596 LETTERS ON POLITICS

sixpenny-worth on occasion. And the whole nation, and all European nations, are precisely in this respect acting as rationally as an individual would do, who disliking, as it is natural for all men to dislike, to pay his rent on quarter day, should go to his landlord and say, “Sir, it is painful to my feelings to pay my rent in this straightforward and visible manner. If you could conveniently let your steward watch at my house door, and make my cook pay him so much a pound on all the meat that comes into the house, it would be much pleasanter for me, and I would pay the steward for his extra trouble.” And thus we must have our taxes, as nervous people have their teeth, extracted under chloroform, and a kind of chloroform too, which is expensive, and infinitely hurts our constitution; for the whole array of customs executive is not only a useless expense, but grievously injurious to the operations of commerce.

§ 5. The minds of nations are confused, on this subject, between the two uses of import duties, for purposes of revenue, and purposes of protection. As far as regards the revenue, I believe that the mass of the people might in time be brought to understand that direct taxation was always the lightest possible taxation; but in parlimentary debate the interests of classes dependent on some particular national produce confuse the plain question, and the selfish cunning of a few, aided by the simplicity of the many, prevents its solution. Let it be clearly understood, that for all purposes of revenue, direct taxation is the best, and then discuss the various questions of protection on their own proper basis, and we should soon begin to perceive that if the genius of the people and nature of the country be adapted to a particular produce, protection of that produce is useless; and if not, ridiculous. It would be useless to protect the manufacture of tea in China, and absurd to protect that of wine in England, and all protection by import duties is in like manner, in degrees more or less marked, either absurd or useless as regards the branch of industry

[Version 0.04: March 2008]