Part 19

The real necessity of providing for the interest due on the debt contracted during the last war, and the imaginary advantage of the intended reimbursement, have compelled the present Ministry (and according to the maxims and ideas that predominate at this time, would have compelled all possible administrations) to impose many taxes of the very exceptionable kind; to their effects add those of the indirect tax of corporations, premiums, prohibitions, and new obstacles thrown in the smuggler’s way, it will not be wonderful that the million sterling for the imaginary want of a reimbursement, together with the three millions some hundred thousands, for the real want, (the interest of the debt) and which, at the word, ought not to increase the total mass of prices much above 8 per cent. actually advance them to 12, whilst in France the expences of the late war will not perhaps occasion, at first, a rise of more than 6 per cent. It will be seen in the sequel why I say, at first.

But, they say in France—but, they say in England, all the articles of consumption are already so loaded, that it is impossible to think of increasing the weight. The French Farmers General themselves tremble when they propose to increase the duties on any article; will not consumption suffer by it?—Such is every where the terrible argument that prevents the establishment of the only unexceptionable system, the only equitable, and the only advantageous one to the people—to the people, on whose account they pretend to be so anxious.—That system, it is true, would lessen by one half, the nominal value of those operations that are held in so important a light, of all those tricks of which the contrivers themselves entertain so high an opinion; but what ease, what leisure would not this very system procure to the Minister! Let us then see whether the formidable argument, on which is grounded the impossibility of doing the best, will bear the analysis, so formidable also in so many cases.

Some Doubts on the supposed Impossibility of laying all Taxes on Consumption.

The universal voice in England is, that so many taxes should be laid, as are necessary to answer the exigences. Ministry, Opposition, Subjects, all agree in this essential point; but if we except some taxes which bear principally on the land proprietor, who never says any thing, and whose silence commands that of every one who shares in his burden, the ablest man in the three kingdoms is not capable of proposing one, on any article, which would not be followed by a petition from those very men who do not even wait till it has received the royal sanction, in order to derive from it an extravagant advantage, if it be within the meaning of licences, and perhaps only a profit rather above a reasonable one, if it bears on an object properly specified.

I have perused several of these petitions; and the substance of what has appeared to me most striking in every one of them is nearly this: “Let every thing be taxed in England, nothing more equitable; let every thing be taxed, every thing, except all the things that concern your humble petitioners: you cannot tax them, without ruining their trade; and not only their trade, but also the whole trade of the nation at large; and not only without ruining the whole trade of the nation at large, but without stifling that principle of liberty, that noble spirit of life, which has so highly distinguished her above all the nations in the world.”

Were any one to infer, from the foregoing extract, that my intention is to stigmatize the use of petitions,—notwithstanding the most invincible antipathy I bear to exclamations, which, for the most part, betray either weakness or hypocrisy, I should exclaim, O Divine Liberty, of humbly shewing, to the most respectable parts of a nation, all kinds of ideas, whether absurd or reasonable! Divine Liberty, never treated in England but with that regard which is due from one man to whatever comes from another man! Divine Liberty, who givest to the Legislator, the time, knowledge, and often the means, necessary to prevent him from falling into such errors as it is not beyond the power of human nature to avoid, ... be thou ever blessed, and mayest thou be worshipped wherever men are not infallible, and wherever millions of men may suffer from a single mistake!

In England, the produce of taxes on the various articles of consumption, amounts, I suppose, to 8,000,000l.: in order to procure the 5 or 6 other millions required, a part of which is necessary, a part of which is supposed to be so on account of the plan of a reimbursement, the land continues to be taxed for 2 millions, and the other 3 or 4 are taken from perhaps 30 different articles, one of which will bring in 150, another 100, a third 60, a fourth 30 thousand pounds, &c. with a salvo for Government to tax half a score more articles, if it should be robbed rather too unconscionably on the produce of the former; for, in all countries throughout the world, this is all the conjuration in that part of the administration of finances which relates to the collecting of taxes; if you rob Government in one point, be sure Government will ransom you, if required, on ten others; nothing more just, but nothing more easy.

