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mifs the fubjeCt without remarking, that if the National AlTembly adopts the tax recom-mended by their committee, of three hundred millions, and fliould, upon thefe princi-ples, make it a variable one, though never rifing in its amount above that fum, themere mutation of eafing a wretched, poor, flovenly farmer, and loading proportionallyan improving one, will abfolutely prohibit all ameliorations of the national agriculture :and if they fha 11 draw thefe variations to the profit of the hate, by increafing the totalfum proportionably to fuch improvements, they will {till prevent them, as no manwill invert his capital in any induftrious employment in which the ftate taxes hisprofits.
Duties on confumption do not affect the induftrious, they fall principally on the idleconfumer, where they ought to fall, and confequently manufacturers and merchants, aswe have ample experience in England, are not deterred from inverting their capitals inemployments fubjeCted to thofe taxes, for their profits abfolutely efcape the tax, till bya voluntary confumption they clafs themfelves (in fpending thofe profits), among thenon-induftrious ; then they not only advance the tax, but really pay it, as it is rightthey fliould ; but with land taxes the cafe is totally different, becaufe they cannot bedrawn back ; an induftrious manufacturer calculates the profits his capital will yieldhim under the prefiure of taxes on confumption ; he eftimates the advance only of thetax, charging upon his goods the intereft of that advance, and thus the tax is to himmerely inconvenience in requiring a larger capital; but an induftrious farmer, calcu-lating in like manner, the profit of his capital inverted under the preffure of land-taxes,finds, in a moment, that with him it is not merely advancing the tax, but actually pay-ing and bearing it; it comes then immediately upon him as a deduction from his profit;and if it is proportional and equal, not a {hilling of that profit efcapes. What is thefelf-evident confequence ? Moft clearly that he will not make fuch an inveftment butturn his money to other employments that will pay him better : and can it be neceffaryat this time of day, to point out the mifchief of turning capitals from agriculture toany other employment; or, which is the fame thing, preventing their being invertedin it ?
As I have mentioned feveral writers in favour of land-taxes, in terms of that con-demnation, abfolutely neceffary by a friend of agriculture, it is no more than juftice toobferve, that France contains fotne others, whofe writings are free from this great ob-jection. Monf. Necker, in his treatife on the adminiftration of the finances, gives thepreference to taxes on confumption, and {hews the utter impoflibility of a land-tax ab-forbing all others. The Marquis de C.affaux * alfo has attempted, with much force ofreafon to prove, that the land-taxes of France and England ought to be converted intoduties on confumption. And fome of the beft writers of that vart collection, in whichthe phyfiocratical fcience originated, are of the fame opinion. Proportional imports,on the confumption of commodities are the moft juft , the moft productive, and the leajlburthenfome to a people, becaufe paid daily and imperceptibly f. And the nobility ofOuercy have, in their cahier, a pafiage which does honour to their good fenfe : Con-fiderant que I’impot indirect a l'inappreciable avantage d’une perception imperceptible Ifffpontanee : que le coniribuable ne la paye qu au moment ou il en a les moyens: qu’il frappefur les capitalifles dont le genre de fortune echappe a toute autre irnpdt: que la meafure desconfummations etant en general cede des richeffes il atteint par fa nature a une jufleffe de re-partition d’ont I’impdt direCl nf eft pas fuceptible J.—Thefe are fteriing and wife principles,in few words, developed in the molt rtriking features.
* Mechanifme des Societies, 8vo. 1785 p. 222. f Encyclopedic, folio, tom . viii. p. 602. J Page 6.
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