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relative importance.

"

The section in which Sir George Evelyn introduces his "tabular standard (he is the inventor of the term as well as the thing) is of particular interest. He twice apologises for leaving the mathematical precision of weights and measures for such mean subjects as the prices of provisions and the necessaries of life, but concludes with the hope that, however he may appear to descend below the dignity of philosophy in such economical researches," he may "find favour with the historian at least, and the antiquary." The following is Evelyn's description of his method:-"It would carry me infinitely too wide to give a detail of all the facts I have collected: I shall therefore content myself with a general table of their results, deduced from taking a mean rate of the price of each article at the particular periods, and afterwards combining these means, to obtain a general mean for the depreciation at that period, and lastly, by interpolation reducing the whole into more regular periods, from the conquest to the present time."

He gives a list of his authorities, and mentions that the various changes which took place during the different reigns, in the weight and alloy of the coins, are allowed for in the table. Thus Evelyn may be regarded as the first writer who definitely proposes a tabular standard; while Joseph Lowe, in the work already quoted, is the first to lay any considerable stress upon its practical value. In § 2 of ch. x. he describes it as a "plan for lessening the injury from fluctuation, and giving a uniform value to money incomes."

Lowe is followed by G. POULETT SCROPE in An Examination of the bank charter question, with an inquiry into the nature of a just standard of value and suggestions for the improvement of our monetary system, London, 1833. He there suggests a tabular standard, or table of reference :-"The table need only be sufficiently extended to afford, in the mean price of the whole number of articles contained in it, a standard of value (in its true sense of general purchasing power) as near to complete invariability as can be desirable for any practical purposes." After pointing out the "perfect equity of such a standard, he attempts to prove its "vast utility" by dwelling on the commutation of tithes, on charity endowments, and on leases. There can be no good agriculture, he argues, without leases. But prudent landlords and solvent tenants "are prevented

1 In the construction of Evelyn's table, besides most of the old chronicles and historians, the following books were consulted:

Bishop Fleetwood, Chronicon Preciosum, 2nd ed. 1745. Liber Garderobae.-J. Bree, Sketch of Establishments, 1791.-Collection of Ordinances of Royal Household, Edward III.-William III., 1790, Anon.-Archæologia, vol. ii.Combrune, Enquiry into Prices of Wheat, 1000-1765, 1768. Smith, Wealth of Nations.-Sir James Steuart, Principles of Political Economy, 1767. — Henry, History of Great Britain, 5 vols., 1771 (A. Smith's copy).

In a

from entering on the lottery of a long lease at present by the uncertainty that prevails as to the value of money. . . . The use of a tabular standard would obviate all the disadvantages which are justly objected to in corn rents, and give complete security that the rent agreed to shall not vary in value." Scrope advises that the employment of the tabular standard should be entirely optional. He rightly scouts the objection that interested persons, or any com. bination of them, could possibly, by any efforts, make any appreciable impression on an average "calculated on the mean prices of a long list of articles in all the great markets of Britain through six or twelve months." Scrope's Principles of Political Economy, 1833, reproduces the reasoning of the pamphlet. note at the end of ch. i. of the pamphlet, he observes, "after the greater part of the above was written, I have found in Mr. Lowe's valuable work a proposal to the same effect." No such acknowledgment is to be found in G. R. PORTER'S Progress of the Nation, 1838, 2nd ed. 1851, who, with a naïve assertion of originality, suggests that "it would be highly instructive if tables of prices were made and recorded." Jevons wrongly regards Porter's scheme as identical with that of Scrope. But Porter, a writer of very inferior calibre, seems to have entangled himself and his standard inextricably with other and quite irrelevant aspects of monetary theory. Thus on p. 425 of the 1851 edition, it is clear that he proposes the tabular standard as a remedy for countries with a "local and inconvertible currency." His table will not, he thinks, be needed where a general rise in prices occurs in countries with a gold or silver standard. But under such conditions as led to the famous bullion report (see BULLION COMMITTEE, REPORT OF), "it must be at all times,' says Porter, an interesting and a valuable question to determine whether prices are actually rising or falling or stationary; and to ascertain the degree of such a rise or fall as an indication of the state of the currency." He states, however, the proper principles of a tabular standard, and appends a table compiled in accordance with them, showing the average monthly fluctuations of fifty commodities between the years 1833 and 1837. Porter therefore thinks that the practical value of a tabular standard becomes evident when it is used as a test of the proper behaviour of an inconvertible paper currency. Jevons, in his Investigations in Currency and Finance, ch. iii., regards Porter as the author of a method similar to his own. But Jevons, like Scrope, had "almost completed his calculations" when he made the discovery. Porter's mean of fifty articles for the years 1833-37 gives fluctuations which resemble in direction, but greatly exaggerate, those indicated by Jevons's mean of forty articles.

