605) 
fomewhat different, and ufually lefs con- 
ducive'to happinefs, than 1 it had reim4in- 
ed in the hands of the private proprietors ; 
it is turned from one channel of confump- 
tion into another; but the refources of the 
nation, confifting in the ability to repro- 
duce the fame value of commodities next 
year, and confequently to continue the 
public expences as long as they are judged 
requifite to the interefts of the ftate, are 
in no degree diminished. 
On the contrary, when taxes are levied 
upen capital, they.confume part cf what 
would otherwife have been ftored up, and by 
diminifhing the funds deftined for agricul- 
ture, commerce, and manufactures, reduce 
the future produce of the land and labour. 
Every fuch tax renders it more difficult to 
raile future fupplies, and preys upon the 
vitals of the ftate. A nation laying 
heavy taxes on expenditure may be com- 
pared toa vain man, living frugally at 
home, that he may make a fplendid ap- 
pearance in the world; a nation laying 
taxes on capital, to the prodigal, why, 
{pending more than his income, is {peedily 
involved in ruin: the former may con- 
tinue his mode of living for years, and at 
laft leave a patrimony to his children; 
the latter finds his embarrafiments daily 
increafe, and tinks rapidly to want and mi- 
fery. The ten millions, which Lord Lau- 
derdale propotes to raife by a tax on fuc- 
ceflion, would not only expend all thofe 
favings of income, from which alone the 
augmentation of national wealth can arife, 
but even annually. confume part of that 
capital which we have already acquired : 
and this confideration appears to me de- 
eifive againft his Lordfhip’s plan. 
Tam, Sir, your moft humble fervant, 
A MERCHANT. 
Glafgow, Fuly 12, 1799 
SS 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, igs 
‘IVE me leave to fay, that I greatly 
approve many of the hints of your 
correfpondent X, (p. 358.) on the fub- 
ject of enclofures. : 
That of an increafed proportion in 
favoun, of fizall exners makes part of an 
aét* which I was lately concerned in ob- 
faining; and which gives an increafe of 
their allotments, fo as not to exceed double 
of the other allotments. 
There is alfo in that at -an exemption 
from tythes in favour of the fimall allot- 


* Stanton, in Bury, Suffolk, 
; BouG, TY: 
anno 1798. 
On Enclofures. 
x 
‘ [ Sept. 
ments, while they continue in the poor 
owners, or their iiTue. 
The allotments of poor owners to be 
enclofed in a ring-fence without any ex-. 
- pence to them. 
I fear a general evil in ENGLAND. 
And a like exemption from fypthes in 
favour of a portion of land fet apart as 
the poor’s eftate for raiing fewel. This 
exemption za perpetuity. 
An exemption from fythes for feven years 
on the allotments from the common and 
wafte. ; a3 
The lberality of the rector greatly fa- 
cilitated the obtaining of thefe claufes. 
I propofed fetting apart a certain portion 
of the common, to be uled as common by 
fuch as might prefer it: but this met with 
no fupport from the {mall owners for whofe 
accommodation it was intended; nor of 
courfe from others. 
I do think with your correfpondent, 
and I know that refpeétable opinions agree 
with him, that the want of HABITATIONS 
for the POor is a great, an increafing, and 
We 
are accuftomed to talk much ef the wealth 
of the zation, I doubt whether upon any 
well-affured grounds of reliance: but this 
I know; wealth may exit to an high de- 
gree in a nation, and vice, muery, and 
public danger may exift at the fame time 
ina ftill greater. I hadrather hear of the- 
comforts of the poor—which implies the 
reafonable comforts of @// clafles—than 
of the wealth of fome clafles. H the com- 
forts. of the poor are made general, and de- 
pendent only on their induftry and good 
conduct; virtue and happinefs and public 
feeurity muft become general from the 
fame caufes, and be rendered permanent 
by the fame means. To fay that the mafs 
of the nation is really in a comfortable ftate, 
is to fpeak the happinefs of the nation. 
But of this comfort their dwelling is an 
effential part. Waithout this what becomes 
of the ideaof a family, of independence, of | 
individual or focial welfare; furely thefe 
ideas are far from the unhappy beings 
who, though they could hire an habi‘ation, © 
were it to be dad, find that none zs to be” 
had wherein to lay their head. The fia- 
tute has been repealed, which required 
land to be laid in a confiderable quantity 
wherever a cottage fhould be built on the 
wafte. In fat, it operated rather as a 
probibition againft building cottages, than an 
encouragement to that moft defirable obje& 
of adding land to them. But excourage- 
ment mult be given to building habitations 
for the poor, if we refpeét the ineftimable 
benefits to the individuals, and to the whole 
nation, of induftry, ofhealth and comfort, 
of 
