Political 



66 POLITICAL 



his fortune ; the collection must not be expensive, that 



ECONOMY. 



so the tax may cost as little to the people as possible 

 beyond what it brings into the treasury ; the term of 

 payment must be suitable to the contributor, who 

 might frequently be ruined by an unreasonable demand 

 of what he could pay, without constraint, if his con- 

 venience were consulted ; and, finally, the citizen's li- 

 berty must be respected, that so he may not be expos- 

 ed otherwise, than with extreme caution, to the inspec- 

 tion of revenue-officers, to the dependent, and all the 

 vexatious measures too often connected with the levying 

 of taxes. 



Among the taxes \hat reach with any equality all 

 classes of contributors, some are proportioned to the in- 

 come of each, others to the expence of each. These 

 two ways of estimating fortunes seem capable of being 

 adopted indifferently; and, if the expence is not pro- 

 portionate to the wealth, there is no inconvenience, if 

 the impost, which is regulated by this expence, be 

 as it were, a bonus on economy, or a fine on prodiga- 

 lity. Tithes, the land-tax, the income-tax, are destined 

 to reach what the contributor receives. Taxes on con- 

 sumable articles are the chief species of contribution on 

 expenditure. There remains, however, a great number 

 of other taxes, which cannot be arranged under these 

 two heads, and which, accordingly, are not in propor- 

 tion to the contributor's fortune. 



The revenue most easily attained by taxation is that 

 which proceeds from land ; because this species of 

 wealth cannot be concealed from sight ; because, with- 

 out the proprietor's declaration, the value of it may be 

 known, and because in gathering the produce at the 

 moment when nature grants it, we are sure exactly to 

 meet the proprietor's convenience for paying it. But 

 economists are divided in opinion as to the two modes 

 of collecting this tax, the one in kind from the unal- 

 tered product, the other in money from the proprietor's 

 net revenue. 



Tithes, a tax, according to the first of those methods, 

 is levied at the moment of abundance, before the pro- 

 ducer has in any shape taken possession of his property. 

 The rule, according to which tithes are established, is 

 so universal, that few discussions or vexations arise 

 from it, and this gives it a great appearance of equali- 

 ty. The collection of a tax in kind requires a great 

 number of clerks and warehouses, and hence it is ex- 

 pensive ; but this inconvenience might be repaid, if 

 government, after the collection, kept in its granaries 

 the corn delivered to it, till a period more favourable 

 for sale. As cultivators generally cannot wait for this 

 period, the loss suffered by a premature sale would, 

 perhaps, of itself, cover all the charges of collection. 

 Combining such advantages, a national impost in the 

 shape of tithes has seduced many political speculators. 

 Tithes have also been defended with obstinacy by the 

 powerful body to whom they are in general abandoned. 

 Those advantages do not extend to what are called 

 small tithes, an impost vexatious in all its details ; the 

 difficult collection of which is an ever-fresh root of ha- 

 tred between the curate and his parishioners, though 

 the impost was intended to unite them all as a single 

 family. 



But the advantages of tithes, in any shape, are more 

 than compensated by their real inequality, and the 

 obstacles they oppose to industry. The expence of 

 cultivation is far from being the same in good -and in 

 bad soils, in good and bad years ; yet the reimburse- 

 ment of that expence is made by part of the crop, and 

 this part at least should not be subjected to any tax, for 



5 



fear of destroying the reproduction of the following Political 



year. It is not the revenue alone that is tithed ; but at Economy. 



the same time all the seed, the manure, the days of > ^V^~* 



labour, which have produced the crop : for all this, the 



latter ought to restore. In good years, and good soils, 



two sheaves in ten may represent all these advances ; 



in bad years or soils, eight in ten will scarcely cover 



them ; it is not very rare even that the whole crop is 



insufficient to pay the expences. Tithes, however, are 



equally levied in all those cases ; from the first they take 



an eighth part of the land revenue ; from the second 



a half; from the third, which is nothing, they take a 



portion of the capital destined to produce the follow- 



ing crop ; and their inequality is the more cruel, because 



it is always the poor whom they oppress, taking most 



from the very persons whose necessity requires most 



moderation. 



Again, the more productive a mode of cultivation 

 is, the more advances does it need to have commit- 

 ted to the ground. Tithes, which are but the se- 

 venth or eighth part of the revenue in a pasturage, be- 

 come the fifth in a field of corn, the third in a vine- 

 yard, the half in a hop-yard or in a field of hemp, 

 and the whole in a garden. Thus, whilst the national 

 interest incessantly requires the raw produce to be in- 

 cessantly increased by committing larger advances to 

 the ground, tithes instruct the cultivator incessantly to 

 diminish his advances, and follow that species of culture 

 which gives back least to the nation, but which also 

 least exposes him who undertakes it to be punished for 

 his industry. 



The land-tax has not the same inconveniences ; it 

 affects only the net revenue; it is enabled to reach it 

 with equality enough, and above all, with a regularity 

 which screens the contributor from every arbitrary 

 proceeding, and which, therefore, is to him more pre- 

 cious than justice itself. On being established, it strips 

 the proprietor of a considerable portion of his fortune, 

 for he loses all at once a part of the very capital whose 

 rent alone must pay the tax ; but this loss, after having ' 

 struck him, is never repeated. From that time he no 

 longer looks upon this capital as belonging to him ; a 

 new purchaser, on buying the land, does not pay him 

 any price for this portion ; the state has become thence- 

 forth its true proprietor. On the other hand, this ter- 

 ritorial impost often requires money from such as have 

 none ; it forces them to sell their commodities to obtain 

 the quantity wanted, perhaps at the most unfavourable 

 moment ; and it thus contributes to cause a glut in the 

 market at the moment of harvest, and a scarcity at the 

 year's end. Besides, if too heavy, it discourages the 

 proprietor from laying out new advances upon land 

 which he looks upon as scarcely any longer his. 



If the capitalist could as easily be come at as the 

 proprietor of land, it would be quite as just to tax him 

 directly for the support of a government which guards 

 his property. The interest of money would be a tax- 

 able material, fully as suitable as the rent of land. 

 But the capitalist's wealth cannot be known without a 

 vexatious inquest, which, in trading countries, would 

 be destructive to credit. Capitals, moreover, are not 

 attached to the soil, and if loaded with imposts, the 

 capitalist would be induced to transmit them into 

 other countries, often without emigrating himself. He 

 would thus deprive his country of all the labour which 

 those capitals would support; he would diminish the 

 national revenues in a proportion immensely superior 

 to the advantages which the treasury could expect from 

 the new tax. 