"

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In ch. xxv. of his Money, Jevons argues very strongly in favour of a tabular standard. Now, after sixteen years, the "foresight" shown by Elizabethan statesmen by their act obliging the colleges of Oxford, Cambridge, and Eton to lease their lands for corn rents, would not receive the encomium of a practical economist.

Jevons regards the "multiple legal tender" as an extension of the bimetallic principle for lessening fluctuations by spreading them over a larger area. The only real difficulty which he foresees is that of deciding the proper method of deducing the average. Mr. L. L. Price, Money and its relation to Prices, pp. 37, 38, is more pessimistic. "Objection may be raised to the employment of such a standard on the ground of unfamiliarity, or perhaps of a certain refinement of calculation, which is likely to confuse or alarm the plain man, and it may easily prove to be cumbrous or even impossible." Another objection urged by Mr. Price is that it is exceedingly awkward to separate your standard of deferred payments from your medium of exchange. Nevertheless it is highly important that both functions should be satisfactorily performed, and "the instructed economist" would be ready to recognise that "to satisfy this criterion, it is not necessary, it is even unlikely, that the medium and the standard should be identical." Assuming, however, the desirability and practicability of a tabular standard, we are still in the dark as to how it may best be constructed. On this head the reader should refer to the article on INDEX NUMBERS. But a word should be said here on the report of the British Association for 1889, which contains a memorandum by Professor F. Y. Edgeworth on the Index Numbers Committee Report. An explanation is there given of Professor Foxwell's method, which aims at the correction of the currency. This method is distinguished by "the conception of quantity produced, or rather sold, per unit of time." This is strictly a currency standard, and the idea of the inventor is "to obtain not the exact amount of metal which should be added to or subtracted from the currency in order to keep it perfectly stable, but rather that ratio in which, if the quantity of currency were increased, other things remaining constant during the increase, the level of prices would be restored."

It will be seen that such a scheme is not adapted to the interests of creditors or annuitants. Nor does it profess to be. A far more fatal objection may be brought against it, viz. that the number of times in which articles change hands is unknowable. The weighting would have to be done by guess work, and a preliminary mean would have to be agreed on as between the guesses of selected experts. Never theless, Professor Edgeworth considers that the currency standard deserves more attention than

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it has received. The index number advocated by Prof. Foxwell would be based on all vendible commodities, no distinction being made between articles of consumption and agents of production. The relative importance of each article would be proportioned to the demand which it makes upon the currency. In other words, Professor Foxwell, "in averaging the respective price variations, would assign to each an importance proportioned to the corresponding value, or rather to that value multiplied by the number of times it changed hands."

Theoretically, therefore, the currency standard is distinguished from the consumption standard in two ways. It includes the prices of labour as well as of commodities; and, in weighting it, pays regard to the work entailed on the currency. In practice, however, we need not expect to find the difference very considerable. The variations shown by different systems of index numbers have been surprisingly small; and Professor Foxwell's method is likely in the words of its exponent to prove "less revolutionary in practice than destructive in theory." An error which may be considerable in the weights becomes inconsiderable in the mean. Meanwhile, the system which cominands and deserves the greatest practical consideration is that proposed by Sir Robert GIFFEN and the committee of the economic section of the British Association. These reports for the years 1887, 1888, 1889, with the memoranda drawn up by Professor Edgeworth, may fairly be regarded as the locus classicus for the theory of index numbers and their application to the correction of the monetary standard (see INDEX NUMBERS).

F. W. H.

TACITUS, C. CORNELIUS, the historian, was born before 61 A.D., and died after 117 A.D. His chief remaining works are the Historia and the Annales, both fragmentary, and the Vita Agricola. His short treatise De situ, moribus, et populis Germania is of special interest, for, being fuller and written at a much later date than Cæsar's brief notices, it furnishes a distinct picture of the social and economic condition of the ancestors of the English and German nations. Tacitus sketches their organisation in peace and war, describing their national councils-the principes, and their comitatus-the judicial assemblies, the duties of the priests, the honourable position of the women, and the condition of the slaves, including the free men who had gambled away their liberty. Then he affords (cap. 26) a glimpse of the Teutonic tribal community, with its scattered homesteads, and briefly mentions the annual allotment of the land to the free men in proportion to their public importance, and the change each year of the area of cultivation devoted to corn. For the questions of interest arising from this treatise see Seebohm's English Village Community, and Stubbs's Const. Hist., i. pp. 18-41; Pollock, Land Laws.

