THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. 827

of life are those upon the four commodities just now men-tioned, salt, leather, soap, and candles.

Salt is a very ancient and a very universal subject of tax-ation. It was taxed among the Romans, and it is so at pre-sent in, I believe, every part of Europe . The quantity an-nually consumed by any individual is so small, and may bepurchased so gradually, that nobody, it seems to have beenthought, could feel very sensibly even a pretty heavy taxupon it. It is in England taxed at three shillings and four-pence a bushel; about three times the original price of thecommodity. In some other countries the tax is still higher.Leather is a real necessary of life. The use of linen renderssoap such. In countries where the winter nights are long,candles are a necessary instrument of trade. Leather andsoap are in Great Britain taxed at three half-pence a pound;candles at a penny; taxes which, upon the original price ofleather, may amount to about eight or ten per cent.; uponthat of soap to about twenty or iive-and-twenty per cent.;and upon that of candles to about fourteen or fifteen percent.; taxes which, though lighter than that upon salt, arestill very heavy. As all those four commodities are real ne-cessaries of life, such heavy taxes upon them must increasesomewhat the expense of the sober and industrious poor, andmust consequently raise more or less the wages of theirlabour.

In a country where the winters are so cold as in GreatBritain , fuel is, during that season, in the strictest sense ofthe word, a necessary of life, not only for the purpose ofdressing victuals, but for the comfortable subsistence of manydifferent sorts of workmen who work within doors; andcoals are the cheapest of all fuel. The price of fuel has soimportant an influence upon that of labour, that all overGreat Britain manufactures have confined themselves prin-cipally to the coal counties; other parts of the country, onaccount of the high price of this necessary article, not beingable to work so cheap. In some manufactures, besides, coalis a necessary instrument of trade ; as in those of glass, iron,and all other metals. If a bounty could in any case be rea-sonable, it might perhaps be so upon the transportation ofcoals from those parts of the country in which they aboundto those^ in which they are wanted. But the legislature, in-stead of a bounty, has imposed a tax of thi-oe shillino- s an dthree pence a ton upon coal carried coastways ; which upon