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residue on his landlord, the tax being one imposed by the law on the beneficial proprietor of the land (e).

II. [The Customs.-These are the duties, toll, tribute, or tariff payable upon merchandize exported and imported. The considerations upon which this revenue was vested in the king, have been said to be two (ƒ): (1) because he gave the subject leave to depart the kingdom, and to carry his goods along with him; and (2) because the king was bound, of common right, to maintain and keep up the ports and havens, and to protect the merchant from pirates. However this may be, the right of the Crown to these customs clearly originated in the grant of parliament (g) ; and by the Confirmatio Cartarum (1297), c. 7, the king promises to take no customs from merchants without the common assent of the realm, "saving to us and our heirs "the customs on wool, skins, and leather, granted before "by the commonalty aforesaid." On this account these duties on wool, skins, and leather have been called the hereditary customs of the crown, and the said three commodities were styled the staple commodities of the kingdom, because they were obliged to be brought to those ports where the king's staple was established, in order to be there first rated and then exported. These duties were also called custuma antiqua sive magna; and they were payable by every merchant, as well native as stranger. But there was also another duty, known as the custuma parva et nova, which was an impost of ten shillings on the sack of wool, and of threepence in the pound, due from merchant strangers only, for all commodities, as well

(e) Ward v. Const (1830), 10 B. & C. 635; Graham v. Wade (1812), 16 East, 29; Queen v. Land Tax Commissioners (1853), 2 El. & Bl. 694; Charing Cross Bridge Company v. Mitchell (1855), 4 El. & Bl. 549; Lord Colchester v. Kewney (1867), L. R. 2 Exch. 253;

also Land Tax Redemption Acts
1802 and 1814; Land Tax Act,
1834; Land Tax Redemption
Act, 1838; Land Tax Act, 1842;
Revenue Act, 1869, Part II.

(ƒ) Dyer, 165 b.
(g) 2 Inst. 58, 59.

[imported as exported. This was usually called the alien's duty, and was first granted in the thirty-first year of Edward the First (1303) (h); but it has long since been abolished.

There is also another very antient hereditary duty, or custom, belonging to the Crown, called the prisage or butlerage of wines (); the crown being entitled, under the name of this duty, to take two tuns of wine, one before and one behind the mast, from every ship, English or foreign, importing into England twenty tuns or more. But, by a charter of Edward the First, the duty of prisage was exchanged into a duty of two shillings for every tun imported by merchant strangers, and was then called butlerage, because paid to the king's butler (k).

Other customs payable upon exports and imports were distinguished into subsidies, tunnage, poundage, and other imposts, subsidies being such as were imposed by parliament upon any of the staple commodities before mentioned, over and above the custuma antiqua et magna; tunnage being a duty upon all wines imported, over and above the prisage and butlerage aforesaid; while poundage was a duty imposed ad valorem, at the rate of twelve pence in the pound, on all other merchandize whatsoever. Other imposts were occasionally laid on by parliament as the circumstances of the time required (1). The imposts of tunnage and poundage in particular were first granted for the defence of the realm, and for the intercourse of merchandize safely to come into and pass out of the same (m); and were at first usually granted only for a stated term of years, as for two years in the fifth year of Richard the Second (n). But in Henry the Sixth's time, and again in Edward the Fourth's time, they were granted

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[to the king for life. After that time they were regularly granted for life, sometimes at the first, sometimes at other subsequent parliaments of each reign, till the reign of Charles the First, when, as Lord Clarendon expresses it, his ministers were not sufficiently solicitous for a renewal of the legal grant (o). And yet these imposts were thereafter levied and taken unconstitutionally, and without the consent of parliament, for fifteen years together, which was one of the causes of those unhappy discontents, justifiable at first in too many instances, but which degenerated at last into causeless rebellion and murder. For the king, previously to the commencement of hostilities, gave the nation satisfaction for the error which had been committed, when, by the 16 Car. I. (1640), c. 8, he renounced the power of levying these duties without the consent of parliament. Upon the Restoration, these duties were granted to King Charles the Second for life; and the like grant was made to his two immediate successors. But afterwards, by three several statutes, 9 Anne (1710), c. 11; 1 Geo..I. st. 2 (1714), c. 12, and 3 Geo. I. (1717), c. 7), the duties were made perpetual, and mortgaged for the public debt.] Finally, in the year 1787, was passed the Customs Consolidation Act, by which the amount of the duties and the articles on which they should be levied were defined. The law of customs, thus simplified and consolidated, was in the reign of William the Fourth reduced into several statutes repealing all former provisions, and forming a new code upon the subject; but these statutes were themselves afterwards repealed, and the enactments at present in force will be found chiefly in the Customs Tariff Act, 1876, and the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, as amended by the statutes mentioned in the note (p).

