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to cultivate an exact acquaintance with their own dfairs ; many vexatious and burdensome taxes would be euperseded ; consumption , and consequently production , would be extended ; the wealthier classes would become the most active guardians of integrity and economy in the affairs of the nation ; the interests of the poorer classes , which are those of industry , of the springs of wealth , and of the greatest number , would be cared fi ) r in a manner more befitting justice and their intrinsic importance ; the greatest numbers of
the people , and the classes now the most dangerous , would become interested in the maintenance of the Government , and so afford the wealthy classes a degree of security they have never yet enjoyed , and perhaps never can enjoy by any other means . To these reasons , and to others which are the converse of those given for rejecting the other bases of taxation , there follow ^ a short chapter of points of contrast between a tax on income and one on capital ; for the most part , these contrasts are perfectly just , and they are all excellently expressed .
It will be seen at once that these reasons for preferring a tax on property apply in their full force chiefly to France , not , however , without having weight and significance here also , if we allow for some errors of principle and some difference of circumstances . They are , moreover , of a kind to carry conviction to many minds which prefer a proof of probability of advantage in practice to the stricter method of deduction from the nature of the case which we have followed in our former articles . We therefore gladly add these views to those we have ourselves propounded , although on several points we can hardly concur with our talented author . Nor are we the less willing to express our estimation of the great general value of this part of his investigations , from our having in all candour to state some differences , and to sustain them .
On the points which thus call for discussion , it will be seen that M . E . de Girardin has been chiefly influenced by that looking to Government for help , indemnity , and control in all the affairs of life , which has grown up in France with ages of centralized bureaucracy . M . E . de Girardin , regretting the idleness of much capital , encouraged , as he thinks , by the existing taxation , says that under a tax on property , " capital would be condemned to a forced activity , " ( page 190 , ) for it would then have to realize a satisfactory return beyond the tax on it . But , without staying to show that it is
not now the capital which is idle , but the capitalist , and that this distinction materially affects the argument , it is more important to remark that it is no part of the business of a Government to force capital either to idleness or activity . Probably , indeed , under more j ust taxation , capitalists would be pressed by a necessity for personal care and diligence which they do not now feel , and if it were so , they , as well as society in general , would be gainers by the change in every view ; but it is not for Government designedly to thrust on them
as a special class either the risks or the advantages of that or any other stato of things . To admit the right of Government to control capital for the advantage of labour , is to admit also its right to control labour for the advantage of capital ; and the end of such a course can onl y be the delegation of all the powers of society , as well as the custody and direction of individual energies to the Government , to the destruction of individual care , foresight , and vigour , and of all the consequences on human character , contentment , and progress ,
which they alone can insure . If" a Government profess to force- cap ital or capitalists into a particular mode of action , no mutter how advantageous , it will commonly excite resistance , or it will 1 )<> defeated by evasion , or counteracted by remote consoquonees of its measures manifesting themselves in unexpected quarters . Hut if that Government content itself with removing the obstructions former legislation 1 > ad put in the way of industry , of individual action , and of improved modes of association , and with cautiously , firmly , and impartially administering justice- and protection to all classes in matters of taxation as well
5 m all beside , then capital and capitalists , labour and labourers , will alwaiys find their true best places in the nodal system , according to the requirements and intolli tfcnco of the times . Wo undoubtedly do greatly want bettor modus of association ; but they are neither to be discovered nor applied by Governments . JV 1 . de Girar' Kn himself Buys , admirably , ( page : *()(> , ) in Franco "libert y will not cm tor profoundly inl . o ideas and nian"t'rs , until centralization shall have ; ( teased to create- a uittion of functionaries in the- midst of a people of
taxpiiyoi-H . " These romurks will supply the key to any objection !! w « havo to urnko to tho plans of our author ; which plans wo now proceed to state . Napoleon said , in 180 l > , when . Franco was larger than tit present , thut COO millions of fnmoa per annum
( twenty-four millions sterling ) ought to be a sufficient amount of taxes in time of peace ( page 283 ) ; and this was about the extent of the expenditure before 1789 . The revenue is now about fifty-five millions sterling ; and M . de Girardin proposes to reduce it to the old standard . He insists on the possibility and the justice of this reduction . Our author wishes to make taxation voluntary . We can hardly understand this phrase until we remember that in France many matters are supported by taxation and regulated by the state , which in England and the United States are left wholly or in great part to voluntary zeal—religion , charity , science , amusements , &c . M . de Girardin proposes , and we think quite rightly , to relieve the state of all concern with these subjects . But he means also something more , as we shall see .
