On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures by Charles Babbage (english books to improve english TXT) 📕

larger dimensions than before. Staircases were lighted by

extremely long windows, illuminating three or four flights of

stairs. When the tax was increased, and the size of windows

charged as single was limited, then still greater care was taken

to have as few windows as possible, and internal lights became

frequent. These internal lights in their turn became the subject

of taxation; but it was easy to evade the discovery of them, and

in the last Act of Parliament reducing the assessed taxes, they

ceased to be chargeable. From the changes thus successively

introduced in the number the forms, and the positions of the

windows, a tolerable conjecture might, in some instances, be

formed of the age of a house.

415. A tax on windows is exposed to objection on the double

ground of its excluding air and light, and it is on both accounts

injurious to health. The importance of light to the enjoyment of

health is not perhaps sufficiently appreciated: in the cold and

more variable climates, it is of still greater importance than in

warmer countries.

416. The effects of regulations of excise upon our home

manufactures are often productive of great inconvenience; and

check, materially, the natural progress of improvement. It is

frequently necessary, for the purposes of revenue, to oblige

manufacturers to take out a license, and to compel them to work

according to certain rules, and to make certain stated quantities

at each operation. When these quantities are large, as in general

they are, they deter manufacturers from making experiments, and

thus impede improvements both in the mode of conducting the

processes and in the introduction of new materials. Difficulties

of this nature have occurred in experimenting upon glass for

optical purposes; but in this case, permission has been obtained

by fit persons to make experiments, without the interference of

the excise. It ought, however, to be remembered, that such

permission, if frequently or indiscriminately granted, might be

abused: the greatest protection against such an abuse will be

found, in bringing the force of public opinion to bear upon

scientific men and thus enabling the proper authorities, although

themselves but moderately conversant with science, to judge of

the propriety of the permission, from the public character of the

applicant.

417. From the evidence given, in 1808, before the Committee

of the House of Commons, On Distillation from Sugar and Molasses,

it appeared that, by a different mode of working from that

prescribed by the Excise, the spirits from a given weight of

corn, which then produced eighteen gallons, might easily have

been increased to twenty gallons. Nothing more is required for

this purpose, than to make what is called the wash weaker, the

consequence of which is, that fermentation goes on to a greater

extent. It was stated, however, that such a deviation would

render the collection of the duty liable to great difficulties;

and that it would not benefit the distiller much, since his price

was enhanced to the customer by any increase of expense in the

fabrication. Here then is a case in which a quantity, amounting

to one-ninth of the total produce, is actually lost to the

country. A similar effect arises in the coal trade, from the

effect of a duty, for, according to the evidence before the

House of Commons, it appears that a considerable quantity of the

very best coal is actually wasted. The extent of this waste is

very various in different mines; but in some cases it amounts to

one-third.

418. The effects of duties upon the import of foreign

manufactures are equally curious. A singular instance occurred in

the United States, where bar-iron was, on its introduction.

liable to a duty of 140 per cent ad valorem, whilst hardware was

charged at 25 per cent only. In consequence of this tax, large

quantities of malleable iron rails for railroads were imported

into America under the denomination of hardware; the difference

of 115 per cent in duty more than counter balancing the expense

of fashioning the iron into rails prior to its importation.

419. Duties, drawbacks, and bounties, when considerable in

amount, are all liable to objections of a very serious nature,

from the frauds to which they give rise. It has been stated

before Committees of the House of Commons, that calicoes made up

in the form, and with the appearance of linen, have frequently

been exported for the purpose of obtaining the bounty, for

calico made up in this way sells only at 1s. 4d. per yard,

whereas linen of equal fineness is worth from 2s. 8d. to 2s. 10d.

per yard. It appeared from the evidence, that one house in six

months sold five hundred such pieces of calico.

In almost all cases heavy duties, or prohibitions, are

ineffective as well as injurious; for unless the articles

excluded are of very large dimensions, there constantly arises a

price at which they will be clandestinely imported by the

smuggler. The extent, therefore, to which smuggling can be

carried, should always be considered in the imposition of new

duties, or in the alteration of old ones. Unfortunately it has

been pushed so far, and is so systematically conducted between

this country and France, that the price per cent at which most

contraband articles can be procured is perfectly well known. From

the evidence of Mr Galloway, it appears that, from 30 to 40 per

cent was the rate of insurance on exporting prohibited machinery

from England, and that the larger the quantity the less was the

percentage demanded. From evidence given in the Report of the

Watch and Clockmakers’ Committee, in 1817, it appears that

persons were constantly in the habit of receiving in France

watches, lace, silks, and other articles of value easily

portable, and delivering them in England at ten per cent on their

estimated worth, in which sum the cost of transport and the risk

of smuggling were included.

