CHAP. V. On an Apportionment of Taxation according to the Benefits derived from Government VI. On a Tax on the Value of Property PAGE IX. On the Distribution of the Expense of Constructing and Maintaining Roads, Bridges, Canals, Harbours, Light- Houses, and other Guides and Protections to Naviga- We have already seen that objects of wealth are acquired or produced by labour, that such labour is aided by capital, and bestowed either on some raw material which nature furnishes, or on the cultivation of the soil, pasturage, and the like. This labour is applied to appropriate the spontaneous productions of nature, to increase the quantity and improve the quality of those desirable animal and vegetable productions which nature guided by art can yield, to prepare and adapt these productions for our service, and distribute them for use or consumption. In the early periods of society, before the establishment of regular government, when no considerable amount of stock could be accumulated, and no exclusive property in the soil be acquired, there were no such classes as we now have of landlords and capitalists. The whole produce of industry, in consequence, belonged to the labourer who procured it: he being the sole party at all contributing to its acquisition. But in the more advanced stage of society in which we live, large quantities of capital are accumulated, and employed in assisting labour, while its ownership is seldom vested in the workman who employs it, but more commonly in another person. The soil, too, and with it, all the vegetable productions which grow on its surface, and all the minerals which are found beneath it, is appropriated as the exclusive property of particular persons, who demand a rent or payment of some kind from every individual who would use or take anything from it. Land, capital, and labour being essential to production, there are, accordingly, three parties to whom the whole gross produce of industry primarily belongs, and amongst whom its distribution takes place; these are, the owners of land, the capitalists, and the labourers. To one or other of these every member of society belongs, who is not supported either on the bounty or the forced contributions of others. Public functionaries of every kind, the members of learned professions, individuals practising the fine arts, with other like persons, deriving their subsistence from their professional exertions, are comprised in the class of labourers. Each of the parties before named concurring, either by his property or his labour, to the general result, has an equitable right to, and must have his share of, the produce; or, which comes to the same thing, of the worth of that produce. Hence the inquiry as to the proportion that goes to each. These three parties are not always nicely distinguishable. It often happens that the same person possesses at one and the same time, the capacities of landlord, capitalist, and labourer; or of capitalist and labourer. A man who cultivates his own estate with his own capital and personal labour, comes under the first description. A fisherman who employs his own boat and tackle in fishing, comes under the second. In such cases, holding a double or triple capacity, a man takes the whole produce which would otherwise be shared between himself and others; and this being mixed together, what is rent, profits, or wages, is undistinguishable. Our inquiry is as to the portion which is acquired in respect of these capacities, which hold alike, whether the same person possess one or more of them. On the present occasion, we do not inquire into the origin of the right, or the justice of the claim, of either of these parties to the portions which they take. Whether, originally, the land lord may have derived his title to the soil by prior occupation, by violent usurpation, or fraud; or, again, whether the labourer be equitably entitled to possess the whole or any certain portion of the produce which his labour creates; in neither of these cases does the justice, or want of justice, of the title, apply to an inquiry into the circumstances which actually regulate the distribution of the shares amongst the parties. We know that the objects which industry acquires are only really valuable as they conduce to human enjoyment, and that the ultimate end of the sacrifice by which they are acquired is more or less completely attained, according as they contribute more or less to the gratification of the parties to whose use they are allotted. This must depend, not only on the absolute quantity or quality of the things themselves, and their suitableness to the need or wishes of these parties, but also on the degree of equality or inequality in which they are shared by those who contribute to their acquisition. If, then, it be possible to bring about any change in the distribution which actually obtains, the object of such change must be to make some other distribution which may afford a more general or higher gratification. In the former part of this work, in which the circumstances have been considered that affect the acquisition of the objects of industry, there was little occasion to mention the quality or accident of value in these objects; because this quality has no influence in rendering the work of industry either difficult or easy; its produce abundant or scanty, good or bad; or in distributing this produce in such manner as shall be well or ill adapted to the use of the parties to whose wants it ministers. Hitherto we have comprised in our view the interests of the whole community, and considered its members in their double capacity of consumers and producers; whence it was not an object, either to raise or lower the value of the objects created by industry; because as much as such value might be heightened or depressed, and the interests of the producers thus advanced or retarded, the interests of the consumers who had to pay for them would be thereby affected in an opposite direction, and be injured or advanced in an inverse but corresponding measure. The advantages on one side equalling the disadvantages on the other, the interests of the whole could not consequently be thus advanced. But in the part of our subject on which we are about to enter, we consider the interests, not of the whole community, but of its separate classes, and in their single capacity of producers. Hence, the value of the objects produced, as it is to them matter of the first importance, necessarily becomes the subject of our consideration. Accordingly, our subject partakes somewhat of that intricacy and complexity or abstruseness of character which is usually possessed by discussions on value. The parties before spoken of being determined amongst whom the whole produce of industry is divided, we proceed to consider the circumstances which determine the portions that fall to each of them in this division: in other words, to investigate the laws which regulate rent, profits, and wages; beginning with those circumstances which determine the share taken by the landlord for rent. CHAPTER I. OF THE RENT OF LAND. THE material objects that minister to the wants and wishes of mankind are all comprised in one or other of the three grand divisions of nature-the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. In the animal kingdom every individual is supported either directly or indirectly by the produce of the land; in the vegetable kingdom each variety derives its subsistence from the soil; while all that constitutes the mineral world is either found scattered upon the surface, or drawn from the bowels of the earth. Thus all are procured, through the exertion of labour, from land. Again, nature, co-operating with labour, is essential to the production of every useful object. useful object. In civilized society, almost every portion of the soil, whether cultivated or uncul |