In many respects Government resembles an insurance against certain evils , and taxation resembles the premium . M . de Girardin pushes this idea so far as to include in the evils against which the insurance is effected , not only violence and wrong , but poverty , fire , inundations , hail , frost , epidemics amongst cattle , and shipwreck ( page 313 ) . This , however , he does , not as a matter involved in the nature of the case , but only as a contrivance of expediency ; and we think it highly requisite to point out the distinction , lest the plans proposed in the remarkable work before us should be supposed to result necessarily from the principle of direct taxation . The author's words are these : —
" The principle of assurance ia only a spring in the machinery of the tax on capital . Assurance fulfils there only the office of the necessary counterpoise ; it is a premium , offered to the sincerity of the tax-payer ' s declaration . The tax-payer haying an interest in diminishing the reputed value of Ms possessions , in order to reduce his tax , what ought to be done ? Seek another interest with an opposite effect , that they may balance each other . " For this purpose , it is proposed not only to take up the trade of assurance , but that of lending on mortgage
and pledge . The right of pre-emption , with an addition of one-tenth to the declared value , is suggested as an additional security for correctness . Moreover , one person wants commercial credit , another social consideration , another to marry one of his children , and so on ; all of which require him to make the best public statements of his circumstances which they permit . It is believed that under such arrangements not five persons in a thousand would be without greater motives to be sincere than to be otherwise . M . de Girardin
thus expects to render taxation in great part voluntary as well a 3 accurate , and to prevent future revolutions by interesting great numbers in the stability of the Government . We need hardly stay to remark that any possible value of these plans , as mere machinery of administration , depends on the question whether other and better cannot be found ; and that , at best , their value in that sense would be far outweighed by the immense evils of so placing all interests in the hands of the Government .
It is proposed also to consolidate the mortgage debts of all the French landowners , and to place the consolidated obligations under charge of the state ; tlie whole to be represented by Government engagements , transferable and irredeemable like the national debt . Tho difference between the interest paid by tho landowner to the state , and that paid by the state to its creditors , would go pro tanto to the relief of tho taxes . That any reflecting man , acquainted with the condition of the landed proprietary of France , and with . the dangers it portends , should be tempted to propose some such plan , is indeed no wonder . It is , however , much more likely that such a device would aggravate the ills of France , merely meanwhile concealing them by change of form , than that it should work that radical euro which France imperatively requires . *
Every person would have his name inscribed in tho books of the state , with all the chief incidents of his life an they occurred , a register available as well for the purposes of private life , as for thti relations of tho individual with tho ( Jovernment . The statistics of every town would be regularly preserved , showing the classes and condition of the inhabitants of each , together with quantity and value of tho lands , vines , < fcc . I tut bow prevent simulations , forgeries , and other frauds Y or bow prevent official currency and sanction to frauds when once effected ? Is society found to need any such labelling of individuals , or can Inut labelling be effected Y We talk of the inquisitiveness of our income-tax ; but what is it to this Y The books of tlio ( Jovernment would either bo , as is probable , one mass of error and fraud ; or if not so , then an
enormous mirror , in which every incident of private life is held up to the general gaze . Every workman would be at liberty to pay as a special assurance one centime for each hour he was m actual employment ( about one penny a-day ) , for which he would be insured against wounds received or infirmities contracted in the pursuit of his calling , as well as against premature death , and some other foreseen evils ; he would also have a right to a retiring pension after 90 , 000 hours of labour- If the rate of payment here required is sufficient to cover the indemnities , then any other agency would be sufficient to manage the organization , and would be better than that of the State . If the payments are not sufficient for the indemnities , then the workmen would be pensioners of the State for the balance—a balance sure to
increase , and equally sure to swallow up the independence and vigour of the workman in the all-controlling , all-dispensing , partially-favouring power of the State . A charge of one centime per diem , about three farthings a-week , to be made for a certificate , which certificate signed by the authorities preparatory to the elections , would testify the legal blamelessness , up to that date , of the person holding it . Surely it cannot be necessary to give every Frenchman a certificate that he is not a thief ?
