date

1820 Decr. 26 A tax produce not suffering
1820 Decr. 26

A tax produce not suffering in an individual nor yet monopoly in the

production of the article: only diminution of profit: not

sensation of loss.

In so far as the country /territory/ in question has a natural

monopoly of the article in question, and the price of it to consumers is not by the

price put upon it by producers yet raised to the highest pitch to which it can be

raised without diminution of the consumption, a tax upon the export /paid by

foreigners/ from the producing country will not operate as a tax upon producers: they

will add that to the price they demand: at any rate they are at liberty /have the

option/ so to do without diminution of their profit.

True it is that in the instance of the foreign consumers by the whole amount of the

tax the power of purchasing and consuming goods of all sorts is diminished. But

whatever power of this sort they are in possession of it is not the whole of it that

but for the tax would have been employed in the purchase of such goods as the country

in question in the present instance Ultramaria is engaged in the production of: to

Ultramaria therefore a tax on goods which being produced in Ultramaria are consumed

by foreigners is not by a great deal so burthensome as a tax to the same amount upon

goods produced in foreign countries and consumed in Ultramaria.
Similar Items
  • Title: [1820 Decr. 26 Go on a little further]
    Description: 1820 Decr. 26

    Go on a little further

    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. 26 Insurendumne?]
    Description: 1820 Decr. 26

    Insurendumne?

    Here or before

    Taxes imposed /A Tax exacted/ on Ultramarian goods produced in and exported from

    Ultramaria /and received in Spain/, the produce is extracted either from the people

    of Spain or from the people of countries foreign to Spain : in so far as those

    foreigners are the consumers of the article it is on them that the burthen of the tax

    falls: /his/ /the immediate burthen at least/ in so far as the people of Spain are

    the consumers of the article, it is on them that the burthen of the tax lies.
  • Title: [1820 Decr. 26 The most manifestly]
    Description: 1820 Decr. 26

    The most manifestly oppressive and thence the most assuredly and

    extensively odious mode of restraint that can be applied to the inhabitants of one

    country under the notion of benefiting the inhabitants of another is that which is

    imposed by a prohibition inhibiting in this the subject country the production of one

    article of natural growth produced in the ruling country, inhibiting it for the sake

    of the extra profit thus expected to be put into the pockets of the allowed

    producers. In this case while on the one part the burthen is seen to be enormous, or

    the other it is seen to be at best comparatively small, and generally /commonly/ even

    to any amount questionable.

    Take for example the case of the prohibition, inhibiting the people of Ultramaria

    from the cultivation of the vine. In this case the burthens to the people of

    Ultramaria are most galling and oppressive and galling in the extreme: the benefit to

    the producers in Spain of the produce exported to and imported into Ultramaria

    comparatively minute and even questionable. Of the commodity which they might have

    produced almost without expence each man from his own garden to the one house the

    price was augmented necessarily by enormously distant freight and mercantile profit,

    actually by this with the addition of taxes imposed either on the exportation of it

    from Spain or on the importation of it into Ultramaria. Here the pressure /suffering/

    is produced by the joint operation of the unjust favour to a portion of the subject

    many in Spain and the injust favour to the whole population of Spain by the tax the

    produce of which is employed in the diminution of this burthen imposed upon them: the

    favour /benefit on this/ is not afforded but at the expence of a greatly preponderant

    burthen (to others) the tax is not imposed but at a rate of expence of collection

    such taht in comparison to it the expence of all collection in the case of any other

    tax shrinks into insignificance.