Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/70

441] may be due to a suspicion that there is an over-imposition of taxation, or that there is extravagance, or that the levies are unjust. Again, it may be due to enforced money payments at inconvenient times, or to legal difficulties as to right of imposition, or to scarcity of money, or to small number of industrial class, or to the want of proper trade statistics. The charges of religion, education, justice, the poor, internal improvements, are considered in the same thorough way and remedies are proposed for lessening these several burdens.

The road to all reform is the possession of accurate statistics. All unprofitable labor should be limited by an effective State control of education and religion. The labor of every man should be directed to those channels where it will be most productive. The subject of "unwillingness to pay" is more carefully examined—each of the headings previously given is minutely analyzed. As an illustration (18), under the heading extravagance, it is noticed that money spent on entertainments is not really lost, because it descends finally into the hands of those who are engaged in useful trades. The same principle holds with regard to money spent by princes on favorites. No one should object to such extravagance, for there is a chance for every one to become a favorite, no matter how low his station of life may be. Then comes the main subject of the work—the best methods of raising taxes (chapter iv). The most simple method, as well as the most natural, would seem to be to support the government by reserving a certain proportion of the land as royal domain, or to raise the same amount of income by taking a fixed proportion from the rent of all lands. This last is