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Leader (1850-1860), 27th November 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 1139

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      It does not appear from M . E . de Girardin , what is the rate of this tax per acre ; but it seems to vary as the land is classed . 2 Reg istration and Stamps . L'enregistrement et f ' nbre Here are two taxes ; one on successions is t * ed as to its nature , to the times of the Roman emors ' - the other is founded on the registi-ation of transactions affecting landed property , which was commenced under Francis I- The National Assembly , in 1 V 9 O pressed by financial necessities , converted that eo-ister into a means of taxation . Every transaction nays when reg istered , according to a tariff , of which soine of the items are as follows : — Per cent .

      On transmission of property by titre onereux . 6-05 Additional for every year of a lease .... 0 20 On loans and debts secured on the property . 1 * 10 On transmission by titre gratuit 2-00 &c , &c . To noticeonly one effect of this tariff : whoever buys land with a view to selling it again , must give for it 13 per cent , less than its value , to cover the tax on the two transactions . The situation of real property in France , taken in the gross , seems to be as follows : —

      The debts registered as secured on real property are , in number , 5 , 100 , 000 ; their amount is 452 , 000 , 000 / ., to which is to be added 50 , 000 , 000 ? . of eventual debts , making the whole burden of mortgage 502 , 000 , 000 / . The sales of real property amount to 55 , 280 , 000 / . per annum , and every year the loans or debts newly registered reach to 20 , 272 , 000 / . The interest on the registered incumbrances was , in 1840 , 23 , 449 , 360 / ., and is probably , now much more , while the income from the property , perhaps taken as rent without proceeds of labour , was then officially estimated at 63 , 223 , 880 / . The taxes paid by this property are stated by M . E . de Girardin to amount to 16 , 360 , 000 / . of direct and 14 , 000 , 000 / . of indirect contributions . The annual coast of documents connected with titles

      to land and incumbrances affecting it is said to be 4 , 000 , 000 / . Of the 5 , 100 , 000 registered , debts , 250 , 000 are for 12 / . and under , the obligation remaining commonly not longer than two years . This cost of registration and discharge of a debt of 12 / ., is about 11 . 4 s . So that if the debt be paid in one year nearly 10 per cent , if in two years 5 per cent , is added to the interest by this tax . Those figures afford the following startling computation : — Interest on debts on real property , probably by this time .... " ... £ 24 , 000 , 000 Taxes paid , by real property 30 , 360 , 000 Cost of deeds and official acts , per annum 4 , 000 , 000 Total of the burthens on real property . 58 , 300 , 000 Incomo derived from real property . . 03 , 223 , 880 Ualanco of revenue remaining in the hands of tho ostensible owners ; equal to one thirteenth of tho whole . . . £ 4 , 803 , 880 ' It thus appears that the apparent arc not tho effective proprietors of tho soil of Franco ; the ostensible owners are , on the average , in no position better than that of occupiers by sufferance of creditors ; and if this be their average position , it is clear that many amongst them must be in that desperate condition which welcomes any change . VVhether this condition lias arisen from injudicious and severe taxation , from other errors of government , or from causes which no government can control , the French people have been mo taught to look to government for every thing , that they will expi'ofc from it alone any effectual deliverance from this exasperating bondage of debt ; and wo may conclude that the " em of revolutions is not closed , " unless the present or the next succeeding government of France K Jioul ( l be able to outrun , with magic speed , the inipatienee which awaits that deliverance . Mounwhilo a population ho circumstanced is evidently in that state of chronic excitability which may either be depressed to ! ll ) jec ( , submission and gloomy weakness , or exalted to < l desperation under which it may precipitate itself ' " , lessl y on any object pointed out , to it by its leaders r '" etime . I )' Empire , e ' est lit . paix , however desira' e , may possibly not prove practicable in presence of l 'lut ' -stianfoiitiinn ' . "_ « o ught to add that the system of registration as varritul into effect in France , "is such according to the u vo \ val of lawyers , that in buying one is never wire of ) 01 I 1 g a proprietor , in paying one is never sure of being u (!( l <> f the debt , and in lending one itf never Mire of ll 0 "' tf paid again . " ' "hn taxes on persons and inooeablcs . Jin / tot Pvrmune / . « t mobi / ier . —Tho personal tax is tho value of ' ''• • ' () days WOrl { , aH determined by the council-general ? . . ' 'lopartnuml ; . All persons gaining or able to gain 1 1 <( ' own livelihood are liable to it , some clauses ex-<; <> I > l

