An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith (ebooks children's books free .TXT) 📗
- Author: Adam Smith
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other. The dearer the Birmingham manufacturer buys his foreign
wine, the cheaper he necessarily sells that part of his hardware
with which, or, what comes to the same thing, with the price of
which, he buys it. That part of his hardware, therefore, becomes
of less value to him, and he has less encouragement to work at
it. The dearer the consumers in one country pay for the surplus
produce of another, the cheaper they necessarily sell that part
of their own surplus produce with which, or, what comes to the
same thing, with the price of which, they buy it. That part of
their own surplus produce becomes of less value to them, and they
have less encouragement to increase its quantity. All taxes
upon consumable commodities, therefore, tend to reduce the
quantity of productive labour below what it otherwise would be,
either in preparing the commodities taxed, if they are home
commodities, or in preparing those with which they are purchased,
if they are foreign commodities. Such taxes, too, always alter,
more or less, the natural direction of national industry, and
turn it into a channel always different from, and generally less
advantageous, than that in which it would have run of its own
accord.
Thirdly, the hope of evading such taxes by smuggling, gives
frequent occasion to forfeitures and other penalties, which
entirely ruin the smuggler ; a person who, though no doubt highly
blameable for violating the laws of his country, is frequently
incapable of violating those of natural justice, and would have
been, in every respect. an excellent citizen, had not the laws of
his country made that a crime which nature never meant to be so.
In those corrupted governments, where there is at least a general
suspicion of much unnecessary expense, and great misapplication
of the public revenue, the laws which guard it are little
respected. Not many people are scrupulous about smuggling, when,
without perjury, they can find an easy and safe opportunity of
doing so. To pretend to have any scruple about buying smuggled
goods, though a manifest encouragement to the violation of the
revenue laws, and to the perjury which almost always attends it,
would, in most countries. be regarded as one of those pedantic
pieces of hypocrisy which, instead of gaining credit with
anybody, serve only to expose the person who affects to practise
them to the suspicion of buing a greater knave than most of his
neighbours. By this indulgence of the public, the smuggler is
often encouraged to continue a trade, which he is thus taught to
consider as in some measure innocent; and when the severity of
the revenue laws is ready to fall upon him, he is frequently
disposed to defend with violence, what he has been accustomed to
regard as his just property. From being at first, perhaps, rather
imprudent than criminal, he at last too often becomes one of the
hardiest and most determined violators of the laws of society. By
the ruin of the smuggler, his capital, which had before been
employed in maintaining productive labour, is absorbed either in
the revenue of the state, or in that of the revenue officer; and
is employed in maintaining unproductive, to the diminution of the
general capital of the society, and of the useful industry which
it might otherwise have maintained.
Fourthly, such taxes, by subjecting at least the dealers in the
taxed commodities, to the frequent visits and odious examination
of the tax-gatherers, expose them sometimes, no doubt, to some
degree of oppression, and always to much trouble and vexation;
and though vexation, as has already been said, is not strictly
speaking expense, it is certainly equivalent to the expense at
which every man would be willing to redeem himself from it. The
laws of excise, though more effectual for the purpose for which
they were instituted, are, in this respect, more vexatious than
those of the customs. When a merchant has imported goods subject
to certain duties of customs; when he has paid those duties, and
lodged the goods in his warehouse ; he is not, in most cases,
liable to any further trouble or vexation from the custom-house
officer. It is otherwise with goods subject to duties of excise.
The dealers have no respite from the continual visits and
examination of the excise officers. The duties of excise are,
upon this account, more unpopular than those of the customs; and
so are the officers who levy them. Those officers, it is
pretended, though in general, perhaps, they do their duty fully
as well as those of the customs ; yet, as that duty obliges them
to be frequently very troublesome to some of their neighbours,
commonly contract a certain hardness of character, which the
others frequently have not. This observation, however, may very
probably be the mere suggestion of fraudulent dealers, whose
smuggling is either prevented or detected by their diligence.
The inconveniencies, however, which are, perhaps, in some degree
inseparable from taxes upon consumable communities, fall as light
upon the people of Great Britain as upon those of any other
country of which the government is nearly as expensive. Our
state is not perfect, and might be mended; but it is as good, or
better, than that of most of our neighbours.
