If a universal impost on consumption presents insupera ble difficulties, partial imposts are eqoally liable to incon veniences. When one kind of goods has been taxed by universal custom, as salt is, a considerable sum of money has indeed been. raised; but a tax on consumption has been changed into a sort of capitation, which weighs equally upon the poor and upun the rich, without any re gard to the contributor's fortune, or his means of making payment. The salt tax, when so considerable that the day•ahourer feels the weight of it, is, perhaps, the most unequal of all imposts. The poorest house consumes as much as the richest ; but the poor must take, front what is essentially necessary to their subsistence, a stim which the rich scarcely notice in their superfluity.
It were vain to seek, among articles of consumption, for one which is proportioned to expenditure or to wealth; some are sought after by the rich alone, but they do not use them in proportion to their riches. A duty of con sumption on tea, sugar, spices, does not reach a class so numerous as a duty on salt ; hut among those paying it, this duty is proportioned only to what a single individual can employ in his use. It spares the poor, but it weighs not upon the rich ; it is, consequently, very unproductive, whilst duties extending to the smallest consumption are the only ones which bring in much to government.
By degrees, duties on consumption have been extended to every kind of production. It has been imagined that if the rich man was made to pay a first capitation on salt, a second on light, a third on drink, a fourth on food, a fifth on clothes, there would be established a kind of proportion between his contributions and his fortune; because he would pay a much greater number of taxes than the poor man, although each tax, being limited by the individual's physical wants, was disproportioned to his wealth. The im possibility of establishing a uniform and universal law, was clearly felt; and the attempt was made of approximating to it, by a multitude of partial laws.
Hence has arisen a fourfold division of duties on con sumption, which are adopted in almost all countries; namely, the gabelle, custom, excise, and tolls. The ga belle comprises those commodities of which the govern ment claims a monopoly, salt and tobacco, for example; it sells them alone, at a high price, by its agents or favour ites, and prosecutes by rigorous penalties all such as at tempt to take a share in their manufacture or trade. Cus
toms are destined to levy a proportionate duty on goods imported from foreign countries; and the excise, or aids on goods produced in the country itself. The former is only established in the confines of the territory ; and al though the advancement in price of those taxed commodi ties is equally felt over the whole state, the vexations which accompany the levying of duties are confined to the fron tiers alone. The latter is to levy the tax wherever indus try is exercised; it consequently must comprehend, under its inspection, all productive workmen, all the most useful citizens of the state; and it cannot reach them, except by an inquisition almost constantly destructive of security and freedom. Tolls, id the last place, established at the gates of towns, form the* fourth class of duties on con sumption. As the most important department of the na tional exchange is that between the industry of towns and the industry of the country, tolls are destined to reach the latter, and to subject the goods produced by agriculture to a proportionate tax, at the moment when they come to be consumed by the inhabitants of towns.
In this manner, the establishment of taxes on consump tion has covered Europe with four hosts of clerks, inspec tors, agents, who, by incessantly struggling with each citi zen about pecuniary interests, have contributed to render authority odious to the people, and accustomed men to elude the law, to violate truth, to disobey, and to deceive.
The more heavy and multiplied these taxes are, the more rapidly will immorality make progress. Goods des tined for the consumption of the rich, presenting, in the same bulk, a much greater value than goods consumed by the poor, offer a much more powerful encouragement to smuggling; they have hence been necessarily subjected to far lower duties, that fraud might not altogether escape with them from taxation ; and by pushing things to ex tremes, he most unjust inequality has been established among contributors; liberty has been encroached on by vexatious inquisitions; the manufactures, the trade, even the existence of those who labour and who should create every kind of wealth, have been endangered. Those countries which have enjoyed the highest prosperity are exactly those in which this aggravation of indirect taxes threatens every kind of industry with the most complete ruin.