Tea tax

“ In 1745, the British tea tax was reduced to 1 shilling (25 cents) per pound, together with 25 per cent of the gross price. The selling price immediately dropped, and British consumption in 1846 rose to 2,358,589 lbs. The use of tea has often been checked by excessive duties or excise tax. From 1784 to 1787 British consumption rose from five million pounds to seventeen millions of pounds, consequent upon a reduction of duties. Twenty years after, under the imposition of exorbitant duties, British consumption was only nineteen and one quarter millions of pounds. ”

“ Tea sent to America and not received.%—While these things were taking place in America—indeed, on the very day of the Boston riot—a motion was made in Parliament for the repeal of all the taxes laid by the Townshend Acts except that on tea. The tea tax of 3d. a pound, payable in the colonies, was retained in order that the right of Parliament to tax America might be vindicated. But the people held fast to their agreements not to consume articles taxed by Great Britain. ”

“ If you mean to follow your true motive and your public faith, give up your tax on tea for raising a revenue, the principle of which has, in effect, been disclaimed in your name, and which produces you no advantage,—no, not a penny. Or, if you choose to go on with a poor pretence instead of a solid reason, and will still adhere to your cant of commerce, you have ten thousand times more strong commercial reasons for giving up this duty on tea than for abandoning the five others that you have already renounced. ”

“ The English Government was now resolved to show that it would temporize no longer with the factious colonists. If in a spirit of rash and ill-repaid good-nature it had repealed certain taxes, at least it would repeal no more. The tax on tea existed; the tax on tea would be enforced; the tax on tea should be respected. The East India Company had a vast quantity of tea which it desired {159} to sell. It obtained from the Government the permission to export the tea direct to America instead of being obliged to let it pass through the hands of English merchants. ”

“ The assembly at Boston have just resolved to remonstrate with the court against the tea tax, as will appear from the accompanying English documents, which I inclose in the original in order to excite less suspicion in case this letter should be intercepted. The dissatisfaction with the impost grows out of their aversion to being taxed by the Parliament instead of by the representatives of their own provinces. ”

“ The Error of Distribution is so great that, were the whole taxation levied upon those above the line of £160 per annum, the comfortable and rich classes would still be left about six times as rich as those below that line.
An unanswerable case is thus made out for the repeal of the whole of the customs duties on tea, coffee, cocoa, dried fruits and sugar, which bear almost entirely upon the poorer classes. A heavy tax on tea or sugar is a matter of indifference to the rich; to the poor it means a considerable privation. Our indirect food taxes are a denial of the doctrine of ability. ”

“ A little is being done towards their renewal and restoration, but the tendency to-day is to neglect the interests of the rice-growing peasant in favor of the tea-planting Englishman. The paddy tax, which presses very hardly on the almost starving cultivator, while tea goes scot-free, is an instance of this. Tea, which is an export and a luxury, and which enriches the few, is thought to be so much more important than an article which is grown for home consumption and for the needs of the many. It is of course only an instance of the general commercial policy of all modern Governments ”

“ Parliament, on the one hand, has been taxing the Colonies, and they, on the other hand, have been petitioning and remonstrating against it, apprehending they have constitutionally an exclusive right of taxing themselves, and that without such a right, their condition would be but little better than slavery.
Possessed of these sentiments, every new measure of Parliament tending to establish and confirm a tax on them renews and increases their distress, and it is particularly encreased by the Act lately made, empowering the East India Company to ship their tea to America. ”

“ They are usually favored by politicians who dread the opposition of the people to taxation, because the collection is so incidental to ordinary expenditures as scarcely to be realized and never clearly measured. Few users of tobacco or strong drink have any distinct idea what portion of the cost represents the government revenue. Still less in drinking the cup of coffee, or sweetening it with sugar, does the person benefited weigh the tax he pays. It is doubtful if most of those who read this, actually know that sugar pays a tax, while tea and coffee do not, in our country. ”

“ The theory of food is most imperfectly understood. A chemical analysis may very possibly show that such an article as tea contains none of those ingredients which are commonly considered to nourish the human frame; and hence a rash and ignorant assertion is often made that tea is not a necessary of life, and that therefore a heavy tax upon tea is no hardship to the labourer; the tax, it is urged, is simply a salutary sumptuary law, because the consumption of tea ought rather to be discouraged than encouraged. ”

“ Cheaper tea was never seen in America; but it bore upon it the abhorred tax which asserted British control over the property of Americans. Will the Americans, long bereaved of the accustomed beverage, yield to the temptation, and barter their honour for cheap tea? The East India Company never doubted it; but the Company knew nothing of the temper of the American people. The ships arrived at New York and Philadelphia. ”

“ The system can only be acceptable to them, because [Pg 72] it is essentially necessary to be adopted for the public good.
Gentlemen argue, that a tax on molasses is unpopular, and prove it by experience under the British Government. If this is to be adduced as a proof of the popularity of a measure, what are we to say with respect to a tax on tea? Gentlemen remembered, no doubt, how odious this kind of tax was thought to be throughout America; yet the House had, without hesitation, laid a considerable duty upon it. ”

“ These important facts should be brought home to the great tea drinking public of Great Britain in some less lymphatic manner than that adopted by the self-constituted China Tea Association. Tea should be advertised, as Indian and Ceylon teas have been advertised, and as strikingly and as appealingly as the merits of patent medicines are made known. Even for this purpose should a voluntary tax be levied as in India. China must vigorously fight India, Ceylon, and Java with their own weapons if she would get back even a part of that trade which once, and not so long ago, was all her own. ”

