I come next to the tax he proposed to lay upon salt, of which mention has been made.
This tax is of the nature of an excise, and is called the gabelle, which we have explained already in a note; and the objections to it, as the Marechal has proposed them, are no less than three very material ones.
First, the proportion of the duty is far too great, considering the value of the commodity. The second is, that being imposed upon an article of subsistence, it operates immediately on the price of the salt, and only consequentially on the price of labour. This is no great objection, were the proportion moderate; because insensibly the price of labour would rise, were the tax generally and exactly levied in proportion to the consumption: but this was not the case; and this circumstance opens the last objection, and the greatest of all, to wit, that the tax, proportional in its nature, is rendred cumulative, by being raised at the end of the year, in order to oblige every one to consume the salt required.
Now by this mode of levying the tax it loses every advantage, and becomes an addition to the tithe laid upon the industry of the consumer. If every man in England were to be rated at the end of the year, in proportion to the excise of as much beer as he may reasonably be supposed to consume, would that be an excise? certainly not. It would be a poll-tax to all intents and purposes, which no man could draw back.
I have little or nothing to object to the fourth article of the Marechal’s plan. He proposed no essential change, either as to the imposition, or method of levying the taxes which composed it. The principal heads of them are,
1mo, The royal domain, or the king’s landed estate, together with all casualties attached to royalty, or feudal superiority; stamp-duties, and the controle of public acts by notaries.
2do, The customs upon importation and exportation.
3tio, Certain taxes of the purely proportional kind; among which was one upon tobacco, and one upon liquors drank in public houses in the country. Here entire liberty is left to the consumers; and the taxes are principally calculated to affect, or, as he calls it, to punish luxury, intemperance, and vanity. With this view, he wittily proposes an imposition upon large and ridiculous wigs, at that time much in fashion, and upon several other articles of extravagance.
This is a short sketch of the Marechal’s system of royal tithe, considered as to the principles only, upon which the several taxes were intended to be imposed. The treatise contains several admirable things; especially with regard to recapitulations of inhabitants, lands, houses, animals, &c. highly deserving the attention of the statesman, who intends to execute any plan for national improvement.
I shall now set before the reader the Marechal’s calculation, as to the amount of the four articles, when at the lowest, and at the highest taxation. When the tithe is understood to mean the 20th part of the fruits, &c.