culture. The tax falls upon the planter as landlord. Taxes of so much a head upon the bondmen employed in cultivation seem anciently to have been common all over Europe. Hence poll-taxes of all kinds are represented as badges of slavery. Every tax is, to the person who pays it, a badge of liberty. It denotes that he has some property, and therefore cannot himself be the property of a master. A poll-tax on slaves is altogether different from a poll-tax upon freemen. That upon slaves is indirect, and, although sometimes unequal (owing to the different values of slaves), in no respect arbitrary. That on freemen is direct, and always either arbitrary or unequal, and in most cases both one and the other. The taxes upon servants are not taxes upon stock, but upon expense. Taxes upon the profit of stock in particular employments never affect the interest of money. Nobody will lend his money for less interest to those who exercise the taxed than to those who exercise the untaxed employment.

Taxes upon the revenue arising from stock, in all employments will sometimes fall upon the interest of money, as the Vingtième does in France on that particular form of annuity known as contracts,' pp. 451-53.

6

APPENDIX to ARTICLES I. and II. Taxes upon the " capital value of Land, Houses, and Stock.

While property remains in the possession of the same person, the permanent taxes imposed upon it have never been intended to diminish its capital value, but only part of the revenue arising from it. But when property changes hands, such taxes have frequently been imposed upon it as necessarily take away some part of its capital value. The transference of all sorts of property from

1 For the poll-tax of 1381, see Rogers, Agriculture and Prices, i. p. 84. It was rather the occasion than the cause of the tremendous insurrection of the villeins.

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the dead to the living, and that of immovable property from the living to the living, are transactions which cannot be concealed. Such transactions may be taxed directly. The transference of movable property from the living to the living may be taxed indirectly—(1) by requiring that the deed containing the obligation to repay should be written upon paper or parchment which has paid a stamp duty; (2) that it should be recorded in some public or private register, and by imposing duties on registration. The Vicesima Hereditatum imposed by Augustus upon the Romans was a tax upon the transference of property from the dead to the living. Of the same kind is the Dutch and English tax upon successions, a tax to which little objection can be made when imposed upon collaterals. When imposed upon children (whose prospects are usually injured by the death of their father) they are generally cruel and oppressive,' pp. 453, 454.

The casualties of the feudal law were taxes upon the transference of land, both from the dead to the living and from the living to the living. The heir of every immediate vassal of the crown paid a certain duty, generally a year's rent, upon receiving the investiture of the estate. By the feudal law, the vassal could not alienate without the consent of his superior, who extorted a fine for granting it.3 Taxes upon the sale of lands, or of lands held by certain tenures, take place in many countries, and make a branch of the revenue of the sovereign. Such transactions may be taxed indirectly by means of stamp duties or of duties upon registration; and

A high rate on direct successions stimulates donationes inter vivos. (See Rogers's note on passage for brief account of the English succession duties).

2 See Blackstone, book ii., and Gilbert on Tenures.

Much modified in England by Quia Emptores, 18 Ed. I. This statute, by forbidding subinfeudation, sounded the death-knell of the feudal system, of which the characteristic was the complete chain of dependence from the highest lord to the lowest tenant.

those duties may or may not be proportioned to the value of the subject transferred. Those modes of taxation are of very modern invention. In about a century, however, stamp-duties have in Europe become almost universal, and duties upon registration extremely common. There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.' Taxes upon the transference of property from the dead to the living fall upon the person to whom the property is transferred. Taxes upon the sale of land fall altogether upon the seller; the seller being almost always obliged to sell; but the buyer is scarce ever under the necessity of buying, and the more he is obliged to give in the way of tax the less he will be disposed to give in the way of price. Such taxes, therefore, fall almost always on a necessitous person, pp. 455-57.

Taxes upon the sale of new-built houses, where the building is sold without the ground, fall generally upon the buyer, for the builder must have his profit or give up the business. Taxes upon the sale of old houses, and ground-rents, fall upon the seller, as in the case of land. Their sale is indeed seldom regulated by the demand. Stamp-duties for borrowed money fall upon the borrower, pp. 457, 458.

All taxes upon the transference of property, so far as they diminish the capital value of property, tend to diminish the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour. Such taxes are always unequal (but do not offend against the other maxims); the frequency of transference not being equal in property of equal value, pp. 458, 459.

The registration of mortgages is advantageous to the public. The registration of deeds of other kinds is in

For the invention of stamp duties in Holland, see Beckman, History of Inventions, vol. i. p. 379.

convenient to individuals, without any advantage to the public, p. 459.

Stamp-duties on cards, dice, newspapers, licences, &c., although called by the same name, and levied in the same manner as the stamp-duties on the transference of property, are of a different nature, and fall upon different funds. They are taxes upon consumption, and are paid by the consumer, pp. 459, 460.

ARTICLE III. Taxes upon the Wages of Labour.

The wages of the inferior classes of workmen are, as shown in the First Book, regulated by the demand for labour, and by the average price of provisions. These remaining the same, a direct tax upon the wages of labour must raise them somewhat higher than the tax. If the tax was one fifth, the price of labour must rise one fourth. A direct tax, therefore, upon the wages of labour would be advanced by the employer; but it would be finally paid (in the case of manufacturing labour), together with the additional profit, by the consumer.1 The rise which such a tax might occasion in wages of country labour would fall upon the landlord. If direct taxes upon the wages of labour have not always occasioned a proportionable rise in those wages, it is because they have generally occasioned a considerable fall in the demand for labour. The declension of industry, the decrease of employment for the poor, and the diminution of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, have been the effects of such taxes. Absurd and destructive as such taxes are, however, they

This is true if the wages are not in excess of the sum which the labourers are obliged to spend (and no reduction takes place in their numbers by famine). Otherwise the tax may be made to fall on the labourer. (See Rogers's note.) M'Culloch points out the danger lest the standard of living among the labourers should be permanently depressed by such a tax, which is also sure to be in the highest degree unpopular. (See his edition of Wealth of Nations, p. 618 seq.)

take place in many countries. In Bohemia, artificers are divided into four classes; the highest pay 97. 78. 6d. a year, the second 6l. 10s., the third 4. 138. 9d., and the fourth 21. 78. a year. A tax upon the recompense of artists and men of liberal professions must raise that recompense higher than in proportion to the tax, or diminish the number of those who follow such pursuits. The emoluments of offices are not regulated by the free competition of the market, and, being in general higher than the nature of the employment requires, can well bear to be taxed, and such a tax is always very popular, p. 463.

ARTICLE IV.

Taxes which it is intended should fall indifferently upon every different Species of Revenue.

These are capitation taxes, and taxes upon consumable commodities, which must be paid indifferently from whatever revenue the contributors may possess.

Capitation taxes, if proportioned to the revenue of the contributor, become arbitrary. The state of a man's fortune varies from day to day; the assessment must, therefore, in most cases depend upon the humour of the assessors. If they are proportioned to the rank of the contributor, they become unequal; the degrees of fortune being frequently unequal in the same degree of rank. Such were the poll-taxes in England during the reign of William III., and those in France from the beginning of the present century.' The poll-taxes in England never produced the sum expected. Those in France did. Capitation taxes, so far as they are levied upon the lower ranks of the people, are direct taxes upon the wages of labour; they are levied at little expense, and where they are rigorously exacted afford a

1 As to the celebrated graduated poll-taxes of the reign of Richard II., see Rogers's note.