The British Parliament 115
tion led irresistibly to constitutional innovation. The British government, to put
through its fiscal and accompanying policies, had increasingly to tamper with
long- recognized American customs: to suspend an assembly in New York, to
strengthen courts which were not courts of common law, and in 1774 to recon-
struct the whole government of Massachusetts.
Since the outburst in America began as a movement to resist taxes, it is well to
attempt a comparative view of tax burdens in the Western world at the time. Writ-
ers give the most diverse impressions on this subject. Some American historians, in
the effort to be impartial, allow that the British were groaning under enormous
levies. Others think the Americans already paid a good share (sometimes neglect-
ing to observe that the British treasury reimbursed Americans for their outlays
during the Seven Years’ War); one says, not very convincingly, that the citizens of
Boston, in 1760, were paying thirteen and a half shillings in the pound. Some
English writers affirm that the land tax in the eighteenth century was very heavy;
others, that landowners systematically evaded paying a fair share. Contemporaries
in all countries uniformly averred that they could pay no more.
It is hazardous to offer figures. High per- capita rates of taxation may reflect
entirely opposite situations: either that a people is oppressively taxed, or that it is
more wealthy than others. Low taxes, contrariwise, suggest either that a people is
fortunate, or that it is poor. To compare the currencies of different countries is al-
ways uncertain, though perhaps less so for the eighteenth century than for the
twentieth. For some countries in the eighteenth century the size of the population
is so debatable as to introduce an important variable into per- capita computations.
Available figures are usually for the income of central governments; one never
knows what costs of local government the taxpayer paid in addition, or what other
costs of government, in the form of fees or licenses, may be omitted. It may be re-
marked, however, that the income of central governments went mostly to pay for
war and the debts due to war; and, as it dwarfed all civil expenses of central gov-
ernment, it probably dwarfed the expenses of local government also, much of
which was carried on by unpaid officials. With due regard for all difficulties, I offer
the following view of the probable tax burden per head in English shillings, in
various countries about the time of the American Revolution. Figures are included
for component parts of the British, French, and Hapsburg political systems, the
difference of rates suggesting in part regional differences of wealth, and in part the
effects of regional privilege.
It will be seen that in the three great political systems it was the peripheral
provinces, those most recently or loosely attached, and enjoying corporate liberties
of their own, that paid the lowest rates. Belgians and Lombards were financially
privileged within the Austrian system; Hungary and Bohemia paid less than Aus-
tria. Brittany, the Free County of Burgundy, Alsace, and Roussillon, all of which
had strong provincial identity, and of which the first two possessed active Provin-
cial Estates, were likewise favored in France. The American colonies paid no direct
taxes, and not much in the way of customs duties, to the central government. The
figures for America refer to money raised and spent within the several provinces.
The British Americans enjoyed a lighter tax burden than any people of the West-
ern world except the Poles—and one knows what happened to Poland.