date

1820 June 4 Emancipation Spanish
1820 June 4

Emancipation Spanish

'.5. People Sufferers

But of any real profit to be shared among you, the Spanish people by means of any such cramping arrangements, the expectation is illusory. If for the purpose of enabling you to get from them a higher price than you could if they were at liberty to get the commodities in question or the equivalent from foreign nations they are precluded /prevented/ from getting them from foreign nations, and thus the competition between you and foreigners excluded, still there is other competetion which on this supposition would not be excluded, and that is the competition of your mercantile men one with another.

If in exportation to Spanish America an extraordinary tax were imposed on goods sent from Spain, this would be a direct tax on the Spanish-Americans and the production of those same goods in Spain would be proportionably discouraged and narrowed

If on importation into Spain, an extraordinary tax was imposed on goods sent from Spanish America this would be a direct tax on the Spaniards, and the production those same goods in Spanish America proportionably discouraged and narrowed.

Thus in no such indirect shape could any profit be extracted, through the medium of the dominion, from the people of Spanish America, for the easement and benefit of the Spanish people.
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  • Title: [[clxii. 3] 1820 July 24 Emancipation]
    Description: [clxii. 3]

    1820 July 24

    Emancipation Spanish

    Summary

    I Creoles willing

    The only sources from which any such supply can be looked for are - taxation at large, Mine-rents or Mine-taxes - duties and restraints on production and trade.

    1. To Taxation at large, for such a purpose, voluntary submission could not long, on any tolerably assured grounds, be expected. It was by the opposite determination that the yoke of England was cast off by the American United States.

    2. Payment of money to Spain by the occupiers of mines in Spanish America, whether under the name of rents or taxes would be considered as submission to taxation: if levied at all the contributions thus levied uopon the fruits of the land and labour of the people in Spanish America ought to be applied (they would think) in easement of the taxes borne by the people of the province or state in which the mines are situated, and not to the enrichment of strangers at so vast a distance. (a)

    3. By restraints in production and trade imposed on the subject many by the ruling few, no net advntage in a pecuniary shape is derivable by any body: by those by whom, or those for the sake of whom, they are imposed. In so far as taxes on trade are imposed, correspondent restraints upon trade are indeed among the inseperable consequences: but from this net advantage is received or is now so expected, beyond the mere produce of the tax. (b)

    4. Money which by Spaniards sent from Spain might be received in the shape of official emolument attached to official situations in Spanish America. From this source no relief in respect diminution of taxes would be experienced by the subject many in Spain: the benefit would be engrossed by the ruling few in that country.

    Note (a) According to Townsend Journey through Spain II 413. 2d.

    Edition King's utmost-exigible mine rent, on silver no more than 10 per cent; on gold, than 5 per Cent.

    Note (b) In England this has of late been publickly recognized by persons of all descriptions. Merchants, Ministers, Members of the House of Lords Members of the House of Commons - not a dissenting voice. In Debates of both Houses in July 1820.
  • Title: [1820 Aug. 20 Emancipation Spanish]
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    Letter 5. Under Code

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    application: but if the objection was to the subject matter of the tax, an objection

    to this tax seems little less than an objection to all taxes whatsoever: unless, or

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    case of the Spanish government taxes upon imports above, or upon imports and exports

    were regarded as sufficient. Spain having within herself the necessaries of life, a

    tax imposed there upon imports is a tax upon no goods but luxuries, and upon no

    consumers but the the consumers of luxuries: a tax which therefore diew no extend to

    the least opulent, not therefore to the most numerous classes. A tax upon Tobacco is,

    it is true, a tax which falls principally upon the consumption of the least opulent

    calsses. But tobacco is not a necessary of life: whereas salt and abundance of the

    articles in which the alcavalo falis[?], are regarded as necessaries.

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    to the disposition of the people to submitt to it. Whether the people of Spain will

    or will not submitt to a tax on tobacco imposed for their own use, the people of

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    imposed for the use of the people of Spain.

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