therefore in hostility with the great and leading principle of all just taxation.

Taxes on the necessaries of life are usually productive, but they invariably fall on the poor most heavily. It is in vain to urge that the wages of labour cannot be reduced beyond a certain point, but must afford reasonable subsistence to the labourer; the fact is not so; how many of the poor have actually starved in England? How many who would willingly labour have been driven to the alms house? Hence the malt tax, the taxes on salt, sugar, candles, soap, leather, low priced woollens and cottons, and such articles as the poor are compelled to buy, are not justifiable in England, nor prudent any where.

Taxes that must of necessity fall on the rich, and in proportion to their wealth, are perfectly justifiable and prudent Such are taxes upon house rent, upon windows, upon hearths, as exponents of the wealth and station of the occupier: making due exceptions for houses occupied by shop keepers and retail dealers. Taxes on domestic servants, on carriages for pleasure, on wines and liquors, on all articles of superfine description, ou plate, watches, jewelry, places of amusement, silks, laces, &c. The actual impost of such taxes will require reflection to ascertain the modifications which prudence and justice may require. Thus, houses of inferior description may be of high rent, from the advantage they possess in respect to trade. Such a highrented house, is not occupied for luxury, but as the means of a livelihood. These details and modifications enter into the fiscal knowledge of the public financier.

Taxes on consumption of articles consumed by the rich, have another valuable feature, their amount and their fluctuations, are exponents of the general increase or decrease of wealth and prosperity in the community. This will be known to a certain degree by the increasing or decreasing amount of taxes on silver and plated ware, wines and brandies, pleasure carriages, stage coaches, canal passage boats, hearth tax, watches and jewelry, silks, velvets, laces, superfine cloths, carpets, looking glasses, drinking glasses, prints and pictures, saddle horses kept for pleasure, &c. &c. Conclusions of great moment are afforded by comparisons of these amounts at different periods.

The English taxes are made up of the land tax, malt taxes, customs, excise, stamp duties, including paper, gold and silver,

and assessed taxes of various denominations, not of large com parative amount.

All taxes on lawsuits, fall with particular inconvenience: they fall also on both parties. They are never contemplated as to be paid out of expenditure. Unless collected in the form of stamp duties, they are never well collected. They are prohibitory fines and punishments on the exercise of a right which society was expressly instituted to sanction and protect. In all cases they add to the misfortunes of the unfortunate. They operate in the progress of the suit, dreadfully to the disadvan tage of the poor, and in aid of the rich antagonist. Jeremy Bentham's views of this subject, are now generally adopted in England.

No taxes ought to be laid on raw material. For the sake of the manufacturer if it be imported; for the sake of our own agriculture if it be raised at home. Moreover, if imported, the tax will probably be trebled on the consumer of the manufacture, as it forms part of the cost of the raw material-part of the capital necessary to be employed by the importer; who charges the manufacturer, who charges the wholesale dealer, who charges the retail dealer, who charges the consumer.

It is granted that all taxes ought to fall on the consumer: but it may be sometimes convenient to tax the article in the hands of the manufacturer in its finished state; or in the hands of the importer if it be a foreign article. It may be now and then, that the state of the market as to competition, demand and supply, will not admit the tax to be laid on the price of the goods. This is a temporary and occasional objection; but I know not yet of any mode of taxation quite free from objection The fiscal officer must collect information and do his duty in the best way that circumstances will admit.

In Great Britain, under that government of patronage, it does not seem an objection to a tax, that it requires a croud of fiscal dependants to collect it: with us, it ought to be an insuperable objection. Our executive in the United States, and the executive under each government of our several states, has quite as much patronage as is necessary, nor ought we to be careless about encreasing it, by adventitious occasions.

No tax should be so high, as to afford temptations to eva sion, or to smuggling. The means taken to repress this evil

are always troublesome and expensive. No tax is ever laid at a rate so high as to tempt evasion, without injuring the morals of the community. The distinction between mala prohibita and mala in se, savours too much of scholastic casuistry.

In political arithmetic, two and two do not make four. An article may be taxed so high, as materially to diminish its consumption. In this case the produce of the tax, is not encreased but diminished. It is the duty of the head of the fiscal department, to collect information, and ascertain all the details that will settle the prudent maximum of taxation on any given article.

