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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 183
and thewriters of newfpapers took it very ill that he had donethiswithout their knowledge.
It was not till within thefe few years, that we knew that the land-tax in the Pruffian domini-
ons is never altered, though this fyftem is as old as the time of the King’s coming to the
crown. Long before the philofophers of the laft twenty-five years (for, till within thefe
laft five and twenty years, there has been no philofophy) began to declaim againft capi-
tal punifhments, the torture, and the duration of law-fuits, all thefe things had been
banifhed out of the Pruflian dominions, without any fcribbler taking the trouble to fing
a Te Deum about it, (Beccaria himfelf makes this obfervation.) Avarice is as little the
King’s weak fide as the love of fame. Nobody gives more willingly than he does,
when he fees that the money is likely to be made good ufe of. He has money in his
head, and not in his heart ; and ceconomy is one of the firft virtues of a governor.—
But | fhall fay more of thisir my next.
LETTER XLVI.
Berlin.
THROUGH all Germany, and particularly through all Saxony, it pafles for an
eftablifhed truth, that the King of Pruffia knows nothing of the true principles of trade.
In the Dutch coffee-houfes, thofe eternal fountains of political nonfenfe, he is treated as
an ignorant dabbler. ‘hat foreign merchants fhould think this, or fay fo, does not at
all furprife me: When they blame the King, they only {peak like the great Roman ora-
tor, pro domo fua ; it isimpoflible that they fhould be pleafed with thofe principles which
_ preclude them from the power of robbing the King’s fubjects of their money ;—but we
hear the fame complaints Aere, and in the other countries fubject to the King. There
are men ere, who are always crying out on excife, cuftoms, and monopolies, and ex-
tolling univerfal liberty as the firft principle of trade. It is very true, that the excife
makes the manufactures fo expenfive, that feveral of the Pruflan, whofe productions are
extremely good, cannot {upport a competition with thofe of other countries. It is very
true, that the many monopolies to be met with here, are a great reftraint upon national
induftry ; ftill however in my opinion, the King of Pruffia may be defended. The fact
is this; every thing here is connecfed, but the true principles on which the excife and
monopoly fy{tems in Pruflia are grounded are not feen, becaufe, like many other things
in the Pruflian dominions, they are too near the eyes—let us fee if we can explain thefe
matters a little.
Neither commerce, nor manufactures, nor the encouragement of private induftry,
which tend to produce a great inequality in national riches, and render part of the peo-
ple affluent at the expence of the reft; neither all thefe, nor any part of thefe, are the
corner-{tone of the Pruflian edifice of ftate; it refts on agriculture only ; and if we con-
fider the King of Pruffia’s politics in this point of view, we fhall find an exact fymmetry
of parts in them.
it is on this principle, that that part of the fubje¢ts which is the moft numerous, has
the leaft bufinefs, and is moft inclined to live at the expence of the working inhabitant
of the country, is obliged to contribute moft to the expences of the ftate. Whoever
will take the trouble of comparing the feveral articles of the Pruffian excife with each
other, will foon find that they bear the exacteft proportion poflible to luxury, and are,
as they ought to be, always the higher, the more the article of confumption on which
they are laid is remote from the firft neceflaries of life, whfch the farmer fupplies. For
this reafon the excife always varies, and muft do fo. The King has an exact account
laid before him of all the articles of luxury imported from abroad. When he fees en
the
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