The Duty on Bills and Notes.

These being taxes on persons who need to borrow money are unjust and oppressive. Every time the bill or promissory note is renewed the tax is relevied, and it thus, in thousands of cases, becomes more than trebled and quadrupled in its incidence. It is a petty system to single out in this way one class of the people and make money for the State out of their exigencies. The mercantile and trading community of the country are heavily enough handicapped by Customs and Excise, and by the exactions of the Probate Law and of Schedule D, without the Exchequer nibbling at their pockets for this £777,000 a year for bill-stamps. About nine and a half millions in number of these bills pay Stamp Duty yearly, but the quarterly amount being almost exactly one-fourth, shows how regular are the renewals and how frequent the re-taxation of each person.