Taxation in England during the Industrial Revolution

By 1820, as Sydney Smith argued, the English believed that they were a heavily taxed people. There had been a large increase in tax- ation during the wars with France, and amassive increase in public debt, and the subject of taxation was regularly debated in Parlia- ment and vigorously disputed in journals and pamphlets. Neverthe- less J. R. McCulloch complained in 1845 that, “considering the importance of taxation, both as regards the interest of the public and of individuals, it appears singular that it should have been the subject of but few publications.†1 McCulloch argued that before him only Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Sir Henry Parnell had treated the subject comprehensively.2 He was less than fair to his contemporaries, if correct about the classical economists and Parnell. Smith had certainly given considerable impetus to the study of fiscal questions, had surveyed taxation in the 1770s, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and had shown that tax inci- dence could be explained by the economic theory of the distribu- tion of wealth. He also propounded his four famous maxims of taxation that have played such an important part in all subsequent discussion of taxation...