Or,
The further advance in the prices of agriculture is of the most indispensable necessity, if the taxator has only thought of getting the amount of the tax with the least trouble to himself, leaving to Nature the care of distributing to every one complete justice,—to Nature, who never fails to do it, and who, in so complicated an operation, employs only the simple spring of that private cupidity, with which she has armed and shielded every individual; just as, in order to settle the most exact symmetry in that admirable edifice commonly called a hive, she employs no other agent than the reciprocal pressure of that multitude of architects who work at it, each of whom thinks of nothing but to secure a little cell for himself.
Thirteenth Hypothesis.
Let us then suppose that agriculture, judiciously determined by wisdom not to suffer the least encroachments on any part of her cell, or mechanically led by cupidity to justice, boldly raises the price of her wheat from 40 to 50s. and the rest of her products in a due proportion; her general revenues will then be increased from 60 to 75 millions; each of the three parts interested therein will therefore stand at 25 millions, but will be reduced to 21,666,666l. 13s. 4d. when the tax is paid off;—
Industry, compelled also by the advanced prices of the productions of the earth, to pay her workmen 25 instead of the 20 millions which they required in the first instance, will divide the additional 5 millions amongst the 60 millions of her former returns; each third share therefore, rated hitherto at 20 millions, will, by means of the addition, rise to 21,666,666l. 13s. 4d.—which is the exact balance of the like sum left in the hands of each of the three branches of agriculture, after having discharged the tax.
In a system of taxation which should be imposed only on the land, an impost of 10 millions annually, on a revenue of 60 millions, whether it fall on the proprietor, or be divided between him, the farmer, the cultivator, and other parties concerned, requires of course an addition of 25 per cent. to the price of the productions of the earth, that agriculture may not be sacrificed to industry; but it must be observed, that immediately after the reaction of the one upon the other shall be completed, the burden of the tax will evidently be null, since the price of labour will have increased equally in both, in proportion to that of their respective products.
Reflexions on the foregoing System.
This system was devised to countenance and encourage agriculture; it is in her hands, they say, it is at that fountain-head of riches, that riches must be sought for; it is the land that finally pays for all; the impost then must be laid on the net produce of the land.—I shall venture some reflexions on a subject which appears to me the more important, as one of the wisest, and the most profound speeches ever delivered in the House of Lords, seems to hint at the expediency of an aggravation of the burden already laid on agriculture.
Agriculture is the spring of life; it is not the spring of those riches which we call money: money must be had for taxes; money flows from the hands of industry alone: it is then from this spring that money must be drawn.
Besides, how is it known that the money, wrested from agriculture, is not necessary to her support? Or how does it escape observation, that all the money which is not laid out by the cultivator upon agriculture, will necessarily revert to industry, either by the immediate consumption of the cultivator, or by that which he shall have occasioned on the part of the person to whom he shall have lent the value of what he has not consumed himself?