profits,
whether manufacturing or agricultural, it would not operate either on
the price of goods or raw produce, but would be immediately, as well as
ultimately, paid by the producers. A tax on rent, it has been observed,
would fall on the landlord only, and could not by any means be made to
devolve on the tenant.

The poor rate is a tax which partakes of the nature of all these taxes,
and under different circumstances falls on the consumer of raw produce
and goods, on the profits of stock, and on the rent of land. It is a tax
which falls with peculiar weight on the profits of the farmer, and
therefore may be considered as affecting the price of raw produce.
According to the degree in which it bears on manufacturing and
agricultural profits equally, it will be a general tax on the profits of
stock, and will occasion no alteration in the price of raw produce and
manufactures. In proportion to the farmer's inability to remunerate
himself, by raising the price of raw produce, for that portion of the
tax which peculiarly affects him, it will be a tax on rent, and will be
paid by the landlord. To know then the operation of the poor rate at any
particular time, we must ascertain whether at that time it affects in
an equal or unequal degree the profits of the farmer and manufacturer;
and also whether the circumstances be such as to afford to the farmer
the power of raising the price of raw produce.

The poor rates are professed to be levied on the farmer in proportion to
his rent; and accordingly, the farmer who paid a very small rent, or no
rent at all, should pay little or no tax. If this were true, poor rates,
as far as they are paid by the agricultural class, would entirely fall
on the landlord, and could not be shifted to the consumer of raw
produce. But I believe that is not true; the poor rate is not levied
according to the rent which a farmer actually pays to his landlord; it
is proportioned to the annual value of his land, whether that annual
value be given to it by the capital of the landlord or of the tenant.

If two farmers rented land of two different qualities in the same
parish, the one paying a rent of 100_l._ per annum for 50 acres of the
most fertile land, and the other the same sum of 100_l._ for 1000 acres
of the least fertile land, they would pay the same amount of poor
rates, if neither of them attempted to improve the land; but if the
farmer of the poor land, presuming on a very long lease, should be