1-150-696 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

The Great Self-Taxed, 1873. The Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, Robert Lowe, makes off with a sack labelled Surplus £5,000,000. He is being heckled by a drunken representative of the working class. This cartoon refers to Mr Lowe's 1873 Budget. He started with a surplus that allowed him to cut 1d of Income Tax, reducing it to 3d in the pound. The labourer is drunk because Mr Lowe had exempted from taxation all hotel servants and all those who dealt in intoxicating liquors. As Punch pointed out, the latter had made generous contributions to the Exchequer and were deserving recipients of such a reward. From Punch, or the London Charivari, April 12, 1873.