example, was one-tenth, the wages of labour must necessarily soon rise, not one-tenth part only, but one-eighth.

A direct tax upon the wages of labour, therefore, though the labourer might perhaps pay it out of his hand, could not properly be said to be even advanced by him; at least if the demand for labour and the average price of provisions remained the same after the tax as before it. In all such cases, not only the tax, but something more than the tax, would in reality be advanced by the person who immediately employed him. The final payment would in different cases fall upon different persons. The rise which such a tax might occasion in the wages of manufacturing labour would be advanced by the master manufacturer, who would both be entitled and obliged to charge it, with a profit, upon the price of his goods. The final payment of this rise of wages, therefore, together with the additional profit of the master manufacturer, would fall upon the consumer. The rise which such a tax might occasion in the wages of country labour would be advanced by the farmer, who, in order to maintain the same number of labourers as before, would be obliged to employ a greater capital. In order to get back this greater capital, together with the ordinary profits of stock, it would be necessary that he should retain a larger portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of a larger portion, of the produce of the land, and consequently that he should pay less rent to the landlord. The final payment of this rise of wages, therefore, would in this case fall upon the landlord, together with the additional profit of the farmer who had advanced it. In all cases, a direct tax upon the wages of labour must, in the long run, occasion both a greater reduction in the rent of land, and a greater rise in the price of manufactured goods, than would have followed from the proper assessment of a sum equal to the produce of the tax, partly upon the rent of land, and partly upon consumable commodities.

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, the diminution of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, have generally been the effects of such taxes. In consequence of them, however, the price of labour must always be higher than it otherwise would have been in the actual state of the

demand; and this enhancement of price, together with the profit of those who advance it, must always be finally paid by the landlords and consumers.

A tax upon the wages of country labour does not raise the price of the rude produce of land in proportion to the tax; for the same reason that a tax upon the farmer's profit does not raise that price in that proportion.

Absurd and destructive as such taxes are, however, they take place in many countries. In France, that part of the taille which is charged upon the industry of workmen and day labourers in country villages is properly a tax of this kind. Their wages are computed according to the common rate of the district in which they reside, and that they may be as little liable as possible to any overcharge, their yearly gains are estimated at no more than two hundred working days in the year. The tax of each individual is varied from year to year according to different circumstances, of which the collector or the commissary, whom the intendant appoints to assist him, are the judges. In Bohemia, in consequence of the alteration in the system of finances which was begun in 1748, a very heavy tax is imposed upon the industry of artificers. They are divided into four classes. The highest class pay a hundred florins a year; which, at two and twenty-pence halfpenny a florin, amounts to £9 78. 6il. The second class are taxed at seventy; the third at fifty; and the fourth, comprehending artificers in villages and the lowest class of those in towns, at twenty-five florins.t

The recompense of ingenious artists and of men of liberal professions, I have endeavoured to show in the First Book, necessarily keeps a certain proportion to the emoluments of inferior trades. A tax upon this recompense, therefore, could have no other effect than to raise it somewhat higher than in proportion to the tax. If it did not rise in this manner, the ingenious arts and the liberal professions, being no longer upon a level with other trades, would be so much deserted that they would soon return to that level.

The emoluments of offices are not, like those of trades and professions, regulated by the free competition of the market, and do not, therefore, always bear a just proportion to what the nature of the employment requires. They are perhaps, in most countries, higher than it requires; the persons who have the administration of government being generally disposed to reward both themselves and their immciliate dependants rather more than enough. The cmoluments of offices, therefore, can in most cases very well bear to be taxed. The persons, besides, who enjoy public offices, especially the more Jucrative, are in all countries the objects of general envy; and a tax upon their emoluments, even though it should be somewhat higher than upon any other sort of revenue, is always a very popular tax. In England, for example, when by the land-tax every other sort of revenue was supposed to be assessed at four shillings in the pound, it was very popular to lay a real tax of five shillings and sixpence in the pound upon the salaries of offices which exceeded a hundred pounds a year; the pensions of the younger branches of the royal family, the pay of the oslicers of the army and navy, and a few others less obnoxious to envy excepted. There are in England no other direct taxes upon the wages of labour.

ARTICLE IV.

Tures which it is intended should fall inuliferently upon every different

species of Revenue. The taxes which it is intended should fall indifferently upon every dillerent species of revenue, are capitation taxes, and taxes upon consumable commodities. These must be paid indifferently from whatever revenue the contributors may possess; from the rent of their land, from the profits of their stock, or from the wages of their labour.

