An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations Part 19

Some time before the taxation which the American war rendered necessary, it was thought that the customs and excise could not be carried much farther. Ministers did not chuse =sic= to venture on an additional tax on land, and, consequently, stamps were augmented and extended, as were also duties on windows. A variety of new taxes on particular articles of consumption were resorted to. Those sort of taxes hara.s.sed and tormented individuals more than they filled the treasury, yet still, when, after an interval of a few years of peace, new burthens became necessary, in 1793, the same plan was pursued, till it was found ineffectual, being too troublesome and tedious, besides being unequal to the increase of expenditure.

It was necessity that suggested a plan, which is the simplest and easiest of any, so long as it succeeds and is productive. =sic= To increase the excise and customs by an additional five or ten per cent.

on the articles that were supposed able to bear it. This has been done again and again with those two branches of revenue, and with the stamps likewise.

But the necessities of the state still outrun the means, and the a.s.sessed taxes, the worst and most obnoxious of all, were augmented in the same way; but even those were not productive. The inducement to privation was too great, and the restraints laid on expenditure, suggested the adoption of a tax on income; that is, on the means a man has to pay, which carries in its very name a description of its nature.

We have mentioned the influence that necessity has on industry. One of the effects of taxes, as well as of rent, is to prolong the operation of necessity, or to increase it. A man who has neither rent nor taxes to pay, as is the case in some savage nations, only labours to supply his wants. Whatever proportion rent and taxes bear to the wants of

{91} The land-tax is not precisely the same, but very nearly. It operates as a tax on the produce of land, that is on commodities for the use of man, the same as those articles subject to duties of customs or excise. The landholder just feels as the brewer, distiller, or importer of foreign goods, he gets the tax reimbursed by the farmer, and the farmer is reimbursed by the consumer.

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a people their industry will be increased in the same proportion, unless their forces are exceeded, and then the operation is indeed very different.

It follows, from this, that both rent and taxes, to a certain degree, increase the wealth of a people, by augmenting their industry. As rent is not compulsive, it never can in general be carried beyond the point that augmented industry will bear; but taxes are not either regulated by the industry of the individual, or of the community; they may therefore be carried too far, and when they are, the people become degraded, disheartened, their independent spirit is lost and broken, and industry, in place of increasing, as it did in the first stages of taxation, flies away.

The government, in this case, generally becomes more severe, and certainly more obnoxious. The broken spirit of the people makes submission a matter of course, so that there is no effectual resistance made to its power. Incapacity to pay comes at last, and defeats the end; but, between incapacity and resistance, the difference is very wide.

As calculators have been predicting the moment of a total stoppage to the increase of revenue for nearly half a century; as ministers, themselves, have never ventured to lay on a new burthen, except when forced to it by necessity. {92} As taxes have been laid on at random, in a manner similar to that in which the streets and houses of old cities were built, without regularity or design, and as the effects predicted have not taken place, it is fair to conclude, that the subject is not well understood. If it were, the evil would be in the way to be obviated; but still the conclusion would be the same, that increased taxation tends to bring on discontent, and to drive men and capital from a country. The degree of tendency, and the rapidity of its operations, are a question; but respecting the tendency itself there can be no question.

Two things more are to be observed, relative to the effects of taxation, as tending towards decline. The first is, that the taxes are levied by and expended on men, who, having income only for their lives,

{92} Mr. Pitt seems an exception to this; but the establishment of a sinking fund, at the end of the war, was as necessary for his administration as any of the loans, during the war, were for Lord North; and both measures required new taxes.

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generally leave families in distress. Those who lose their parents when young are often left dest.i.tute, and those who are farther advanced are frequently ruined by being educated and accustomed to a rank in life that they are not able to support. This is a very great evil, and is renewed as it were every generation. As the revenues of a country increase, this evil increases also: for, except what goes to the proprietors of money in the stocks, all the public revenue, very nearly, goes to people whose income perishes with themselves. To begin with those who collect the taxes, custom-house officers, excise men, collectors, and clerks of every rank and demonination =sic=, there is not one in ten who does not die in indigence; and if he leaves a family, he leaves it in distress.

It is no doubt the lot of the great bulk of mankind, that is to say, the labouring part of the community in every country, to leave children unprovided for; but then they are left in a rank of society that does not prevent their going to work or to service, which is not the case with the vast number left by those who enjoy, during life, a genteel and easy existence under government.

