Part 17

That each of the three parts taxed singly, at 3,333,333l. 6s. 8d. and enabled to pay the impost by an advance of price, both in the productions and in the wages of labour, be reduced to its primitive 20 millions, after the payment of the tax.

One is evidently equal to the other; but what is not so, is, that industry, who paid her workmen with 20 millions when the quarter of wheat was at 40s. cannot pay them since the wheat is increased to 46s. 8d. but by adding to the former wages, 3,333,333l. 6s. 8d. an advance which, when divided on the total of her products, heretofore rated at 60 millions, raises each third part of 20 to 21,111,111, and some trifling fractions.—Now, there remains in the hands of each of the parties concerned in agriculture, only 20 millions over and above the payment of the tax.—Those who are in the persuasion that the discharge of the import must lessen, by its whole amount at least, the revenue of those who pay it, think, no doubt, that agriculture is very well off, to have, by raising the price of its commodities two thirds, lightened the weight of so terrible a burden; yet if it were possible by a vigorous exertion, by an additional increase in the price of provisions, to make it null to every body, I do not see that it would be reasonable to oppose such exertion; for, after all,

Either

The first increase, brought on by agriculture, was unjust; the proprietor was doomed to sustain alone the whole weight of the tax, if we allow the taxator, the man who laid the tax, to have had a single thought on the subject:

Or,

The further advance in the prices of agriculture is of the most indispensable necessity, if the taxator has only thought of getting the amount of the tax with the least trouble to himself, leaving to Nature the care of distributing to every one complete justice,—to Nature, who never fails to do it, and who, in so complicated an operation, employs only the simple spring of that private cupidity, with which she has armed and shielded every individual; just as, in order to settle the most exact symmetry in that admirable edifice commonly called a hive, she employs no other agent than the reciprocal pressure of that multitude of architects who work at it, each of whom thinks of nothing but to secure a little cell for himself.

Thirteenth Hypothesis.

Let us then suppose that agriculture, judiciously determined by wisdom not to suffer the least encroachments on any part of her cell, or mechanically led by cupidity to justice, boldly raises the price of her wheat from 40 to 50s. and the rest of her products in a due proportion; her general revenues will then be increased from 60 to 75 millions; each of the three parts interested therein will therefore stand at 25 millions, but will be reduced to 21,666,666l. 13s. 4d. when the tax is paid off;—

Industry, compelled also by the advanced prices of the productions of the earth, to pay her workmen 25 instead of the 20 millions which they required in the first instance, will divide the additional 5 millions amongst the 60 millions of her former returns; each third share therefore, rated hitherto at 20 millions, will, by means of the addition, rise to 21,666,666l. 13s. 4d.—which is the exact balance of the like sum left in the hands of each of the three branches of agriculture, after having discharged the tax.

In a system of taxation which should be imposed only on the land, an impost of 10 millions annually, on a revenue of 60 millions, whether it fall on the proprietor, or be divided between him, the farmer, the cultivator, and other parties concerned, requires of course an addition of 25 per cent. to the price of the productions of the earth, that agriculture may not be sacrificed to industry; but it must be observed, that immediately after the reaction of the one upon the other shall be completed, the burden of the tax will evidently be null, since the price of labour will have increased equally in both, in proportion to that of their respective products.

Reflexions on the foregoing System.

This system was devised to countenance and encourage agriculture; it is in her hands, they say, it is at that fountain-head of riches, that riches must be sought for; it is the land that finally pays for all; the impost then must be laid on the net produce of the land.—I shall venture some reflexions on a subject which appears to me the more important, as one of the wisest, and the most profound speeches ever delivered in the House of Lords, seems to hint at the expediency of an aggravation of the burden already laid on agriculture.

Agriculture is the spring of life; it is not the spring of those riches which we call money: money must be had for taxes; money flows from the hands of industry alone: it is then from this spring that money must be drawn.