In consequence of the notion, that duties upon consumable goods
were taxes upon the profits of merchants, those duties have, in
some countries, been repeated upon every successive sale of the
goods. If the profits of the merchant-importer or
merchant-manufacturer were taxed, equality seemed to require that
those of all the middle buyers, who intervened between either of
them and the consumer, should likewise be taxed. The famous
alcavala of Spain seems to have been established upon this
principle. It was at first a tax of ten per cent. afterwards
of fourteen per cent. and it is at present only six per cent.
upon the sale of every sort of property whether moveable or
immoveable ; and it is repeated every time the property is
sold.{Memoires concernant les Droits, etc. tom. i, p. 15} The
levying of this tax requires a multitude of revenue officers,
sufficient to guard the transportation of goods, not only from
one province to another, but from one shop to another. It
subjects, not only the dealers in some sorts of goods, but those
in all sorts, every farmer, every manufacturer, every merchant
and shopkeeper, to the continual visit and examination of the
tax-gatherers. Through the greater part of the country in
which a tax of this kind is established, nothing can be produced
for distant sale. The produce of every part of the country must
be proportioned to the consumption of the neighbourhood. It is to
the alcavala, accordingly, that Ustaritz imputes the ruin of the
manufactures of Spain. He might have imputed to it, likewise, the
declension of agriculture, it being imposed not only upon
manufactures, but upon the rude produce of the land.
In the kingdom of Naples, there is a similar tax of three per
cent. upon the value of all contracts, and consequently upon that
of all contracts of sale. It is both lighter than the Spanish
tax, and the greater part of towns and parishes are allowed to
pay a composition in lieu of it. They levy this composition in
what manner they please, generally in a way that gives no
interruption to the interior commerce of the place. The
Neapolitan tax, therefore, is not near so ruinous as the Spanish
one.
The uniform system of taxation, which, with a few exception of no
great consequence, takes place in all the different parts of the
united kingdom of Great Britain, leaves the interior commerce of
the country, the inland and coasting trade, almost entirely free.
The inland trade is almost perfectly free ; and the greater part
of goods may be carried from one end of the kingdom to the other,
without requiring any permit or let-pass, without being subject
to question, visit or examination, from the revenue officers.
There are a few exceptions, but they are such as can give no
interruption to any important branch of inland commerce of the
country. Goods carried coastwise, indeed, require certificates or
coast-cockets. If you except coals, however, the rest are almost
all duty-free. This freedom of interior commerce, the effect of
the uniformity of the system of taxation, is perhaps one of the
principal causes of the prosperity of Great Britain ; every great
country being necessarily the best and most extensive market for
the greater part of the productions of its own industry. If the
same freedom in consequence of the same uniformity, could be
extended to Ireland and the plantations, both the grandeur of the
state, and the prosperity of every part of the empire, would
probably be still greater than at present.
In France, the different revenue laws which take place in the
different provinces, require a multitude of revenue officers to
surround, not only the frontiers of the kingdom, but those of
almost each particular province, in order either to prevent the
importation of certain goods, or to subject it to the payment of
certain duties, to the no small interruption of the interior
commerce of the country. Some provinces are allowed to commpound
for the gabelle, or salt tax ; others are exempted from it
altogether. Some provinces are exempted from the exclusive sale
of tobacco, which the farmers-general enjoy through the greater
part of the kingdom. The aides, which correspond to the excise in
England, are very different in different provinces. Some
provinces are exempted from them, and pay a composition or
equivalent. In those in which they take place, and are in farm,
there are many local duties which do not extend beyond a
particular town or district. The traites, which correspond to our
customs, divide the kingdom into three great parts; first, the
provinces subject to the tariff of 1664, which are called the
provinces of the five great farms, and under which are
comprehended Picardy, Normandy, and the greater part of the
interior provinces of the kingdom ; secondly, the provinces
subject to the tariff of 1667, which are called the provinces
reckoned foreign, and under which are comprehended the greater
part of the frontier provinces; and, thirdly, those provinces
which are said to be treated as foreign, or which, because they
are allowed a free commerce with foreign countries, are, in their
commerce with the other provinces of France, subjected to the
same duties as other foreign countries. These are Alsace, the
three bishoprics of Mentz, Toul, and Verdun, and the three cities
of Dunkirk, Bayonne, and Marseilles. Both in the provinces of the
five great farms (called so on account of an ancient division of
the duties of customs into five great branches, each of which was
originally the subject of a particular farm, though they are now
all united into one), and in those which are said to be reckoned
foreign, there are many local duties which do not extend beyond a
particular town or district. There are some such even in the
provinces which are said to be treated as foreign, particularly
in the city of Marseilles. It is unnecessary to observe how much
both the restraints upon the interior commerce of the country,
and the number of the revenue officers, must be multiplied, in
order to guard the frontiers of those different provinces and
districts which are subject to such different systems of
taxation.
Over and above the general restraints arising from this
complicated system of revenue laws, the commerce of wine (after
corn, perhaps, the most important production of France) is, in
the greater part of the provinces, subject to particular
restraints arising from the favour which has been shown to the
vineyards of particular provinces and districts above those of
others. The provinces most famous for
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