Political Economy [50]
and to a division on arbitrary grounds, which most frequently would be intolerable. In establishing those different taxes, four rules appear of essential importance for rendering each tax as little burdensome as possible. Each citizen must contribute, if he can do so, according to the proportion of his fortune; the collection must not be expensive, that so the tax may cost as little to the people as possible beyond what it brings into the treasury; the term of payment must be suitable to the contributor, who might frequently be. ruined by an unreasonable demand of what he could pay, without constraint, if his convenience were consulted; and, finally, the citizen's liberty must be respected, that so he may not be exposed otherwise, than with extreme cautions to the inspection of revenue-officers, to the dependent, and all the vexatious measures too often connected with the levying of taxes. Among the taxes that reach with any equality all classes of contributors, some are proportioned to the income of each, others to the expense of each. These two ways of estimating fortunes seem capable of being adopted indifferently. and, if the expense is not proportionate to the wealth, there is no inconvenience, if the impost, which is regulated by this expense, be, as it were, a bonus on economy, or a fine on prodigality. Tithes, the land-tax, the income-tax, are destined to reach what the contributor receives. Taxes on consumable articles are the chief species of contribution on expenditure. There remains, however, a great number of other taxes, which cannot be arranged under these two heads, and which, accordingly, are not in proportion to the contributor's fortune. The revenue most easily attained by taxation is that which proceeds from land; because this species of wealth cannot be concealed from sight; because, without the proprietor's declaration, the value of it may be known, and because, in gathering the produce at the moment when nature grants it, we are sure exactly to meet the proprietor's convenience for paying it. But economists are divided in opinion as to the two modes of collecting this tax, the one in kind from the unaltered product, the other in money from the proprietor's net revenue. Tithes, a tax, according to the first of those methods, is leveled at the moment of abundance, before the producer has in any shape taken possession of his property. The rule, according to which tithes are established, is so universal, that few discussions or vexations arise from it, and this gives it a great appearance of equality. The collection of a tax in kind requires a great number of clerks and warehouses, and hence it is expensive; but this inconvenience might be repaid, if government, after the collection, kept in its granaries the corn delivered to it, till a period more favourable for sale. As cultivators generally cannot wait for this period, the loss suffered by a premature sale would, perhaps, of itself, cover all the charges of collection. Combining such advantages, a national impost in the shape of tithes has seduced many political speculators. Tithes have also been defended with obstinacy by the powerful body to whom they are in general abandoned. Those advantages do not extend to what are called small tithes, an impost vexatious in all its details; the difficult collection of which is an ever fresh root of hatred between the curate and his parishioners, though the impost was intended to unite them all as a single family. But the advantages of tithes, in any shape, are more than compensated by their real inequality, and the obstacles they oppose to industry. The expense of cultivation is far from being the same in good and in bad soils; in good and bad years; yet the reimbursement of that expense is made by part of the crop, and this part at least should not be subjected to any tax, for fear of destroying the reproduction of the following year. It is not the revenue alone that is tithed; but at the same time all the seed, the manure, the days of labour, which have produced the crop: for all this,