(4.v.6) Where land has, however, been converted into private property, without making rentin a peculiar manner answerable for the public expenses; where it has been bought and sold uponsuch terms, and the expectations of individuals have been adjusted to that order of things, rent ofland could not be taken to supply exclusively the wants of the government, without injustice. Itwould be partial and unequal taxation; laying the burden of the state upon one set of individuals,and exempting the rest. It is a measure, therefore, never to be thought of by any government,which would regulate its proceedings by the principles of justice.
(4.v.7) That rent, which is bought and sold, however; that rent, upon which the expectationsof individuals are founded, and which, therefore, ought to be exempt from any peculiar tax, is thepresent rent; or at most the present, with the reasonable prospect of improvement. Beyond this,no man's speculations, either in making a purchase, or in making provision for a family, areentitled to extend. Suppose, now, that, in these circumstances, it were in the power of thelegislature, by an act of its own, all other things remaining the same, to double that portion of theproduce of the land which is strictly and properly rent: there would be no reason, in point ofjustice, why the legislature should not, and great reason, in point of expediency, why it should,avail itself of this, its own power, in behalf of the state; should devote as much as might berequisite of this new fund to defray the expenses of the government, and exempt the people. Noinjury would be done to the original land-owner. His rent, such as he had enjoyed it, and to agreat degree such even as he bad expected to enjoy it, would remain the same. A great advantagewould at the same time accrue to every individual in the community, by exemption from thosecontributions for the expense of the government, to which he would otherwise have had tosubmit.
(4.v.8) The legislature may, without any straining of language, be said to possess that power,which I have now spoken of only as a fiction. By all those measures which increase the amountof population and the demand for food, the legislature does as certainly increase the net produceof the land, as if it had the power of doing so by a miraculous act. That it does so by a gradualprogress in the real, would do so by an immediate operation in the imaginary case, makes nodifference with regard to the result. The original rent, which belonged to the owner, that uponwhich he regulated his purchase, if he did purchase, and on which alone, if he had a family toprovide for, his arrangements in their favour were to he framed, is easily distinguishable fromany addition capable of being made to the net produce of the land, whether it be made by a slowor a sudden process. If an addition made by the sudden process might, without injustice to theowner, be appropriated to the purposes of the state, no reason can be assigned why an additionby the slow process might not be so appropriated.
(4.v.9) It is certain, that, as population increases, and as capital is applied with less and lessproductive power to the land, a greater and a greater share of the whole of the net produce of thecountry accrues as rent, while the profits of stock proportionally decrease. This continualincrease, arising from the circumstances of the community, and from nothing in which thelandholders themselves have any peculiar share, does seem a fund no less peculiarly fitted forappropriation to the purposes of the state, than the whole of the rent in a country where land hadnever been appropriated. While the original rent of the landholder, that upon which alone all hisarrangements, with respect both to himself, and his family, must be framed, is secured from anypeculiar burden, he can have no reason to complain, should a new source of income, which costhim nothing, be appropriated to the service of the state; and if so, it evidently makes nodifference to the merits of the case, whether this new source is found upon the land, or found anywhere else.
(4.v.10) If we assume with Mr. M'Culloch, (see a very masterly article on Taxation in theSupplement to the Encyc. Britan. p. 617) that the whole of what the land can ever yield, isconferred, in the case supposed, on the owner of the land, by the previous legislation, there is anend of the question; for it is impossible for any one to express a more decided opinion, than Ientertain, against partial taxation; against imposing burthens upon the property of any one classmore than upon the property of another class. The real question is, whether any thing beyond acertain amount of annual benefit, namely, what is at present derived, with such increase as canhe rationally anticipated within the number of years' purchase for which the land would sell, can,in a really equitable, excluding a merely technical, mode of considering the subject, be regardedas the property of the land-owner. The considerations, which I have adduced, seem to me toestablish, that no point of utility would be violated by such a restriction of the meaning of theterm as I have proposed.
(4.v.11) I utterly disallow the parallelism of the case of capital, which Mr. M'Culloch hasadduced; as if because increased profits of stock ought not to be exclusively taxed, therefore therent, which accrues in the manner above supposed, could not be justly appropriated to theservice of the state. Nobody is more aware of the fundamental differences between profits ofstock and rent of land than Mr. M'Culloch: it is, therefore, the more surprising that he shouldhave founded his argument on an agreement between them, which does not exist.
