The barriers having been removed, Switzerland and France must necessarily have been enriched, or England ruined:—France and Switzerland were better pleased to be enriched; and so it will necessarily happen after the removal of the barriers subsisting between England and Ireland, that the agriculture of the latter must be enriched;—unless she should choose to do herself a real prejudice by keeping to all her former low prices, in order to procure an imaginary advantage to Irish industry, in hopes of prejudicing the British manufacturer;—which would indeed be very strange.
But if this proportionate augmentation in the price of every thing,—as evident as it is necessary,—as general as it is useful,—as natural as it is little suspected,—in consequence of a national debt contracted by a country trading with all Europe,—getting rich by trading with all Europe,—and who cannot get rich without sharing her wealth with all Europe,—be also a complete demonstration of the burden being null, so soon as the little private interests have rendered it general, and no longer permit the supposition of its being productive of any other bad effects, but such as necessarily result from a bad system of taxation; does the point lie in rectifying the system, or in effecting a reimbursement?—At least, is a tax to be levied for the purpose of reimbursing, before we have searched deep into the question the most interesting to society that ever was propounded?
And in the supposition, that it should result from the examination, as it does from my ideas, that there neither is, nor can be any real and lasting harm in the taxes, but that which is the consequence of a bad system of taxation; as there is however so much more harm done, at least of a transient nature, as there are more taxes imposed, even in the best manner,—would it not be necessary to conclude, that loans bearing annuities, esteemed the most advantageous to the State, (although they always require an heavier, and sometimes a double taxation), might have proved the most pernicious and worst devised, in any other circumstance but that of a total discredit, if they did not now furnish the Sovereign with the means of redressing what is most oppressive in the old taxes, without imposing new ones?
On Luxury.
I can sum up all that I have said hitherto, by transcribing a couple of pages out of a pamphlet written in America in the year 1774, laid before the Academy of Sciences in 1778, and printed at Paris in 1781. I should certainly be excusable had I no other motive in this respect, than to prove that my opinions are neither suggested by, nor depending on circumstances. The reflexion contained in the following quotation from that pamphlet, on the war that broke out in 1779, is but a survey of the new order of things, which would not have presented itself to my mind, had it not been in my power, even then, to have published in several large volumes, that which I now comprise within three hundred and some pages, in order to render its perusal less laborious to the reader.
“All the mystery of society, consists in establishing, without the knowledge, and to the greatest advantage of the parties concerned, the most equal, the most exact, and the most equitable division that possibly can be made, between the land proprietors, who are in possession of all, and the pilferers who are in possession of nothing.
“This division operates of itself, by shackling, as little as possible, the natural passions of the one, and the factitious passions of the others, that is to say, by obstructing, as little as possible, communications of all kinds.
“This division is inseparable from the greatest possible quantity of productions and consumptions, which cannot be effected but by the greatest number of productors and consumers, who will always be found and attracted where the laws shall be as little prohibitory as possible.