Besides, how is it known that the money, wrested from agriculture, is not necessary to her support? Or how does it escape observation, that all the money which is not laid out by the cultivator upon agriculture, will necessarily revert to industry, either by the immediate consumption of the cultivator, or by that which he shall have occasioned on the part of the person to whom he shall have lent the value of what he has not consumed himself?

How comes it to be known, that the proprietor of a landed estate that yields him, we shall suppose, 800l. per annum, and who is charged 200l. for taxes, is not indebted in 300l. out of the remaining 600l.? Now, it is true that 300l. are sufficient for his support; but were those 200l. which are forced from him, laid out annually on his land, they would certainly in very few years raise its produce from 800 to 1000l.—What is that but to assess unjustly a man who enjoys only 500l. as high as another whose income amounts to 800l.—to tie down agriculture to 800 when it might rise to 1000; to deprive industry of the re-action produced by that benefit; to crush population in the very bud, and consequently to prevent a more considerable consumption; in fine, to deprive government beforehand of the amount of those taxes which that increase of population and consumption would have secured to the State?

It may be said in France, it is true, that by a tax laid on private loan-covenants, those inconveniences are partly removed; but this very removal is only an additional obstacle, thrown in the way of agriculture, to impede its progress;—the man who could lend to the cultivator, besides the fear of not receiving back his money when wanted, has before his eyes the certainty of being charged with the twentieth penny laid on the interest of the money thus advanced, and consequently, as often as he conveniently can, lends that money to a merchant, who besides his punctuality in paying at the fixed time, never hesitates to allow the usual interest without any deduction whatever.

It may be said also in England, that all over Great Britain, the land-tax, (which, like some others, is perhaps no more than a real poll-tax under a name less grating to a British ear) does not exceed the sum of about 2 millions out of 14 or 15, the whole amount of her taxes; but nothing can be deduced therefrom, but that it is subject only to a proportionable share of the inconveniences above stated; inconveniences which are inseparable from it: we may add, that it is indeed free from some further grievances which fall heavy on the French cultivator:—but can the English boast of their tax being founded on an invariable principle, when this very principle is unjust in its consequences, and, as often as necessity requires the tax to be advanced, multiplies the injustice which follows it?—Yet they hint at the expediency of increasing that very tax, in order to alleviate the imaginary burden that weighs down industry!—Some pretend that the land-tax is become a public property; they suppose that all such sales and purchases of land as have taken place since the year 1740, have been effected on that principle of renunciation of the capital, the interest of which is paid by that land-tax:—they infer, no doubt, that the intention of those who did not sell, was implicitly included in that of those who have actually sold; for they propose that all the present proprietors shall redeem the tax, in order to refund part of the national debt; as if, on the very next day after the redemption, Government had not a right to renew it, if some fresh exigency should start, which could not be answered by any other means.

In the critical moment of a discredit, which will always be imputable to the Minister, when the King and the People are fully acquainted with their real interest, if administration, not knowing what to do, does not hesitate to apply to the land proprietor, whose ways and means are always visible, and whose purse lies, as it were, ever open against his own inclination, the Minister, no doubt, finds his excuse in the necessity; but after the crisis is over, why should the proprietor be further aggrieved?

But, say they, the amount of the tax cannot be dispensed with;—no objection can be urged against necessity; all that is wanted, is the least that can possibly be given; just as all that is wanted, is the most that it can be advantageous to take: but the whole should be paid by each individual, only in proportion to his faculties:—Now the fact is, that the faculties of the land proprietors are not better known than those of the merchants;—the latter have found means to prove, to persuade, that they ought not to be taxed, but in proportion to their consumption, the only criterion of their riches, or at least that part of their riches which they do not lay out in increasing commercial wealth.—IS THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE TERRITORIAL WEALTH LESS ESSENTIAL, OR LESS VALUABLE TO THE STATE?

