An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📖

of them ; a harbour, by a moderate

port-duty upon the tonnage of the shipping which load or unload

in it. The coinage, another institution for facilitating

commerce, in many countries, not only defrays its own expense,

but affords a small revenue or a seignorage to the sovereign. The

post-office, another institution for the same purpose, over and

above defraying its own expense, affords, in almost all

countries, a very considerable revenue to the sovereign.

 

When the carriages which pass over a highway or a bridge, and the

lighters which sail upon a navigable canal, pay toll in

proportion to their weight or their tonnage, they pay for the

maintenance of those public works exactly in proportion to the

wear and tear which they occasion of them. It seems scarce

possible to invent a more equitable way of maintaining such

works. This tax or toll, too, though it is advanced by the

carrier, is finally paid by the consumer, to whom it must always

be charged in the price of the goods. As the expense of carriage,

however, is very much reduced by means of such public works, the

goods, notwithstanding the toll, come cheaper to the consumer

than they could otherwise have done, their price not being so

much raised by the toll, as it is lowered by the cheapness of the

carriage. The person who finally pays this tax, therefore, gains

by the application more than he loses by the payment of it. His

payment is exactly in proportion to his gain. It is, in reality,

no more than a part of that gain which he is obliged to give up,

in order to get the rest. It seems impossible to imagine a

more equitable method of raising a tax.

 

When the toll upon carriages of luxury, upon coaches,

post-chaises, etc. is made somewhat higher in proportion to their

weight, than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts,

waggons, etc. the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to

contribute, in a very easy manner, to the relief of the poor, by

rendering cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the

different parts of the country.

 

When highroads, bridges, canals, etc. are in this manner made

and supported by the commerce which is carried on by means of

them, they can be made only where that commerce requires them,

and, consequently, where it is proper to make them. Their

expense, too, their grandeur and magnificence, must be suited to

what that commerce can afford to pay. They must be made,

consequently, as it is proper to make them. A magnificent

highroad cannot be made through a desert country, where there is

little or no commerce, or merely because it happens to lead to

the country villa of the intendant of the province, or to that of

some great lord, to whom the intendant finds it convenient to

make his court. A great bridge cannot be thrown over a river at a

place where nobody passes, or merely to embellish the view from

the windows of a neighbouring palace ; things which sometimes

happen in countries, where works of this kind are carried on by

any other revenue than that which they themselves are capable of

affording.

 

In several different parts of Europe, the toll or lock-duty upon

a canal is the property of private persons, whose private

interest obliges them to keep up the canal. If it is not kept in

tolerable order, the navigation necessarily ceases altogether,

and, along with it, the whole profit which they can make by the

tolls. If those tolls were put under the management of

commissioners, who had themselves no interest in them, they might

be less attentive to the maintenance of the works which produced

them. The canal of Languedoc cost the king of France and the

province upwards of thirteen millions of livres, which (at

twenty-eight livres the mark of silver, the value of French money

in the end of the last century) amounted to upwards of nine

hundred thousand pounds sterling. When that great work was

finished, the most likely method, it was found, of keeping it in

constant repair, was to make a present of the tolls to Riquet,

the engineer who planned and conducted the work. Those tolls

constitute, at present, a very large estate to the different

branches of the family of that gentleman, who have, therefore, a

great interest to keep the work in constant repair. But had those

tolls been put under the management of commissioners, who had no

such interest, they might perhaps, have been dissipated in

ornamental and unnecessary expenses, while the most essential

parts of the works were allowed to go to ruin.

 

The tolls for the maintenance of a highroad cannot, with any

safety, be made the property of private persons. A highroad,

though entirely neglected, does not become altogether impassable,

though a canal does. The proprietors of the tolls upon a

highroad, therefore, might neglect altogether the repair of the

road, and yet continue to levy very nearly the same tolls. It is

proper, therefore, that the tolls for the maintenance of such a

work should be put under the managmnent of commissioners or

trustees.

 

In Great Britain, the abuses which the trustees have committed in

the management of those tolls, have, in many cases, been very

justly complained of. At many turnpikes, it has been said, the

money levied is more than double of what is necessary for

executing, in the completest manner, the work, which is often

executed in a very slovenly manner, and sometimes not executed at

all. The system of repairing the highroads by tolls of this

kind, it must be observed, is not of very long standing. We

should not wonder, therefore, if it has not yet been brought to

that degree of perfection of which it seems capable. If mean and

improper persons are frequently appointed trustees ; and if

proper courts of inspection and account have not yet been

established for controlling their conduct, and for reducing the

tolls to what is barely sufficient for executing the work to be

done by them ; the recency of the institution both accounts and

apologizes for those defects, of which, by the wisdom of

parliament, the greater part may, in due time, be gradually

remedied.

