78G

THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

could be so managed, as to give, not only no discouragement,but, on the contrary, some encouragement, to the improve-ment of land, it does not appear likely to occasion any otherinconveniency to the landlord, except always the unavoidableone of being obliged to pay the tax.

In all the variations of the state of the society, in the im-provement and in the declension of agriculture ; in all the va-riations in the value of silver, and in all those of the stand-ard of the coin, a tax of this kind would, of its own accord,and without any attention of government, readily suit itselfto the actual situation of things, and would be equally justand equitable in all those different changes. It would, there-fore, be much more proper to be established as a perpetualand unalterable regulation, or as what is called a fundamen-tal law of the commonwealth, than any tax which was alwaysto be levied according to a certain valuation.

Some states, instead of the simple and obvious expedientof a register of leases, have had recourse to the laborious andexpensive one of an actual survey and valuation of all thelands in the country. They ha\e suspected, probably, thatthe lessor and lessee, in order to defraud the public revenue,might combine to conceal the real terms of the lease. Dooms-day-book seems to have been the result of a very accuratesurvey of this kind.

In the ancient dominions of the king of Prussia, the land-tax is assessed according to an actual survey and valua-tion, which is reviewed and altered from time to time.* Ac-cording to that valuation, the lay proprietors pay from twentyto twenty-five per cent, of their revenue. Ecclesiastics fromforty to forty-five per cent. The survey and valuation ofSilesia was made by order of the present king; it is said withgreat accuracy. According to that valuation, the lands be-longing to the bishop of Breslaw are taxed at twenty-five percent, of their rent. The other revenues of the ecclesiasticsof both religions, at fifty per cent. The commanderies of theTeutonic order, and of thatol Malta , at forty per cent, bandsheld by a noble tenure, at thirty-eight and one third per cent.Lands held by a base tenure, at thirty-five and one third percent.

The survey and valuation of Bohemia is said to have beenthe work of more than a hundred years. It was not perfectedtill after the peace of 1748, by the orders of the present cm-

* Memoires couternant les Droits, fccc, tonic i. p. 11 1. lift, 116. &c.