are paid by the poor labourer and artificer,
is surely most unjust and unequal, and ought
to be taken away, even though this change
was never to take place. It has probably
been the interest of this superior order of
people, however, which has hitherto prevented
a change of system that could not well fail
both to increase the revenue and to relieve
the people.
Besides such duties as those of customs
and excise above mentioned, there are several
others which affect the price of goods more
unequally and more indirectly. Of this kind
are the duties, which, in French, are called
peages, which in old Saxon times were called
the duties of passage, and which seem to have
been originally established for the same purpose
as our turnpike tolls, or the tolls upon
our canals and navigable rivers, for the maintenance
of the road or of the navigation.
Those duties, when applied to such purposes,
are most properly imposed according to the
bulk or weight of the goods. As they were
originally local and provincial duties, applicable
to local and provincial purposes, the
administration of them was, in most cases,
entrusted to the particular town, parish, or
lordship, in which they were levied; such
communities being, in some way or other,
supposed to be accountable for the application.
The sovereign, who is altogether unaccountable,
has in many countries assumed
to himself the administration of those duties;
and though he has in most cases enhanced
very much the duty, he has in many entirely
neglected the application. If the turnpike
tolls of Great Britain should ever become
one of the resources of government, we may
learn, by the example of many other nations,
what would probably be the consequence.
Such tolls, no doubt, are finally
paid by the consumer; but the consumer is
not taxed in proportion to his expense, when
he pays, not according to the value, but according
to the bulk or weight of what he
consumes. When such duties are imposed,
not according to the bulk or weight, but according
to the supposed value of the goods,
they become properly a sort of inland customs
or excise, which obstruct very much the
most important of all branches of commerce,
the interior commerce of the country.
In some small states, duties similar to those
passage duties are imposed upon goods carried
across the territory, either by land or by
water, from one foreign country to another.
These are in some countries called transit-duties.
Some of the little Italian states
which are situated upon the Po, and the rivers
which run into it, derive some revenue
from duties of this kind, which are paid altogether
by foreigners, and which, perhaps, are
the only duties that one state can impose
upon the subjects of another, without obstructing,
in any respect, the industry or
commerce of its own. The most important
transit-duty in the world, is that levied by
the king of Denmark upon all merchant ships
which pass through the Sound.
Such taxes upon luxuries, as the greater
part of the duties of customs and excise,
though they all fall indifferently upon every
different species of revenue, and are paid
finally, or without any retribution, by whoever
consumes the commodities upon which
they are imposed, yet they do not always fall
equally or proportionally upon the revenue of
every individual. As every man's humour
regulates the degree of his consumption,
every man contributes rather according to his
humour, than in proportion to his revenue:
the profuse contribute more, the parsimonious
less, than their proper proportion. During
the minority of a man of great fortune, he
contributes commonly very little, by his consumption,
towards the support of that state
from whose protection he derives a great revenue.
Those who live in another country,
contribute nothing by their consumption towards
the support of the government of that
country, in which is situated the source of
their revenue. If in this latter country there
should be no land tax, nor any considerable
duty upon the transference either of moveable
or immoveable property, as is the case in Ireland,
such absentees may derive a great revenue
from the protection of a government,
to the support of which they do not contribute
a single shilling. This inequality is likely
to be greatest in a country of which the
government is, in some respects, subordinate
and dependant upon that of some other.
The people who possess the most extensive
property in the dependant, will, in this case,
generally chuse to live in the governing country.
Ireland is precisely in this situation;
and we cannot therefore wonder, that the
proposal of a tax upon absentees should be
so very popular in that country. It might,
perhaps, be a little difficult to ascertain either
what sort, or what degree of absence, would
subject a man to be taxed as an absentee, or
at what precise time the tax should either
begin or end. If you except, however, this
very peculiar situation, any inequality in the
contribution of individuals which can arise
from such taxes, is much more than compensated
by the very circumstance which occasions
that inequality; the circumstance that
every man's contribution is altogether voluntary;
it being altogether in his power, either
to consume, or not to consume, the commodity
taxed. Where such taxes, therefore,
are properly assessed, and upon proper commodities,
they are paid with less grumbling
than any other. When they are advanced by
the merchant or manufacturer, the consumer,
who finally pays them, soon comes to confound
them with the price of the commodities,
and almost forgets that he pays any tax.