CHAPTER XIII. TAXATION CONTINUED. 187. France-Conditions.-The practice of France, in raising revenue, is as little studied in the United States, as that of Germany, or Russia. Yet the conditions, of each of these countries are more nearly like those of America, than are those of England, whose precepts, if not whose practice, Americans give more attention to, than to those of any country outside their own. According to the French census of 1872, a slightly greater proportion of the people of France are maintained by agriculture, than of the United States, according to its census of 1880. In France, out of a total population of 35,121,992, no less than 18,513,325, or 52.71 per cent., were tillers of the soil, or members of their families. The number in mines and manufactures (classed as industrial) were 8,451,344, being 24.06 per cent., 8.43 per cent. of the people being in commerce, 2.51 per cent. in transport, credit banking, and commission, 0.62 per cent were clergy of all relig ions, 5.99 per cent. were annuitants, 1.56 per cent. were in the armed force, and 1.56 per cent. in the administration of the government.* It is remarkable, in contrast with England, that the number of those doing business on their own account, as proprietors and managers, are 6,674,248, while the total of those acting under direction of others in production, as directing overseers, workmen (ouvriers), and day-laborers, amount to only 6,151,726. The families, including the domestic servants, of those who are their own entrepreneurs, or employers, in the work of production, number 21,604,526, or about two-thirds in a total of 34,356,081. Every alternate man, in France, is his own employer. In Great "Condition of Nations," by Kolb. INDUSTRIES OF FRANCE. 497 Britain about seven-eighths of the people are wage-workers. The land is officially parcelled into (in 1842) 126,210,194 parcels, which are held by 11,053,702 proprietors, with the allowance that one person is counted as many times as a proprietor as he owns land in different districts of taxation. Out of 5,970,171 men and women engaged in agriculture, 2,689,302 cultivate their own land. Women form more than a fourth of the working force in agriculture, a third in mining and manufacturing industries, a fourth in commerce, a third in miscellaneous occupations, and six-sevenths of those in religious orders, as monks and nuns. The nuns largely outnumber the entire male clergy, both secular and recluse. About 2,000,000 of the people live by the cultivation of the vine, directly, apart from those engaged in the manufacture of wine, the annual product of which is 50 gallons per capita for the whole population of France,† worth about £1 198. 8d. per gallon. The manufacturing industries employ directly 1,782,932 persons, and the value of their product is £390,240,000. They must directly support, therefore, about 5,000,000 persons. The total value of the foreign trade of the country is about the same as that of the United States. In 1886, one-third the population could neither read nor write, 11 per cent. could only read, and 56 per cent. could both read and write. In 1855, the total amount expended by the state, the departments, communes and individuals upon school and education was £1,300,000 (of which only £240,000 was expended by the state), against £18,520,000 expended for land and sea forces, and £22,400,000 for the national debt. Only one-third of the population live in towns of more than 2,000 inhabitants. Twothirds are officially described as living in "flat country." There is almost no emigration from the country (less than 20,000 persons a year), and the increase of population is very slight. The government is highly centralized. Whether its form be imperial, kingly, or republican, the central power at Paris maintains a close grip on the appointment of mayors of cities, prefects of police, and other executive officers throughout the country, and reserves to itself the collection of all revenues and the control of all police. In the sense in which the phrase "local government" may be used in America, England, or even Russia, there is very little local government in France. *Males, 13.102. In 1878 Females, 84.300. + In 1875, it was 1,720,527,842 gals. Foreign trade, £368, 028,000. 188. France-Revenues.-In 1878, the French budget of revenue foots up as follows: Direct Taxes: On land, poll, and movement tax, door and window, tax on industries, etc............. Special Taxes: ...... ........ On horses and carriages, lands in mortmain, mines, billiards, weights, exclusive Locieties, and apothecaries' examinations.. Registration, stamps, Crown lands, sale of movables and property without heirs. From forests General customs duties, including those on sugar and salt. £ 15,684,560 1,024,651 25.518.400 1,522,904 10,723,000 home sugar. With duties on salt, matches, chicory, paper, oil, soap, candles, vinegar, railway passengers, other passengers, dynamite factories, in all amount to a total for indirect taxes of... Postal revenue.. £12,859,000 547,040 15.967,000 4,910,360 42,265,130 4,555.040 4,915,941 634,579 Total revenue.. 2,930,327 £109,865,132 Such an exhibit does not show clearly how much of this revenue is collected on imports, but the amount is currently stated at from $65,000,000 to $75,000,000. Wool of all kinds is free of duty, since 1881, as against a duty of 25fr. per quintal, previously existing. As France has about 25,000,000 sheep, this is a withdrawal of protection from the wool-grower. Sawed marble is free, but sculptured marble pays protective duties. Every form of iron pays duties on its importation, proportionate to the amount of labor invested in it, except iron dross and slag. About fifty kinds of chemicals, thirteen kinds of colors, and ten kinds of dyes, including Prussian blue, pay protective duties. Starch, wax, feathers, glass in plates, yarns, threads, warps and tissues of flax, hemp, jute, cotton, wool, and silk, paper of all kinds, pasteboard, dressed skins, belting, morocco, watch and clock movements and materials, nails, planks, boards, tackle, apparel, and furniture of ships, buttons, cattle, sheep, hogs, game, poultry, turtles, fresh and salted meats, butter, honey, whale oil, and sperm, petroleum oil, (much heavier on the refined than on the crude), lemons, almonds, camphor, dyes derived from coal tar, and numerous other raw materials and finished products, all pay duties, and those duties necessarily work protection to the French producer, wherever the article is produced in France, and the imported article competes with the domestic. PROTECTIVE DUTIES. 