68 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



Political ence that they obtain more for each separate article. 

 Economy. Their joint efforts soon succeed in raising the price 

 ls """"V"~ of all goods coming from their hands, but especially 

 goods of prime necessity, because the sellers of these 

 give the law to buyers who cannot do without such 

 goods. A rise in the price of those commodities re- 

 acts anew on wages and profits ; the disorganization 

 becomes complete ; national productions cost much 

 higher than those of countries not oppressed by a si- 

 milar system ; they cannot support a competition in 

 foreign markets; exportation ceases, demand is not 

 renewed, and the nation sinks under a frightful dis- 

 tress. 



If a universal impost on consumption presents insu- 

 perable difficulties, partial imposts are equally liable to 

 inconveniences. When one kind of goods has been 

 taxed by universal custom, as salt is, a considerable 

 sum of money has indeed been raised ; but a tax ori 

 consumption has been changed into a sort of capitation, 

 which weighs equally upon the poor and upon the rich, 

 without any regard to the contributor's fortune, or his 

 means of making payment. The salt tax, when so 

 considerable, that the day-labourer feels the weight of 

 it, is perhaps the most unequal of all imposts. The 

 poorest house consumes as much salt as the richest ; 

 but the poor must take from what is essentially neces- 

 sary to their subsistence, a sum which the rich scarcely 

 notice in their superfluity. 



It were vain to seek among articles of consumption 

 for one which is proportioned to expenditure or to wealth; 

 some are sought after by the rich alone, but they do 

 not use them in proportion to their riches. A duty of 

 consumption on tea, sugar, spices, does not reach a 

 class so numerous as a duty on salt ; but among those 

 paying it, this duty is proportioned only to what a 

 single individual can employ in his use. It spares the 

 poor, but it weighs not upon the rich ; it is consequent- 

 ly very unproductive, whilst duties extending to the 

 smallest consumption are the only ones which bring in 

 much to government. 



By degrees, duties on consumption have been ex- 

 tended to every kind of production. It has been ima- 

 gined, that if the rich man was made to pay a first 

 capitation on salt, a second on light, a third on drink, 

 a fourth on food, a fifth on clothes, there would be 

 established a kind of proportion between his contribu- 

 tions and his fortune ; because he would pay a much 

 greater number of taxes than the poor man, although 

 each tax, being limited by the individual's physical 

 wants, was disproportioned to his wealth. The im- 

 possibility of establishing a uniform and universal law, 

 was clearly felt ; and the attempt was made of approxi- 

 mating to it by a multitude of partial laws. 



Hence has arisen a fourfold division of duties on 

 consumption, which are adopted in almost all coun- 

 tries, namely, the gabelle, customs, excise, and tolls. 

 The gabelle comprises those commodities of which the 

 government claims a monopoly, salt and tobacco, for 

 example; it sells them alone at a high price by its agents 

 or favourites, and prosecutes by rigorous penalties all 

 such as attempt to take a share in their manufacture or 

 trade. Customs are destined to levy a proportionate 

 duty on goods imported from foreign countries; and 

 the excise, or aids on goods produced in the country it- 

 self. The former is only established in the confines 

 of the territory ; and although the ad vancement.of price 

 in those taxed commodities is equally felt over the 

 whole state, the vexations which accompany the 

 levying of duties are confined to the frontiers alone. 



The latter is to levy the tax wherever industry is exer- Political 

 cised ; it consequently must comprehend under its in- Economy, 

 spection all productive workmen, all the most useful v -y^ ' 

 citizens of the state ; and it cannot reach them, except 

 by an inquisition almost constantly destructive of all 

 security and freedom. Tolls, in the last place, establish- 

 ed at the gates of towns, form the fourth class of du- 

 ties on consumption. As the most important depart- 

 ment of the national exchange is that between the in- 

 dustry of towns and the industry of the country, tolls 

 are destined to reach the latter, and to subject the goods 

 produced by agriculture to a proportionate tax, at the 

 moment when they come to be consumed by the inha- 

 bitants of towns. 



In this manner, the establishment of taxes on con- 

 sumption has covered Europe with four hosts of clerks, 

 inspectors, agents ; who by incessantly struggling with 

 each citizen about pecuniary interests, have contributed 

 to render authority odious to the people, and accus- 

 tomed men to elude the law, to violate truth, to disobey, 

 and to deceive. 



The more heavy and multiplied these taxes are, the 

 more rapidly will immorality make progress. Goods 

 destined for the consumption of the rich, presenting in 

 the same bulk a much greater value than goods con- 

 sumed by the poor, offer a much more powerful en- 

 couragement to smuggling ; they have hence been ne- 

 cessarily subjected to far lower duties, that fraud might 

 not altogether escape with them from taxation ; and 

 by pushing things to extremes, the most unjust ine- 

 quality has been established among contributors; li- 

 berty has been encroached on by vexatious inquisi- 

 tions ; the manufactures, the trade, even the existence 

 of those who labour and who should create every kind 

 of wealth, have been endangered. Those countries 

 which have enjoyed the highest prosperity, are exactly 

 those in which this aggravation of indirect taxes 

 threatens every kind of industry with the most com- 

 plete ruin. 



Governments have not been contented with taxing 

 revenues and expenditure ; they have gone forth to 

 seek out all the acts of civil life, which might afford 

 them an opportunity of asking money. Some have 

 established capitations, which, weighing equally on the 

 poor and the rich, force the man to pay who has 

 nothing, for whom society does nothing, equally with 

 him who has too much, for whom society lays out enor- 

 mous expences. Others have attacked with consider- 

 able imposts, inheritances, sales, and all exchange of 

 property ; though in thus encroaching on capital, not 

 on revenue, they diminish the productive cause of 

 wealth, nearly as if tithes were levied on the seed in- 

 stead of being levied on the crop. Others have esta- 

 blished imposts on loans by pledge and judicial acts, 

 on stamps, and on a train of accidents which ought to 

 be taken as symptoms of poverty, not of riches. Others, 

 in fine, by establishing lotteries, have profited by en- 

 couraging a ruinous vice. 



This review of the different kinds of taxation, shows 

 clearly that one of the most essential qualities which a 

 nation can ask in its government is economy. States, 

 in the vigour lent them by freedom, in the full enjoy- 

 ment of their advantages, give way to all the dreams 

 of ambition ; they listen to all the suggestions of pride, 

 of jealousy, or of vengeance ; under the pretext of being 

 on their guard against distant or imaginary dangers, 

 they rush headlong with light hearts, into ruinous 

 wars, and persist in them with obstinacy ; though the 

 voice of humanity calls for peace in vain, the supe- 



