Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/238

214 personnel in the state, for it is they who usually make the laws."

"Perhaps it would be necessary to weaken their opposition by not subjecting the actual proprietors to the new tax, which might take effect only with the next change either by sale or by inheritance. A restriction of the right of transfer would also facilitate the passage from one situation to the other. All changes in taxes should, as a general thing, be made gradually, in order to avoid sudden changes of fortune."

"We may consider the renting of a property for several years as a sale of the usufruct during the time of the lease. Now nine years' possession, for example, is equal to more than a third of the value of the property, supposing the annual product to be one twentieth of the capital. It would then be reasonable to apply to this sort of sale the laws which govern that of landed property, and consequently the mutation tax. The person who cannot or will not cultivate his soil, instead of alienating the property itself, binds himself to alienate the usufruct for a time, and the price is paid at stated intervals instead of all at once. There is farm rent."

"Now it is by a fiction that the purchaser pays the mutation tax. In fact, it is always the seller