Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/833

Rh E X C E X 797 was abolished as a separate court, and its jurisdiction was transferred to tlie new High Court of Justice. The Ex chequer still survives, however, as one of the divisions of the High Court, and still retains under its new name its old exclusive jurisdiction. The Court of Exchequer Chamber was, until the passing of the Act just referred to, the court of appeal from the three courts of common law. Appeals from any one of these were heard before judges of the other two. It was originally intended (by statute 31 Edward III. c. 12) to de termine causes by writs of error from the common law side of the Court of Exchequer, the judges being the lord chan cellor, lord treasurer, and the justices of the King s Bench and Common Pleas. A statute of 27 Elizabeth (c. 8) made similar arrangements for writs of error from the King s Bench. The jurisdiction of the Exchequer Chamber is transferred by the Judicature Act to the new Court of Appeal. The chancellor of the exchequer is the second commis sioner of the treasury, the first lord being the premier. Occa sionally both offices are held by the same person. It is the duty of the chancellor to prepare and lay before the House of Commons the &quot; budget &quot; for the year, and therefore he must be a commoner. The chancellor takes his seat in the Court of Exchequer once a year at the nomination of persons to serve as sheriffs. (E. E.) EXCISE, a term of obvious Latin derivation, now well- known in public finance, signifying a duty charged on home goods, either in the process of their manufacture or before their sale to the home consumers. This form of taxation implies a commonwealth somewhat advanced in manufac tures, markets, and general riches ; and it interferes so directly with the industry and liberty of the subject that it has seldom been introduced save in some supreme financial exigency, and has as seldom been borne, even after long usage, with less than the ordinary impatience of taxation. Yet excise duties can boast a respectable antiquity, having a distinct parallel in the vectigal rerum venalium (or toll levied on all commodities sold by auction or in public market) of the Romans. But the Roman excise was mild compared with that of modern nations, having never been more than centesima, or one per cent., of the value ; and it was much shorter-lived than the modern examples, having been first imposed by Augustus, reduced for a time one-half by Tiberius, and finally abolished by Caligula, 38 A.U., so that the Roman excise cannot have had a duration of much more than half a century. Its remission must have been deemed a great boon in the marts of Rome, since it was commemorated by the issue of small brass coins with th i legend Remissis Centesimis, specimens of which are still to be found in collections. The history of this branch of revenue in the United Kingdom dates from the period of the civil wars, when the republican Government, following the example of Holland, established, as a means of defraying the heavy expenditure of the time, various duties of excise, which the Royalists when restored to power found too convenient or necessary t.) be abandoned, notwithstanding their Roundhead origin and general unpopularity. On the contrary, they were destined to be steadily increased both in number and in amount. It is curious that the first commodities selected for excise were those to which this branch of taxa tion, after great extension, has again in the age of reform and free trade been in a manner permanently reduced, viz., rnalt liquors, and such kindred beverages as cider, perry, and spruce beer. The other excise duties remaining are chiefly in the form of licences, such as to kill game and to use and carry guns, to sell gold and silver plate, to pursue the business of appraisers or auctioneers, hawkers or pedlars, pawnbrokers, or patent-medicine vendors, to manu facture tobacco or snuff, to deal in sweets or in foreign wines, to make vinegar, to roast malt, or to use a still in chemistry or otherwise. It may be presumed that the policy of the licence duties is not so much to collect revenue, though in the aggregate they yield a large sum, as to guard the main sources of excise, and to place certain classes of dealers, by registration and an annual payment to the exchequer, under a direct legal responsibility. The excise system of the United Kingdom as now pruned and reformed, however, while still the most prolific of all the sources of revenue, is simple in process, and is contentedly borne as compared with what was the case in the last and the beginning of the present century. The wars with Bonaparte strained the Government resources to the utter most, and excise duties were multiplied and increased in every practicable form. Bricks, candles, calico prints, glass, hides and skins, leather, paper, salt, soap, and other commodities of home manufacture and consumption were placed, with their respective industries, under excise sur veillance and fine. When the duties could no longer be increased in number, they were raised in rate. The duty on British spirits, which had begun at a few pence per gallon in 1660, rose step by step to 11s. 8^d. per gallon in 1820 ; and the duty on salt was augmented to three or fourfold its value. The old unpopularity of excise, though now somewhat out of date, must have had real enough grounds. It breaks out in all our literature, from songs and pasquinades to grave political essays and legal commentaries. Black- stone, in quoting the declaration of parliament in 1649 that &quot; excise is the most easy and indifferent levy that can be laid upon the people,&quot; adds on his own authority that &quot; from its first original to the present time its very name has been odious to the people of England &quot; (book i. cap. 8, tenth edition, 1786); while the definition of &quot; excise :&amp;gt; gravely inserted by Dr Johnson in the Dictionary, at the imminent risk of subjecting the eminent author to a prose cution for libel viz., &quot;a hateful tax levied upon commo dities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid&quot; can hardly be ever forgotten. The levy of excise has more than the disagreeableness of other direct taxation, and though not more inquisitorial than income tax, establishes an espionage and control over premises and processes of manufacture which are much more offensive as well as some times injurious. The caustic feeling of last century points directly enough to much rough and arbitrary administration, which it was possible gradually to correct and mitigate. But what may be deemed the permanent defect of excise io that it is apt to increase the cost of commodities to consumers far more than the amount of duty levied for the revenue. This has been found on the abolition of excise, whether on bricks, calicoes, leather, paper, or other articles of manufacture. The cheapening effect might not be very immediate or apparent, because the duty when abolished might bear only a very fractional proportion to tho natural value of the goods; but under the greater freedom of production have arisen more invention, more skilful and varied appliances, and consequently more economy to con sumers, and more expansion of the several industries, than could have been attained under the fiscal restrictions. The inexpediency, even for revenue purposes, of finiug and fettering a great number of the most useful and necessary home industries by this kind of impost would seem to be abundantly demonstrated by the fact that the excise revenue of the United Kingdom, while being reduced always within narrower compass, has not suffered eventually in its actual produce to the state. The revenue from excise has never been greater, or much greater, than it is at present. The gross receipts from excise in 18?0 were 27,955,810.