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