There is, of course, no reason in logic why a transaction that involves moving goods across a border should be treated different

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问题     There is, of course, no reason in logic why a transaction that involves moving goods across a border should be treated differently from a transaction within a border. Throughout history, states have also had recourse(求助)to taxes on domestic transactions. Ancient Athens had an excise on sales of slaves. Rome had a similar 4 percent sales tax, as well as a tax on the manumission(解放)of slaves and a 1 percent sales tax on other goods. In medieval France the Ordonance of December 1360 "revolutionized" royal finance by imposing a duty(the gabelle)on salt and aides of 5 percent on the sale of most commodities apart from wine, which was taxed at a higher rate(at first 8, later 5 percent). Renaissance Florence depended for a fifth of its revenue on a similar salt duty, levied at the city’s gates. Habsburg Castile had the alcabala, a 10 percent sales tax. Even before the introduction of the vodka monopoly, the excise on spirits was one of the Russian state’s principal sources of revenue, accounting for as much a third of the total in 1815.
    Few states in history have relied as heavily on the taxation of domestic consumption as Hanoverian Britain; and this is of particular interest as it was the regime that presided over the first industrial revolution. In fact, the excise-defined succinctly in Dr. Johnson’s dictionary as "a hateful tax levied upon commodities" — had its origins in the Stuart period: Charles I had levied duties on cloth, starch, soap, spectacles, gold and silver wire and playing cards; and in 1643, parliament had introduced excises on tobacco, wine, cider, beer, furs, hats, leather, lace, linen and imported silks. By 1660, excises were also being levied on salt, saffron, hops, lead tin, iron and glass. In the course of the next hundred years, these taxes became the British state’s principal source of revenue. To help finance the war with revolutionary France, the Younger Pitt added hats, gloves, mittens, perfumery, shops and female servants to the list of dutiable goods, to say nothing of bricks, horses and hunting. By the end of the Napoleonic wars, it seemed that scarcely anything in Britain was not taxed.
By saying "this is of particular interest"(Line 2, Para. 2), the author wants to show that______.

选项 A、the Hanoverian relied on the most heavily taxation
B、taxation built an obstacle to the first industrial revolution
C、Hanoverian Britain is a powerful government
D、the government took a new measure to levy taxes

答案A

解析 第二段第一句提到历史上很少有国家像英国汉诺威王朝那样如此倚重对国内消费的征税;这一点尤为意义深远,因为正是这个政府执政期间发生了第一次工业革命,由此可知A)正确。
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