A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions
9781465640680
118 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Young and vain persons, though perhaps they marry not primarily and onely on purpose to get Children, much less to get such as may be fit for some one particular vocation; yet having Children, they dispose of them as well as they can according to their respective inclinations: Even so, although I wrote these sheets but to rid my head of so many troublesome conceits, and not to apply them to the use of any one particular People or Concernment; yet now they are born, and that their Birth happened to be about the time of the Duke of Ormond’s going Lord Lieutenant into Ireland, I thought they might be as proper for the consideration of that place, as of any other, though perhaps of effect little enough in any. Ireland is a place which must have so great an Army kept up in it, as may make the Irish desist from doing themselves or the English harm by their future Rebellions. And this great Army must occasion great and heavy Leavies upon a poor people and wasted Countrey; it is therefore not amiss that Ireland should understand the nature and measure of Taxes and Contributions. The Parishes of Ireland do much want Regulation, by uniting and dividing them; so as to make them fit Enclosures wherein to plant the Gospel: wherefore what I have said as to the danger of supernumerary Ministers, may also be seasonable there, when the new Geograpy we expect of that Island shall have afforded means for the Regulation abovementioned. The great plenty of Ireland will but undo it, unless a way be found for advantageous Exportations, the which will depend upon the due measure of Custom and Excize here treated on. Since Ireland is under-peopled in the whole, and since the Government there can never be safe without chargeable Armies, until the major part of the Inhabitants be English, whether by carrying over these, or withdrawing the other; I think there can be no better encouragement to draw English thither, then to let them know, that the Kings Revenue being above 1.10. part of the whole Wealth, Rent, and Proceed of the Nation; that the Publick Charge in the next Age will be no more felt there then that of Tythes is here; and that as the Kings Revenue encreases, so the causes of his Expence will decrease proportionably, which is a double advantage. The employing the Beggars in England about mending the High-wayes, and making Rivers Navigable will make the Wool and Cattle of Ireland vend the better. The full understanding of the nature of Money, the effects of the various species of Coins, and of their uncertain values, as also of raising or embasing them, is a learning most proper for Ireland, which hath been lately much and often abused for the want of it. Since Lands are worth but six or seven years purchase, and yet twenty years just cross the Channel, ’twere good the people of Ireland knew the reasons of it at a time when there is means of help.
