Political Economy [54]
not reach a class so numerous as a duty on salt; but among those paying it, this duty is proportioned only to what a single individual can employ in his use. It spares the poor, but it weighs not upon the rich; it is, consequently, very unproductive, whilst duties extending to the smallest consumption are the only ones which bring in much to government. By degrees, duties on consumption have been extended to every kind of production. It has been imagined that if the rich man was made to pay a first capitation on salt, a second on light, a third on drink, a fourth on food, a fifth on clothes, there would be established a kind of proportion between his contributions and his fortune; because he would pay a much greater number of taxes than the poor man, although each tax, being limited by the individual's physical wants, was disproportioned to his wealth. The impossibility of establishing a uniform and universal law, was clearly felt; and the attempt was made of approximating to it, by a multitude of partial laws. Hence has arisen a fourfold division of duties on consumption, which are adopted in almost all countries; namely, the gabelle, custom, excise, and tolls. The gabelle comprises those commodities of which the government claims a monopoly, salt and tobacco, for example; it sells them alone, at a high price, by its agents or favourites, and prosecutes by rigorous penalties all such as attempt to take a share in their manufacture or trade. Customs are destined to levy a proportionate duty on goods imported from foreign counties; and the excise, or aids on goods produced in the country itself. The former is only established in the confines of the territory; and although the advancement in price of those taxed commodities is equally felt over the whole state, the vexations which accompany the levying of duties are confined to the frontiers alone. The latter is to levy the tax wherever industry is exercised; it consequently must comprehend, under its inspection, all productive workmen, all the most useful citizens of the state; and it cannot reach them, except by an inquisition almost constantly destructive of security and freedom. Tolls, in the last place, established at the gates of towns, form the fourth class of duties on consumption. As the most important department of the national exchange is that between the industry of towns and the industry of the country, tolls are destined to reach the latter, and to subject the goods produced by agriculture to a proportionate tax, at the moment when they come to be consumed by the inhabitants of towns. In this manner, the establishment of taxes on consumption has covered Europe with four hosts of clerks, inspectors, agents, who, by incessantly struggling with each citizen about pecuniary interests, have contributed to render authority odious to the people, and accustomed men to elude the law, to violate truth, to disobey, and to deceive. The more heavy and multiplied these taxes are, the more rapidly will immorality make progress. Goods destined for the consumption of the rich, presenting, in the same bulk, a much greater value than goods consumed by the poor, offer a much more powerful encouragement to smuggling; they have hence been necessarily subjected to far lower duties, that fraud might not altogether escape with them from taxation; and by pushing things to extremes, the most unjust inequality has been established among contributors; liberty has been encroached on by vexatious inquisitions; the manufactures, the trade, even the existence of those who labour and who should create every kind of wealth, have been endangered. Those counties which have enjoyed the highest prosperity are exactly those in which this aggravation of indirect taxes threatens every kind of industry with the most complete ruin. Governments have not been contented with taxing revenues and expenditure; they have gone forth to seek out all the acts of civil life which might afford them an opportunity of asking money. Some have established capitations, which, weighing equally on the poor