(0) Hist. Reb. b. 3.

(p) The amending statutes are the Customs, Inland Revenue, and

Savings Bank Act, 1877; Customs and Inland Revenue Acts, 1878, 1879, 1881, 1882, 1883; Revenue

III. The Excise. This is directly opposite in its nature to the customs duties; for it is an inland imposition, paid sometimes on the consumption of the commodity, frequently upon the retail sale. Inasmuch as this duty is peculiarly liable to evasion, the officers of the revenue have a power to enter and search the places of business of such as deal in exciseable commodities, at any hour of the day, and, in the presence of a constable, of the night also; and excise offences are summarily dealt with, either before the commissioners of revenue or before justices of the peace, subject, in either case, to an appeal.

The excise was originally established, by an Ordinance of the Long Parliament, in 1643, with the intention that it should continue only till the end of the civil war. At first it was laid only on beer, ale, cider, and perry (9); but it was soon afterwards imposed on wine, tobacco, sugar, and a great multitude of other commodities (). Upon King Charles' Restoration, it having then been long established, and its produce well known, some part of it was given to the Crown, by way of purchase (as was before mentioned) for the feudal tenures and other oppressive parts of the hereditary revenue. Since that period it has constantly formed part of the taxes of the nation, being, however, now limited to beer, spirits, chicory, and coffee. Under recent Acts of Parliament, many imposts, which are not properly in the nature of excise, have been classed, for greater convenience in collection, under this head of duties, e.g.,

Acts, 1883, 1884; Customs and
Inland Revenue Acts, 1885, 1886;
Customs Amendment Act, 1886;
Customs and Inland Revenue
Acts, 1887, 1888, 1889; Revenue
Act, 1889; Customs and Inland
Revenue Act, 1890; Customs
Consolidation Act, 1876, Amend-
ment Act, 1890; Finance Acts,

1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902; Revenue Act, 1898; and (as to the Isle of Man) the Isle of Man (Customs) Acts, 1898, 1900, and 1901; Exportation of Arms Act, 1900.

(q) Com. Journ. 17th May, 1643.

(r) Ibid. 27th May, 1643.

dog-licences (s), gun-licences (t), and game-licences (u), the licences of appraisers and house-agents, pawnbrokers, hawkers, pedlars, and the like. To this branch of the revenue there have also been assigned the duties on stage and hackney carriages, on railway passengers, on race-horses, and on wine licences and refreshment houses (r); also, all the duties which used to be known by the name of the assessed taxes, these last being duties assessed and charged upon persons in respect of the houses they inhabit, and of certain articles by them used or kept (a). Such assessed taxes comprise also the duties on male servants, on private carriages, and on armorial bearings (y). The collection of all these taxes is now regulated by the Taxes Management Act, 1880; and anyone liable to pay, who fails to pay them, may, in default of a sufficient distress to answer them, be committed to prison until payment, upon an order to that effect of two of the Inland Revenue Commissioners ().

IV. [Another source of the revenue is the Post Office. This, like the excise, was first established in 1643, having been invented or organised by Prideaux, attorney-general to the commonwealth, who was appointed postmastergeneral (a). When the common council of London endeavoured to erect an opposition post office, the House of Commons declared that the office of postmaster is and ought to be in the sole power and disposal of parliament (b); and in 1656 a regular post office was erected,

(8) Dog Licences Act, 1867; Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1878, s. 17.

(t) Gun Licence Act, 1870. (u) Game Act, 1831; Game Licences Act, 1860.

(v) Refreshment Houses Act, 1860.

(x) Revenue Act, 1869, s. 18.

(y) Revenue Act, 1869, Part V.; Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1888, s. 4.

(z) Revenue Act, 1869, s. 30; Taxes Management Act, 1880, ss. 86-91.

(a) Com. Journ. 7th Sept. 1644; 21st Mar. 1649. (b) Ibid.

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