User:Honandal2/sandbox

There were, however, legitimate concerns lest tax and other payments arise any earlier under the new calendar than they would otherwise have done. Consequently, Provision 6 of the Act ('Times of Payment of Rents, Annuities') stipulated that monthly or yearly payments would not become due until the days that they originally would have done had the Julian calendar continued or, in the words of the Act, '[Times of Payment of Rents, Annuities] at and upon the same respective natural days and times as the same should and ought to have been payable or made or would have happened in case this Act had not been made'.

The Earl of Macclesfield in his Speech to the House of Lords during the passage of the Bill said a proportionate reduction in payments had been considered as an alternative solution. That is, maintaining the original payment dates but reducing payments to reflect the omission of eleven days. Macclesfield said this idea was abandoned because "so great a variety of discounts, abatements and allowances, would necessarily have been established by the Bill, as might have been attended with more difficulties, and greater inconveniences than those who have not thoroughly considered the matter may be aware of". Despite this the Treasury later considered legislating again to over-ride the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 provisions by applying proportionate reductions to government payments of interest, salaries and wages but the idea was abandoned.

Nevertheless the Treasury realised that outside government a proportionate reduction of wages, rents etc for the short quarter might be convenient for some cases. Poole says the Treasury "decided that a tidy move to new-style quarter day payments might gradually be achieved at the point where old leases expired and new ones began. Tables of abatements … for the eleven missing days were included in the official information about the changeover and widely published in the press, almanacs and pocket books".

The provision in the Act about debts applied to defer payment of Window Tax which was a permanent tax. It did not apply to Land Tax which was re-enacted each year (see the section below about the UK income tax year). [reference to section below will need revision if it is moved.]


 * I think that this paragraph is worth keeping. Was there a reason why you dropped it?
 * West eventually drew up a table of abatements for the eleven missing days, amounting to sevenpence in the pound, which would shorten the financial year 1752-3 and allow payments to keep to their existing nominal dates.
 * Bearing in mind the advice [= royal wish] about quotations, the text about Macclesfield and his speech will need to be rewritten more concisely. I'll have a think about how best to do that.
 * A section the tax year will definitely be retained, but only your summary section. (The full version will go in the History of Tax article, including the summary section).
 * Any idea what Poole means by 'pocket books'? US readers will misread it as 'purse'. Oh, wait...! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:23, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I knew the quotations would cause trouble! However, I included them here so you could see that it was Poole talking and not me. The solution in part may be to use Poole's words but remove the quote marks and italics. Macclesfield's words can be summarised. (The aversion to quotations seems daft to me. Serious works of history, like Poole's, give the reader the real flavour of the actors by using their words where possible. Still I bow to the rules.) You could keep in the bit about West's tables but it might make more sense to use something from one of the newspapers to go in just before the The New Briton reference eg: The New Briton of 20 September 1752 said the reduction was 7d (old pence) for each pound or, more precisely, 7¼d. A pocket book is small handy guide. I have reworked the draft below.
 * I agree with your view on quotations: yes it can be over-done but (especially when we are using a modern historian like Poole), we really ought to give more credit than just a footnote. But the History Wikiproject has evidently decided that what we learned at school is so last century. My comment above about paraphrasing a quotation was in reference to the Macclesfield quote; I like your revised version and invite you to copy it over to the article now, with one significant change and two minor ones:

Thank you for your continued patience! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:12, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * let's keep your original 'Poole says the Treasury "decided that a tidy move to new-style quarter day payments might gradually be achieved at the point where old leases expired and new ones began. Tables of abatements ... for the eleven missing days were included in the official information about the changeover and widely published in the press, almanacs and pocket books". . (Note that I've dropped the italics, per house style and replaced the ellipsis symbol with three dots per MOS:ELLIPSIS (probably for same reason as for ¼, next).
 * precomposed fraction symbols like ¼ are deprecated because they disable sight impaired visitors, so we have use the frac template thus: $1/4$. To save you time, I've just changed your draft in situ.
 * New Briton or True Briton? is it online anywhere? (it doesn't have to be, just easier if it is). And yes, this is a better source for the info, if only to reduce the risk of falling foul of Articles with a single source (it would take a very harsh examiner to raise that challenge but it gives the article more 'texture' to have multiple voices).

Revised draft
There were, however, legitimate concerns lest tax and other payments arise any earlier under the new calendar than they would otherwise have done. Consequently, Provision 6 of the Act ('Times of Payment of Rents, Annuities') stipulated that monthly, quarterly or yearly payments would not become due until the days that originally they would have done, had the Julian calendar continued. That is, due dates are deferred by eleven days.

The Earl of Macclesfield in his speech to the House of Lords during the passage of the Bill said a proportionate reduction in payments had been considered as an alternative solution. That is, maintaining the original payment dates but reducing the amounts due proportionately to reflect the omission of eleven days from the quarter ending on 29 September 1752 (Michaelmas Day). Macclesfield said this idea was abandoned because it would prove more complex than appeared at first sight. Despite this the Treasury later considered legislating to over-ride the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 provisions by applying proportionate reductions to government payments of interest, salaries and wages but the idea was abandoned. Nevertheless the Treasury realised that outside government a proportionate reduction of wages, rents etc for the short quarter might be convenient for some cases. Poole writes that the Treasury 'decided that a tidy move to new-style quarter day payments might gradually be achieved at the point where old leases expired and new ones began. Tables of abatements … for the eleven missing days were included in the official information about the changeover and widely published in the press, almanacs and pocket books'. For example, The True Briton newspaper of 20 September 1752 reported that the reduction was 7d for each pound or, more precisely, $7 1/4$d.

The provision in the Act about debts applied to defer payment of Window Tax which was a permanent tax. It did not apply to Land Tax which was re-enacted each year (see the section below about the UK income tax year). [reference to section below will need revision if it is moved.]

True Briton
The True Briton is available on Google Books at:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fcMPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA9&dq=editions:hiNN0X9cLT4C&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

I am not sure how to insert this link in the reference you have created. I started trying to amend the draft but got in a mess with the references and decided to leave it to you. Honandal2 (talk) 13:24, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. I consider it best to link to the precise page where possible, so I changed it to page 119.

Since it is your research that found this interesting text, I think it is only fair that you get the credit and be the one to post it. [I also changed 'New Briton' to 'True Briton'. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)