XXVlll INTRODUCTION. 



shaped, large, and fat; their hair is glossy, their eyes 

 lively, and their motions prompt and firm : the second 

 present images of suffering and misery ; the sheep have lost 

 nearly all their fleece before shearing time, and that which 

 remains is falling from them in locks ; the neat cattle are 

 lean and sickly, their organs of digestion are impeded 

 in their action, and it is only after having browsed the 

 juicy herbage of spring that they recover their health. 



During the time that salt was freed from any impost, 

 the use of it in agriculture became each year more ex- 

 tensive; it was mixed with manures, to increase their 

 activity ; it was spread at the roots of trees, to reani- 

 mate their languishing powers of vegetation ; and the 

 quantity of salted provisions, both for market and for 

 home consumption, was much increased. 



The impost upon salt is to agriculture a real calamity, 

 since it has taken from it many of its sources of pros- 

 perity ; and at the same time the public treasury has 

 received no advantage from the tax, equal to the injury 

 which it has inflicted upon agriculture. 



I know that in a well-organized state, the receipts 

 ought to cover the expenditures ; and that it is not 

 possible to repeal a tax of forty-five millions of francs, 

 without replacing it by another equally productive ; but, 

 in selecting objects for taxation, those ought to be taken 

 which will fall least heavily on the interests of those 

 who pay them ; and it must be prudent to avoid those 

 which will lessen production, and check improve- 

 ments in industry, commerce, and agriculture. In 

 establishing a tax it is likewise necessary to look for- 

 ward and to reason upon the future effects of it ; 

 a tax which will produce ten millions, may impover- 