 

The money levied at the different turnpikes in Great Britain, is

supposed to exceed so much what is necessary for repairing the

roads, that the savings which, with proper economy, might be made

from it, have been considered, even by some ministers, as a very

great resource, which might, at some time or another, be applied

to the exigencies of the state. Government, it has been said, by

taking the management of the turnpikes into its own hands, and by

employing the soldiers, who would work for a very small addition

to their pay, could keep the roads in good order, at a much less

expense than it can be done by trustees, who have no other

workmen to employ, but such as derive their whole subsistence

from their wages. A great revenue, half a million, perbaps {Since

publishing the two first editions of this book, I have got good

reasons to believe that all the turnpike tolls levied in Great

Britain do not procduce a neat revenue that amounts to half a

million ; a sum which, under the management of government, would

not be sufficient to keep, in repair five of the principal roads

in the kingdom}, it has been pretended, might in this manner be

gained, without laying any new burden upon the people; and the

turnpike roads might be made to contribute to the general expense

of the state, in the same manner as the post-office does at

present.

 

That a considerable revenue might be gained in this manner, I

have no doubt, though probably not near so much as the projectors

of this plan have supposed. The plan itself, however, seems

liable to several very important objections.

 

First, If the tolls which are levied at the turnpikes should ever

be considered as one of the resources for supplying the

exigencies of the state, they would certainly be augmented as

those exigencies were supposed to require. According to the

policy of Great Britain, therefore, they would probably he

augmented very fast. The facility with which a great revenue

could be drawn from them, would probably encourage administration

to recur very frequently te this resource. Though it may,

perhaps, be more than doubtful whether half a million could by

any economy be saved out of the present tolls, it can scarcely be

doubted, but that a million might be saved out of them, if they

were doubled ; and perhaps two millions, if they were tripled {I

have now good reason to believe that all these conjectural sums

are by much too large.}. This great revenue, too, might be levied

without the appointment of a single new officer to collect and

receive it. But the turnpike tolls, being continually augmented

in this manner, instead of facilitating the inland commerce of

the country, as at present, would soon become a very great

incumbrance upon it. The expense of transporting all heavy goods

from one part of the country to another, would soon be so much

increased, the market for all such goods, consequently, would

soon be so much narrowed, that their production would be in a

great measure discouraged, and the most important branches of the

domestic industry of the country annihilated altogether.

 

Secondly, A tax upon carriages, in proportion to their weight,

though a very equal tax when applied to the sole purpose of

repairing the roads, is a very unequal one when applied to any

other purpose, or to supply the common exigencies of the state.

When it is applied to the sole purpose above mentioned, each

carriage is supposed to pay exactly for the wear and tear which

that carriage occasions of the roads. But when it is applied to

any other purpose, each carriage is supposed to pay for more than

that wear and tear, and contributes to the supply of some other

exigency of the state. But as the turnpike toll raises the price

of goods in proportion to their weight and not to their value, it

is chiefly paid by the consumers of coarse and bulky, not by

those of precious and light commodities. Whatever exigency of the

state, therefore, this tax might be intended to supply, that

exigency would be chiefly supplied at the expense of the poor,

not of the rich; at the expense of those who are least able to

supply it, not of those who are most able.

 

Thirdly, If government should at any time neglect the reparation

of the highroads, it would be still more difficult, than it is

at present, to compel the proper application of any part of the

turnpike tolls. A large revenue might thus be levied upon the

people, without any part of it being applied to the only purpose

to which a revenue levied in this manner ought ever to be

applied. If the meanness and poverty of the trustees of turnpike

roads render it sometimes difficult, at present, to oblige them

to repair their wrong ; their wealth and greatness would render

it ten times more so in the case which is here supposed.

 

In France, the funds destined for the reparation of the

highroads are under the immediate direction of the executive

power. Those funds consist, partly in a certain number of days

labour, which the country people are in most parts of Europe

obliged to give to the reparation of the highways; and partly in

such a portion of the general revenue of the state as the king

chooses to spare from his other expenses.

 

By the ancient law of France, as well as by that of most other