The education of such persons is either neglected entirely, or ill fitted for the line of life into which they are to go. If the sum-total of human vice and misery was to be divided into shares, and if it were calculated how much fell to each person, there is not a doubt but at least a double portion would fall to the lot of those unfortunate persons who are left by parents enjoying offices for life; who are generally obliged to expend their income as they earn it. As, according to the natural chance of things, a number of such persons must leave young families, the seeds of misery are continually sowing a-fresh, to the great detriment of society. This evil depends in a great degree upon the habits and nature of the people, which augment or diminish it; and, in commercial nations, the evil is far the greatest. Where commerce does not flourish, persons belonging to the revenue-department are seldom highly paid, and they by no means consider themselves as a cla.s.s of persons distinguished above the general run, or obliged to live more expensively; but, in a manufacturing country, to live without working, implies a degree of gentility that is extremely ruinous to those who enjoy that fatal and flimsy pre-eminence. [end of page #109]

A manufacturer, who is getting a thousand pounds a year, will, perhaps, not a.s.sume so much importance as a man in office who does not get one hundred pounds; and the former, as well as his family, knowing that they are beholden to industry for what they have, do not think themselves above following it. {93}

Unfortunately, it also happens, that, in all sorts of occupation where trust is reposed and punctuality required, more than in ordinary business, it is rather late in life before those employed rise to situations of considerable emolument. When they are old, their families are generally young; thus it is, that the persons who are the most unfit to marry late in life are generally those who do so. This order of things cannot easily be changed. In the rate of payments governments are regulated by the service done, and by the dependence that can be placed on the person employed, who, on the other hand, follows the natural propensities of human nature. When young, and on a small allowance, a revenue-officer remains single; but when it is necessary to become serious, attentive, and confidential, and when he finds he has the means, he betakes himself to a domestic life, which is the most natural to men arrived at a certain time of life, and the best fitted for those who are to be depended upon for the correctness of their conduct. It is impossible to prevent this natural state of things; and if let go uncorrected, if not counteracted, the consequences are very pernicious. It is to this, in a great measure, the augmentation of vice and mendicity =sic= is to be attributed in nations, as they become wealthy and great.

Perhaps more depends upon the manner of taxation than the amount; at least it certainly is so in all countries where the amount is not very high. In America, for example, the amount is of no importance; the manner might be of very pernicious consequence. In France, before the revolution, the taxes were more oppressive, from the manner of levying them than from their amount. The same thing might be said

{93} This is a very important part of the consideration; but, as education and it are connected, and that comes into the Fourth Book =sic--there is none.=, the whole consideration is left till then; not only the national prosperity is injured, but the feelings of humanity are hurt, and the sum of human misery increased by this consequence.

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of almost every country in Europe, England and Holland excepted. At present, the case is greatly altered, in many countries, by the increase: yet, still, one of the princ.i.p.al evils arises from the manner of levying the taxes; the restraints imposed by them, the inconveniency, the vexation, and, finally, the misery and ruin they, in many cases, occasion.

Of all the examples, where taxation contributed most to the fall of a country, Rome is the greatest. The luxury of the imperial court, and the expenses of a licentious and disorderly army, added to the ignorance of the subject, rendered the taxes every way burthensome.

From the fall of Rome, to the time of Louis XIV. the splendour of courts, and their expenses, were objects of no great importance. We are but lately arrived at a new aera in taxation; for, though taxation has been the occasion of much discontent at all times, it was carried to no considerable length, in any country in Europe, except in Spain and Holland, till within this last century.

Indeed, when we consider the great noise that has often been made about raising an inconsiderable sum, it is impossible not to be astonished at the reluctance with which people pay taxes, when they feel that they are paying them, and are not accustomed to the feeling.

Taxation is, then, to the feelings of men, disagreeable; to their manners hurtful; they are also, in their operation, to a certain degree, inimical to liberty. The ultimate consequence of this is, that persons and property have both of them a tendency to quit a country where taxes are high, and to go to one, where, with the same means, there may be more enjoyment.

Taxes may be called a rent paid for living in a country, and operate exactly like the rent of houses or land, or rent for any thing else; that is, they make the tenant remove to a cheaper place, unless he finds advantages where he is to counterbalance the expense.

