Observations on the Paper by Graslin in Favour of the Indirect Tax, to which the Royal Agricultural Society of Limoges has Given an Honourable Mention (1767)

Abstract

The author inappropriately charges the writers whom he attacks with considering the net product of the soil only, that is, the revenue as wealth.² All that the earth produces is wealth. But these writers maintain correctly that the total of the renascent wealth of a State is confined to the total annual output of the soil. This output is divided into two parts, one of which is destined for the subsistence and the satisfaction of the wants of the cultivator, for the interest on and the replacement of the advances, in short, for all that is necessary, directly and indirectly, for the reproduction of the following year. But once this part is deducted, the surplus, which the cultivator gives to the proprietor of the soil forms the latter’s revenue, which not being in any way necessary for the reproduction of the following year, is completely free, disposable, and susceptible to division among the titular owner, the recipient of the tithe, the seigneur censier,³ the State, etc.

Graslin’s paper entitled, Essai analytique sur la Richesse et sur l’Impôt, was written for a competition organised by the Royal Agricultural Society of Limoges on the subject of indirect taxation. See ‘Introduction’, above pp. XXII–XXIII. Graslin’s work was published in 1767, à Londres; subsequent page references refer to this edition.