Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/331

 TAXATION THROUGH MONOPOLY 309 state ?' And at first sight such a policy seems to belong to the days before Adam Smith. Nevertheless the fact remains that state monopolies exist, and exist, as we shall see, with the approval and support of the most orthodox economists and financiers, and it is this circumstsame that invests the subject with real and practical interest. Before examining the principal monopolies that illustrate the operation of the system, we may premise that state monopoly may take one of three forms, or may combine two or all of those forms in a single object, i.. it may control (a) the production; (b) the manu- facture; and (c) the sale of an article, or it may abandon one or two of these steps in bringing the article to the consumer to private industry. SAr, T.--The first commodity whose financial position under monopoly we have to consider is salt. Alike in classical and mediaeval times, it was an object of special and watchful care on the part of the financier, whose attentions were not usually regarded with satisfaction by the community. Mommsen, indeed, main- tains that the Roman monopoly in Republican times was in the interest of the consumer, and this is supported by similar facts in the administration of the corn supplies; but it only holds good of Roman citizens. The provincials, and under the later Empire the whole population, felt the action of monopoly in the raised price of the commodity. The Gabelle in France, which gave a state monopoly of sale, was always used for the purpose of revenue, and no form of imposition excited greater hostility, but it is prob- able that this was largely due to the complex and vexatious regulations under which it was raised.  There was no one general system in application; on the contrary, there were six distinct modes of treatment for different parts of France. In some, not only was the sale a state monopoly, but each householder was compelled to provide himself with an amount of salt proportioned to his family, so that the tax became in practice a capitation or poll tax. In other districts (those of the petit Gablle) the purchase of salt was not compulsory, while in a third group con- sisting of the provinces that had revolted against the salt tax in 1548, the duties were trifling, the greater part having been redeemed by the payment of a capital sum (hence their name pays rdims). And finally, some provinces, as e.g. Brittany, were altogether exempt from the tax, a privilege that was also given to many places within the other provinces. To complete the evils of  "Un cri universel s'$1ve pour ainsi dire contre cet impbt" is the expression of Necker.