Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/121

94 be at too low a price. It will be as unreasonable to burden his trade with a tax as to lay a tax on the dung-hill which serves to manure the land. Let us conclude from hence that, while it is true that the lender of money belongs to the disposable class so far as his person is concerned, because he is engaged in no business, he does not belong to it so far as the character of his wealth is concerned; whether the interest of his money is paid by the proprietor of lands from a part of his revenue, or is paid by an undertaker from the part of his profits which is pledged to provide the interest on the advances.

S97
Objection. It will doubtless be replied that the capitalist may indifferently either lend his money or employ it in the purchase of land; that in the one case and in the other he draws nothing but a price which is the equivalent of his money, and that, in whichever way he may have employed it, he ought none the less to contribute to the public charges.

S98
Answer to the objection.

I reply, in the first place, that it is true that, when the capitalist has purchased an estate, the revenue is the equivalent to him of what he would have drawn from his money if he had lent it; but there is this essential difference for the State—that the price he gives for his land does not contribute in any way to the revenue it produces; it would not