# The Spirit of Laws (1758)/Book XIII

BOOK XIII. Of the Relation which the levying of Taxes and the Greatness of the public Revenues have to Liberty.
CHAP. I. Of the State Revenues.
Book XIII. Chap. 1.THE revenues of the state are a portion that each subject gives of his property, in order to secure, or to have the agreeable enjoyment of, the remainder.
To fix these revenues in a proper manner, regard should be had both to the necessities of the state and to those of the subject. The real wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the state.
Imaginary wants are those which flow from the passions, and from the weakness of the governors, from the charms of an extraordinary project, from the distempered desire of vain glory, and from a certain impotency of mind incapable of withstanding the attacks of fancy. Often has it happened that ministers of a restless disposition, have imagined that the wants of the state were those of their own little and ignoble souls.
There is nothing requires more wisdom and prudence than the regulation of that portion which is taken from, and of that which is left to, the subject.
​Book XIII. Chap. 2.The public revenues are not to be measured by what the people are able, but by what they ought, to give; and if they are measured by what they are able to give, it ought to be at least by what they are able to give for a constancy.
CHAP. II. That it is bad Reasoning to say that the Greatness of Taxes is good in its own Nature.
THERE have been instances in particular monarchies, of small states exempt from taxes, that have been as miserable as the circumjacent places which groaned under the weight of exactions. The chief reason of this is; that the small state can hardly have any such thing as industry, arts, or manufactures, because in this respect it lies under a thousand restraints from the great state in which it is inclosed. The great state that surrounds it, is blessed with industry, manufactures, and arts; and establishes laws by which those several advantages are procured. The petty state becomes therefore necessarily poor, let it pay ever so few taxes.
And yet some have concluded from the poverty of those petty states, that in order to render the people industrious, they should be loaded with taxes. But it would be a much better conclusion to say that they ought to have no taxes at all. None live here but wretches who retire from the neighbouring parts to avoid working; wretches who disheartened by pain and toil make their whole felicity consist in idleness.
​Book XIII. Chap. 3, & 4.The effect of wealth in a country is to inspire every heart with ambition: the effect of poverty is to give birth to despair. The former is excited by labour, the latter is soothed by indolence.
Nature is just to all mankind; she rewards them for their industry; whilst she renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to the greatness of their labour. But if an arbitrary power deprives people of the recompenses of nature, they fall into a disrelish of industry, and then indolence and inaction seem to be their only happiness.
CHAP. III. Of Taxes in Countries where Part of the People are Villains or Bondmin.
THE state of villainage is sometimes established after a conquest. In that case the bondman or villain that tills the land, ought to have a kind of partnership with his master. Nothing but a communication of loss or profit can reconcile those, who are doomed to labour, with those who are blessed with a state of affluence.
CHAP. IV. Of a Republic in the like Case.
WHEN a republic has reduced a nation to the drudgery of cultivating her lands, she ought never to suffer the free subject to have a power of increasing the tribute of the bondman. This was not permitted at Sparta. Those brave people thought the Helotes would be more industrious in cultivating their lands, upon knowing that their ​Book XIII. Chap. 5, & 6.servitude was not to increase; they imagined likewise that the masters would be better citizens when they desired no more than what they were accustomed to enjoy.
CHAP. V. Of a Monarchy in the like Case.
WHEN the nobles of a monarchical state cause the lands to be cultivated for their own use by a conquered people, they ought never to have a power of increasing the service or tribute. Besides it is right the prince should be satisfied with his own demesne and the military service. But if he wants to raise taxes on the bondmen of his nobility, the lords of the several districts ought to be answerable for the tax, and be obliged to pay it for the bondmen, by whom they may be afterwards reimbursed. But if this rule is not followed, the lord and the collectors of the prince's taxes will harass the poor bondman by turns, till he perishes with misery or flies into the woods.
CHAP. VI. Of a despotic Government in the like Case.
WHAT has been above said, is still more indispensably necessary in a despotic government. The lord who is every moment liable to be dripped of his lands and bondmen, is not so eager to preserve them.
