to no other inconveniency, besides always
the unavoidable one of paying the tax.
In France, the stamp duties are not much
complained of. Those of registration, which
they call the Controle, are. They give occasion,
it is pretended, to much extortion in
the officers of the farmers-general who collect
the tax, which is in a great measure arbitrary
and uncertain. In the greater part of the
libels which have been written against the
present system of finances in France, the
abuses of the controle make a principal article.
Uncertainty, however, does not seem to
be necessarily inherent in the nature of such
taxes. If the popular complaints are well
founded, the abuse must arise, not so much
from the nature of the tax as from the want
of precision and distinctness in the words of
the edicts or laws which impose it.
The registration of mortgages, and in general
of all rights upon immoveable property,
as it gives great security both to creditors and
purchasers, is extremely advantageous to the
public. That of the greater part of deeds of
other kinds, is frequently inconvenient and
even dangerous to individuals, without any
advantage to the public. All registers which,
it is acknowledged, ought to be kept secret,
ought certainly never to exist. The credit
of individuals ought certainly never to depend
upon so very slender a security, as the probity
and religion of the inferior officers of
revenue. But where the fees of registration
have been made a source of revenue to the
sovereign, register-offices have commonly
been multiplied without end, both for the
deeds which ought to be registered, and for
those which ought not. In France there are
several different sorts of secret registers.
This abuse, though not perhaps a necessary,
it must be acknowledged, is a very natural
effect of such taxes.
Such stamp duties as those in England
upon cards and dice, upon newspapers and
periodical pamphlets, &c. are properly taxes
upon consumption; the final payment falls
upon the persons who use or consume such
commodities. Such stamp duties as those
upon licences to retail ale, wine, and spiritous
liquors, though intended, perhaps, to fall upon
the profits of the retailers, are likewise
finally paid by the consumers of those liquors.
Such taxes, though called by the same name,
and levied by the same officers, and in the
same manner with the stamp duties above
mentioned upon the transference of property,
are, however, of a quite different nature, and
fall upon quite different funds.
ART. III.—Taxes upon the Wages of Labour.
The wages of the inferior classes of workmen,
I have endeavoured to show in the first
book are everywhere necessarily regulated by
two different circumstances; the demand for
labour, and the ordinary or average price
of provisions. The demand for labour, according
as it happens to be either increasing,
stationary or declining; or to require an increasing,
stationary, or declining population;
regulates the subsistence of the labourer, and
determines in what degree it shall be either
liberal, moderate, or scanty. The ordinary
average price of provisions determines the
quantity of money which must be paid to the
workman, in order to enable him, one year
with another, to purchase this liberal, moderate,
or scanty subsistence. While the demand
for the labour and the price of provisions,
therefore, remain the same, a direct tax upon
the wages of labour can have no other effect,
than to raise them somewhat higher than the
tax. Let us suppose, for example, that, in
particular place, the demand for labour and
the price of provisions were such as to render
ten shillings a-week the ordinary wages of labour;
and that a tax of one-fifth, or four shillings
in the pound, was imposed upon wages.
If the demand for labour and the price of
provisions remained the same, it would still
be necessary that the labourer should, in that
place, earn such a subsistence as could be
bought only for ten shillings a-week; or
that, after paying the tax, he should have ten
shillings a-week free wages. But, in order
to leave him such free wages, after paying
such a tax, the price of labour must, in that
place, soon rise, not to twelve shillings a-week
only, but to twelve and sixpence; that
is, in order to enable him to pay a tax of one-fifth,
his wages must necessarily soon rise,
not one-fifth part only, but one-fourth.
Whatever was the proportion of the tax, the
wages of labour must, in all cases rise, not
only in that proportion, but in a higher proportion.
If the tax for example, was one-tenth,
the wages of labour must necessarily
soon rise, not one-tenth part only, but one-eighth.
A direct tax upon the wages of labour,
therefore, though the labourer might, perhaps,
pay it out of his hand, could not properly be
said to be even advanced by him; at least if
the demand for labour and the average price
of provisions remained the same after the tax
as before it. In all such cases, not only the
tax, but something more than the tax, would
in reality be advanced by the person who immediately
employed him. The final payment
would, in different cases, fall upon different
persons. The rise which such a tax might
occasion in the wages of manufacturing labour
would be advanced by the master manufacturer,
who would both be entitled and
obliged to charge it, with a profit, upon the
price of his goods. The final payment of this
rise of wages, therefore, together with the additional
profit of the master manufacturer,
would fall upon the consumer. The rise which