“ This is generally done with things that people could live without, and had better not buy too much of—such as spirits, tobacco, and hair powder. And as tea was still a new thing in England, which only fine ladies drank, it was thought useless, and there was a heavy duty laid upon it when the king wanted money. Now, the Americans got their tea straight from China, and thought it was unfair that they should pay tax on it. ”

“ But when Government requires him to pay income-tax, assessed taxes, church and poor-rates, besides other direct burdens, out of the fruit of his industry—when it prevents him from growing on his own land several kinds of crop, in order that the customs revenue may be maintained—when it taxes indirectly his tea, coffee, wines, spirits, tobacco, soap, and spiceries—then I say that Government does interfere, and that most unmercifully, with the productive industry of the country. ”

“ They agreed to purchase no goods of British manufacture until the "Stamp Act" should be repealed and cheerfully agreed to dispense with tea. This society rapidly increased and became popular throughout Rhode Island.
England kept her faith but a little while and then proposed to raise a revenue by imposing duties on glass, lead, paint and paper, and a tax of three pence a pound on tea. This aroused fresh indignation throughout the colonies. In Virginia the house of burgesses passed a series of resolutions that in them was vested the sole right of taxing the colony. ”

“ With these facts in mind, hard-headed American merchants, to whom the Company applied for information about the state of the tea trade in the colonies, assured the directors that the Americans drank a great deal of tea, which hitherto had been largely smuggled from Holland; and that, although they were in principle much opposed to the tax, “mankind in general are bound by interest,” and “the Company can afford their teas cheaper than the Americans can smuggle them from foreigners, which puts the success of the design beyond a doubt.” ”

“ The internal-revenue system grew out of the necessities of the war, and most of the legislation imposing taxes upon domestic products under this system has been repealed. By the substitution of a tax on tea and coffee all forms of internal taxation may be repealed, except that on whisky, spirits, tobacco, and beer. Attention is also called to the necessity of enacting more vigorous laws for the protection of the revenue and for the punishment of frauds and smuggling. ”

“ For to raise the same sum the tax on wine will, as less is drunk, have to be much larger than the tax on tea, so that a little gain to many tea-drinkers might inflict a heavy loss on the few wine-drinkers, and on the Benthamite principle it is not clear that this would be just. ”

“ The Secretary of the Treasury in his report favors legislation looking to an early return to specie payments, thus supporting views previously expressed in this message. He also recommends economy in appropriations; calls attention to the loss of revenue from repealing the tax on tea and coffee, without benefit to the consumer ”

“ What consistency is there in making a clamour about this small branch of the revenue, whilst we silently pass over the articles of sugar, molasses and rum, from which more than three-fourths of the American revenue has and always will arise, and when the Act of Parliament imposing duties on these articles stands on the same footing as that respecting tea, and the moneys collected from them are applied to the same purposes? Many of us complain of the Tea Act, not only as it affects our liberties, but as it affects our purses, by draining us annually of a large sum of money. ”

“ I may say with great truth, that I do not believe one man in a hundred was to be met with who approved of the sending the tea, while the duty was to be paid here. Yet a great number of people acknowledged the right of the East India Directors to export their teas to America, and declared that nothing less than a confirmed belief that the admitting this mode of taxation would render the assemblies of the people mere cyphers, could have induced them to proceed in the manner they have done ”

“ The company has seventeen million pounds of tea stored in London, intended for the Colonies, and for which there is no market. It owes the government a vast sum. The merchants who have grown rich out of their profits in the past are not receiving any dividends. The shares of the company, which a few months ago were quoted at high rates, have become unsalable. Parliament has repealed the obnoxious laws for taxing the Colonies, and passed this act, doubtless thinking that, so long as we do not pay it directly into the Custom House, we shall acquiesce and go to drinking tea again. ”

“ If they would prevent the Tea Act being enforced, or the payment of the revenue arising therefrom to Government, methinks they should either not import any tea, or rather not consume any, and then the end would be answered at once. But while there is such a vast quantity exported every year by so considerable a number of persons, who all pay the duty thereof on its arrival, I do not see why every importer, nay, every consumer thereof, do not as much contribute to inforce the Tea Act as the India Compy themselves, or the persons to whom they may think proper to consign their tea for sale. ”

“ But the cost of production is further increased by the effects of indirect taxation. More than one half of the fifty-five millions which constitute the public revenue—twenty-eight and a half millions, arise from taxes imposed on the following articles of consumption—spirits, malt, tobacco, tea, sugar, and soap. All these are consumed principally by the labouring classes, and must be paid for out of produce in the shape of wages. ”

“ In order to make this taxation bearable, the industry of the people was protected in their own market by a scale of customs duties, which prevented the influx of foreign produce at rates which must have annihilated the British workman. Protection is a clear necessity which arises out of taxation. If the tobacco, tea, coffee, sugar, beer, soap, and other articles of the labourer's consumption, are taxed in order to maintain an expensive establishment, and to defray the interest of an enormous debt, he must have a compensation of some kind. ”

“ If we ask the whigs whether the pitiful three penny duty upon a luxurious, unwholesome, foreign commodity gives just occasion for the opposition; they tell us it is the precedent they are contending about, insinuating that it is an innovation. But this ground is not tenable; for a total repeal of the tea act would not serve us upon the score of precedents. They are numerous without this. The whigs have been extremely partial respecting tea. Poor tea has been made the shibboleth of party, while molasses, wine, coffee, indigo, &c. ”