​Book XIII. Chap. 6, & 7.When Peter I. thought proper to follow the custom of Germany, and to demand his taxes in money, he made a very prudent regulation which is still followed in Russia. The gentleman levies the tax on the peasants, and pays it to the Czar. If the number of peasants diminishes, he pays all the same; if it increases, he pays no more: so that it is his interest not to worry or oppress his vassals.
CHAP. VII. Of Taxes in Countries where Villainage is not established.
WHEN the inhabitants of a state are all free subjects, and each man enjoys his property with as much right as the prince his sovereignty, taxes may then be laid either on persons, on lands, on merchandises, on two of these, or on all three together.
In the taxing of persons, it would be an unjust proportion to conform exactly to that of property. At Athens the people were divided into four classes. Those who drew five hundred measures of liquid or dry fruit from their estates, paid a talent to the public; those who drew three hundred measures, paid half a talent; those who had two hundred measures paid ten minæ; those of the fourth class paid nothing at all. The tax was fair, though it was not proportionable: if it did not follow the proportion of people's property, it followed that of their wants. It was judged that every man had an equal want of the necessaries of nature, and that the necessaries of nature ought not ​Book XIII. Chap. 7.to be taxed; that to this succeeded the useful, which ought to be taxed, but less than the superfluous; and that the largeness of the taxes on what was superfluous prevented superfluity.
In the taxing of lands, it is customary to make lists or registers in which the different classes of estates are ranged. But it is very difficult to know these differences, and still more so to find people that are not interested in mistaking them. Here therefore are two sorts of injustice, that of the man and that of the thing. But if in general the tax be not exorbitant, and the people continue to have plenty of necessaries, these particular acts of injustice will do no harm. On the contrary, if the people are permitted to enjoy only just what is necessary for subsistence, the least disproportion will be of the greatest consequence.
If some subjects do not pay enough, the mischief is not so great; their convenience and ease turn always to the public advantage: if some private people pay too much, their ruin redounds to the public detriment. If the government proportions its fortune to that of individuals, the ease and conveniency of the latter will soon make its fortune rise. The whole depends upon a critical moment: shall the state begin with impoverishing the subjects to enrich itself? Or had it better wait to be enriched by its wealthy subjects? Is it more adviseable for it to have the first, or the second advantage? Which shall it chuse, to begin, or to end, with being rich?
The duties felt least by the people are those on merchandize, because they are not demanded of them in form. They may be so prudently managed, that ​Book XIII. Chap. 7.the people themselves shall hardly know they pay them. For this purpose it is of the utmost consequence that the person who sells the merchandize should pay the duty. He is very sensible that he does not pay it for himself; and the consumer who pays it in the main, confounds it with the price. Some authors have observed that Nero had abolished the duty of the five and twentieth part arising from the sale of slaves; and yet he had only ordained that it should be paid by the seller instead of the purchaser: this regulation, which left the impost intire, seemed nevertheless to suppress it.
There are two states in Europe where there are very heavy imports upon liquors; in one the brewer alone pays the duty, in the other it is levied indiscriminately upon all the consumers: in the first no body feels the rigor of the impost, in the second it is looked upon as a grievance. In the former the subject is sensible only of the liberty he has of not paying, in the latter he feels only the necessity that compels him to pay.
Farther, the obliging the consumers to pay, requires a perpetual rummaging and searching into their houses. Now nothing is more contrary than this to liberty; and those who establish these sorts of duties, have not surely been so happy in this respect, as to hit upon the best method of administration.
CHAP. VIII. In what manner the Illusion is preserved.
Book XIII. Chap. 8.IN order to make the purchaser confound the price of the commodity with the impost, there must be some proportion between the impost and the value of the commodity; wherefore there ought not to be an excessive duty upon merchandizes of little value. There are countries in which the duty exceeds seventeen or eighteen times the value of the commodity. In this case the prince removes the illusion: his subjects plainly see they are dealt with in an unreasonable manner; which renders them most exquisitely sensible of their slavish situation.