      apartments a person occupies , and is in common cases about one per cent , of that rent . These two taxes are collected together . The latest statement is of the date of 1835 , when 6 , 009 , 420 persons paid them , of whom 4 , 707 , 069 were rated at four shillings and under . But in many places such difficulty is found , in the present state of France , in realizing even rates of half that amount , that large cities have obtained permission to add the gros s sum due from it for these taxes to its

      octroi , and so to free the inhabitants singly from them . 4 . The tax on doors and windows . Impot des portes etfenetres . This tax , imitated from England , is imposed at the rate of about 3 ^ . for each opening . We only stay to remark that " almost half the habitations existing in France have one door , without a window , or only one door and one window . " " Such habitations , " M . de Girardin very justly adds , " are not houses , they are huts . "

      5 . Tax on drinkables . TmpSt sur les boissons . —No less than sixteen different charges , including that on the soil , apply to wine , or may be made to apply to it , in its progress to a consumer , within the boundaries of a city : the consequence is , such an augmentation of the price of the lower qualities as seriously to interfere with the consumption , and with the comforts of the working population . Wine , which has cost in the department of the Yonne , no more than S \ d . per gallon , is raised , by successive imposts alone , without either cost of carriage or profits on the sums advanced for imposts , to 3 s . 2 d . per gallon , before it reaches the artizan of Paris .

      It is not necessary to retrace here , in detail , the well-known consequences of excessive imposts . The following facts will suffice . The cost of collection of the tax on wines is now twenty—under Napoleon it reached nearly to thirty per cent . This impost has ever been amongst the most unpopular and vexatious of taxes ; accordingly , every successive French Government , while struggling into power , has abolished it , or promised its abolition ; but every

      one has left it as bad or worse than before . The Constituent Assembly , in 1790 , condemned it ; the Comte D'Artois , in 1814 , promised to abrogate it ; Bonaparte , in 1815 , took up the same popular device , but did not fulfil his word , and afterwards attributed his fall to the fact , that the consequent discontent of the wine countries of the South compelled him to turn his military efforts to the North , where he met his fate . The Restoration re-established these taxes , under a new name . The Constituent Assembly abolished them , in May , 1849 , but re-established them before the end of the

      year . To similar purpose we might pursue the changes of system . Up to 1790 wine was taxed in the hands of the grower , whose stock seems to have been subject to a kind of excise , under check of an inventory . Then the tax was abolished ; afterwards it was set up again , but to restore the inventory was found impossible ; so the pressure of the tax was removed to the dealers ; but then , much wine going to consumption without going to dealers , a tax was laid on it in transit ; then this was

      found difficult , and was repeatedly varied ; then a tax of one-twentieth of the price was laid on it at every sale , but this soon became intolerable ; the last and the existing device is a tax on its circulation , regulated according to the local price of wine , that is highest at the greatest distance from the place of growth . The present taxes 011 the wine itself seem to amount to nearly one shilling per gallon , besides licenses , and the various expenses of a system which so crosses , at every step , the courses of industry .

      The wine districts seem to be the poorest , and most embarrassed in the country ; the-consumption of wine in Paris , proportionately to the population , diminishes ; and . smuggling , that sure companion of heavy , indirect taxation , flourishes , tho only profitable result of the wine duties of France . M . 10 . de ( iinirdin estimates that , since 181 . 5 , tho injury to French interests from these duties cannot be taken at less than eighty-eight millions sterling , or more than two invasions cost the country .

      The duties on goods entering towns and . cdie . i for consumption . . // Octroi . This was originally / . ' octroi de bienjaisauce f he grant , of benevolence- a contribution for charitable purposes , apparently intended to operate as a kind of j ) oor-rate Its depravation to an instrument of most injudicious local taxation ( for real charity linn long left it ) is a memorable comment on the mistake of putting charity on tho false footing of involuntary contribution . From thin local tax , most unequal in different cities , and most extravagant in its cost of management , the government , takes a tenth , under fillo of deei . tne . de . guerre , and that after ho many yean ; of peace . This tenth seems to have originated in the practice of towns through which soldiers passed finding thorn bread for their soup ; thin , converted into a binding usage and ( hen into a tax , exactly renemblea

