JB_017_290.xml

Title: [nd [wm 1800] Ch.2. Leading Features]

Description: nd [wm 1800]

Ch.2. Leading Features

'.5. III. Finance

29

98

3

9. The worst sort of indirect tax, is that which in the character of a

prohibition lessens the use of an article to which a man's attachment is apt not

to be so great as it were to be wished it were, considering what is the produce

of it in the shape of permanent good, over and above the evanescent pleasure.

The fiscal use is in this case clogged with an anti-moral tendency. Books,

especially of the instructive kind, may be mentioned as examples. But books of

the least instructive kind, music, instruments of pastime of all sorts, not to

speak of public entertainments - every thing - morality is served by every

thing, that calls a man off from drunkenness.

10. The mischief done in the way of prohibition by that species of direct tax

which is imposed upon produce, and encreases with the quantity or value of the

produce, is frequently but too real, but is apt to be exaggerated. Though my

profit would be greater, if I had nobody to share it with me, my having somebody

to share it with me does not make me deny myself all profit. Few men so spiteful

as to hate others more than they love themselves: especially the government,

which is nobody, quarrels with nobody, and protects every body. A man without a

partner has the whole profit to himself; yet many men submitt to saddle

themselves with partners. The government, which imposes proportional taxes on

produce, is a partner who furnishes protection, though nothing else.

11. I have elsewhere spoken of the best of all financial resources, and the

worst. The best, {supposing public opinion to admitt of it}, as well as the most

copious, seems to be - that which gives to the public a share, in property

become

JB_017_317.xml

Title: [11 Mar 1804 Polit. Economy]

Description: 11 Mar 1804

Polit. Economy

Ch.2. Leading Features

Finance

2

{5 The direct effect of a tax called indirect is to make a man pay for the use of

the article taxed, and to go on using it as before: an indirect effect is to

make him cease to use it, to avoid paying the tax: This indirect effect is the

same as that of a prohibitive law, prohibiting the use of the article, viz:

under a penalty equal to the amount of the tax. So far as the one effect takes

place, the other does not. Commonly they take place together, in proportions

infinitely diversifiable.

In the way of prohibition, a tax seldom falls on the article taxed, so heavily

as it appears or might be expected to do. The prohibition falls not so much upon

the article taxed, as upon whatever article each man can best spare. When a

fresh tax is imposed upon wine, a man who having been used to buy wine and

books, is fonder of wine than of books, reduces the quantity not so much of his

wine, as of his books. By a tax upon gin, many a man instead of being sobered

has been starved.

The best sort of indirect tax is that which by its effect in the character of a

prohibition, diminishes the consumption of an article the use of which is

pregnant with future misery, the dregs of the cup of present pleasure. Such

above all are the pabula of drunkenness. The fiscal is in this case crowned by a

moral, one.

The worst sort of indirect tax is that which in the character of a prohibition

lessens the use of any article, to which a man's attachment is apt not to be so

great as it were to be wished it were, considering what is the produce of it in

the shape of permanent good, over and above the evanescent pleasure. The fiscal

use is in this case clogged with an antimoral tendency. Books, especially of the

instructive kind may be mentioned as examples. But books of the least

instructive kind, music, instruments of pastime of all sorts, not to speak of

public entertainments - every thing - morality is served by every thing that

calls a man from drunkenness.}

JB_017_185.xml

Title: [29 Aug. 1801 Polit. Economy]

Description: 29 Aug. 1801

Polit. Economy

E

9

Method

Finances

Taxation

Foreign capital obtained on loans is doubly useful: at the time of borrowing

/contracting debt/, by diminishing the /that/ consumption of capital, by which

the mass of growing wealth is diminished: at the time of paying off debt, by

diminishing that inordinate encrease of capital, by which as if it were by an

unproductive income tax the income of money'd men is reduced.(a)

Ever since the existence of Government Annuities, men have cried out against the

Annuitants, especially such of them as are foreigners as so many drones and

bloodsuckers: with as much reason might they cry out against the Baker they deal

with as a bloodsucker for taking money for his bread.

The quantity of foreign capital that in an unascertainable but always a very

considerable quantity has always been sent by foreigners for the purchase of

British Government Annuities has been a fruit and evidence of probity and good

faith.

Note

(a) If however the quantity of capital employ'd by foreigners in the purchase of

British Government Annuities has been such as to produce an influx of the

materials of money, and thence of money to such an amount as to overballance the

increase in the same time in the mass of vendible commodities, and thereby to

produce encrease of prices depretiation of money, and indirect income tax, so

much as operates in that character does thereby more harm than good. But without

the addition to money by paper money, addition of this sort would hardly have

taken place.