All direct taxes, where the amount is known, and the burthen on the tax payer precisely ascertained, are collected in every respect more advantageously than indirect taxes: they are more honest, because more manifest, and generally more productive, with less burthen. But in the present state of knowledge, I fear the public will not bear them: and statesmen are very willingly compelled to resort to the very convenient, and in many respects very eligible system of indirect taxation-taxes on consumption; which are paid in small portions unwittingly, and mixed up with the price of the article.

All statesmen argue on this occasion in conformity to the maxim, si populus vult decipi, decipiatur. A greater burthen of taxation can be laid without its occasioning any complaint, by involved and indirect taxation than by direct. When to this it is added, that the payment of taxes on consumption, and of all indirect taxes, is for the most part voluntary, and proportioned to income, there can be no wonder at the general prevalence of this more expensive, but less alarming system. I say voluntarily, because the tax is involved in the price of the article, which the consumer may purchase or not as he thinks fit: it falls therefore on ability to pay it. The English first found out its convenience and its value.

Taxes are frequently imposed with the double view of replenishing the treasury, and at the same time throwing obstacles in the way of deleterious luxuries, or encouraging an article of home produce by burthening the foreign importation. A case of the first kind, is an excise on home made spirits, and heavy taxation of foreign spirits, to repress their consumption among the lower classes of the community.

Cases of the second kind occur perpetually by taxes with e double aspect, in favour of home manufactures.

I object to the principle and the practice. In a republican government, we should avoid as much as possible all double dealing. A republican legislature has a right to say to the people, we will tax this article because the public health and the public morals, require that obstacles should be thrown in the way of this kind of consumption. That is reason enough to assign for the tax, where the people as in this country are fairly represented. It is high time that fair and honest principles, should confront and brave their prejudices.

As to the motive of encouraging home made produce, it is liable to all the objections already made against restrictive and prohibitory duties. It is tampering with a subject that the head of the treasury either with or without the sanction of the legis. lature, has nothing to do. Every tax upon import would have this double aspect, if you would permit the interested representations of manufacturing monopolists to guide your fiscal operations.

Taxes by way of lottery, have received the decided reprobation of every good writer in Europe. What right has a government to use a gallows, that encourages lotteries? It is really deplorable that at this day, writers on Political Economy have to preach against a system of gambling, the parent of imprudent adventure, of fraud, of theft, of disappointment, of despair: a system encouraged by law! encouraged by the clergy! encouraged by fiscal officers of government: and yet with strange inconsistency the clergy preach against, and laws are enacted to punish VICE! No wonder in such a country, tippling houses are Countenanced to lead the poor to brutal indulgence and inevitable misery. See Ganilh sur les revenues publiques. Tom. 2, page 297.

Connected with a system of taxation, is a system of accountability by which those who receive and those who pay into the treasury, the monies collected from the people, may be compelled to do so with perfect honesty and accuracy. I presume that our comptroller's and sub comptrollers' offices are sufficiently well conducted for this purpose: and that the money brought in, is duly expended according to the appropriations made by previous law. I say I presume so: but I know nothing about it. The people

ought to have the means of knowing this, in some manner or other.

There should be a full annual fiscal account published: shewing the amount of taxes received in each state; and each district of each state; and at each port of entry and deposit; by whom received, and by whom paid in. The number of fiscal agents of collection; their names and abodes: the expence of collection: the gross amount received at the treasury: the list of deLinquents: the legal appropriations, and the amount of payments under them: and the sum of surplus in the treasury, or of deficit. Such a statement should be annually on sale; that the people may have the cheap means of knowing the state of the public purse in all its details. Nor ought they to be satisfied without this.

Such are the suggestions that occur to me on the elementary principles of taxation. I have touched on a few taxes to shew their application, but without pretending to that detailed developement which would be necessary to settle the practice in any particular instance. I trust however, that the considerations have submitted will suffice to lead you into the proper train of thinking on the subject, when any particular case should call for your attention.

CHAPTER 23.

NATIONAL DEBT, AND SINKING FUND.

The national debt of England, says Guthrie in his geography, may be considered as practically originating in the time of King William; and was incurred for supporting the protestant interest and maintaining the balance of power in Europe; defending the Dutch barrier, keeping within bounds the house of Austria, humbling the pride of France, and preserving the succession to the throne of Spain! Reasons for incurring it, no doubt quite conclusive! From thence to the American war, the contests of England arose from commercial cupidity. The American war, was a war against the right claimed by subjects of revolting from tyranny, injustice, and oppression: and the war against France was professedly a war against what Mr. Pitt and his ministry were pleased to term Jacobinical principles: that is, against the American doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, and in support