WEALTH OF NATIONS. 193 



classes, do not fall in proportion to income, for they are 

 proportioned to expenditure only, which varies much 

 more in the higher classes than in the middle and lower 

 ranks. Absentees, too, pay no such taxes, and accord- 

 ingly Dr. Smith is an advocate for absentee taxes, giving 

 Ireland as an example of the effects of persons being 

 non-resident on their estates, and wholly forgetting that 

 an Irish family residing in England contributes to the 

 revenue by which Ireland is governed and defended, as 

 much as a Scotch family living in London does to the 

 government and defence of Scotland; or a Yorkshire 

 family to that of Yorkshire. He shows, however, very 

 clearly that all taxes upon consumable commodities sin 

 against the fourth maxim ; they keep and take more from 

 the people than almost any others, creating a number of 

 excise and customs officers, by raising prices and dis- 

 couraging consumption, by vexatious prosecutions for 

 smuggling, and by vexatious visits of officers. He here 

 discusses the alcavala, or tax on sales of all kinds, in 

 Spain, at first of ten and even fourteen per cent., and 

 afterwards of six per cent., and a similar tax of three 

 per cent, on all contracts in the Spanish kingdom of 

 Naples. He institutes an interesting comparison between 

 the old system of taxation in Prance, and that of England, 

 giving the clear advantage to the latter. 



Upon the whole it must be admitted, that the long 

 chapter on taxation, (one of the longest, having 153 

 pages,) though, from the variety of the facts brought 

 together, it is exceedingly entertaining, is less instructive 

 than any other part of the * Wealth of Nations ;' because 

 the principles are not very fully and carefully discussed, 

 because the whole operation of the different taxes de- 



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