Unfortunately, the persons who have the greatest disposition to quit a country that is heavily taxed are those, who, having a certain income, which they cannot increase, wish to enjoy it with some degree of economy. They are, likewise, the persons who can remove with the greatest [end of page #111] facility. Thus, people whose income is in money are always the first to quit a country that is become too dear to live in with comfort.

Many circ.u.mstances may favour or counteract this tendency, such as the difficulty of finding an agreeable place to retire to, where the money will be secure, or the interest regularly paid; but, an inquiry into that will come more properly when we examine the external causes of decline.

Though the increase of taxes, by augmenting the expense of living, and of the necessaries of life, is little felt by the labouring cla.s.s, their wages rising in proportion; yet a most disastrous effect is produced on the fine arts, and on all productions of which the price does not bear a proportional rise.

Where taxes are high, and luxury great, there must be some persons who have a great deal of ostentation, even if they have little taste. A picture or a jewel of great value will, very certainly, find a purchaser, but that will only serve as a motive for bringing the fine painting from another country, where the necessaries of life are cheaper, and where men enjoy that careless ease which is incompatible with a high state of taxation.

When Rome became luxurious, to the highest pitch, there were neither poets, painters, nor historians, bred within its walls; buffoons and fiddlers could get more money than philosophers, and they had more saleable talents. Had Virgil not found an Augustus, had he lived three centuries later, he must either have written ballads and lampoons, or have starved; otherwise he must have quitted Italy.

When Rome was full of luxury, and commanded the world and its wealth, there was not an artist in it capable of executing the statues of its victorious generals. {94}

Some Greek island, barren and bare, would breed artists capable of making ornaments for imperial Rome.

{94} They were obliged to cut the heads off from ancient statues, as their artists were only sufficiently expert to carve the drapery of the body.

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It is an easy matter, in a rich country, to pay for a fine piece of art, But a difficult matter to find a price for the bringing up a fine artist. {95}

The fine arts have not, indeed, any intimate or immediate connection with the wealth or strength of a nation. The balance of trade has never been greatly increased by the exportation of great masterpieces of art, nor have nations been subdued by the powers of oratory; but the knowledge and the arts, by which wealth and greatness are obtained, follow in the train of the finer performances of human genius.

Where money becomes the universal agent, where it is impossible to enjoy ease or comfort for a single day without it, it becomes an object of adoration, as it were. To despise gold, which purchases all things, is reckoned a greater crime than to despise him to whose bounty we are indebted for all things; consequently, ambition, without which there never is excellence, is, at an early period of life, bent towards the gaining a fortune. A man, indeed, must either be of a singularly odd and obstinate disposition, or very indifferent about the opinion of others, and even about the good things of this world, (as they are termed,) to persevere in obtaining perfection in science or art, while without bread, when he might, with a tenth part of the care and study, live in affluence, and get money from day to day. There are few such obstinate fools; and without them, in a wealthy country, there can be found few men profound in science, or excelling in any of the arts.

The augmentation of taxes, by rendering the produce of industry dearer than in other countries, tends to cut off a nation of that de-

{95} This is liable to some exceptions. Natural genius may make a man excel; but, even then, it is ten to one if he is not compelled to labour in order to get bread, in place of trying to obtain fame. It was thus the great Dr. Johnson, with a genius that might have procured him immortal fame, drudged, during life, on weekly or daily labours, which will soon be forgotten. Even his dictionary, wonderful as it is for a single man, is not worthy of the English nation, and Johnson's name is little known beyond the limits of his own country. His genius was great, but his labours were little. His mind was in fetters; it was Sampson grinding at the mill to amuse the Philistines; not Sampson slaying lions, and putting to flight armies.

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scription, from the markets in poorer countries. If all other countries are poorer; and the taxes lower; it has a tendency to shut it out from all the markets in the world.

An operation, that, at the same time that it renders people less happy, less contented, and more indifferent to the fate of their country, and at the same time tends to shut them out from foreign markets, is certainly very hurtful to any country, but particularly so to one, the greatness of which is founded on manufactures and commerce.

It would be useless to enlarge on so self-evident a consequence; yet, even in this case, we shall find something of that mixture of good, along with the bad, which is to be found in all human things.