Every description of agricultural produce pays a tax on export. There
are governments which give a premium to exporters: one may call that
encouraging the national industry. There are others, and they are
still more numerous, which allow a free export of the surplus produce
of the land: this is not merely to encourage, it is to assist the
labourers. The Pope levies an average tax of 22 per thousand on the
total amount of exports, 160 per thousand on the value of imports. The
Piedmontese government is satisfied with 13 per thousand on exports,
and 58 per thousand on imports. Of the two countries, I should prefer
farming in Piedmont.
Cattle are subject to vexatious taxes, which add from twenty to thirty
per cent. to their cost. They pay when at pasture; they pay nearly
twenty-three shillings per head at market; they pay on exportation.
And yet the breeding of cattle is one of the most valuable resources
of the State, and one of those which ought to be the most assisted.
The horses raised in the country pay five per cent. on their value
every time they change hands. By the time a horse has passed through
twenty different hands, the Government has pocketed as much as the
breeder. When I say the Government, I am wrong; the horse-tax is not
included in the Budget. It is an ecclesiastical prebend. Cardinal
della Dateria throws it in with general episcopal revenues.
"The good shepherd should shear, and not flay his sheep.
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