176 ALANDTAX. ' 



the agriculture of that kingdom : hence therefore equality 

 mud riot be thought of in a land tax : and if there were no 

 other objections, this alone ought for ever to preclude them. 

 But fuppofe *a fixed unequal tax as in England, yet there are 

 great evils in it, a man's pofleffions are rarely to be taken as a 

 proof of his capability to bear a tax ; a landlord who receives 

 a thoufand pounds a year from his eftate, and pays feven 

 hundred intered of mortgages is taxed at his whole rental ; 

 what enormity and ruin is this ! that the ability to bear the 

 burthen is to be of no confequence in laying the tax. When 

 the amazing amount of mortgages on landed property is con- 

 iidered, the greatnefs of this oppreffion muft be fully felt. 

 But land taxes when they are unequal are unproductive ; 

 hence the oppreffions under this name which crufn the agri- 

 culture of France, Milan, and the ftates of Auftria and Pruffia, 

 in rooft of which actual valuations of the land are made peri- 

 odically, as if no man's improvement (hould efcape taxation : 

 hence alfo the defigns of the Englifh miniftry once remark- 

 ably manifefted, of dropping the prefent land tax in order to 

 obtain an equal one : thefe are univcrfal objections to land 

 taxes. 



But in Ireland there are others which concern that country 

 fingly, and therefore the more deferving attention; avail 

 proportion of it is under leafe for ever ; other parts let for 

 five hundred years ; others for lives and a hundred years ; 

 others for lives and fifty and thirty years ; in a word, under 

 leafes of every delcription. How could a land tar be laid in 

 that kingdom confidently with the reigning principle of the 

 Englifh tax, that the landlord only ihall pay it ? Difficulties 

 innumerable would arife at every ftep ; no gordian knot but 

 the fword of power can cut ; but the queftion is whether all 

 the principles that have directed a fimilar tax in England 

 would not be cut with them : for the tax to be either equal 

 or productive, it muft be laid on fome claffes of tenantry : it 

 ought certainly to be laid on all who do not occupy ; but 

 from that moment there is an end of it as an Englifh land 

 tax, it is a taille, a tax on tenantry : break the limits, the 

 great line between the owner of the land and the tenant, and 

 who will fay how far the innovation will be carried, the mod 

 dangerous that can ever be made in a kingdom ? Adieu to 

 all improvements in agriculture wherever fuch an one takes 

 place. 



Evils of this fort rarely make their full appearance at firft ; 

 a land tax in Ireland would probably come in under a very 

 fair appearance j but the date of the country ought to tell its 

 inhabitants that fuch a tax would be too unproductive to laft ; 

 the fucceffive alterations would do the fatal bufmefs, and pro- 

 duce the mifchief in its full deformity. 



Adminiftration have had experience in England of the lofs, 

 as it has been called, to the revenue from a fixed tax : if ever 



therefore 



