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

it necessarily discourages that industry in almost every

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