young’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE.

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ries of life, has nothing to fpare for direct taxes ; he mud depend for paying them onfoine other employment, at belt precarious, in a kingdom where population goes fo'much beyond employment, and where numbers ftarve from inability of maintenance.If, to avoid thefe evils, exemptions from the tax are given them, thefe fmall properties,the parent and origin, at belt, of Inch multiplied diitrefs, receive a direct encourage-ment, than which a more cruel policy could not be embraced. The only meafure thatw'ould remedy both evils, is to prohibit the divifion of landed property into portions,below the ability of paying duties ; or elfe to rejedt land-taxes altogether, A grofsevil of thefe direct imports is, that of moneyed men, or capitalijls, efcaping all taxation:none but duties on confumption affect them. In countries -a here land taxes abound,thefe men will never become proprietors, for the fimpleft reafon, becaufe thefe taxesreduce the profit of poffefling land below the profit of other invertments. They liveupon the interert of money in the public funds; and the cleared principles of juftice,call for a fyrtem of taxation that fliall bring thefe men witlyn its fphere ; this is only tobe done by taxes on confumption ; by excifes, culloms, damps, entrees , &c. ; and is apowerful reafon for multiplying fuch taxes, indead of thofe on land. Under the regi-men of land-taxes, all foreigners redding in a kingdom abfolutely efcape taxation ; butwith duties on confumption they are made to contribute equally with the natives; infuch a kingdom as France , which always did and ever will, attract many drangers,this is an objedf of fome confequence. But, perhaps, the greated objection to taxesupon land is, their preventing all improvements in agriculture, if they are equal; and,if unequal, carrying with them the greated principle of injudice, by being defective inthe fird requifite of all taxation. The greated friend to this fpecies of itnpofition, ac-knowledges the necedity of being equal. It is this that induces the Abbe Raynal tocall a cadajire , nne belle injlitution ; and a late writer declares, II n'ejlpoint de Pays on ilne Jolt neceffaire d’invcntorier tout le territoire dans le plus grand detail d'enrcgijlrer chaqueportion , d’en connottre les mutations d’en evaluer le revenu on ft l’on defire de per phut r

rimpofition egale proporiionelle il ne foit indifpenfable de fui-vre la progrejjion du reve-nue* : —and this method he explains afterwards, by afferting the abfolute necedity ofhaving a new valuation every nine years ; and he finds fault f with the King of Sar-dinia ’.? cadajire becaufe the valuation has never been renewed. Another of thefe poli-ticians obferves, that the excellency of a tythe, as a mode of taxation, is, that-if im-provements are extended, or lands cultivated with more care, the revenue of the dateincreafes with it J. In the fame fpirit, many of the cahiers demanded the luppreflion ofall duties on confumption §. — I could multiply fuch fentiments almort to fill a volume,if I were to go back to confult the deluge of writings which infeded France five andtwenty years ago, but I quote only fome living authors, who hold thefe pernicious doc-trines at prelent, and whofe writings are received with fubmiffion by the National Aflem-bly, adopted, and in part carried into execution.

Thus would thefe writers reject the only advantage found in the land-taxes of Milan,Piedmont, and England, that of permanence: they call for valuations of every im-provement the moment it is efte&ed in order to tax it, to what amount ? To that ofabforbing all the imports of a modern date, to the amount of twenty-feven vingtiemesin France ; and to that of a rental of twenty millions paying feventeen in England !To reafon upon fuch extravagance would be an idle wade of time; but I fliall not dif-

* IeTrone Ad Prov tom. i. pref. xiv. f Ibid. p. 23;.

J Plan d’Admin, da Finances, par M. Malport. 1787. p. 34.

§ Nt/bieje de Lyon, p. 16. Bugey, p. 28. Troyes Tiers Etat, art. 13. Etampes , art. 3-,. Nimer,p. 44. There is not a tax exilling in France , which is not demanded in fome cahier to be fuppreQed.

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