The Land Taxation and the Economists. 175 



pressed long afterwards at Dublin in October, 1745 : " Trade 

 has always been the best support of all nations, and the princi- 

 pal care of the wisest." But he was not large-minded enough 

 to admit the theory that the incidence of Imperial taxation 

 should fall equally on personal as well as on real estate. 



So far we have examined objections to our fiscal system 

 emanating from sources which had not been influenced by the 

 teaching of Adam Smith. It will now be our purpose to 

 ascertain the principles laid down by this later economist, and 

 to point out how far they influenced the more modern forms 

 of State taxation. Adam Smith was so far in accord with that 

 sentiment of Locke's with which we commenced this chapter 

 that he recognised the land as a more stable and permanent 

 fund of taxation than perishable stock and credit. But he 

 pointed out that, apart from any principles of taxation, the 

 public revenue derived directly from the land fell short of two 

 millions, whereas that required to maintain the expenses of 

 Government on a peace footing exceeded ten. The private 

 revenues, however, derived from the land by the great body 

 of the people were not so much rent as produce ; which was 

 either consumed or exchanged for something else, and could 

 be differentiated under these three heads — rent, profit, and 

 wages. Consequently from all of these, not necessarily from 

 one only, must every public tax be derived.^ 



Coming now to principles, we must cursorily refer to the 

 well-known canons of this same economist. It will no doubt 

 be within our reader's knowledge that Smith laid down that 

 taxation should be equable, certain, and so levied as to reduce 

 the expenditure of the individual to a minimum, at the same 

 time that it raised the revenues of the Treasury to a maxi- 

 mum. Thus, for example, the tax upon the rent of land 

 should be payable at the same time as rents are due. This 

 was possible enough, but in every description of impost that 

 first condition of Smith's regarding equality has caused diffi- 

 culties. To apply an exceedingly searching test, used if not 

 invented by Decker, and adopted since by most economists : — 



» WmWi of Nations, A. Smitli, Vol. 1. bk. v. ch. ii. p. 258, Ed. 1809. 



