themselves. A subsidy granted by the clergy was according to the valuation of their livings in the king's books; and, at the rate of 4s. in the pound, amounted to about 20,000l. (t). But the last subsidies thus separately given by the clergy were those granted in the 15 Car. II. (1663), since which time, another method of taxation has generally prevailed, which takes in the clergy as well as the laity. In recompense for which, as already mentioned, the clergy have from that period been allowed to vote at the election of members of parliament in respect of their benefices (u); and thenceforward the practice of giving ecclesiastical subsidies has fallen into total disuse.

No subsidies were granted either by laity or clergy after the year 1670 (), but periodical assessments of a specific sum upon each of the several counties of the kingdom, to be levied by a pound rate on lands and personal estates, were granted as the national emergencies required, according to the method adopted during the Commonwealth. And these periodical assessments, as also the subsidies which had preceded them, and the scutages, hidages, and tallages before mentioned, were to all intents and purposes, so far as they were charged on land, a landtax, and they were sometimes expressly so called (y); although a popular opinion bas prevailed, that the land-tax was first introduced in the reign of King William the Third, because, in the year 1692, a new assessment or valuation of estates was then made throughout the king

(t) 4 Inst. 33.

(u) Dalt. Sheriffs, 334; Gilb. Hist. of Exch. ch. 4.

(r) The latest were by 22 & 23 Car. 2, c. 3.

(y) Com. Journ. 26 June, 9th Dec. 1678.

[dom. It was upon the new valuation so made, that the land-tax was imposed by the 4 W. & M. (1692) c. 1; and the tax has ever since continued a permanent charge upon land ().] By the Land Tax Perpetuation Act, 1798, this tax, which had long been an annual charge, was converted into a perpetual one, and was fixed at four shillings in the pound, a particular sum being charged on each county in accordance with the valuation referred to, and the proportion of each individual being assessed by commissioners appointed by the Crown (a). Under the Finance Act, 1896 (b), the land-tax is now at a rate not exceeding one shilling in the pound on the annual value; and under the Finance Act, 1898 (c), any person whose annual income does not exceed £160 is exempt from the whole, and any person whose income does not exceed £400 is exempt from half, of any land-tax payable by him. The land-tax is subject to redemption by the landowner (d); and although the tenant of the land is, by the Land Tax Act, 1797, s. 17, liable to a distress, in the event of the tax remaining in arrear, he is yet, by the same enactment, entitled to deduct the amount which he has paid for it (unless he has expressly agreed to pay all taxes), out of the first sum that shall become due for rent, the tax being, as between landlord and tenant, a charge upon the former, in the absence of any special engagement. Yet if the tenant has, to any extent, a beneficial interest, and does not hold at a rackrent, he becomes liable pro tanto, and can only charge the

(z) Under the 4 W. & M. (1692), c. 1, the sum granted was levied on personal as well as on landed property; but this was altered by the 3 & 4 Will. 4 (1833), c. 12.

(a) Land Tax Commissioners Act, 1827; Land Tax Commissioners (Names) Acts, 1879 and 1893.

(b) Sect. 31 (2). (c) Sect. 12.

(d) Land Tax Redemption Acts, 1802, s. 180, 1805 and 1817; Land Tax Redemption (Investment) Act, 1853, s. 8; Land Tax Redemption (No. 2) Act, 1853; and Land Tax Commissioners (Names) Act, 1881; Finance Act, 1896, ss. 32, 33; Kilderbee v. Ambrose (1854), 10 Ex. 454; Whidborne v. Ecclesiastical Commissioners (1877), 7 Ch. D. 375.