3^4 



Travels in France 



total tax to the rental of the kingdom.^ It is true, that the 

 course of exchange would make an enormous difference, for when 

 exchange is at 15, this ratio per cent, instead of 5I becomes 11, 

 if the capital is remitted from Britain: but as that immense 

 loss (50 per cent.) on the exchange of France arises from the 

 political state of the kingdom, the same circumstances which 

 cause it would be estimated at so much hazard and danger. But 

 bring to account the operation of the National Assembly, relating 

 to the non-enclosure of commons ; the land tax, variable with 

 improvements (an article sufficient to stifle the thoughts of such 

 a thing); the export of corn at an end; the transport every- 

 where impeded; and your granaries burnt and plundered at the 

 pleasure of the populace, if they do not like the price; and, above 

 all, the prohibition of the export of all materials of manufactures, 

 as wool, etc., and it is sufhciently clear that America offers a 

 vastly more eligible field for the investment of capital in land 

 than France does; a proof that the measures of the National 

 Assembly have been ill-judged, ill-advised, and unpolitical: I 

 had serious thoughts of settling in that kingdom, in order to 

 farm there; but the two measures adopted, of a variable land 

 tax and a prohibition of the export of wool, damped my hopes, 

 ardent as they were, that I might have breathed that fine climate, 

 free from, the extortions of a government, stupid in this respect 

 as that of England. It is, however, plain enough, that America 

 is the only country that affords an adequate profit, and in which 

 a man, who calculates with intelligence and precision, can think 

 of investing his capital. How different would this have been 

 had the National Assembly conducted themselves on principles 

 directly contrary; had they avoided all land taxes ; ^ had they 



1 But this land tax is variable and therefore impossible to estimate 

 accurately; if you remain no better farmer than your French neighbours, 

 it is so much ; but if you improve, you are raised and they are sunk ; all 

 that has, and can be said against tithes, bears with equal force against 

 such a tax. And though this imposition cannot go by the present law 

 beyond 4s. in the pound, it would be very easy to show by a plain calcula- 

 tion that 4s. in the pound, rising with improvement, is a tax impossible to 

 be borne by one who improves ; and consequently, that it is a direct tax on 

 improvement; and it is a tax in the very worst form since the power to 

 lay and inforce it is not in the government of the kingdom, but in the 

 municipal government of the parish. Your neighbour, with whom you 

 may be on ill terms, has the power to tax you; no such private heart- 

 burnings and tyranny are found in excises. — Author's note. 



^ To have avoided land taxes might very easily have been made a most 

 popular measure in a kingdom so divided into little properties as France 

 is. No tax is so heavy upon a small proprietor; and the economistes 

 might have foreseen what has happened, that such little democratic 

 owners would not pay the tax; but taxes on consumption, laid as in 