Now, if we lay it down for an indubitable maxim, that the most able Administrator of finances, cannot take from an individual, more than what he possesses, it seems to me then that it remains only to examine, whether that very individual from whom, one way or another, out of the 20 he is possessed of, 5 may be wrested,—will be less aggrieved if the 5 be taken out of his pocket, and he be sent to market with the remaining 15, than he would be, were he permitted to go with the whole 20 to market, where he would find those 15 which he used to purchase for 15, charged with the 5 which might have been taken from him at home?

The question more to the point is yet more singular; for it goes to this enquiry:

First, Whether the land proprietor, who is obliged to give at a fixed period three millions in taxes for his land, windows, domestics, and other objects more recently taxed, would think himself more injured if those three millions were divided and laid upon some objects of his consumption, while he should observe that by this new order of things he would gain the convenience, not only of paying these three millions by different and remote installments, but also of making use of the money previous to such payment,—without injury to the trader, to whom the interest would be one way or other repaid,—while on the other hand, a part of the money, laid out upon his land, would furnish new resources for augmenting the produce of the taxes, by increasing his faculties of consumption:

Secondly, Whether those unfortunate licensed persons, and others (who so bitterly complain of all the various taxes that produce to them three or four times the sum which they advance to Government) would not be justly, as they ought to be, relieved from the oppression (that is the word) if such taxes were taken off, and laid on articles of which they would themselves be the consumers:

Thirdly, Whether all those extraordinary, usurious, and unjust benefits, arising from those oppressive taxes which I have been mentioning, reduced to their proper point, by taxes that would not increase the price of any article beyond a known degree, would not naturally reduce the value of every thing to that necessary price I have spoken of,—to that price which every thing ought to maintain, that the imaginary oppressed might not actually oppress the imaginary oppressors,—that all things may be preserved in a just balance, without any person experiencing a change in his condition;—and consequently, without the consumption of any article being diminished, unless fancy or fashion should transfer it to another article that will indemnify for the deficiency.

From England let us pass over to France, and always taking for granted that a Minister of finance is not a conjurer, and that he can take from the pockets of the people no more money than they possess; I wish it could be examined:

Whether the 41 millions of livres Tournois, produced by the poll-tax, and which should be paid no longer, when that tax should be transferred to, and divided between all the articles of the most general consumption, and of course the most productive, would diminish the general faculties, by increasing the value of those objects, to the whole of that sum which the contributors would gain by paying no longer the poll-tax.

I would have it also enquired into, whether the clergy, finding the objects of that general consumption loaded with 11 millions more, could be aggrieved by the sole disappointment of giving no longer gratuitously to his Majesty, those 11 millions which they are now compelled to pay; and whether they would not be left in possession of all the faculties necessary to satisfy the first article, as soon as they should be freed from the other.

I should also wish the French to examine whether the 76 millions Tournois, paid in that country for the three twentieths, instead of being very often called for, at a time when the Subject has them not, transferred to those objects which cannot be consumed but by means of the money remaining after those 76 millions are discharged, would impair the means of the contributors, although after having eased them of that truly terrible tax, the Minister should, in a manner, juggle them out of the whole amount of it, by another impost on consumption. Supposing even they had some suspicion of the trick, I wish it were examined whether they would think themselves injured by paying in the new way that amount, by installments at their own time, and till then laying out a part of it upon their lands, the revenues of which would of course increase in proportion.

But above all, I wish it should be examined, whether 91 millions of another kind of subsidy, called la taille, added to 7 millions and a half more, laid out in expences for warrants and distresses, necessary to enforce the law of the subsidy, transferred upon the consumption of those from whose hands the subsidy is directly wrested, against whom the warrants are issued, upon whose goods or body the distresses are executed, would diminish the faculty of that poor people’s consumption, if, by means of that consumption, by the suppression of the old subsidy, of warrants, and distresses attending the same, they should acquire the faculty of consuming cheerfully, what they often consume in bitterness and sorrow; and whether the department of the finances could lose by it any thing more than the pleasure or trouble, or rather the necessity of assessing a dreadful subsidy, issuing out warrants, and distressing the body—when there are no goods to be distrained.

But in this scheme the expence is more considerable.

