Til K WEALTH OF NATIONS.

801

the country, like the quantity of land, being supposed to re-main the same after the tax as before it. The ordinary rateof profit, it has been shewn in the first book, is everywhereregulated by the quantity of stock to be employed in pro-portion to the quantity of the employment, or of the businesswhich must be done by it. But the quantity of the employ-ment, or of the business to be done by stock, could neither heincreased or diminished by any tax upon the interest ofmoney. If the quantity of the stock to he employed, there-fore, was neither increased nor diminished by it, the ordinaryrate of profit would necessarily remain the same. But theportion of this profit necessary for compensating the riskand trouble of the employer, would likewise remain thesame ; that risk and trouble being in no respect altered. Theresidue therefore, that portion which belongs to the ownerof the stock, and which pays the interest of money, wouldnecessarily remain the same too. At first sight, therefore,the interest of money seems to be a subject as fit to be taxeddirectly as the rent of land.

There are, however, two different circumstances whichrender the interest of money a much less proper subject ofdirect taxation than the rent of land.

First, the quantity and value of the land which any manpossesses can never be a secret, and can always be ascer-tained with great exactness. But the whole amount of thecapital stock which lie possesses is almost always a secret,and can scarce ever be ascertained with tolerable exactness.It is liable, besides, to almost continual variations. A yearseldom passes away, frequently not a month, sometimesscarce a single day, in which it does not rise or fall more orless. An inquisition into every man’s private circumstances,and an inquisition which, in order to accommodate the taxto them, watched over all the fluctuations of his fortune,would be a source of such continual and endless vexation asno people could support.

Secondly, land is a subject which cannot be removed, where-as stock easily may. The proprietor of land is necessarily acitizen of the particular country in which his estate lies. Theproprietor of stock is properly a citizen of the world, and isnot necessarily attached to any particular country. H ewould be apt to abandon the country in which he was ex-posed to a vexatious inquisition, in order to be assessed to aburdensome tax, and would remove his stock to some other