Besides the prince to be able to levy a duty so disproportioned to the value of the commodity, must be himself the vender, and the people must not have it in their power to purchase it elsewhere: a practice subject to a thousand inconveniencies.
Smuggling being in this case extremely lucrative, the natural and most reasonable penalty, namely, the confiscation of the merchandize, becomes incapable of putting a stop to it, especially as this very merchandize is intrinsically of an inconsiderable value. Recourse must therefore be had to extravagant punishments, such as those inflicted for capital crimes. All proportion then of punishment is at an end. People that cannot really be considered as bad men, are punished like villains; which of all things in the world, is the most contrary to the spirit of a moderate government.
Again, the more the people are tempted to cheat the farmer of the revenues, the more the latter is ​Book XIII. Chap. 9, & 10.enriched, and the former impoverished. To put a stop to smuggling, the farmer must be invested with extraordinary means of oppressing, and then the country is ruined.
CHAP. IX. Of a bad kind of Impost.
WE shall here take some cursory notice of an impost laid in particular countries on the different articles of civil contracts. As these are things subject to very nice disquisitions, a vast deal of knowledge is necessary to make any tolerable defence against the farmer of the revenues, who interprets, in that case, the regulations of the prince, and exercises an arbitrary power over people's fortunes. Experience has demonstrated that a duty on the paper on which the deeds are drawn, would be of far greater service.
CHAP. X. That the Greatness of Taxes depends on the Nature of the Government.
TAXES ought to be very light in despotic governments; otherwise who would be at the trouble of tilling the land? Besides, how is it possible to pay heavy taxes in a government that makes no manner of return to the different contributions of the subject?
The exorbitant power of the prince, and the extreme depression of the people, require that there should not be even a possibility of the least mistake between them. The taxes ought to be so easy ​Book XIII. Chap. 10, & 11.to collect, and so clearly settled, as to leave no opportunity for the collectors to increaie or diminsh them. A portion of the fruits of the earth, a capitation, a ducy of so much per cent, on merchandizes, are the only taxes fuitable to that government.
Merchants in despotic countries ought to have a personal sateguard, to which all due respect should be paid. Without this they would stand no chance in the disputes that might arise between them and the prince s officers.
CHAP. XI. Of fiscal Punishments.
WITH respect to fiscal punishments, there is one thing very particular, that contrary to the general custom, they are more severe in Europe than in Asia. In Europe not only the merchandizes, but even sometimes the ships and carriages are consiscated; which is never practiced in Asia. This is becaufe in Europe the merchant has judges, who are able to shelter him from oppression; in Asia the despotic judges themselves would be the greatest oppressors. What remedy could a merchant have against a bashaw that was determined to confiscate his merchandizes?
The prince therefore restrains his own power, finding himself under a necessity of acting with some kind of lenity. In Turky they raise only a single duty for the importation of goods, and afterwards the whole country is open to the merchant. Smuggling is not attended with confiscation, or increase of duty. In China they ​Book XIII. Chap. 11, & 12.never open the baggage of those who are not merchants. Defrauding the customs in the territory of the Mogul is not punished with confiscation, but with doubling the duty. The princes of Tartary who reside in towns, impose scarce any duty at all on the goods that pass through their country. In Japan, it is true, the defrauding of the customs is a capital crime; but this is because they have particular reasons for prohibiting all communication with foreigners; hence the fraud is rather a contravention of the laws made for the security of the government, than those of commerce.
CHAP. XII. Relation between the Greatness of Taxes and Liberty.
IT is a general rule, that taxes may be heavier in proportion to the liberty of the subject, and that there is a necessity for reducing them in proportion to the increase of slavery. This has always been and always will be the case. It is a rule derived from nature that never varies. We find it in all parts, in England, in Holland, and in every state where liberty gradually declines till we come to Turky. Swisserland seems to be an exception to this rule, because they pay no taxes; but the particular reason for that exemption is well ​Book XIII. Chap. 12.known, and even confirms what I have advanced. In those barren mountains provisions are so dear, and the country is so populous, that a Swiss pays four times more to nature, than a Turk does to the Sultan.
A conquering people, such as were formerly the Athenians and the Romans, may rid themselves of all taxes, as they reign over vanquished nations. Then indeed they do not pay in proportion to their liberty, because in this respect they are no longer a people, but a monarch.
But the general rule still holds good. In moderate governments there is an indemnity for the weight of the taxes, which is liberty. In despotic countries there is an equivalent for liberty, which is the lightness of the taxes.
In some monarchies in Europe, there are particular provinces, which from the very nature of their civil government are in a more flourishing condition than the rest. It is pretended that these provinces are not sufficiently taxed, because through the goodness of their government they are able to be taxed higher: hence the ministers seem constantly to aim at depriving them of this very government, from whence a diffusive blessing is derived; a blessing which spreads its influence to distant parts, and redounds even to the prince's advantage.
CHAP. XIII. In what Governments Taxes are capable of Increase.
Book XIII. Chap, 13, & 14.TAXES may be increased in most republics, because the citizen, who thinks he is paying himself, willingly submits to them, and moreover is generally able to bear their weight through an effect of the nature of the government.
In a monarchy taxes may be increased, because the moderation of the government is capable of procuring riches: it is a recompence, as it were, of the prince for the respect he shews to the laws. In despotic governments they cannot be increased, because there can be no increase of the extremity of slavery.
CHAP. XIV. That the Nature of the Taxes is relative to the Government.
A CAPITATION is more natural to slavery; a duty on merchandizes is more natural to liberty, because it has not so direct a relation to the person.
It is natural in a despotic government for the prince not to give money to his soldiers, or to those belonging to his court; but to distribute lands amongst them, and of course that there should be very few taxes. But if the prince gives money, the most natural tax he can raise, is a capitation, which can never be considerable. For as it is impossible to make different classes of the contributors, because of the abuses that might arise from ​Book XIII. Chap, 14, & 15.thence, considering the injustice and violence of the government, they are under an absolute necessity of regulating themselves by the rate of what even the poorest and most wretched are able to pay.
The natural tax of moderate governments, is the duty laid on merchandizes. As this is really paid by the consumer, though advanced by the merchant, it is a loan which the merchant has already made to the consumer. Hence the merchant must be considered on the one side, as the general debtor of the state, and on the other as the creditor of every individual. He advances to the state, the duty which the consumer will some time or other refund, and he has paid for the consumer the duty which he has paid for the merchandize. It is therefore obvious that in proportion to the moderation of the government, to the prevalence of the spirit of liberty, and to the security of private fortunes, the more a merchant has it in his power to advance money to the state, and to pay considerable duties for individuals. In England a merchant lends really to the government fifty or sixty pounds sterling for every tun of wine he imports. Where is the merchant that would dare do any such thing in a country like Turky? And were he so presumptuous, how could he do it with a dubious or shattered fortune?
CHAP. XV. Abuse of Liberty.
TO these great advantages of liberty it is owing that liberty itself has been abused. ​Book XIII. Chap. 13.Because a moderate government has been productive of admirable effects, this moderation has been laid aside: because great taxes have been raised, they wanted to raise them to excess: and ungrateful to the hand of liberty of whom they received this present, they addressed themselves to slavery who never grants the least favor.
Liberty produces excessive taxes; the effect of excessive taxes is slavery; and slavery produces a diminution of tribute.
Most of the edicts of the eastern monarchs are to exempt every year some province of their empire from paying tribute. The manifestations of their will are favors. But in Europe the edicts of princes are disagreeable even before they are seen, because they always make mention of their own wants, but not a word of ours.
From an unpardonable indolence in the ministers of those countries, owing to the nature of the government, and frequently to the climate, the people derive this advantage, that they are not incessantly plagued with new demands. The public expence does not increase, because the ministers do not form new projects; and if some by chance are formed, they are such as are soon executed. The governors of the state do not perpetually torment the people, because they do nor perpetually torment themselves. But it is impossible there should be any fixed rule in our finances, because we always know that we shall have something or other to do, without ever knowing what it is.
It is no longer customary with us to give the ​Book XIII. Chap. 16, & 17.appellation of a great minister to a wise dispenser of the public revenues; but to a person of dexterity and cunning, who is clever at finding out what we call the ways and means.
CHAP. XVI. Of the Conquests of the Mahometans.
IT was this excess of taxes that occasioned the prodigious facility with which the Mahometans carried on their conquests. Instead of a continual series of extortions devised by the subtle avarice of the emperors, the people were subjected to a simple tribute, which was paid and collected with ease. Thus they were far happier in obeying a barbarous nation, than a corrupt government, in which they suffered every inconveniency of a lost liberty, with all the horrors of a present slavery.
CHAP. XVII. Of the Augmentation of Troops.
ANEW distemper has spread itself over Europe; it has infected our princes, and induces them to keep up an exorbitant number of troops. It has its redoublings, and of necessity becomes contagious. For as soon as one prince augments what he calls his troops, the rest of course do the same; so that nothing is gained thereby but the public ruin. Each monarch keeps as many armies on foot as if his people were in ​Book XIII. Chap. 17, & 18.danger of being exterminated, and they gave the name of peace to this general effort of all against all. Thus Europe is ruined to that degree, that were private people to be in the same situation as the three most opulent powers of this part of the world, they would not have necessary subsistence. We are poor with the riches and commerce of the whole universe; and soon, by thus augmenting our troops, we shall have nothing but soldiers, and be reduced to the very same situation as the Tartars.
Great princes not satisfied with hiring or buying troops of petty states, make it their business on all sides to pay subsidies for alliances, that is, almost generally, to throw away their money.
The consequence of such a situation is the perpetual augmentation of taxes; and the mischief which prevents all future remedy, is that they reckon no more upon their revenues, but go to war with their whole capital. It is no unusual thing to see governments mortgage their funds even in time of peace, and to employ what they call extraordinary means to ruin themselves; means so extraordinary indeed, that such are hardly thought on by the most extravagant young spendthrist.
CHAP. XVIII. Of an Exemption from Taxes.
THE maxim of the great eastern empires of exempting such provinces, as have very ​Book XIII. Chap. 18, & 19.much suffered, from taxes, ought to be extended to monarchical states. There are some indeed where this maxim is established; yet the country is more oppressed than if no such rule took place; because as the prince levies still neither more nor less, the state becomes bound for the whole. In order to ease a village that pays badly, they load another that pays better; the former is not relieved, and the latter is ruined. The people grow desperate between the necessity of paying, for fear of exactions; and the danger of paying, for fear of new charges.
A well regulated government ought to set aside for the first article of its expence a determinate sum for contingent cases. It is with the public as with individuals, who are ruined when they live up exactly to their income.
With regard to an obligation for the whole amongst the inhabitants of the same village, some pretend, that it is but reasonable, because there is a possibility of a fraudulent combination on their side: but who ever heard that upon mere suppositions we are to establish a thing in itself unjust and ruinous to the state?
CHAP. XIX. Which is most suitable to the Prince and to the People, the letting out to farm, or the Administration of the Revenues?
THE administration of the revenues is like the conduct of a good father of a family, ​Book XIII. Chap. 19.who collects his own rents himself with œconomy and order.
By the administration of the revenues the prince is at liberty to press or to retard the levy of the taxes, either according to his own wants, or to those of his people. By this he saves to the state the immense profits of the farmers, who impoverish it a thousand ways. By this he spares the people the mortifying fight of sudden fortunes. By this the money collected passes through few hands, goes directly to the treasury, and consequently makes a quicker return to the people. By this the prince avoids an infinite number of bad laws extorted from him continually by the importunate avarice of the farmers, who pretend to offer a present advantage for regulations pernicious to posterity.
As the moneyed man is always the most powerful, the farmer renders himself arbitrary even over the prince himself; he is not the legislator, but he obliges the legislator to give laws.