420. The process employed in manufacturing often depends upon

the mode in which a tax is levied on the materials, or on the

article produced. W atch glasses are made in England by workmen

who purchase from the glass house globes of five or six inches in

diameter, out of which, by means of a piece of red-hot tobacco

pipe, guided round a pattern watch glass placed on the globe,

they crack five others: these are afterwards ground and smoothed

on the edges. In the Tyrol the rough watch glasses are supplied

at once from the glass house; the workman, applying a thick ring

of cold glass to each globe as soon as it is blown, causes a

piece, of the size of a watch glass, to be cracked out. The

remaining portion of the globe is immediately broken, and returns

to the melting pot. This process could not be adopted in England

with the same economy, because the whole of the glass taken out

of the pot is subject to the excise duty.

421. The objections thus stated as incidental to particular

modes of taxation are not raised with a view to the removal of

those particular taxes; their fitness or unfitness must be

decided by a much wider enquiry, into which it is not the object

of this volume to enter. Taxes are essential for the security

both of liberty and property, and the evils which have been

mentioned may be the least amongst those which might have been

chosen. It is, however, important that the various effects of

every tax should be studied, and that those should be adopted

which, upon the whole, are found to give the least check to the

productive industry of the country.

422. In enquiring into the effect produced, or to be

apprehended from any particular mode of taxation, it is necessary

to examine a little into the interests of the parties who approve

of the plan in question, as well as of those who object to it.

Instances have occurred where the persons paying a tax into the

hands of government have themselves been adverse to any

reduction. This happened in the case of one class of

calicoprinters, whose interest really was injured by a removal

of the tax on the printing: they received from the manufacturers,

payment for the duty, about two months before they were

themselves called on to pay it to government; and the consequence

was, that a considerable capital always remained in their hands.

The evidence which states this circumstance is well calculated to

promote a reasonable circumspection in such enquiries.

Question. Do you happen to know anything of an opposition

from calicoprinters to the repeal of the tax on printed calicoes?

Answer. I have certainly heard of such an opposition, and am

not surprised at it. There are very few individuals who are, in

fact, interested in the nonrepeal of the tax; there are two

classes of calicoprinters; one, who print their own cloth, send

their goods into the market, and sell them on their own account;

they frequently advance the duty to government, and pay it in

cash before their goods are sold, but generally before the goods

are paid for, being most commonly sold on a credit of six months:

they are of course interested on that account, as well as on

others that have been stated, in the repeal of the tax. The other

class of calicoprinters print the cloth of other people; they

print for hire, and on re-delivery of the cloth when printed,

they receive the amount of the duty, which they are not called

upon to pay to government sooner, on an average, than nine weeks

from the stamping of the goods. Where the business is carried on

upon a large scale, the arrears of duty due to government often

amount to eight, or even ten thousand pounds, and furnish a

capital with which these gentlemen carry on their business; it is

not, therefore, to be wondered at that they should be opposed to

the prayer of our petition.

423. The policy of giving bounties upon home productions, and

of enforcing restrictions against those which can be produced

more cheaply in other countries, is of a very questionable

nature: and, except for the purpose of introducing a new

manufacture, in a country where there is not much commercial or

manufacturing spirit, is scarcely to be defended. All incidental

modes of taxing one class of the community, the consumers, to an

unknown extent, for the sake of supporting another class, the

manufacturers, who would otherwise abandon that mode of employing

their capital, are highly objectionable. One part of the price of

any article produced under such circumstances, consists of the

expenditure, together with the ordinary profits of capital: the

other part of its price may be looked upon as charity, given to

induce the manufacturer to continue an unprofitable use of his

capital, in order to give employment to his workmen. If the sum

of what the consumers are thus forced to pay, merely on account

of these artificial restrictions, where generally known, its

amount would astonish even those who advocate them; and it would

be evident to both parties, that the employment of capital in

those branches of trade ought to be abandoned.

424. The restriction of articles produced in a manufactory to

certain sizes, is attended with some good effect in an economical

view, arising chiefly from the smaller number of different tools

required in making them, as well as from less frequent change in

the adjustment of those tools. A similar source of economy is

employed in the Navy: by having ships divided into a certain

number of classes, each of which comprises vessels of the same

dimensions, the rigging made for one vessel will fit any other of

its class; a circumstance which renders the supply of distant

stations more easy.

425. The effects of the removal of a monopoly are