Let us examine, however, in what degree the taxes laid on the different articles of consumption, must enhance the price of goods, in order that agriculture may not suffer more than industry. If it should result from this research, that many previous false steps have raised the greatest obstacles against the execution of those measures which would prove the most equitable, without being more disadvantageous in any point of view; the inconvenience of such obstacles might be deemed trifling, when compared with the burden supposed to be transmitted to posterity. And it is not in England that an important truth, generally acknowledged, will long remain without effect; it is not in England that an important truth will long remain without being generally acknowledged.

Effects of an Impost exclusively laid on the Articles of Consumption peculiar to the rich, or in other words, ~on Luxury~.

The immediate effect of a tax, is to raise the price of the object on which it is laid, by at least the whole amount of the tax: nothing can be more just; but it is at the same time a consideration which ought to keep pace with the one I have already offered, on the very positive object of all kinds of taxation, namely, to secure the sum at which the product of the impost is valued, whatever that sum may be.

Now, in order to estimate justly the system of taxation we are considering, it must be presented in all its glory, that is, such as all Ministers of finance in Europe seem to wish it; such as all the English news-papers recommend it, rather roughly, each of them at least once a week; such as all Oppositions, past, present, and future, have pretended, do pretend, and ever will pretend it to be, so easy and so equitable; such as all preachers of the Roman, English, Jansenist and Presbyterian persuasion, are wont to deliver it every day among the private societies whom they are pleased to honour with their partly christian, partly political reflexions, and would speak it out from the pulpit, if Ministers of finance had any leisure to hear their sermons, &c. I shall therefore suppose that the tax of 10 millions, mentioned in the three foregoing articles, should be assessed in so able, so charitable a manner, that 5 millions should fall on the landlord, and the other 5 on the richest proprietor of money. I shall begin with the most essential, for the State is certainly founded on the landed property.

What is the revenue of the land-proprietor?⸺Nothing more, all expences defrayed, than the third part of the real produce of his lands; and this third is, in the hypothesis, estimated at 20 millions only.—These 20 millions finding in the hands of industry, that portion which usually gave the balance of those 20 millions, raised to 25 millions by means of the tax, it clearly appears that the proprietor alluded to is short by 25 per cent. of the sum required to pay that portion.—In this case what is he to do?

Shall he leave industry in possession of one fifth of his former comforts?—Then industry would be debarred from the sale of that fifth part; one fifth of its artificers would be left without any other resource than that which the highway might afford, and the main object of the taxation would be defeated in the following year, unless exportation should make up to industry for the want of home-consumption, (the only one by which a State can prosper,) and the deficit of the tax laid on the home-consumption, should be compensated by another tax on foreign consumption, that is on the exports.

We shall suppose this to be the case, and that industry actually exports that fifth part of the national commodities which the land proprietor is not able any longer to consume, and which, nevertheless, industry is compelled to sell, in order to be reimbursed the tax she has advanced, and be prepared to answer the fresh demand which next year government will have occasion to make.—But if it were to such means that England should stand indebted for part of the increase in her exports, her industry, methinks, would have derived less advantage therefrom, than a home-sale might have procured, even supposing the inconvenience of which I shall speak presently: it appears to me also, that the land proprietors would, in that case, have some reason to complain, and that the rest of the nation would have no cause to boast of the immensity of her exportation.—The draw-backs granted on the very exportation of the taxed commodities, prove that such an expedient never was adopted in England.

Will the land proprietor come to a resolution to fly from his native country, in search of another, where good men content themselves with declaiming against luxury, without making any attempt to destroy it? No, he never did, nor ever will take that resolution; he is fast bound to his land by the roots of every plant he has laid on it.—What then is he to do? It behoves the Minister of finance to give him some wholesome advice.

If the Minister be silent, or if he shuffle, because he is closely watched by Opposition, he must equally lose his popularity; for the land proprietor, left to shift for himself, will raise the price of the productions of his land, in proportion as the tax has increased that part of the products of industry that concerns him.—