V. BOOK fequently to fupply the market more sparingly than before. The tax, therefore, will never enable him to raise the price of his produce, fo as to reimburse himself by throwing the final payment upon the confumer. The farmer, however, must have his reasonable profit as well as every other dealer, otherwife he muft give up the trade. After the impofition of a tax of this kind, he can get this reasonable profit only by paying lefs rent to the landlord. The more he is obliged to pay in the way of tax, the lefs he can afford to pay in the way of rent. A tax of this kind impofed during the currency of a lease may, no doubt, diftrefs or ruin the farmer. Upon the renewal of the lease it must always fall upon the landlord. In the countries where the perfonal taille takes place, the farmer is commonly affeffed in proportion to the stock which he appears to employ in cultivation. He is, upon this account, frequently afraid to have a good team of horses or oxen, but endeavours to cultivate with the meaneft and moft wretched inftruments of husbandry that he can. Such is his diftruft in the juftice of his affeffors, that he counterfeits poverty, and wishes to appear scarce able to pay any thing for fear of being obliged to pay too much. By this miferable policy he does not, perhaps, always confult his own intereft in the most effectual manner; and he probably lofes more by the diminution of his produce than he faves by that of his tax. Though, in confequence of this wretched cultivation the market is, no doubt, somewhat worfe II. worfe fupplied; yet the small rife of price which c HAP. this may occafion, as it is not likely even to indemnify the farmer for the diminution of his produce, it is still lefs likely to enable him to pay more rent to the landlord. The public, the farmer, the landlord, all fuffer more or lefs by this degraded cultivation, That the perfonal taille tends, in many different ways, to difcourage cultivation, and confequently to dry up the principal fource of the wealth of every great country, I have already had occafion to observe in the third book of this Inquiry, What are called poll-taxes in the fouthern provinces of North America, and in the Weft Indian islands, annual taxes of fo much a head upon every negroe, are properly taxes upon the profits of a certain fpecies of stock employed in agriculture. As the planters are, the greater part of them, both farmers and landlords, the final payment of the tax falls upon them in their quality of landlords without any retribution. There fubfifts Taxes of fo much a head upon the bondmen employed in cultivation, feem anciently to have been common all over Europe. at prefent a tax of this kind in the empire of Ruffia. It is probably upon this account that poll-taxes of all kinds have often been repre fented as badges of flavery, Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of flavery, but of liberty. It denotes that he is fubject to government, indeed, but that, as he has fome property, he cannot himself be the property of a mafter. A poll-tax upon flaves is altogether X 3 BOOK altogether different from a poll-tax upon free V. men. The latter is paid by the perfons upon whom it is impofed; the former by a different fet of perfons. The latter is either altogether arbitrary or altogether unequal, and in most cafes is both the one and the other; the former, though in fome refpects unequal, different flaves being of different values, is in no respects arbitrary. Every mafter who knows the number of his own flaves, knows exactly what he has to pay. Those different taxes, however, being called by the fame name, have been confidered as of the fame nature. The taxes which in Holland are impofed upon men and maid fervants, are taxes, not upon stock, but upon expence; and fo far refemble the taxes upon confumable commodities. The tax of a guinea a head for every man fervant, which has lately been impofed in Great Britain, is of the fame kind. It falls heaviest upon the middling rank. A man of two hundred a year may keep a fingle man fervant. A man of ten thoufand a year will not keep fifty. It does not affect the poor. Taxes upon the profits of stock in particular employments can never affect the intereft of money. Nobody will lend his money for less intereft to those who exercise the taxed, than to thofe who exercife the untaxed employments. Taxes upon the revenue arifing from ftock in all employments, where the government attempts to levy them with any degree of exactnefs, will, in many cafes, fall upon the intereft of money. The II. The Vingtieme, or twentieth penny, in France, C HAP. is a tax of the fame kind with what is called the land-tax in England, and is affeffed, in the fame manner, upon the revenue arifing from land, houses, and stock. So far as it affects stock it is affeffed, though not with great rigour, yet with much more exactness than that part of the landtax of England which is impofed upon the fame fund. It, in many cafes, falls altogether upon the intereft of money. Money is frequently funk in France upon what are called Contracts for the conftitution of a rent; that is, perpetual annuities redeemable at any time by the debtor upon repayment of the fum originally advanced, but of which this redemption is not exigible by the creditor except in particular cafes. The Vingtieme feems not to have raised the rate of thofe annuities, though it is exactly levied upon them all. APPENDIX to ARTICLES I. and II. Taxes upon the capital Value of Land, Houfes, and Stock. WHILE property remains in the poffeffion of the fame perfon, whatever permanent taxes may have been impofed upon it, they have never been intended to diminish or take away any part of its capital value, but only fome part of the revenue arifing from it. But when property changes hands, when it is tranfinitted either from the dead to the living, or from the living to the living, fuch taxes have frequently been impofed BOOK upon it as neceffarily take away fome part of its capital value. V. The transference of all forts of property from the dead to the living, and that of immoveable property, of lands and houses, from the living to the living, are tranfactions which are in their nature either public and notorious, or fuch as cannot be long concealed. Such tranfactions, therefore, may be taxed directly. The tranf ference of stock, or moveable property, from the living to the living, by the lending of money, is frequently a fecret tranfaction, and may always be made fo. It cannot eafily, therefore, be taxed directly. It has been taxed indirectly in two different ways; first, by requiring that the deed, containing the obligation to repay, should be written upon paper or parchment which had paid a certain ftamp-duty, otherwife not to be". valid; fecondly, by requiring, under the like penalty of invalidity, that it should be recorded either in a public or fecret register, and by impofing certain duties upon fuch registration. Stamp-duties and duties of registration have frequently been impofed likewife upon the deeds transferring property of all kinds from the dead to the living, and upon thofe transferring immoveable property from the living to the living, transactions which might easily have been taxed directly. The Vicefima Hereditatum, the twentieth penny of inheritances, impofed by Auguftus upon the ancient Romans, was a tax upon the transference |