onopoly price, at the
highest price which the purchasers are willing to give for it; but malt
made of barley is not at a monopoly price, and consequently it can be
raised in proportion to the taxes that may be imposed upon it. This
opinion of Mr. Buchanan of the effects of a tax on malt appears to me to
be in direct contradiction to the opinion he has given of a similar tax,
a tax on bread. "A tax on bread will be ultimately paid, not by a rise
of price, but by a reduction of rent."[25] If a tax on malt would raise
the price of beer, a tax on bread must raise the price of bread.

The following argument of M. Say is founded on the same views as Mr.
Buchanan's: "The quantity of wine or corn which a piece of land will
produce, will remain nearly the same, whatever may be the tax with which
it is charged. The tax may take away a half, or even three-fourths of
its net produce, or of its rent if you please, yet the land would
nevertheless be cultivated for the half or the quarter not absorbed by
the tax. The rent, that is to say the landlord's share, would merely be
somewhat lower. The reason of this will be perceived, if we consider,
that in the case supposed, the quantity of produce obtained from the
land, and sent to market, will remain nevertheless the same. On the
other hand the motives on which the demand for the produce is founded
continue also the same.

"Now, if the quantity of produce supplied, and the quantity demanded,
necessarily continue the same, notwithstanding the establishment or the
increase of the tax, the price of that produce will not vary; and if the
price do not vary, the consumer will not pay the smallest portion of
this tax.

"Will it be said that the farmer, he who furnishes labour and capital,
will, jointly with the landlord, bear the burden of this tax? certainly
not; because the circumstance or the tax has not diminished the number
of farms to be let, nor increased the number of farmers. Since in this
instance also the supply and demand remain the same, the rent of farms
must also remain the same. The example of the manufacturer of salt, who
can only make the consumers pay a portion of the tax, and that of the
landlord who cannot reimburse himself in the smallest degree, prove the
error of those who maintain, in opposition to the economists, that all
taxes fall ultimately on the consumer."--Vol. ii. p. 338.

If the tax "took away half, or even three-fourths of the net produce of
the land," an