s, in warrants
of execution and imprisonment; it is averse to converting a profitable
laborer into a beggar who brings in nothing, or into a prisoner for debt
who costs it something. Through this course, the relief is immense;
ten years previous to the Revolution,[3241] it was estimated that, in
principal and in accessories, especially in costs of collection and in
fines, indirect taxation cost the nation twice as much the king
derived from it, that it paid 371 millions to enable him to receive
184 millions, that the salt-tax alone took out of the pockets of the
taxpayer 100 millions for 45 millions deposited in his coffers. Under
the new government, fines became rarer; seizures, executions and sales
of personal property still rarer, while the costs of collection, reduced
by increasing consumption, are not to exceed one-twentieth in-stead
of one-fifth of the receipts.[3242]--In the second place, the consumer
becomes free again, in law as in fact, not to purchase taxed goods. He
is no longer constrained, as formerly, in the provinces subject to high
salt-tax, to accept, consume, and pay for duty-salt, 7 pounds per head
at 13 sous the pound. Provincial, town or seignorial taxes on Bread,
a commodity which he cannot do without, no longer exist; there is no
piquet, or duty on flour, as in Provence,[3243] no duties on the sale
or of grinding wheat, no impediments to the circulation or commerce of
grain. And, on the other hand, through the lowering of fiscal
charges, in the suppression of internal duties, and the abolition of
multitudinous tolls, other commodities, apart from bread reached by a
different tax, now becomes affordable for those of small means. Salt,
instead of costing thirteen sous and over, no longer costs more than
two sous the pound. A cask of Bordeaux wine no longer pays two hundred
livres before it is retailed by the tavern-keeper at Rennes.[3244]
Except in Paris, and even at Paris, so long as the extravagance of
municipal expenditure does not increase the octroi the total tax on
wine, cider and beer does not add, even at retail, more than 18 % to
their selling price,[3245] while, throughout France, the vine-grower,
or the wine-maker, who gathers in and manufactures his own wine, drinks
this and even his brandy, without paying one cent of tax under this
heading.[3246]--Consequently, consumption increases, and, as there are
no longer any exempt or half-exempt provinces, no more free salt
(franc sale),[3247] n