The right to devise property by will to be abolished . A living person to be at liberty to give away his property under certain restrictions already established by law . The succession to property to be regulated as at present with the following changes only . The widow or widower has now no right to participate in the property of the deceased , if there be children , legitimate or illegitimate , or relations within the twelfth degree ; it is proposed that the survivor should count as one with the children . It is also proposed that the Commune and the State shall together count as another child , and shall part their share equally between them .
The funds thus arising to be employed by the State in the redemption of the national debt , and by the commune—first , in the support of foundlings , the sick , infirm , insane , blind , deaf and dumb , aged , &c . ; next , in paying the debts of the commune ; and afterwards , in the support of institutions of utility , enjoyment , or taste . Every person , other means failing him , to have a resource in the funds of the commune in which he was born .
A principal object [ here is to connect each person with his natal commune , under the title of communembre . But if the ordinary course of human life be examined where it is left free as in En gland and the United States , it will be seen how widely families soon disperse themselves , and , consequently how violent and unnatural must be the force which attaches men artificially to one spot . Moreover , to take a share of every property at death for such purposes is , in fact , a poor rate levied once for all at the end of each man ' s life ; but with this difference , that the shorter the life the heavier tho payment in proportion to the time . What difficulties come of poor laws , even without this aggravation , let English experience testify .
AlHictive punishments , even for the greatest crimes , to be replaced by restraint of residence to the natal commune of the criminal , under bail and guardianship of his family , or of the commune ; the offence to bo registered in his certificate ; . Failing 1 the willingness of these , or of some friend to undertake for him , the offender would bo driven to beg an sisylum , at the exjteriso of the State , in some colony of like characters abroad . Civic degradation follows some offences , and repetition
of a grave crime is punished with transportation . Tho chief reliance for tho effect of punishment is on tho continued residence of the culprit , for a term or for life , amongst those who know his crime . Reduction of expense is one motive to this proposal . We are unwilling to say one word ailver . se to any attempt to supply new principles to our mournfully inenieient systems of punishment , however unlikely we may think the success of this proposal .
Hy these various measures , by giving up the vain attempt to maintain a naval force of the first class , * and by remitting to local authorities , or to voluntary support , tho objects best so provided for , M . K . (\ Girardin calculates that the budget may be reduced to 000 millions of francs , or til millions sterling . That sum , ho says , may be raised by a mto of one half per cent , on the li ! , 000 millions of ( nines , or 4800 millions uterling , of property which some Hay I ' 1 ranee possesses . All mention of those plans of M . < Ie Girardin ' s might perhaps have been omitted , as beyond the limits of tho present discussion , but ( . but the proposing of ( hem is prominently associated with , and mi ^ ht appear to ariso out of , tin ) great principle of taxation on which wo
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* SomoMunc' of this hoi-I . hcohih now'beingcommenced : a Hunk to deal in landed , Government , railway , and other soeuriUoH , Us wiros being pulled i ' roiri behind tho Imperial throne . An iinmoiiHo entublinhmeiit , inventing large Hums in imiiogotiublo HoeuritioH , would bo midicicnlTv certain of failure : it . was hardly necewmry to add to il , t , ho complications tuul corruptions of . an unscrupulous U ovoriimont , struggling for ito lifo .
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* The proseiit activity of tho French naval arsenals and Govorinnoul . dockyards shows that , this parl > of M . 10 . < lo ( jiirurdim ' a plaua linda no favour with tho present Government .
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December 4 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1161
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 4, 1852, page 1161, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1963/page/13/
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