Reflexions on the foregoing System.
This system was devised to countenance and encourage agriculture; it is in her hands, they say, it is at that fountain-head of riches, that riches must be sought for; it is the land that finally pays for all; the impost then must be laid on the net produce of the land.—I shall venture some reflexions on a subject which appears to me the more important, as one of the wisest, and the most profound speeches ever delivered in the House of Lords, seems to hint at the expediency of an aggravation of the burden already laid on agriculture.
Agriculture is the spring of life; it is not the spring of those riches which we call money: money must be had for taxes; money flows from the hands of industry alone: it is then from this spring that money must be drawn.
Besides, how is it known that the money, wrested from agriculture, is not necessary to her support? Or how does it escape observation, that all the money which is not laid out by the cultivator upon agriculture, will necessarily revert to industry, either by the immediate consumption of the cultivator, or by that which he shall have occasioned on the part of the person to whom he shall have lent the value of what he has not consumed himself?
How comes it to be known, that the proprietor of a landed estate that yields him, we shall suppose, 800l. per annum, and who is charged 200l. for taxes, is not indebted in 300l. out of the remaining 600l.? Now, it is true that 300l. are sufficient for his support; but were those 200l. which are forced from him, laid out annually on his land, they would certainly in very few years raise its produce from 800 to 1000l.—What is that but to assess unjustly a man who enjoys only 500l. as high as another whose income amounts to 800l.—to tie down agriculture to 800 when it might rise to 1000; to deprive industry of the re-action produced by that benefit; to crush population in the very bud, and consequently to prevent a more considerable consumption; in fine, to deprive government beforehand of the amount of those taxes which that increase of population and consumption would have secured to the State?
It may be said in France, it is true, that by a tax laid on private loan-covenants, those inconveniences are partly removed; but this very removal is only an additional obstacle, thrown in the way of agriculture, to impede its progress;—the man who could lend to the cultivator, besides the fear of not receiving back his money when wanted, has before his eyes the certainty of being charged with the twentieth penny laid on the interest of the money thus advanced, and consequently, as often as he conveniently can, lends that money to a merchant, who besides his punctuality in paying at the fixed time, never hesitates to allow the usual interest without any deduction whatever.
It may be said also in England, that all over Great Britain, the land-tax, (which, like some others, is perhaps no more than a real poll-tax under a name less grating to a British ear) does not exceed the sum of about 2 millions out of 14 or 15, the whole amount of her taxes; but nothing can be deduced therefrom, but that it is subject only to a proportionable share of the inconveniences above stated; inconveniences which are inseparable from it: we may add, that it is indeed free from some further grievances which fall heavy on the French cultivator:—but can the English boast of their tax being founded on an invariable principle, when this very principle is unjust in its consequences, and, as often as necessity requires the tax to be advanced, multiplies the injustice which follows it?—Yet they hint at the expediency of increasing that very tax, in order to alleviate the imaginary burden that weighs down industry!—Some pretend that the land-tax is become a public property; they suppose that all such sales and purchases of land as have taken place since the year 1740, have been effected on that principle of renunciation of the capital, the interest of which is paid by that land-tax:—they infer, no doubt, that the intention of those who did not sell, was implicitly included in that of those who have actually sold; for they propose that all the present proprietors shall redeem the tax, in order to refund part of the national debt; as if, on the very next day after the redemption, Government had not a right to renew it, if some fresh exigency should start, which could not be answered by any other means.
In the critical moment of a discredit, which will always be imputable to the Minister, when the King and the People are fully acquainted with their real interest, if administration, not knowing what to do, does not hesitate to apply to the land proprietor, whose ways and means are always visible, and whose purse lies, as it were, ever open against his own inclination, the Minister, no doubt, finds his excuse in the necessity; but after the crisis is over, why should the proprietor be further aggrieved?
But, say they, the amount of the tax cannot be dispensed with;—no objection can be urged against necessity; all that is wanted, is the least that can possibly be given; just as all that is wanted, is the most that it can be advantageous to take: but the whole should be paid by each individual, only in proportion to his faculties:—Now the fact is, that the faculties of the land proprietors are not better known than those of the merchants;—the latter have found means to prove, to persuade, that they ought not to be taxed, but in proportion to their consumption, the only criterion of their riches, or at least that part of their riches which they do not lay out in increasing commercial wealth.—Is the improvement of the territorial wealth less essential, or less valuable to the State?
Let us examine, however, in what degree the taxes laid on the different articles of consumption, must enhance the price of goods, in order that agriculture may not suffer more than industry. If it should result from this research, that many previous false steps have raised the greatest obstacles against the execution of those measures which would prove the most equitable, without being more disadvantageous in any point of view; the inconvenience of such obstacles might be deemed trifling, when compared with the burden supposed to be transmitted to posterity. And it is not in England that an important truth, generally acknowledged, will long remain without effect; it is not in England that an important truth will long remain without being generally acknowledged.