'I'll K WT.A1.TH OK NATIONS.

795

there would not, perhaps, be any thing very unreasonable.It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute tothe public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue,but something more than in that proportion.

The rent of houses, though it in some respects resemblesthe rent of land, is in one respect essentially different from it.The rent of land is paid for the use of a productive subject.TJie land which pays it produces it. The rent of houses ispaid for the use of an unproductive subject. Neither the housenor the ground which it stands upon produce any thing.The person who pays the rent, therefore, must draw it fromsome other source of revenue, distinct from and independentof this subject. A tax upon the rent of houses, so far as itfalls upon the inhabitants, must be drawn from the samesource as the rent itself, and must be paid from their re-venue, whether derived from the wages of labour, the pro-fits of stock, or the rent of land. So far as it falls uponthe inhabitants, it is one of those taxes which falls, notupon one only, but indifferently upon all the three differentsources of revenue; and it is in every respect of the samenature as a tax upon any other sort of consumable com-modities. In general there is not, perhaps, any one articleof expense or consumption by which the liberality or nar-rowness of a man’s whole expense can be better judged ofthan by his house-rent. A proportional tax upon this par-ticular article of expense might, perhaps, produce a moreconsiderable revenue than any which has hitherto beendrawn from it in any part of Europe . If the tax indeed wasvery high, the greater part of the people would endeavour toevade it, as much as they could, by contenting themselveswith smaller houses, and by turning the greater part of then-expense into some other channel.

The rent of houses might easily be ascertained with suf-ficient. accuracy, by a policy of the same kind with that whichwould be necessary for ascertaining the ordinary rent ofland. Houses not inhabited ought to pay no tax. A taxupon them would fall altogether upon the proprietor, whowould thus be taxed for a subject which afforded him neitherconveniency nor revenue. Houses inhabited by the pro-prietor ought to be rated, not according to the expense whichthey might have cost in building, but according to the rentwhich an equitable arbitration might judge them likely tobring, if leased to a tenant. If rated according to the ex -