landlord, however, ceases to do his part, it is
altogether impossible that the tenant should
continue to do his. As the distress of the landlord
increases, the agriculture of the country
must necessarily decline.
When, by different taxes upon the necessaries
and conveniencies of life, the owners
and employers of capital stock find, that whatever
revenue they derive from it, will not, in a
particular country, purchase the same quantity
of those necessaries and conveniencies
which an equal revenue would in almost any
other, they will be disposed to remove to some
other. And when, in order to raise those
taxes, all or the greater part of merchants and
manufacturers, that is, all or the greater part
of the employers of great capitals, come to
be continually exposed to the mortifying and
vexatious visits of the tax-gatherers, this disposition
to remove will soon be changed into an
actual removing. The industry of the country
will necessarily fall with the removal of
the capital which supported it, and the ruin of
trade and manufactures will follow the declension
of agriculture.
To transfer from the owners of those two
great sources of revenue, land, and capital
stock, from the persons immediately interested
in the good condition of every particular
portion of land, and in the good management
of every particular portion of capital stock, to
another set of persons (the creditors of the
public, who have no such particular interest), the
greater part of the revenue arising from either,
must, in the long-run, occasion both the neglect
of land, and the waste or removal of
capital stock. A creditor of the public has,
no doubt, a general interest in the prosperity
of the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce
of the country; and consequently in the good
condition of its land, and in the good management
of its capital stock. Should there
be any general failure or declension in any of
these things, the produce of the different taxes
might no longer be sufficient to pay him the
annuity or interest which is due to him. But
a creditor of the public, considered merely
as such, has no interest in the good condition
of any particular portion of land, or in
the good management of any particular portion
of capital stock. As a creditor of the
public, he has no knowledge of any such particular
portion. He has no inspection of it.
He can have no care about it. Its ruin may
in some cases be unknown to him, and cannot
directly affect him.
The practice of funding has gradually enfeebled
every state which has adopted it. The
Italian republics seem to have begun it. Genoa
and Venice, the only two remaining which
can pretend to an independent existence, have
both been enfeebled by it. Spain seems to
have learned the practice from the Italian republics,
and (its taxes being probably less
judicious than theirs) it has, in proportion to
its natural strength, been still more enfeebled.
The debts of Spain are of very old standing.
It was deeply in debt before the end of the
sixteenth century, about a hundred years before
England owed a shilling. France, notwithstanding
all its natural resources, languishes
under an oppressive load of the same
kind. The republic of the United Provinces
is as much enfeebled by its debts as either
Genoa or Venice. Is it likely that, in Great
Britain alone, a practice, which has brought
either weakness or dissolution into every other
country, should prove altogether innocent?
The system of taxation established in those
different countries, it may be said, is inferior
to that of England. I believe it is so. But it
ought to be remembered, that when the wisest
government has exhausted all the proper subjects
of taxation, it must, in cases of urgent
necessity, have recourse to improper ones.
The wise republic of Holland has, upon some
occasions, been obliged to have recourse to taxes
as inconvenient as the greater part of those of
Spain. Another war, begun before any considerable
liberation of the public revenue had
been brought about, and growing in its progress
as expensive as the last war, may, from
irresistible necessity, render the British system
of taxation as oppressive as that of Holland,
or even as that of Spain. To the
honour of our present system of taxation, indeed,
it has hitherto given so little embarrassment
to industry, that, during the course even
of the most expensive wars, the frugality and
good conduct of individuals seem to have
been able, by saving and accumulation, to repair
all the breaches which the waste and extravagance
of government had made in the general
capital of the society. At the conclusion
of the late war, the most expensive that Great
Britain ever waged, her agriculture was as
flourishing, her manufacturers as numerous
and as fully employed, and her commerce as
extensive, as they had ever been before. The
capital, therefore, which supported all those
different branches of industry, must have been
equal to what it had ever been before. Since
the peace, agriculture has been still further
improved; the rents of houses have risen in
every town and village of the country, a proof
of the increasing wealth and revenue of the
people; and the annual amount of the greater
part of the old taxes, of the principal branches
of the excise and customs, in particular, has
been continually increasing, an equally clear
proof of an increasing consumption, and consequently
of an increasing produce, which
could alone support that consumption. Great
Britain seems to support with ease, a burden
which, half a century ago, nobody believed her
capable of supporting. Let us not, however,
upon this account, rashly conclude that she is
capable of supporting any burden; not even