better, to work cheaper, and to send their
goods cheaper to market. The cheapness of
their goods would increase the demand for
them, and consequently for the labour of those
who produced them. This increase in the
demand for labour would both increase the
numbers, and improve the circumstances of
the labouring poor. Their consumption would
increase, and, together with it, the revenue
arising from all those articles of their consumption
upon which the taxes might be allowed
to remain.
The revenue arising from this system of
taxation, however, might not immediately increase
in proportion to the number of people
who were subjected to it. Great indulgence
would for some time be due to those provinces
of the empire which were thus subjected
to burdens to which they had not before
been accustomed; and even when the
same taxes came to be levied everywhere as
exactly as possible, they would not everywhere
produce a revenue proportioned to the
numbers of the people. In a poor country,
the consumption of the principal commodities
subject to the duties of customs and excise, is
very small; and in a thinly inhabited country,
the opportunities of smuggling are very
great. The consumption of malt liquors among
the inferior ranks of people in Scotland
is very small; and the excise upon malt, beer,
and ale, produces less there than in England,
in proportion to the numbers of the people
and the rate of the duties, which upon malt
is different, on account of a supposed difference
of quality. In these particular branches
of the excise, there is not, I apprehend, much
more smuggling in the one country than in
the other. The duties upon the distillery, and
the greater part of the duties of customs, in
proportion to the numbers of people in the
respective countries, produce less in Scotland
than in England, not only on account of the
smaller consumption of the taxed commodities,
but of the much greater facility of smuggling.
In Ireland, the inferior ranks of people
are still poorer than in Scotland, and
many parts of the country are almost as thinly
inhabited. In Ireland, therefore, the consumption
of the taxed commodities might, in
proportion to the number of the people, be
still less than in Scotland, and the facility of
smuggling nearly the same. In America and
the West Indies, the white people, even of the
lowest rank, are in much better circumstances
than those of the same rank in England; and
their consumption of all the luxuries in which
they usually indulge themselves, is probably
much greater. The blacks, indeed, who make
the greater part of the inhabitants, both of the
southern colonies upon the continent and of
the West India islands, as they are in a state
of slavery, are, no doubt, in a worse condition
than the poorest people either in Scotland
or Ireland. We must not, however, upon
that account, imagine that they are worse
fed, or that their consumption of articles which
might be subjected to moderate duties, is less
than that even of the lower ranks of people
in England. In order that they may work
well, it is the interest of their master that
they should be fed well, and kept in good
heart, in the same manner as it is his interest
that his working cattle should be so. The
blacks, accordingly, have almost everywhere
their allowance of rum, and of molasses or
spruce-beer, in the same manner as the white
servants; and this allowance would not probably
be withdrawn, though those articles
should be subjected to moderate duties. The
consumption of the taxed commodities, therefore,
in proportion to the number of inhabitants,
would probably be as great in America
and the West Indies as in any part of the British
empire. The opportunities of smuggling,
indeed, would be much greater; America, in
proportion to the extent of the country, being
much more thinly inhabited than either
Scotland or Ireland. If the revenue, however,
which is at present raised by the different
duties upon malt and malt liquors, were
to be levied by a single duty upon malt, the
opportunity of smuggling in the most important
branch of the excise would be almost
entirely taken away; and if the duties of customs,
instead of being imposed upon almost
all the different articles of importation, were
confined to a few of the most general use and
consumption, and if the levying of those duties
were subjected to the excise laws, the
opportunity of smuggling, though not so entirely
taken away, would be very much diminished.
In consequence of those two apparently
very simple and easy alterations, the
duties of customs and excise might probably
produce a revenue as great, in proportion to
the consumption of the most thinly inhabited
province, as they do at present, in proportion
to that of the most populous.
The Americans, it has been said, indeed,
have no gold or silver money, the interior
commerce of the country being carried on by
a paper currency; and the gold and silver,
which occasionally come among them, being
all sent to Great Britain, in return for the
commodities which they receive from us. But
without gold and silver, it is added, there is
no possibility of paying taxes. We already
get all the gold and silver which they have.
How is it possible to draw from them what
they have not?
The present scarcity of gold and silver money
in America, is not the effect of the poverty
of that country, or of the inability of the people
there to purchase those metals. In a
country where the wages of labour are so much
higher, and the price of provisions so much
lower than in England, the greater part of
the people must surely have wherewithal to
purchase a greater quantity, if it were either