R. H.

TACK, TACKING. A technical expression of the English law of mortgages. In Scotland it is used for lease, leasing, and is now practically obsolete.

TAEL. The monetary unit of China is a weight of silver known as the tael. This weight is not identical throughout the country, varying from that of the government tael (579-198 grs.)

TAILLE. The taille is one of the most famous taxes in history. In its origin it was the same as the English TALLAGE (q.v.), i.e. it was a demesne tax, levied by the king on the royal demesne, and by the great seigneurs on their own lands. As France became more unified and the monarchy stronger, the ÉTATSGÉNÉRAUX Occasionally granted the king a general taille. This was resented by the lords as an infringement of their rights and as diminishing the contributions of their vassals to themselves. But the overwhelming national impulse which followed the appearance of Jeanne d'Arc, and led to the recovery of the English conquests, gave the crown a signal victory over the great nobles. In 1439 the states-general at Orleans passed the famous ordinance, which authorised the formation of a standing military force under the control of the king. For the support of the troops the king was authorised to levy a general taille, and the nobles were forbidden to levy taille on their estates or to obstruct the collection of the payments due to the crown. From this time the taille becomes a national and royal tax instead of a local and seigneurial charge.

The ordinance of 1439 is usually said to have established the permanent taille, and this is substantially, though not verbally, accurate. There is nothing in the ordinance about the permanence of the charge, but it seems to have been taken for granted as involved in the permanence of the army. On this assumption was based the subsequent claim of the crown to impose taxation without consent. The demand for renewed convocations of the states-general was met by the answer that the people ought to be spared the expense of these assemblies. Thus not only was the taille levied as an annual impost, but its amount was arbitrarily increased. The original amount was 1,200,000 livres, but before Charles VII.'s death it had risen to 1,800,000, and under Louis XI. to 4,000,000. In spite of the attempts of subsequent ministers, notably COLBERT, to diminish the taille, the receipts under Louis XVI. were reckoned at more than 90,000,000 livres. The tax had long ceased to be specially applied to military expenditure and was absorbed in the general revenue, of which it was the chief component. enormous increase of the taille was the more serious for France because the incidence of the tax was extremely limited. The nobles, as owing personal military service, were from the first entirely exempted from payment. At all time payment of the taille was a sign of roture (see KOTURIER). And by the 18th century the

The

privilege of exemption was very widely extended It was shared by the clergy, by the magistracy, by the holders of the innumerable offices which were created from time to time for sale, by members of the university, by municipal corporations, and by a number of towns which had purchased immunity by payment of a commutation. Thus as the burden of the taille increased, there was a corresponding diminution of the classes and persons subject to its exaction. Practically it was a tax on the agricultural classes, levied directly either on the value of the land or on the profits of cultivation.

In some provinces of France the taille was a land-tax, the taille réelle. In these provinces the assessment was based upon a cadastre, i.e. a sort of small Domesday book compiled at regular intervals (see CADASTRAL SURVEY). The obligation to pay the real taille depended not on the status of the cultivator but on the original tenure of the land. Land which had once paid taille continued to pay it even though it had passed from a roturier into noble hands. The provinces in which the taille was real belonged almost entirely to the pays d'états, and in them the collection was entrusted not to royal officers but to agents of the provincial estates. But the amount which the province was forced to contribute was always determined by the royal council on information received from the intendant.

The

In all the other provinces the taille was personal and was levied on the presumed profits of the cultivator. The assessment was perfectly arbitrary, and was usually based on the stock used in farming or on a man's mode of life. The French peasant was subjected, in fact, to a dilemma like that of MORTON'S FORK: if he lived in comfort, his power to contribute was obvious; if, on the other hand, he lived meanly, then his savings must be considerable. unit of assessment was the parish, and the responsible official was called the collector, and was elected by his fellow-villagers in the parish assembly. The collector received from the intendant a statement of the amount due from the village, which was usually fixed every three years. This sum he divided arbitrarily among the villagers, according to his own estimate of their wealth, and then proceeded, accompanied by a constable, to collect the amount due from each. If he failed to produce the required sum, his property and person could be seized as security for the deficit. The office was so loathed, that it was considered necessary to choose a new collector every year. Not only

