Whether it do not result from the ever infallible and merely mechanical restoration of an equilibrium in all the prices, that the taxes are in themselves completely innocent;—whether there be more than one kind of taxation, which increases only by the exact amount of the tax, the whole mass of prices;—whether the effect of taxation be not trebled by all other imposts;—whether the most pernicious of them, (after the poll-tax), be not the tax on luxury;—and whether from the instant that all kinds of taxes, either judiciously or injudiciously contrived, have re-acted on every thing, the burthen of the national debt is not literally null in all countries?
9thly,
Whether, after monopoly, credit be not that effect of wealth which increases most the price of every production, both of agriculture and industry?
10thly,
Whether a certain country, where smuggling has been prohibited under pain of the galleys, be not indebted to smuggling itself for one fifth of the products of her agriculture, which the merchant and trader turn to their advantage with as little scruple, as if they had not petitioned for the detestable law against the smuggler?
11thly,
Whether the absurdity of the general opinion, on the most efficacious means of establishing a profitable competition, in point of trade, be not clearly evinced, by the account of a strange revolution in France—a revolution, as indubitable as the two wars in 1755 and 1779?
12thly,
Whether the impossibility of the two supposed balances, constantly at the disposal of England and France, be not proved, by the very facts adduced in both countries to establish the existence of those two monsters?—Whether that impossibility be not demonstrated by other facts as little equivocal; and whether it be not the interest of England and France to renounce the Idol, and solemnly abjure both its works and its pomps?