Let us now observe, that when the operations of agriculture are talked of in consequence of taxes, the land proprietor is alluded to; and from him they suppose that the ten millions are taken, just as the fleece is shorn from the sheep; but, on the other hand, that proprietor, though not very clear in his idea of what is best for him to do, feels mechanically that he has a right to defend his fleece, that is, to increase the price of the productions of his land, because without them, neither the manufacturer nor the Minister of Finance can subsist, and to raise that price to such a level as will subject him to pay only just as much as the minister and the manufacturer: and this again appears to me extremely just.
Now this very proprietor receives of his 60 millions revenue, or rather of the revenue of his land, no more than about 20 millions; (this is nearly the result of Mr. Young’s statement: it will be seen, in the sequel, that more or less would only alter the proportion of the shares, without having the least influence either on the application of the principle, or on its consequences): the 40 millions overplus is swallowed up, viz. for the daily pay of the labourer, 20 millions, and 20 millions for the other charges with which the estates are encumbered, tythes, profits of farmers, &c. &c. It follows, of course,
Either
That the proprietor’s share must be advanced to 30 millions, if he alone be taxed; and this will leave each of the other parts interested in the landed revenue, in possession of its 20 millions, as well after as before the tax;
Or,
That each of the three parts taxed singly, at 3,333,333l. 6s. 8d. and enabled to pay the impost by an advance of price, both in the productions and in the wages of labour, be reduced to its primitive 20 millions, after the payment of the tax.
One is evidently equal to the other; but what is not so, is, that industry, who paid her workmen with 20 millions when the quarter of wheat was at 40s. cannot pay them since the wheat is increased to 46s. 8d. but by adding to the former wages, 3,333,333l. 6s. 8d. an advance which, when divided on the total of her products, heretofore rated at 60 millions, raises each third part of 20 to 21,111,111, and some trifling fractions.—Now, there remains in the hands of each of the parties concerned in agriculture, only 20 millions over and above the payment of the tax.—Those who are in the persuasion that the discharge of the import must lessen, by its whole amount at least, the revenue of those who pay it, think, no doubt, that agriculture is very well off, to have, by raising the price of its commodities two thirds, lightened the weight of so terrible a burden; yet if it were possible by a vigorous exertion, by an additional increase in the price of provisions, to make it null to every body, I do not see that it would be reasonable to oppose such exertion; for, after all,
Either
The first increase, brought on by agriculture, was unjust; the proprietor was doomed to sustain alone the whole weight of the tax, if we allow the taxator, the man who laid the tax, to have had a single thought on the subject: