alue of some other commodity, so
that if corn be bought cheaper, other commodities are bought dearer.

This then is a further proof, that no particular disadvantage arises
from taxes on necessaries, on account of their raising wages and
lowering the rate of profits. Profits are indeed lowered, but only to
the amount of the labourer's portion of the tax, which must at all
events, be paid either by his employer, or by the consumer of the
produce of the labourer's work. Whether you deduct 50_l._ per annum from
the employer's revenue, or add 50_l._ to the prices of the commodities
which he consumes, can be of no other consequence to him or to the
community, than as it may equally affect all other classes. If it be
added to the prices of the commodity, a miser may avoid the tax by not
consuming; if it be indirectly deducted from every man's revenue, he
cannot avoid paying his fair proportion of the public burthens.

A bounty on the production of corn then, would produce no real effect on
the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, although it
would make corn relatively cheap, and manufactures relatively dear. But
suppose now that a contrary measure should be adopted, that a tax should
be raised on corn for the purpose of affording a fund for a bounty on
the production of commodities.

In such case, it is evident that corn would be dear, and commodities
cheap; labour would continue at the same price, if the labourer were as
much benefited by the cheapness of commodities as he was injured by the
dearness of corn; but if he were not, wages would rise, and profits
would fall, while money rent would continue the same as before; profits
would fall, because, as we have just explained, that would be the mode
in which the labourer's share of the tax would be paid by the employers
of labour. By the increase of wages the labourer would be compensated
for the tax which he would pay in the increased price of corn; by not
expending any part of his wages on the manufactured commodities, he
would receive no part of the bounty; the bounty would be all received by
the employers, and the tax would be partly paid by the employed; a
remuneration would be made to the labourers, in the shape of wages, for
this increased burden laid upon them, and thus the rate of profits would
be reduced. In this case too there would be a complicated measure
producing no national result whatever.

In considering this question, we have purposely le