Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/122

Rh have given less revenue if he had not purchased it: this revenue is, as we have explained, what the earth gives over and above the wages of the cultivators, their profits and the interest on their advances. It is not the same with the interest of a loan; it is the very condition of the loan, the price of the advance, without which neither the revenue nor the profits which serve to pay it would have existed.

I answer, in the second place, that if lands alone were burdened with contribution to the public charges, as soon as this contribution was regulated the capitalist who purchased lands would not reckon in the interest of his money the part of the revenue which had to be set aside for this contribution: in the same way that a man who purchases a piece of land to-day does not buy the tithe the Parson receives, or even the tax so far as is known, but only the revenue which remains when tithe and tax are deducted.

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There exists no truly disposable revenue in a State except the net produce of lands. We see, by what has been said, that the interest of money placed on loan is taken either from the revenue of lands or from the profits of undertakings in agriculture, industry or commerce. But as to these profits themselves, we have already shown that they were only a part of the produce of lands; that the produce of lands falls into two parts; that one was set aside for the wages of the cultivator, for his profits, and for the return of his advances and the interest