the amount on which duty is paid, it is considerably less
than one pound per head.

Assuming the actual consumption at only 45,000,000 lbs., or two
pounds per head, we believe that a reduction of duty to 1s. per
pound would so effectually destroy the illicit trader, that the
revenue would gain by the change, not only by bringing upwards of
30,000,000 lbs. under duty, which at present escape, but by the
great increase of the consumption consequent upon the encouragement
given to the fair trader.

We would not, however, treat the question merely as a matter of
revenue. We would strongly represent the injustice which this
exorbitant duty inflicts upon those who pursue a legitimate trade,
by enabling the smuggler to lessen the extent of their transactions
by more than half what they would otherwise be; and we would further
earnestly urge upon your consideration the demoralising tendency of
such a systematic and extended violation of the law, not only upon
those engaged in the illicit trade, also upon those parties who are
found to connive at the practice from a sense of the gross injustice
and impolicy of a duty so disproportioned to the value of an article
of such extensive consumption.

We would refer to the opinion of a committee of the House of Commons
on the growth of tobacco in Ireland, in 1840, as follows:--'That it
further appears, from the evidence, that smuggling of foreign
tobacco is at present carried on to a great extent, and that all the
measures now adopted, at great expense to the country, are and will
be ineffectual to repress it so long as the temptation of evading a
duty equal to twelve times the value of the article on which it is
imposed, remains."

We beg, therefore, respectfully to express our opinion, that if the
duty on tobacco were reduced to one shilling per pound, it would be
alike beneficial to the interests of legitimate commerce; to the
consumers, who consist almost entirely of the poorer classes; to the
revenue, by increasing the productiveness of the duty, and by
greatly diminishing the expenditure so ineffectually incurred to
suppress the illicit trade; and to the general morals of society by
removing a powerful inducement to infringe the laws.

The imports of all kinds of tobacco for the last five years have been
as follows:--