the Second Letter of Inquiry, loi 



comfort, in a town. Many of the assessed taxes, indeed, fall almost exclusively on 

 the man resident in the country; a horse and a man servant are as requisite for 

 the enjoyment of social intercourse, indeed for daily occupation, as a pair of legs, 

 when the circumference, within which you have to move, contains many square 

 miles instead of a few streets. The window-tax too, though not so exclusively as 

 the horse tax, must fall much heavier on the country, than on the town establish- 

 ment ; as it must necessarily be composed of more individuals for a constancy. 

 and be the occasional abode of many more, if any hospitality, or even family com- 

 munication takes place. Many more of the assessed taxes may be thus shown to 

 afford a premium, as it were, in favour of town habitation. But the system of the 

 assessed taxes, though affecting agriculture by accumulating population, and les- 

 sening, amongst persons of moderate fortunes, a taste for country life, or rather 

 depriving them of the power of enjoying it ; is but a small part of the main system 

 of taxation hostile to the landed interest, which has been invented in the last cen- 

 tury, and lately followed up with so much alarming assiduity. It is impossible 

 for agriculture to thrive, when only half the produce of every acre is allowed to 

 remain the property of the owner; for if all the taxes now laid upon the land-owner 

 were to be enumerated, they would, at the least, amount to this. The poor rates 

 indeed, I have heard, often amount to this, exclusive of all other taxes ; but take 

 the average payments of the country and the average of the seasons, and it will be 

 found that lOO acres will not afford their owner the same enjoyments which 50 acres 

 would, if neither the publick, the church, nor the poor, shared with him in their 

 produce. 



The absolute exclusion of corn grown on untaxed land in other countries, from 

 the markets in plentiful years, is the least favour the land-owner has a right to 

 expect in return for his submission to the payment of so much greater a proportion 

 of the publick burthens than the rest of the community; out of policy the public 

 ought to go farther, and secure him, whatever might be the demand for his corn in 

 the markets, a price affording a fair profit, and add bounties to bounties on expor- 

 tation, till this was done. But, I cannot help thinking a better mode than the 

 payment of bounties might be adopted ; for if the demand for corn for our own 

 consumption, could in any ways be increased, a higher price would be the natural 

 consequence. At present it is thought both wise and politic to diminish, as much 

 as possible, the consumption of corn; the less the nation consumes, the less., 



