date

1821 Aug. 8 Rid Yourselves
1821 Aug. 8

Rid Yourselves

Lett 3

Barren Prohibitions

Inserendum in Text or Note in or after p. 4 of the fair copy under

the head of Barren Prohibitions.

So far from being with reference to receipt of money by government, /rulers/ and

thence saving in taxes to subject Colonies so far from being productive, these barren prohibitions - these

prohibitions that do not operate as taxes are preventive.

The act or subject matter to which the prohibition applies itself is either

production or importation: production at home or importation from abroad. From /If

no/ prohibition applied to home production nothing better than loss can be the

result. Left to himself every individual betakes himself to the production of those

articles from the production of which, in his view /judgement/ of the matter most

profit to himself can arise: and on this question /in relation to this matter/ his

judgement is much more likely to be much more correct than that a set of men to whom

he and his affairs are unknown - as is the case with his rulers whoever they are;

/the rulers he lives under/ in comparison of his their

means of knowledge are next to nothing, the interest they take in his prosperity

still less. Accordingly on home production /particular articles/ in any such view as

that of giving encrease to the aggregate of home production prohibition is not very

extensively exemplified. If /When/ such prohibition is employed it is either in the

view of favouring the inhabitants of one part of the country at the expence of the

other, as in the case of the tyranny so long exercised by English rulers over

Ireland, or for the purpose of favouring the importation of that same article or a

rival one that if on the importation of it a tax might be imposed: a tax which if

thus imposed upon importation from abroad /a foreign country/ might be levied with

more facility than if imposed on production or distribution within the country

itself. On this principle does the production of tobacco in England stand prohibited

by English law: on this principle does the production of wine in Spanish Ultramaria

stand prohibited by Spanish Law.
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    Lett. 3 Barren Prohibitions

    Remains for the possible subject matter of the barren prohibition,

    importation from abroad. Of this, proportioned to the extent to which it is carried,

    the result is not simply absence of profit, but positive loss. As the sum of imposing

    the prohibitions on importation the article either is or is not subject to a tax: if

    it is, whatever sum was the net produce of the tax, that is the sum lost: if it was

    not yet taxed whatever is the net sum that might have been raised by the taxation of

    it that again is the sum lost. When money /by a set of/ is thus thrown away, it must

    have been under the notion of favouring the home production either of the same sort

    of article or something that in this will it is supposed be consumed instead of it:

    the tax /money/ thus as it were thrown away is a bounty to that same amount given

    /attributed/ //applied/ to the home production of the one or the other article.

    /Generally speaking/ A very extraordinary and forced state of things excepted, taxes

    on importation are generally preferable to taxes on home production: for, generally

    speaking, articles imported into a country, are with relation to that country

    articles of luxury, articles belonging /not/ to the catalogue not of necessaries but

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    country which does not within itself afford to its inhabitants its means of

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    In
  • Title: [1820 Decr. 26 Go on a little further]
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    Supposed resource the (...?) th. Taxes /the amount conveyed to Spain/ on the produce

    of Ultramaria exported to countries other than Spain. To Ultramaria in so far

    applicable this is beyond doubt of all modes of extracting money from Ultramaria for

    the benefit of Spain the least burthensome to Ultramaria. The only person, on whom,

    in a direct and immediate way, burthen in any shape is imposed, are the foreigners by

    whom the exported goods thus taxed are consumed. If indeed by the augmentation,

    encrease given to the price, the quantity tus consumed by foreigners is diminished,

    to the extent of such diminution the tax operates in so far as prohibition imposed

    upon the production of the articles thus taxes. But by the prohibition thus imposed

    on the produce of this one article, neither prohibition nor tax is imposed upon any

    other article not necessary to the production of it: whatever quantity of captial

    would, but for the indirect and immediate prohibition have been employed in the

    production of the article thus indirectly and immediately prohibited, is left free to

    be employed in all other articles to which the prohibition does not extend. If indeed

    there be no such other article to which the capital could be so applied without a

    certain diminution of the rate of profit, say for example 5 per cent, on this

    supposition a tax to that amount is imposed upon all those who but for the

    prohibition would have employed that capital in the production of articles of that

    same sort. But the existence of any such state of things the existence or not upon

    the face of it to such a degree assured /probable/ as to be admitted without special

    proof applied to this or that species of article in particular: and till in the

    instance of some determinate species of commodity such proof is made the mode of

    taxation in question will continue in possession of the character of being as far as

    it goes, as burthensome to the inhabitnts of the country in which the article is

    produced.
  • Title: [1820 Decr. 27 Rid Yourselves]
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    ' 1. Creoles willing

     The copy of this is to come in here of N o 3 in

    the present copy

    3. Supposable resource the third - barren

    prohibitions (a)

    Text resumed.

    By this term barren, no sooner is its the

    propriety of its application to the restriction in question seen, than the

    unpropriety of placing it upon the list of financial resources, stands demonstrated.

    What it produces is individuals subjected to the coercion more or less of the burthen

    to the persons concerned in enforcing it more or less of the odium of a tax: what it

    does not in any part produce is the benefit of a tax (b)

    Note (a)

    (a) In a financial view, prohibitions are either productive or barren.

    Productive financial prohibitions are taxes. Taxes are prohibitions; for they inhibit

    the use of the taxed article, in case of non-payment of the tax: in the instance of

    all such employers of the article as pay the tax, the /restriction/ operates as a tax

    and not as a prohibition: in the instance of all such as, to avoid the tax, abstain

    from employing the article, it operates as a barren prohibition obeyed: in the instance of all such as avoid the tax but use the article

    notwithstanding, it operates as a prohibition disobeyed.

    Note (b)

    Yet, in the system by which Spanish Ultramaria has been wont to be

    governed by Spain, barren prohibitions, it is said have place to a vast extent. But

    to bring to view in all its particulars the injustice and mischievousness of such

    restrictions would in this place be a digression. It claims a separate head. +

     From here, go on and copy and then cancel, the remainder of p. 2 in the existing

    copy.