was the holder frequently ruined, but he was naturally the object of his neighbours' hatred and distrust. TURGOT declares that "the office of collector drives to despair, and generally to ruin, those on whom it is imposed; by this means all the wealthier families in a village are successively reduced to ruin." Few taxes

have been so disastrous in their results as the taille personelle. Adam SMITH has shown that it constituted a direct discouragement to the improvement of agriculture, and its social consequences were quite as lamentable as its economic defects. No man knew from year to year what he would be called upon to pay. If he was unfairly assessed, he had practically no remedy, and it was impossible for the assessment to be otherwise than unfair. The peasants who possessed any savings resorted to the most ingenious devices to conceal them. It was one of their chief aims in life to disguise from their neighbours the real state of their affairs. the same time it was everybody's interest to ascertain or even to exaggerate the wealth of his neighbours, because an increase of their taille might result in direct relief to himself. Thus the result of this wretched system was to create in every district an inveterate habit of suspicion and concealment, and so to poison or to destroy all the amenities of neighbourly intercourse.

At

TALENT, GREEK. The ancient weight known under this name was equal to 60 minæ or 6000 drachmæ (silver). Its weight has been estimated at about 57 lbs. avoir., and its value in sterling at about £240.

The modern Greek talent is a weight equal to that of 150 kilogrammes. This weight is, however, but little used.

F. E. A.

TALENT, HEBREW. A weight and also a money of account. Much uncertainty now exists as to the precise weight and value of the talent, the former being variously estimated at from 93 to 117 lbs. avoir.

The silver talent was the equivalent of 3000 silver shekels, and the gold talent of 10,000 gold shekels. The value of the silver talent in sterling is estimated at from £340 to £400, and that of the gold talent at from £5000 to £6000.

[Williamson's Money of the Bible.] F. E. A. TALLAGE. Before the Norman conquest there was but little national taxation, and the ordinary expenses of the king were mostly defrayed by the revenue received from his demesne. The circumstances of the Norman conquest enabled the king to choose his demesne, and William I. was wise enough to

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include in it most of the rising towns. The lands belonging to the crown at the time of DOMESDAY Come to be known as "ancient demesne," as contrasted with those lands which subsequently fell in to the crown by ESCHEAT or FORFEITURE. For special purposes the king could demand supplies from his demesne tenants, and these are called sometimes donum and auxilium (see AID), but more usually tallagium. These tallages are assessed by royal commissioners, but the chief towns, such as London, usually paid a composition, and levied an equivalent sum on the citizens by their own methods. In the 13th century various attempts were made to limit the king's arbitrary power of raising a revenue. In the great charter he was made dependent on the consent of the Commune Consilium for aids and scutages, but no mention was made of tallages. In 1297 Edward I. was compelled to confirm the charters with additional articles restraining his power of taxation. The articles which Edward actually agreed to do not mention tallages, but the record of Walter of Hemingburgh seems to prove that the barons proposed their inclusion. In the time of Charles I. the articles given in Hemingburgh were construed as being a genuine statute, and are quoted in the Petition of Right as the statute de tallagio non concedendo. But there can be no doubt that Edward did not resign the right of taxing demesne, and tallages continued to be levied by himself and by his son and grandson. It is probable that the barons were less persistent on this point than others, because a resignation of the royal right of tallage would involve a loss of their own power of tallaging their own tenants. But as the system of national taxation developed, and the powers of parliament increased pari passu, it was impossible to leave the crown in possession of such an independent revenue as it could obtain by the arbitrary taxation of the cities and boroughs which had grown up on the ancient demesne. A statute of 1340, though making no specific mention of tallage, seems to have had the effect of necessitating parliamentary consent for all direct taxes. From this time the separate taxation of demesne came to an end, and the whole community was taxed by parliamentary grants assessed upon personal property. But the special obligations of demesne tenants were still expressed in the fact that they paid a tenth while the counties outside the demesne paid a fifteenth (see also SPENDINGS).

[Stubbs, Constitutional History.-Dowell, Hislory of Taxation and Taxes in England.] R. L.

TALLIES. An ancient form of voucher or receipt formerly used in all transactions whose nature rendered a voucher necessary. A piece of wood was taken, shaped roughly like a thick knife blade. In the edge

2 L