214 APPENDIX A. 



ential personnel in the state, for it is they who 

 usually make the laws." 



" Perhaps it would be necessary to weaken their 

 opposition by not subjecting the actual proprietors 

 to the new tax, which might take effect only with 

 the next change either by sale or by inheritance. 

 A restriction of the right of transfer would also 

 facilitate the passage from one situation to the 

 other. All changes in taxes should, as a general 

 thing, be made gradually, in order to avoid sudden 

 changes of fortune." 



" We may consider the renting of a property 

 for several years as a sale of the usufruct during 

 the time of the lease. Now nine years' possession, 

 for example, is equal to more than a third of the 

 value of the property, supposing the annual prod- 

 uct to be one twentieth of the capital. It would 

 then be reasonable to apply to this sort of sale the 

 laws which govern that of landed property, and 

 consequently the mutation tax. The person who 

 cannot or will not cultivate his soil, instead of 

 alienating the property itself, binds himself to 

 alienate the usufruct for a time, and the price is 

 paid at stated intervals instead of all at once. 

 There is farm rent." 



"Now it is by a fiction that the purchaser pays 

 the mutation tax. In fact, it is always the seller 



