[61] In a course of years a few manufacturers have been tempted abroad, not by cheap living, but by immense premiums, to set up as masters, and to introduce the manufacture. This must happen in every country eminent for the skill of its artificers, and has nothing to do with taxes and the price of provisions.
[62] Although the public brewery has considerably increased in this latter period, the produce of the malt-tax has been something less than in the former; this cannot be attributed to the new malt-tax. Had this been the cause of the lessened consumption, the public brewery, so much more burdened, must have felt it more. The cause of this diminution of the malt-tax I take to have been principally owing to the greater dearness of corn in the second period than in the first, which, in all its consequences, affected the people in the country much more than those in the towns. But the revenue from consumption was not, on the whole, impaired; as we have seen in the foregoing page.
[63] Total Imports, value, Exports, ditto. 1752 £7,889,369 £11,694,912 1753 8,625,029 12,243,604 1754 8,093,472 11,787,828 --------- ---------- Total £24,607,870 35,726,344 24,607,870 ---------- Exports exceed imports 11,118,474 ---------- Medium balance £3,706,158 ----------
Total Imports, value, Exports, ditto. 1764 £10,818,946 £16,104,532 1765 10,889,742 14,550,507 1766 11,475,825 14,024,964 ----------- ----------- Total £32,685,513 44,740,003 ----------- 32,683,613 ----------- Exports exceed 12,054,490 ----------- Medium balance for three last years £4,018,163
[64] It is dearer in some places, and rather cheaper in others; but it must soon all come to a level.
[65] A tax rated by the intendant in each generality, on the presumed fortune of every person below the degree of a gentleman.
[66] Before the war it was sold to, or rather forced on, the consumer at 11 sous, or about 5_d._ the pound. What it is at present, I am not informed. Even this will appear no trivial imposition. In London, salt may be had at a penny farthing per pound from the last retailer.
[71] The figures in the "Considerations" are wrongly cast up; it should be 3,608,700_l._
[72] "Considerations," p. 43. "State of the Nation," p. 33.