11 Mar 1804

Polit. Economy

Ch.2.

Finance

3

{ The mischief done in the way of prohibition by that species of direct tax which

is imposed upon produce, and encrease 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 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 everybody. A man without a partner has

the profit to himself, yet many men submitt to saddle themselves with partners.

The government which imposes proportional taxes on produce is a partner who

finds protection[?], but nothing else.

I have elsewhere spoken of the best financial resource, 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 vacant by death, on

failure of near relatives. The formation of Counter expectations being prevented

by preestablished law, receipts from this source need not be attended with that

vexatious sense of privation, which is the inseparable accompaniment of a tax.

The worst is that tax, call it direct or indirect, which as often as it acts as

a prohibition, deprives man of every thing, by depriving him of justice: the tax

I mean upon law proceedings, by which the poor, that is the bulk of the

community, especially the oppressed and afflicted part of it, are put out of the

protection of the law.}