3. UNIVERSAL FREE TRADE.

Wheat is now admitted to England free of duty. Tea pays a duty of
about L4,000,000 sterling a year. This is called a duty for revenue,
not for protection. Tea is an article of universal consumption; the
tax on it is open to the objections against a poll tax or hearth tax,
viz. that by it many a poor old woman is taxed as heavily as far
richer people; indeed, owing to the poor consuming the lower-priced
teas, they are by the present duty taxed at a higher rate than those
who can afford the more expensive teas.

The reply in defence of these anomalies is, "We have to raise
L4,000,000 sterling by a duty on something; on whatever we put it, it
will no doubt be bad." Granting, however, this for a moment, the onus
lies on the defender of the existing tariff to prove that it is
better to raise the L4,000,000 required from tea than from wheat, or
than to raise L2,000,000 from tea, L2,000,000 from wheat. Mr. Raban,
a leading tea-planter in Assam, has observed that if the duty on tea
was replaced by one on wheat to raise the same gross amount, the
pressure on the English poor would be less; while an encouragement
would thus be given both to tea-planting in India and to agriculture
in England. I adduce this case of the duty on tea merely to bring out
strongly the fact that Free Trade in wheat is not universal Free
Trade. I do not recommend that the duty on tea should be replaced by
other duties: I am going to raise the question whether it should not
be replaced by direct taxation.

In the case of tea, the duty can hardly be said to be "protective,"
except so far as by raising the cost of tea it impels English