The New International Encyclopædia/Decker, Matthew

​DECKER, Sir Matthew (1679–1749). A political economist and free-trader, born in Amsterdam, Holland. He went to London in 1702, was naturalized as an English subject in the following year, and having embarked in commerce, attained the greatest success; received a baronetcy in 1716, and three years afterwards took his seat in Parliament as member for Bishop’s Castle. He sat in the House, however, only four years. His death took place March 18, 1749; the baronetcy then became extinct, and his daughters succeeded to his estates.

Decker was the reputed author of two pamphlets which appeared anonymously during his lifetime, and which ran through several editions, and provoked much acrimonious controversy. In one he proposed to raise all the public supplies from one single tax-namely, a tax upon houses. According to Decker’s calculation, there were then in England, exclusive of Wales, 1,200,000 houses; of these he meant to tax only one-half, counting off 500,000 as inhabited by the working classes, and 100,000 as being uninhabited. By this means he proposed to raise an annual revenue of £6,000,000, which sum was £1,000,000 more than the expenses of the Government of that day required. The surplus was to be applied as a sinking fund for the purpose of discharging debt. The same idea is found in the second essay, which discussed England’s foreign trade and the means of improving it.