On the Object of all Ministers of Finance in laying Taxes.
In this indulgent age, wherein nothing more is required on any one subject, than a little decency, it would be a ridiculous and fruitless hypocrisy to propose a tax, as the means of encouraging virtue, or of discountenancing vice; it is not, at least in a country where a man convicted of smuggling wool, is by law sentenced to have his hand cut off, nor in another where a smuggler of salt is condemned for years to serve on board the gallies, that one should preach up the heart-felt concern he must experience at framing a law which would make it felony to drink spirituous liquors if he had really a mind to prevent intoxication; it is hoped on the contrary, nay, firmly believed, that the sweetness of the poison will make palatable the very bitterness of the tax, and its absurd disproportion to the real value of the taxed article: besides, it is too evident, that it is not the difference of a few pence more that will prevent a man from drinking to excess when he is so inclined, nor a few pence less that will occasion another to inebriate himself, when his only motive for drinking is a moderate pleasure, or the necessity of allaying his thirst. The object of every Minister, in laying a tax, is always to procure the sum at which he has rated its produce; if the tax should answer any other purpose, this additional one is considered merely with regard to the prospect it affords of making good another tax less productive than was at first expected. In fact, a minister of finance is not a præfectus morum—a moral censor: the State is in want of a certain sum; that’s enough, it must be found.—Let us then examine, what kind of taxation will be the least burdensome in its operation, give its first shock with the least violence, and be attended with inconveniences of the shortest duration.