THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

823

taxes; and tlie greatest sum which they have afforded, mightalways have been found in some other way much more con-venient to the people.

Taxes upon consumable Commodities.

The impossibility of taxing the people in proportion to then-revenue, by any capitation, seems to have given occasion tothe invention of taxes upon consumable commodities. Thestate not knowing how to tax, directly and proportionally,the revenue of its subjects, endeavours to tax it indirectly bytaxing their expense, which, it is supposed, will in most casesbe nearly in proportion to their revenue. Their expense istaxed by taxing the consumable commodities upon which itis laid out.

Consumable commodities are either necessaries or luxu-ries.

By necessaries, I understand, not only the commoditieswhich are indispensably necessary for the support of life, butwhatever the custom of the country renders it indecent forcreditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without. Alinen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessaryof life. The Greeks and Romans lived, 1 suppose, very com-fortably, though they had no linen. But in the present timesthrough the greater part of Europe , a creditable day-labourerwould be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt,the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgrace-ful degree of poverty, which, it is presumed, nobody can wellfall into without extreme bad conduct. Custom, in the samemanner, has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in Eng-land. The poorest creditable person of either sex would beashamed to appear in public without them. In Scotland ,custom has rendered them a necessary of life to the lowestorder of men ; but not to the same order of women, who may,without any discredit, walk about bare-footed. In France ,they are necessaries neither to men nor to women ; the lowestrank of both sexes appearing there publicly without any dis-credit, sometimes in wooden shoes, and sometimes barefooted.Under necessaries, therefore, I comprehend, not only thosethings which nature, but those things which the establishedrules of decency have rendered necessary to the lowest rankof people. All other things I call luxuries; without mean-ing by this appellation, to throw the smallest degree of re-proach upon the temperate use of them. Beer and ale, for