The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-14 00:00:00

THE BREAD-TAX UNVEILED.

• . There. is plenty of good foreign corn at this
t, moment locked up in those famine-shops, the
, bonding warehouses, which the merchants would
be glad to sell at thirty-eight shillings a quarter.
Befbre the key can be turned to let looSe this
wheat, a tax Of 245. Sd. a quarter must be paid.
Twenty-four shillings and eight pence a quarter
is the tax which this very day is paid by the
people upon their bread corn ! they now pay
Sd. a quarter for wheat, which they might
buy for 88s. in bond, at Liverpool ; the difference
of 245. Sd. is the amount of the tax paid for mo-
nopoly. This is a tax of 40 per cent. upon the •
daily bread of the people. Let us now see how
this tax affects the different classes of bread con- I
sowers, and first, the labouring. class.
Workmen throughout the whole kingdom
earn one with another, about ten shillings a week.
In some places, as for instance the workmen of
London, and the large cities, they earn much
more ; in other parts, as, for example, the pea-
santry of *lreland and )evonshire, they earn
much less: but, taking the average of the whole,
it has been calculated by high authorities, that
the working men of the British empire earn ten
shillings a week each. It is estimated by the
Hand-loom Inquiry Commissioners, in their able
Report, that a working man's family consumes,
on an average, five shillings' worth of bread
every week. The tax of 40 per cent. which is
now paid on bread, is just two shillings out of
the five spent by all the working men being
heads of families throughout the kingdom. Two
shillings out of the ten a week earned by all the'
working people of these realms are paid for the
tax on their bread; two shillings in every ten, or
twenty pounds in every hundred, are taken. from
the wages of labour by the monopoly of corn !
In other words, the present -Corn-law imposes
upon the whole of the labouring .class, an in-
come tax or poll tax of 'twenty per cent:' This
is a truth so clear that nobody can deny it, in-
less he will deny that two and two make four.
Let us next see how this tax affects the -other
classes of society. The middle class man's family
consumes no more bread than the family of the
working plan; the nobleman's family eats actu-
ally less bread than the ploughman's. We will
suppose, however, that all consume equal quan-
tities of bread. Let us then see what amount of
income tax is levied upon the different classes by
the present Corn-law.
The working man earning ten shillings a week,
or twenty-six pounds a year, pays, as we have
seen, two shillings a week, or five pounds four
shillings a year, being 20 per cent. of his income,
for the tax on bread. The family with an in-
come of twenty shillings a week, or fifty-two
pounds a year, pays also two shillings a week,
or five pounds four shillings a year for the bread
tax, being 10 per cent. upon its income.. The
fa.mily with an income of 1041. pays the same
amount of bread tax, being an income tax of five
per cent., and so on, as by the following tabular
view :
Family's Income. Bread Tax. Income Tax.

£26 £s 4 0
52 5 4 0
104 5 4 0
208 5 4 0
416 5 .4 0
839 5 4 0
1,664 5 4 0
3,328 5 4 0
6,656 5 4 0
13,319 • 5 4 0
26,624 5 4 0
52,248 5 4 0
106,496 r) 4 0
MAW.- 5 4 0 id. "
It will be seen by the above table, that whilst
the labouring classes pay twenty pounds out of
every hundred of their earnings for the tax upon
bread, the nobleman with 208,992/. a year, pay 4
' only one halfpenny out of every hundred pounds,
of his income fin' the bread-tax, If' the tax
preiiietl equally upon the incomes of the Peer
and the Peasant, then the Noblemanyg,-
40,000/. a year for the tax on br-7 7_
Now what should we P-
if ill brought
into Parliament
ea
_ for incrsing a B
thewas revenue by
in, Posing?. an 44:- omt.4-tax upon all classes, with
this prorso, Viz., that the labouring. class should
py tt lax of 201. per cent., the middle class 1/.
Par cent., the rich man a shilling per cent., and
the rnest peer_ one halfpenny per cent., would
there not arise one unanimous burst of execra-
tion as,r,aink the author of such a notorious Bill?
Yet, script of its mystery, the present Corn-law
is infinitely worse than such an
_income-tax for
it taxes the incomes of the
.poor in the very way
we have' descriVod,
.iiot for the revenue of the
Statel hut l'or the benefit of the rich landoWnerS,
who themselves escape the burden.—Anti-Briwd-
Tax Circular.

£2O per cent.
10
5
21
If
19
12s. Gd. "
6s. 3d. "
3s. ld. "
Is. Gd. "
9d. "
4Ad, "
•

“1 a pay