expensive improvements; nor the other to
raise the most valuable, which are generally,
too, the most expensive crops; when the
church, which lays out no part of the expense,
is to share so very largely in the profit. The
cultivation of madder was, for a long time,
confined by the tythe to the United Provinces,
which, being presbyterian countries, and
upon that account exempted from this destructive
tax, enjoyed a sort of monopoly of that
useful dyeing drug against the rest of Europe.
The late attempts to introduce the
culture of this plant into England, have been
made only in consequence of the statute,
which enacted that five shillings an acre should
be received in lieu of all manner of tythe upon
madder.
As through the greater part of Europe, the
church, so in many different countries of
Asia, the state, is principally supported by a
land tax, proportioned not to the rent, but to
the produce of the land. In China, the
principal revenue of the sovereign consists in
a tenth part of the produce of all the lands of
the empire. This tenth part, however, is estimated
so very moderately, that, in many
provinces, it is said not to exceed a thirtieth
part of the ordinary produce. The land tax
or land rent which used to be paid to the Mahometan
government of Bengal, before that
country fell into the hands of the English East
India company, is said to have amounted to
about a fifth part of the produce. The land
tax of ancient Egypt is said likewise to have
amounted to a fifth part.
In Asia, this sort of land tax is said to interest
the sovereign in the improvement and
cultivation of land. The sovereigns of
China, those of Bengal while under the Mahometan
government, and those of ancient
Egypt, are said, accordingly, to have been
extremely attentive to the making and maintaining
of good roads and navigable canals,
in order to increase, as much as possible,
both the quantity and value of every part of
the produce of the land, by procuring to
every part of it the most extensive market
which their own dominions could afford.
The tythe of the church is divided into such
small portions that no one of its proprietors
can have any interest of this kind. The parson
of a parish could never find his account
in making a road or canal to a distant part of
the country, in order to extend the market
for the produce of his own particular parish.
Such taxes, when destined for the maintenance
of the state, have some advantages,
which may serve in some measure to balance
their inconveniency. When destined for the
maintenance of the church, they are attended
with nothing but inconveniency.
Taxes upon the produce of land may be
levied, either in kind, or, according to a certain
valuation in money.
The person of a parish, or a gentleman of
small fortune who lives upon his estate, may
sometimes, perhaps find some advantage in
receiving, the one his tythe, and the other his
rent, in kind. The quantity to be collected,
and the district within which it is to be collected,
are so small, that they both can oversee,
with their own eyes, the collection and
disposal of every part of what is due to them.
A gentleman of great fortune, who lived in
the capital, would be in danger of suffering
much by the neglect, and more by the fraud,
of his factors and agents, if the rents of an
estate in a distant province were to be paid
to him in this manner. The loss of the sovereign,
from the abuse and depredation of
his tax-gatherers, would necessarily be much
greater. The servants of the most careless
private person are, perhaps, more under the
eye of their master than those of the most
careful prince; and a public revenue, which
was paid in kind, would suffer so much from
the mismanagement of the collectors, that a
very small part of what was levied upon the
people would ever arrive at the treasury of
the prince. Some part of the public revenue
of China, however, is said to be paid in this
manner. The mandarins and other tax-gatherers
will, no doubt, find their advantage in
continuing the practice of a payment, which
is so much more liable to abuse than any payment
in money.
A tax upon the produce of land, which is
levied in money, may be levied, either according
to a valuation, which varies with all the
variations of the market price; or according
to a fixed valuation, a bushel of wheat, for
example, being always valued at one and the
same money price, whatever may be the state
of the market. The produce of a tax levied
in the former way will vary only according
to the variations in the real produce of the
land, according to the improvement or neglect
of cultivation. The produce of a tax
levied in the latter way will vary, not only
according to the variations in the produce of
the land, but according both to those in the
value of the precious metals, and those in the
quantity of those metals, which is at different
times contained in coin of the same denomination.
The produce of the former will always
bear the same proportion to the value
of the real produce of the land. The produce
of the latter may, at different times,
bear very different proportions to that value.
When, instead either of a certain portion of
the produce of land, or of the price of a
certain portion, a certain sum of money is to
be paid in full compensation for all tax or
tythe; the tax becomes, in this case, exactly
of the same nature with the land tax of England.
It neither rises nor falls with the rent
of the land. It neither encourages nor discourages
improvement. The tythe in the
greater part of those parishes which pay what
is called a modus, in lieu of all other tythe,