Subsidies

Subsidies, parliamentary grants to the crown, levied on persons in the form of so much on the pound for land or goods; or grants of special sums from customs duties (see CUSTOMS DUTIES, TAXATION). The term is used to denote money paid by one state to another in order to procure a limited succour of auxiliary troops, ships of war, or provisions. Thus, in the time of the war with the revolutionists of France and Napoleon I., Great Britain furnished subsidies to foreign powers to a large extent in order to engage them to resist the progress of the French.