OF TAXATION.
THE primary object of political economy is the develop ment of national wealth ; but the object of all governments, since they began to bestow any attention on this subject, has been to participate in this wealth, and to acquire the disposal of a greater share of the nation's annual revenue. The ever increasing necessities of governments, and the excessive expense of wars, have forced princes to load their people with the weightiest possible yoke. of itself always an object of repugnance to the subject, has become a nearly intolerable burden ; the question is no longer how to make it easy ; it is not to do good, but to do the least possible evil, that all the efforts of governments in this respect are limited.
Quesnay's sect of economists, who discovered in the net revenue of land the solitary source of wealth, might also believe in the advantage of a solitary species of taxation. They rightly observe, that government, in justice, ought to apply to him who is destined to pay the tax in the long run ; because, if this tax is paid by one citizen, reimbursed by a second, who again is reimbursed by a third, not only Among the taxes that reach with any equality all classes of contributors, some are proportioned to the income of each, others to the expense of each. These two ways of estimating fortunes seem capable of being adopted indif ferently; and, if the expense is not proportionate to the wealth, there is no inconvenience, if the impost, which is regulated by this expense, he, as it were, a bonus on eco nomy, or a fine on prodigality. Tithes, the land-tax, the income-tax, are destined to reach what the contributor re ceives. Taxes on consumable articles are the chief spe-„ cies of contribution on expenditure. There remains, how ever, a great number of other taxes, which cannot be ar ranged under these two heads, and which, accordingly, are not in proportion to the contributor's fortune.
The revenue most easily attained by taxation is that which proceeds from land ; because this species of wealth cannot be concealed from sight ; because, without the pro prietor's declaration, the value of it may be known, and because, in gathering the produce at the moment when na ture grants it, we are sure exactly to meet the proprietor's convenience for paying it. But economists are divided in opinion as to the two modes of collecting this tax, the one in kind from the unaltered product, the other in money from the proprietor's net revenue Tithes, a tax, according to the first of those methods, is levied at the moment of abundance, before the producer has in any shape taken possession of his property. The
rule, according to which tithes are established, is so uni versal that few discussions or vexations arise from it, and this gives it a great appearance of equality. The collec tion of a tax in kind requires a great number of clerks and warehouses, and hence it is expensive; but this in convenience might be repaid, if government, after the col lection, kept in its granaries the corn delivered to it, till a period more favourable for sale. As cultivators generally cannot wait for this period, the loss suffered by a prema ture sale would, perhaps, of itself, cover all the charges of collection. Combining such advantages, a national im post in the shape of tithes has seduced many political spe culators. Tithes have also been defended with obstinacy by the powerful body to whom they are in general aban doned. Those advantages do not extend to what are called small tithes, an impost vexatious in all its details; the diffi cult collection of which is an ever fresh root of hatred be tween the curate and his parishioners, though the impost was intended to unite them all as a single family.
But the advantages of tithes, in any shape, are more than compensated by their real inequality, and the obsta cles they oppose to industry. The expense of cultivation is far from being the same in good and in bad soils; in good and bad years; yet the reimbursement of that expense is made by part of the crop, and this part at least should not be subjected to any tax, for fearof destroying the reproduc tion of the following year. It is not the revenue alone that is tithed; but at the same time all the seed, the manure, the days of labour, which have produced-the crop : for all this, the latter ought to restore. In good years, and good soils, two sheaves in ten may represent all these advances in bad years or soils, eight in ten will scarcely cover them ; it is not very rare even that the whole crop is insufficient to pay the expenses. Tithes, however, are equally levied in all those cases; from the first they take an eighth part of theiand revenue; from the second a half ; from the third, which is nothing, they take a portion of the capital destin ed to produce the following crop ; and their inequality is the more cruel, because it is always the poor whom they oppress, taking most from the very persons whose neces sity requires most moderation.