This is the grand objection: The expence is more considerable! Reduce the unfortunate to a bed of straw, or cast him into prison, to spare the purse ... of whom?—For after all, supposing even that a few additional charges ought to be compared with millions of inconveniences, injuries, and acts of barbarity, which are inseparable from the other methods, let it be examined whether the extra charges can produce any other effect, than that of advancing by a few deniers pour livrè the general price of merchandise; let it be examined whether that advance is not a matter of perfect indifference, provided that the price of the provisions sold by the land proprietor, who is stiled rich, and that of the wages of the labouring man, who is called poor, rise in the same proportion as the goods of the capitalist of industry, who stands equally and as essentially in need of the ease of the poor, as of the opulence of the rich.

In fine, Let it be examined whether there is any thing great, courageous, just, and fair, that may not be expected from the French nation, when she shall be admitted to the honour of being heard,—or when they will be kind enough to convince her.—A King of France, with the trifling help of his provincial administrations, may do, and play with every thing: a King of France is truly a despot; not from that absurd right of giving his will for reason, but from that principle which is congenial to the French, that the People and the King are but one, have but one interest, and have nothing to fear but the ignorance of a Minister, conscious of his inability, without the least thought of the resources he has at hand in such a case, without principles to guard him against committing those injuries which seem to him unavoidable, in order to conceal the errors which he has been, or fears to be, guilty of; a Minister, in fine, whose insignificant little self, wrests from the King and People, the fruit of that identity which forms the acknowledged essence of the French constitution.

What seems to be in France no more than a fortunate prejudice, is every where an irrefragable truth: in every country the strength, power, and riches of the Prince, are but the sum of the force, power, riches, energy, honour and susceptibility, which actually exist in the mass of his subjects.—But if the Sovereign be the most powerful man in his kingdom, only because all its strength centers in him; if in this age, the most complaisant, the meanest Minister should not dare even to insinuate a contrary idea before the Prince the most jealous of his authority; how can he presume to think, or to hope, that it will be in his power to persuade the Prince, that he, the Minister, is the best informed man in the Empire, before he has collected all the information that can be got on every object that does not call for an immediate execution?—And how can he pretend to have collected every such information, when in addition to his own ideas, he goes only by those of the few dependents who surround him, dependents as much on their guard before him, as he himself is circumspect before the Sovereign, when the Sovereign, before he asks his advice, has the misfortune to let a single word escape that betrays even the appearance of an opinion on the object under deliberation?

Recapitulation of the foregoing Thoughts on Taxes and their Effects.

The fate of the various kinds of taxes, is similar to that of political operations, which pretty regularly bring about the very contrary of what had been expected from them: thus if you tax the consumption of the rich, presently the poor alone will pay the impost, and will continue to pay it till an insurrection will make you sensible that he is brought too low; now this insurrection is commonly the consequence of a trifling scarcity, which, it seems, Providence sends to the unfortunate in order to encourage his asking for justice, in the only manner that is likely to prove successful: on the contrary, let the tax be laid on the general consumption, without sparing that of the poor, the man who possesses, shall be, no doubt, necessitated to pay for the man who has nothing, if the former wishes to enjoy the labour of the latter; and on the very same day, when the tax is laid on the consumption of the labouring man, he will not hesitate to demand an increase of wages to the full amount.... How is he to be deceived?—If it be well to deceive the poor as long as possible, then tax nothing but the consumption of the rich. But whatever be the manner in which the impost is laid, as soon as its effect shall be general, the burden will prove null (SAVE THE INJURIES INSEPARABLE FROM ALL OTHER TAXES, BUT THOSE THAT BEAR UPON CONSUMPTION): this effect is no more than a general advance in all the prices: an advance, it is true, already acknowledged necessary with regard to the taxed articles, but dreaded hitherto in regard to all the rest, where it ought to have been wished for; universally felt, but never justly estimated; the nullity of the burden of the debt would have been determined by the estimation.

The poll-tax, supposed to be established by Divine Justice, would enhance the price of labour, and of its products, but by a fraction equal to that which the amount of the tax should be, in the mass of both revenues, land and industry. Ten millions of a poll-tax on a revenue of 120, would increase the prices of every thing by one twelfth; and every man thus taxed, would evidently after the advance of prices, in consequence of such a poll-tax, find himself in the very same state he stood in before the tax; yet one twelfth more must be given for every thing, but then one twelfth more would be received for every thing.