In republics, the revenues of the state are generally under administration. The contrary practice was a great defect in the Roman government. In despotic governments, the people are infinitely happier where this administration is established; witness Persia and China. The unhappiest of all are those where the prince farms out his sea ports and trading cities. The history of monarchies ​Book XIII. Chpa. 19, & 20.abounds with mischiefs done by the farmers of the revenues.
Nero incensed at the oppressive extortions of the publicans, formed a magnanimous but impossible project of abolishing all kinds of imposts. He did not think of an administration of the revenues, but made four edicts; that the laws enacted against publicans, which had hitherto been kept secret, should be made public; that they should not pretend to any thing which they had omitted to demand in the term of a year; that there should be a prætor established to judge their pretensions without any formality; and that the merchants should pay no duty for their vessels. These were the bright days of that emperor.
CHAP. XX. Of the Farmers of the Revenues.
ALL is lost when the lucrative profession of farmers becomes likewise, by means of the riches with which it is attended, a post of honor. This may do well enough in despotic states, where their employment is oftentimes a part of the functions of the governors themselves. But it is by no means proper in a republic; since a custom of the like nature destroyed the republic of Rome. Nor is it better in monarchies; nothing being more opposite to the spirit of this government. All the other orders of the state are dissatisfied; honor loses its whole value; the slow and natural means of distinction are no longer regarded; and the very principle of the government is subvetted.
​Book XIII. Chap. 20.It is true indeed that scandalous fortunes were raised in former times; but this was one of the calamities of the fifty years war. These riches were then considered as ridiculous; now we admire them.
Every profession has its particular lot. The lot of those who levy the taxes is wealth, and the recompence of wealth is wealth itself. Glory and honor fall to the share of that nobility who neither know, see, nor feel any other happiness than honor and glory. Respect and esteem are for those ministers and magistrates, whose whole life is a continued succession of labour, and who watch day and night over the happiness of the empire.
* ↑ Plutarch.
* ↑ This is what induced Charlemagne to make his excellent institutions upon this head. See the 5th book of the Capitularies, art. 303.
* ↑ This is th practice in Germany.
* ↑ Pollux book 8. chap. 10. art. 130.
* ↑ Or 60 minæ.
* ↑ Vectigal quintæ vicesinue venalium mancipiorum remissum specie magis quam vi, quia cum vnditor pendere jubcretur, in partem pretii emptoribus accrescebat. Tacit. Annal. lib. 13.
* ↑ Father du Halde, Tom. 2. p. 37.
* ↑ History of the Tartars, part 3d. p. 290.
* ↑ Being willing to trade with foreigners without having any communication with them, they have pitched upon two nations for that purpose, the Dutch for the commerce of Europe, and the Chinese for that of Asia; they confine the factors and sailors in a kind of prison, and lay such a restraint upon them as tires their patience.
* ↑ In Russia the tax are but small; they have been increased since the despotic power of the prince is exercised with more moderation. See the History of Tartars, 2d part.
* ↑ The Pas d'etats, where the states of the province assemble to deliberate on public affairs.
* ↑ This is the practice of the Emperors of China.
* ↑ See in history the greatness, the oddity, and even the folly of those taxes. Anaslasius invented a tax for breathing, et quisque pro baustu aeris penderet.
* ↑ True it is that this state of effort is the chief support of the balance, because it checks the great powers.
* ↑ All that is wanting for this, is to improve the new invention of the militia established almost all over Europe, and carry it to the same excess as they do the regular troops.
* ↑ See a Treatise on the Roman Finances, chap. 2. printed at Paris by Briasson, 1740.
* ↑ Gæsar was obliged to remove the publicans from the province of Asia and to establish there another kind of administration, as we learn from Dio; and Tacitus informs us that Macedonia and Achaia, provinces left by Augustus to the people of Rome, and consequently governed pursuant to the ancient plan, obtained to be of the number of those which the emperor governed by his officers.
* ↑ See Sir John Chardin's travels through Persia, Tom, 6.