Taxing the Rural Labouring Poor

In 1829 a tax was imposed upon beer which was seen as a particularly hurtful tax  on rural labourers compared to gin that was deemed more ruinous especially in the urban environments. To consider this view look at William Hogarth’s famous engraving of Gin Alley produced in 1751, alongside this image published at the same time was Beer Street which was regarded as a more nourishing, healthy drink of the working man.

Gin Alley and Beer Street as depicted by Hogarth

In response to the beer tax as an unfair rural tax on the rural labouring poor the well-known agriculturist of the time, Thomas Fyfe, wrote the following in March 1829:

“There is a class of men who in former times were heralded the ‘Merry Men of Old England’, but who now are called the labouring class. The horny and mis-shapen lump at the end of their arms, called a hand, proves that they well earned the title ‘labouring class’. The sallow and sunken cheek, the dim and lowering eye, the slow and laboured step, as they drag their miserable limbs home to their miserable hovels, prove them to belong to the oppressed class. They have barely animal power enough to drag themselves home, to eat their humble and scanty meal of rusty bacon and potatoes, or of bread and an onion, with water only for their beverage; whilst a straw pallet is all they have to rest their limbs on till dawn of day again summons them to their daily toil.

Turn your attention to the causes of poverty, misery, starvation and demoralization in the country. Consider whether a tax of 200 per cent upon beer, the ancient, the natural, the proper beverage of the English labourer, be not a wicked and cruel tax. At the fall of man he was condemned to earn his living by the sweat of his brow; but man in this country has a double cure, because he has told his fellow man you shall not partake of that beverage  which God has caused to be produced in this land in great abundance, to replenish the sweat which has fallen from your brow, unless you pay for it three times what it is worth.

‘Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.’

But our rulers (being under the dominion of the political economists) have, as it were, in derision of the poor lately reduced the only duty which should have increased viz. the duty on gin, an ardent spirit which is the bane of mankind, which is the most horrible of all poison because it poisons the mind as well as the body. They put beer, a wholesome, refreshing and nourishing drink for a labouring man, out of his reach, and they then place gin within his reach. Look at your countryman and inspect with your own eyes his suffering. Ask yourselves how you could possibly sustain yourselves, your mate, and six small children on 12s. per week; every little comfort you want being heavily taxed – soap, candles, tea, sugar, beer; but gin you may have a penny a glass.

It is true he cannot be bought or sold as a slave, but he is hawked from parish to parish; he goes to his foil in the morning with the certainty that he cannot earn above half as much as will support his family. Is this a just or right state of things? We are told that ‘the labourer is worth his hire’ and to ‘muzzle not the ox which treadeth out the corn.’ But here he does not receive his just hire and he is muzzled with a muzzle of iron. Indignant nature will vindicate herself; she will cause a reaction; the labouring classes will become hardened in their utter misery and wickedness; the rich will become sunk in sloth and luxury; and thus this great nation will fall in the scale of nations, as many have done from the same causes.”