The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-17 00:00:00

REPEAL OF THE WINDOW-TAX.
The very large amount raised et the wieeoe -tax,
approaching as it does to two miliiees, had alaseet ;or-
bidden us to hope that, though professedly a war tax,
we should ever live to see it entirely remoi ee. ;:;,.,tie
sort of modification was all that could be expected—we
had almost said desired--in the contlitioe of eur finance
ever since the war. But when we come to the question
of modification or commutation there are, we must con-
fess, greater difficulties than we have hitherto succeeded
in removing quite to our satisfactiou. To tax the cu-
bical contents of a house would tell very hard on capa-
cious but homely residences and on large family houses
in untashionable situations, besides being a ttis upon
health, to which space is as necessary as light and ven-
tilation. A property-tax upon houses of all sorts we
have already. Then, what is to be done? Two millions a
year are not to be sacrificed in a hurry. In the presect
state of public opinion, with a Board of Health
and a Crystal Palace staring us in the face,
it is equally impossible to retain the window-tax with
its present malignant influence upon air and light. Yet
to steer midway between the two impossibilities, though
easy to prescribe, has hitherto been found most difficult
to cccomplish. had the window-tax been in proportion
to value, like the property-tax, or a fixed charge, like the
land•tax, or a fair tax upon superfluous expenditure,
iike the duty on foreign wines, the nation might have
become in a manner reconciled to it; but the burden and
the practical anomalies of the window-tux increase con-
tinually, and every year adds to the reasons against it.
It is now in all respects a far worse tax than when it
was first laid on.
One alleged principle of the window-tax is, that it is
a duty on expenditure, and not upon industry. It is
laid on the residence, and not on the shop, the
counting-house, the workroom, or the warehouse.
The labourer's cottage, the small farm house, the
dairy. the cheeseroona, are all exempted. Yet a
" professional residence" in Bedford. square may con-
tain as many windows as a house in r Parke
place, and pay equal window-tax, though the rent of the
former may be only 1201., and that of the latter 5001.
Rates and the property-tax follow depreciation; the
window-tax is a constant burden, till the value sinks to
that melancholy zero when windows are bricked up, and
drawing-rooms are used to hang up sage and thyme, or
spread out apples and onions. Lodging-houses and some
hotels have strong claims on the public consideration,
but the window-tax is levied on both without the least
mitigation or remorse. The poor widow who stakes the
last remnent of her fortunes in opening a boarding-house
may be sadly disappointed in her expectation of boarders,
but one visitor she will certainly have,—the inexorable
man who for her 30 windows,door-lights,skyslights, cellar-
lights, and air-boles, demands no less a sum than 10/. 15s.
10d. The rambling old manor-house occupied as a
school is treated as harshly, and the operation of the
same injustice tells prejudicially on the construction of
new colleges and schools. The tax, then, is not true to
its own principle as a tax upon expenditure. The great
number of attempts that have been made to save the
principle by particular exemptions only make the incon-
sistency more flagrant, for it is continually asked, with
good reason, why is a shop exempted and net a lodging-
house—why a small tarmer'e house and not a small
schoolmaster's? Now, both this principle and these in-
consistencies of the window-tax present serious difficul-
ties in the way of a " commutation." The old mansion,
which will not let, even for a ladies' boarding-school,
because, having fifty apertures for light or for air, it is
charged 19/. a year to the window-tax, would only have
that burden fixed on it for ever by a mere commutation.
Doubtless a commutation might be made palatable, and
so fer practicable, by a considerable reducticia. If a
house that now pays 161. a year for its 40 windows were
henceforth to pay the rent-charge of 81. a year, its occu-
piers would bear with more complacency the fact of
another house paying tlse same rent-charge, though of
two or three times the value.
The numerous difficulties in the way of a mere com-
mutation will lead, we believe, to the surrender of the
window-tax, and the substitution of a very moderate
house-tax. There is reason to hope that the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer will have so considerable a surplus
at the end of the financial year that be can easily afford a
million or twelve hundred thousand for this long-desired
object. By the substitution of a house-tax calculated to
raise about 600,0001. for the window-tax raising about
1,800,0001., the sacrifice of revenue will nut exceed
1,200,0001. such a tax will in the first instance fall
much lighter then the present window- tax, and will not
ietertele with the construction of our dee Mugs. We
beg to congratulate all our readers on this great measure
of relief, particularly those excellent persons who have
laboured so long to improve the dwellings of the poor,
and have hitherto found the Legislature itselt their
greatest antagonist. It is enough that we have gone on
'or 50 years enduring the most slavish, annoying, and
inconvenient limitations to our personal comfort and
our architectural taste. Experience shows that up
to a class of comparative influence, the most economical
form of habitation is that in apartments or flats, as is
now generally practised in Paris, as was till lately in
Elinburgh, as was formerly the case much more than
now in this country, and as we now ace revived in the
model lodging-houses for families recently erected. The
window-tax, which charges an increasing duty on any
inhabited building, whether occupied in apartments or as
one dwelling house, has almost put an end to this econo-
mical and convenient plain It has compelled every small
family to occupy its separate house, from the foundation
to the roof, or pay a penalty for being content with half
a mansion. As tor the working class, the window-tax
has operated as a direct command that they shall con-
tinue to dwell in those interminable streets of little six-
roomed cottages which our railway viaducts exhibit to so
little advantage, instead of clubbing together for those
conveniences which can only be attained in large edifices
constructed for that purpose. This is only one of the
many ill fruits of this—perhaps the very worst of all our
war taxes. We have dwelt en them so often, that we
ill at present only say that architectural antiquaries
four or five centuries hence, will describe the domestic
architecture of 1800-1850 us the monument of a ruinous
war.—Times.