Every government is bound to care for these, if not from compassion, at least through prudential considerations, and this one more than any other, since it is founded on the will of the greatest number, on the repeated votes of majorities counted by heads.
To this end, it establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one, the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any property; and the other, the personal tax, which does affect him, but lightly: calculated on the rate of rent, it is insignificant on an attic, furnished lodging, hut or any other hovel belonging to a laborer or peasant; again, when very poor or indigent, if the octroi is burdensome, the exchequer sooner or later relieves them; add to this the poll-tax which takes from them 1 franc and a half up to 4.50 francs per annum, also a very small tax on doors and windows, say 60 centimes per annum in the villages on a tenement with only one door and one window, and, in the towns, from 60 to 75 centimes per annum for one room above the second story with but one window.[3231] In this way, the old tax which was crushing becomes light: instead of paying 18 or 20 livres for his taille, capitatim and the rest, the journeyman or the artisan with no property pays no more than 6 or 7 francs;[3232] instead of paying 53 livres for his vingtiemes for his poll, real and industrial tax, his capitatim and the rest, the small cultivator and owner pays no more than 21 francs.

Through this reduction of their fiscal charges (corvee) and through the augmentation of their day wages, poor people, or those badly off, who depended on the hard and steady labor of their hands, the plowmen, masons, carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights and porters, every hired man and artisan, in short, all the laborious and tough hands, again became almost free; these formerly owed, out of their 300 working days, from 20 to 59 to the exchequer; they now owe only from 6 to 19,[3233] and thus gain from 14 to 40 free days during which, instead of working for the exchequer, they work for themselves .-- The reader may estimate the value to a small household of such an alleviation of the burden of discomfort and care.
IV.

Various Taxes.
Other direct taxes .-- Tax on business licenses .-- Tax on real-estate transactions .-- The earnings of manual labor almost exempt from direct taxation .-- Compensation on another side.
-- Indirect taxation .-- In what respect the new machinery is superior to the old .-- Summary effect of the new fiscal regime .-- Increased receipts of the public treasury .-- Lighter burdens of the taxpayer .-- Change in the condition of the small taxpayer.
This infraction of the principle of distributive justice is in favor of the poor.

Through the almost complete exemption of those who have no property the burden of direct taxation falls almost entirely on those who own property.

If they are manufacturers, or in commerce, they support still another burden, that of the license tax, which is a supplementary impost proportioned to their probable gains.[3234] Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes, levied on the probable or certain income derived from invested or floating capital, the exchequer adds an eventual tax on capital itself, consisting of the mutation tax, assessed on property every time it changes hands through gift, inheritance or by contract, obtaining its title under free donation or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the timbre,[3235] is enormous[3236] since, in most cases, it takes 5, 7, 9, and up to 10 1/2 % on the capital transmitted, that is to say, in the case of real-estate, 2, 3 and even 4 years' income from it.