Customs and Excise: Trade, Production, and Consumption in England, 1640-1845This book traces the growth of customs and excise, and their integral role in shaping the framework of industrial England; including state power, technical advance, and the evolution of a consumer society. Central to this structure was the development of two economies - one legal and one illicit. If there was a unique English pathway of industrialization, it was less a distinct entrepreneurial and techno-centric culture, than one predominantly defined within an institutional framework spearheaded by the excise and a wall of tariffs. This process reached its peak by the end of the 1770s. The structure then quickly started to crumble under the weight of the fiscal-military state, and Pitt's calculated policy of concentrating industrial policy around cotton, potteries, and iron - at the expense of other taxed industries. The breakthrough of the new political economy was the erosion of the illicit economy; the smugglers' free trade now became the state's most powerful weapon in the war against non-legal trade. If at the beginning of the period covered by this book state administration was predominantly deregulated and industry regulated, by the close the reverse was the case. |
Contents
The Emergence of Public Credit War Revenue and High Politics 16431721 | 15 |
The Consumptibility of Goods Customs Excise and Trade | 35 |
The Equitable Tax? | 53 |
Liberty Property and the Excise | 63 |
The Devils Remedy | 85 |
Delusion? Trust Credit and the Excise | 87 |
The Introduction of the Excise | 94 |
His leering eyes gives such a look The World of Excise | 117 |
Drink and Food | 209 |
Candles Salt Soap Starch Leather Paper Textiles and Glass | 235 |
Ye Judgement of the Gaugers Shaping and Regulating the Market | 259 |
Measurement Instrumentation and Alcohol Standards | 261 |
Revenue Metrology and Casks | 280 |
The Incarceration Adulteration and Policing of Taxed Goods | 299 |
Dismantling the FiscalMilitary State | 317 |
The Limits of Taxation and the Politics of Representation | 319 |
An Impolite and Commercial People The Common Economy | 131 |
Life on the Waterfront | 133 |
Pilfering Customs Fees and Remuneration | 154 |
Smuggling | 165 |
Free Trade Transport and Concealment | 184 |
Going on the Gauge Excise Fraud and Production | 207 |
Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith addition administration adulteration beer Braddick brandy Brewer Britain British bushel candles casks cent Charles Davenant claimed Clarke's hydrometer coffee collection collector colonies commercial committee common consumption crown CUL Ch(H CUST Custom House customs and excise Daunton Davenant debt distillers domestic duties EcHR Economic eighteenth century England English English Civil War Exchequer excise commissioners excise officer excise scheme exported fees fiscal fraud French gallons gauging glass Glorious Revolution HCSP Ibid Illicit Practices imported increased industry instrument J. H. Plumb Jacobite labour land tax Leadbetter Liverpool maker malt manufacturers measures merchants Napoleonic Wars paid paper parliament parliamentary Pitt political Port of London pound PRO CUST Production and Excise public accounts quays reform Report revenue officers Royal Gauger salt ships Sikes's smugglers smuggling soap spirits standard sugar tobacco Treasury vessels Walpole Walpole's warehouses waterguard weight Whig William wine