      in its history many imposts in India , some of which are in their origin and progress both curious and instructive . A government ( there being no control above it ) , will always , when it can , convert a benevolence into a custom , and a custom into a tax . From having been intended as a benevolence , the octroi ( the very meaning of its name popularly forgotten ) has been made to impoverish the poor , by raising the cost of their needful food . Its oppressions have been bitterly complained of ; its bureaux have been burnt . But the financial confusion of France has ever encouraged it to raise its head higher than before . M . E . dc Girardin says , " The suppression of the octroi is the first stone , the fall of which will be followed by the collapse of the entire financial system of France . Happy day /'

      Of the tax on trades ( patentes ) , the tax on salt , and the customs , we say nothing more than that they bear in France their usual fruits . Frotectionist theories still cover a respectable though unsound advocacy of a most injurious system of customs' duties ; but it is difficult to imagine by what fallacy beyond a discreditable allegation of necessity , the internal taxes we have just mentioned can still be defended . The lessons most strongly impressed on us by this brief review of the fiscal condition of France , are the

      vastness of the evils of indirect taxation , and the hopelessness of any effectual leform until some principle shall be adopted , simple , clear , and just enough to obtain universal sanction , and to bring every detail into practical conformity with it . Personal revolutions , and even constitutional changes , can do nothing for tho permanent peace of France , so long as the greater part of her population have reason to deem the law an exactor , governed by no intelligible principle , and restrained by no regard for the maxims of morality and prudence which control through conscience the business

      of private life . The true objects of all government are of infinitely higher moment than the mere incidental cost of accomplishing them ; and to raise from the people , by just partition , the funds required by that incidental cost , ought surely to be one of the least complicated of public affairs ; but in most countries , and more than any , perhaps , in France , it seems to be that for which , above all things , the Government exists , —its greatest , most difficult , and most odious task , one of the chief evils the exhausted people have to bear . The views and plans of M . E . do Girardin , in reference to taxation , will be discussed in our next .

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      ON THE CULTIVATION OF FLAX . No . IX . —Conclusion . * Mr . Doni . an ' s executrix , taking advantage of the law by which inventors are allowed a delay of six months for the publication of specifications , still withholds tho particulars of the " dry process , " and we cannot , therefore , conclude our present series with a full development of the plan . We are , however , well persuaded that ere long we shall have to revert to this peculiar mode of extracting the -flax-fibre , as recent experiments

      have completely proved our position , that in throwing aside the woody portion of tho plant , flic growers wore sacrificing very valuable constituents for the formation of flesh . Indeed , the question has now assumed such a form , that , whether the process of tho late Mr . Donlan be or bo not adopted , wo are satisfied that the "dry process" must ultimately triumph . We are not at liberty at this moment to enter fully info the details of an analysis recently made , but our readers may rely upon the following general result .

      Taking good meadow hay as a standard by winch to judge of the qualifications of the ( lax-plant ,, divested only of its fibre by a dry process of extraction , we find that flax-seed excels hay in flesh-making properties by about seventy-five percent ., and in fat />// ne < crfgseventeen limes its value , while it is but little inferior to hay in qualities contributing to the sustenance of animal heat . Tho husks or capsules of the linseed are si ill richer in flesh-making properties , and exceed linseed us a combustible , but contain no fat whatever . The pith or wood of the dax-plant contains about three times as much jleslt . as is con / Mined in an equal weight of hat ] , within a fraction as much combustible , l > u ( , no fat . A

      discovery no less important is , that Has , in reality , robs the soil of considerably less salts than either hay or wheat en straw , thus entirely upsetting tho doctrine of its exhaustive nature . The conclusions to bo derived from the various analyses are , that whilst flax-seed , husks , and pith an ; less able to support animal warmth than bay , tho fattening property of the first and tho flesh-iimlting of the second and third , arc , very much superior . Now , as , when combustibles prove deficient in animal food , the fn ! first and the Mesh lastly falls a . sacrifice , it will follow that a combination of linseed , husks , and pith , . since they suffice to fulfil all tho 0 . 011-* . Soo Leader , JMom . IK > , 1112 , IK * , J M-, 11 T > , llM , iyo . 11 : 11 .

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      I November 27 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1139

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 27, 1852, page 1139, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1962/page/15/