All other kinds of taxes, as well as the poll-tax, seem to affect only the article on which they are laid; but this article comprehends the three interests, and trebles the action of the tax when the interest of the labouring man, that is, the price of his day’s work, constitutes, as it does in England, nearly one third of the revenue.⸺How could it be supposed that the taxing of industry in its products, was granting to its capitalist the right of increasing his price by the whole amount of the tax, without making it necessary for the land proprietor to enhance the price of his commodities at the same rate? And how could it be supposed that the products of agriculture and industry, happening to be, by a very just re-action, (whether it originates with the one or the other), increased in price in the same proportion, agriculture and industry should not be compelled to increase of course the price of labour which procured those products? If therefore you advance by 10 millions, the prices either of all the productions of the earth, by taxing agriculture, or of all the productions of the arts, by taxing industry, you equally compel the untaxed part to advance its prices to the whole amount of the 10 millions laid on the corresponding part, otherwise goods to the amount of 10 millions would evidently remain unsold. Now the influence of those new prices will enforce by degrees an increase on the price of labour, and this increase will soon be followed by a fresh one on the value of its products; whence it appears at last, that after all the necessary re-actions, the same tax of 10 millions, which by a general equitable poll-tax, supposed as equitable as it is IMPOSSIBLE to make it so, would only raise the prices by one twelfth, or 8⅓ per cent.; if laid, either on the land, or luxury, or general consumption, would necessarily advance the prices, sooner or later, to 25 per cent.; the very precise period whereat every one would find himself in the exact state in which he was previous to the tax, paying, it is true, every thing 25 per cent. dearer, but being himself paid 25 per cent. dearer too.

Alter the proportion of the usual price of labour, by supposing a country so far barren as to make it necessary to appropriate one half of the revenue to the labouring people; in such case a tax of 10 millions laid on a revenue of 60 would increase by 30 per cent. the price of labour, and of its products; 30 per cent. would raise the revenue from 60 to 78 millions: now 39 being the half of 78, as 30 is that of 60, the burden of the tax would then prove equally null, after every article should have been raised 30 per cent.

Alter again the proportion of the common price of labour, by supposing that the cultivator is allowed only one fourth of the revenue; this division may take place in a country extremely fertile; in this case, a tax of 10 millions on a revenue of 60, would only add 20 per cent. to the former prices; instead of raising the revenue of 60 millions to 75, as in the case of three equal shares, or to 78, as in the supposition of the revenue being divided in halves, the tax would then carry it only to 72. Now the 4th part of 72 is 18, as 15 is the 4th of 60; therefore if, after the tax is imposed, you give 18 wherever you paid only 15 before that period, the burden will clearly be null again, since the increase in the price of labour, must have followed the advanced price of its products, an advance necessitated by the impost.

Here, methinks, I hear the enthusiasts exclaim, How! the fertility of the land is then of no advantage, but to its greedy owners!—I am in hopes that before I conclude this Pamphlet, I shall be able to find, to the great satisfaction of all good men, how many advantages remain in the hands of the most opulent land proprietor; nay I hope to prove that in a fertile land there is nothing lost to any of its inhabitants, unless extraordinary efforts be used to concenter within that spot the general benefit which must result from it. I shall content myself at present with requesting the reader to compare my thoughts on the taxes, with the two following problems, so often debated both in England and in France. How is it that France has constantly retrieved her errors and her misfortunes? How comes it that England has not yet sunk under the burden of her taxes? The French exciseman says: It is because the more the people are loaded, the better they walk; and very sensible men in England used to say, “Reason and experience seem to prove that taxes stimulate industry, and that the poor, to live as well as before, perform more work without demanding more for their labour.” (D. Hume’s Essay VIII. on Taxes). It seems to me that the above two problems are more humanely solved by the reasons I have produced, and that those reasons destroy all idea of a miracle, or of the necessity of loading the people in order to spur their industry, and encourage them to work: on the contrary, to forward those two great points, it is necessary to increase the price of their labour in the same proportion as that of its products is raised by the taxes; and this will suffice to render evidently null the burden of all taxes whatever.