499 For the year 1883 the product of state taxes was $608,603,151.* The direct taxes, viz., taxes on public lands, forests, real estate, houses, apartments, billiards, etc., produced $146,290,951. Of indirect taxes the registration tax, being a tax on the formation of new companies, and the transfer of houses and landed property by purchase, is the most productive. The other indirect taxes are stamps, which are virtually taxes on trading and exchange, and excise, which are taxes on consumption. The entire indirect taxes for France and Algeria yielded $453,006,705. The customs duties yielded $71,301,920 for France, and $1,505,593 for Algeria. The customs duties in France, therefore, form only about one-eighth of the whole revenue, which seems a much smaller proportion than in Great Britain or the United States. Possibly this difference may be owing, however, to the fact that in the latter countries there is a large local revenue not counted as national, which in France, owing to its more centralized system, is included in the national revenue. The articles which are imported free are raw and waste silk, cotton, wool, flax, hemp, jute, skins, lard and tallow, undressed fur, skins, guano, oil fruits and oil seeds, sowing seeds, exotic gums, timber, staves, wood, saffron, indigo, copper, lead, pewter, and zinc-in all of the value of $383,427,521. These articles are almost wholly obtained by import, and there is almost no production of them for export. The articles whose importation is chiefly charged with protective duties are manufactures of cotton, flax, hemp, jute and silk, yarns and tissues, cattle, horses, mules, cheese, colonial products, including foreign sugar, coffee, cocoa, tea, pepper, etc., refined and raw French sugar, coal and coke, perfumery, wines, brandy and spirits, mirrors and bottles, paper and pasteboard, dressed skins, manufactures of leather, jewelry, manufactures of metals, fancy goods, manufactures of wood, wearing apparel, and other articles. Of most of these the export is much larger than the import. Of manufactures of leather the export is twenty times greater than the import; jewelry, nine times; metals, three times; fancy goods, ten times; wearing apparel, twelve times; brandy, six times; manufactures of cotton, flax, hemp, jute, and silk three times, and perfumery sixteen times. But of cattle the import is eight times greater than the export. * United States Consular Reports, No. 51, March 1885, p. 519. The French divide their foreign trade as follows (in millions of 189. France, as Discussed by Smith.-Adam Smith* discusses a class of retaliating duties levied by England and France, each on importations from the other only, at a different rate from the duties levied by the same countries on the like goods coming from Spain, Portugal, or Germany. He seems to discuss these as if they were illustrations of the principle of protection. The desire to injure another nation, however, is a wholly unlike motive to the wish to benefit home industries. It must not be supposed that such duties bear any resemblance in principle to modern protective duties. We are not aware that they have had any existence in the legislation of the present century. Excessive duties laid by England on French wines, while admitting similar wines free, or at low rates of duty, from Portugal or Germany, when England was not seeking to cultivate wines, and had no interest in their cultivation in France or Germany, would draw as indignant comment from any modern protectionist, as from any free trader. Duties levied from motives of malice toward a particular country, and from which other countries *Wealth of Nations, book iv., ch. iii. p. 208," says: "To lay extraordinary restraints upon the importation of goods of almost all kinds, from those particular countries with which the balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous, is the second expedient by which the commercial system proposes to increase the quantity of gold and silver. Thus in Great Britain, Silesia lawns may be imported for home consumption, upon paying certain duties; but French cambrics and lawns are prohibited to be imported, except into the port of London, there to be warehoused for exportation. Higher duties are imposed upon the wines of France than upon those of Portugal, or indeed of any other country. By what is called the impost of 1692, a duty of five-and twenty per cent., of the rate or value, was laid upon all French goods, while the goods of other nations were, the greater part of them, subjected to much lighter duties, seldom exceeding five per cent. The wine, brandy, salt, and vinegar of France were indeed excepted; these commodities being subjected to other heavy duties, either by other laws, or by particular clauses of the same law. In 1696, a second duty of twentyfive per cent., the first not having been thought a sufficient discouragement, was imposed upon all French goods, except brandy; together with a new duty of five-andtwenty pounds upon the tun of French wine, and another of fifteen pounds upon the tun of French vinegar. "The French in their turn have, I believe, treated our goods and manufactures just as hardly; though I am not so well acquainted with the particular hardships which they have imposed upon them. Those mutual restraints have put an end to almost all fair commerce between the two nations, and smugglers are now the principal importers, either of British goods into France, or of French goods into Great Britain." |