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.