823

THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

most sorts of coal is more than sixty per cent, of the originalprice at the coal pit. Coals carried either by land or by in-land navigation pay no duty. Where they are naturallycheap, they are consumed duty free: where they are na-turally dear, they are loaded with a heavy duty.

Such taxes, though they raise the price of subsistence, andconsequently the wages of labour, yet they afford a consider-able revenue to government, which it might not be easy tofind in any other way. There may, therefore, be good rea-sons for continuing them. The bounty upon the exportationof corn, so far as it tends in the actual state of tillage to raisethe price of that necessary article, produces all the like badeffects ; and instead of affording any revenue, frequently oc-casions a very great expense to government. The highduties upon the importation of foreign corn, which in yearsof moderate plenty amount to a prohibition; and the abso-lute prohibition of the importation either of live cattle or ofsalt provisions, which takes place in the ordinary state of thelaw, and which, on account of the scarcity, is at present sus-pended for a limited time with regard to Ireland and theBritish plantations, have all had the bad effects of taxes uponthe necessaries of life, and produce no revenue to govern-ment. Nothing seems necessary for the repeal of such re-gulations, but to convince the public of the futility of thatsystem in consequence of which they have been established.

Taxes upon the necessaries of life are much higher inmany other countries than in Great Britain . Duties uponflour and meal when ground at the mill, and upon bread whenbaked at the oven, take place in many countries. In Hol-land the money price of the bread consumed in towns is sup-posed to be doubled by means of such taxes. In lieu of apart of them, the people who live in the country pay everyyear so much a head, according to the sort of bread they aresupposed to consume. Those who consume wheaten bread,pay three guilders fifteen stivers; about six shillings andnine-pence halfpenny. These, and some other taxes of thesame kind, by raising the price of labour, are said to haveruined the greater part ot the manufactures of Holland.*Similar taxes, though not quite so heavy, take place in theMilanese, in the states of Genoa, in the duchy of Modena ,in the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, and inthe ecclesiastical state. A French authorf of some note has

• McmuiKis coDcerutnt let Druiti, he. p. JIO, In. t I.e Rcfornuteur.