Capitation Taxes. Capitation taxes, if it is attempted to proportion them to the fortune or revenue of the contributor, become altogether arbitrary. The state of a man's fortune varies from day to day, and without an from the dead to the living, and upon those transferring immoveable property from the living to the living-transactions which might easily have been taxed directly.

The Vicesima Hereditatum, the twentieth penny of inheritances, imposed by Augustus upon the ancient Romans, was a tax upon the transference of property from the dead to the living. Dion Cassius, * the author who writes concerning it the least indistinctly, says, that it was imposed upon all successions, legacies, and donations, in case of death, except upon those to the nearest relations, and to the poor.

Of the same kind is the Dutch tax upon successions.t Collateral successions are taxed, according to the degree of relation, from five to thirty per cent. upon the whole value of the succession. Testamentary donations, or legacies to collaterals, are subject to the like duties. Those from husband to wife, or from wife to husband, to the fiftieth penny.

The Luctuosa Hereditas, the mournful succession of ascendants to descendants, to the twentieth penny only. Direct successions, or those of descendants to ascendants, pay no tax. The death of a father, to such of his children as live in the same house with him, is seldom attended with any increase, and frequently with a considerable diminution of revenue; by the loss of his industry, of his office, or of some life-rent estate, of which he may have been in possession. That tax would be cruel and oppressive which aggravated their loss by taking from them any part of his succession. It may, however, sometimes be otherwise with those children who, in the language of the Roman law, are said to be emancipated; in that of the Scotch law, to be foris-familiated; that is, who have received their portion, have got families of their own, and are supported by funds separate and independent of those of their father. Whatever part of his succession might come to such children, would be a real addition to their fortune, and might, therefore, perhaps, without more inconveniency than what attends all duties of this kind, be liable to some tax.'

* Lib. 55. See also Burman de Vecti. galibus pop. Rom. cap. xi., and Bouchaud de l'Impôt du vingtième eur les successions.

+ Mémoires concernant les Droits, &c. tom. i. p. 225.

Up to the 36th Geo. III (1796) no duty was paid on wills and legacies. But at that time Pitt was constrained, for purposes of revenue, to levy an ad valorein

tax on property passing under will, or on the estates of intestate persons, the tas being higher in the latter than in the former case. Besides this initiatory tax, another was paid on legacies, the rato varying with the proximity of blood be. tween the devisor and legatee. This variation might have been adopted on the principle of the Dutch law ilverted to in the test, since the Dutch are re

1

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. In ancient times, they constituted in every part of Europe one of the principal branches of the revenue of the Crown.

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. If the heir was a minor, the whole rents of the estate, during the continuance of the minority, devolved to the superior without any other charge, besides the maintenance of the minor and the payment of the widow's dower, when there happened to be a dowager upon the land. When the minor came to be of age, another tax, called Relief, was still due to the superior, which generally amounted likewise to a year's rent. A long minority (which in the present times so frequently disburdens a great estate of all its incumbrances, and restores the family to their ancient splendour) could in those times have no such effect. The waste, and not the disincumbrance of the estate, was the common effect of a long minority.1

By the feudal law, the vassal could not alienate without the consent of his superior, who generally extorted a fine or composition for granting it. This fine, which was at first arbitrary, came in many countries to be regulated at a certain portion of the price of the land. In some countries, where the greater part of the other feudal

ported to have been the fathers of modern finance. But there is a further reason for the variability of the tax. Had a high rate been levied on relations in the ascending or descending line, a direct stimulus would have been given to donationes inter rivos.

Pitt could not persuade the landowners, who were of course absolute in the Houses of Parliament, into extending the probate and legacy duty to their own estates. Hence land or real property was exempted from these Acts. In 1853, however, landed estate was made liable to a moderate succession duty. It is not liable to probate duty, and the legatee or successor does not pay on the value of the estate which he inherits, but on a calculation of the time during which, at his age, he is likely to enjoy the estate. The unfairness of this exemption from public burdens has been often severely commented on.

For the incidents by which the estates of military tenants were affected, see

Blackstone's first book, and Gilbert's Feudal Tenures. During the Protectorate, a land-tax was substituted in place of these incidents. At the Restoration, the Court of Wards and Liveries was revised, as it had not been abolished by any legal statute. The inconvenience, however, of this court was so great that Parliament resolved to convert military service into common socage. But it did not emancipate the copyholders, and instead of assessing a land tax on the military tenants, equal in amount to the average receipts of the Exchequer from this service, it compensated the Crown for its loss of revenue by imposing the excise on the general public.

2 By the statute Quia emptores, 18th Edw. I, the tenants of a manor could alienate without the consent of their

superior lord. It is generally alleged

that this enactment was made in order to prevent subinfeudation, the statute declaring that the alienee should hold of