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184 RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.
the confumption of any article rifes immoderately, he immediately leffens it, by raifing
the excife on that article; he has done fo lately by coffee, which, according to his ac-
count, had taken many millions out of his country for fome years paft. ‘The meaning
of this manceuvre was to recommend to his fubjects warm beer, which is the produce of
the country, is a more wholefome, and more palatable food than coffee, and from the
ufe of which he himfelf had found great benefit when he was young. Another time he
obferved, that 12,000 florins worth of eggs were every year brought to Berlin out of
_ Saxony. In order to fave his fubjects this expence, he immediately laid a confiderable
tax on the Saxon eggs, and thus encouraged his own farmers to breed chickens. ‘This
principle is one of the plaineft in legiflation ; it is that which prevails in all enlightened
countries, only not with the fame good fenfe and equity as in Pruflia. Indeed the Eng-
lith cuftoms and excife are much more hoftile to eating and drinking than the Pruffian ;
and it is a proverb in Holland, that of every difh of fith he eats, a man pays five parts to
the ftate, and one to the fifhmonger.
The complaints which have the moft foundation of truth in them, are thofe which
are made with refpeét to the price of the abfolute neceffaries of life. Thefe, it is faid,
are fo high, that it raifes the price of work too much, and by fo doing, tends to ruin,
not only the Pruffian manufactures, but the monopoly itfelf. But thefe taxes only af-
fect the inhabitants of the towns, the artifts, manufacturers, labourers, merchants, and
all who live by the fervice of the ftate.
In order to form a juft notion of the influence which high taxes have upon the necef-
faries of life, one fhould confider the connection which the induftry of the citizen has
with the produétions of the country, before one allows one felf to think of its effects on
foreign trade. The King of Pruflia, who in every thing follows the order of nature, has
not been fo folicitous to procure money from foreigners, as to ftop the channels through
which his own money went out of the country. Confider things in this light, and you
will find, that the impofts on the neceflaries of life have not been any reftraint on pri-
vate induftry ; for the price of work has kept on a level with the price of the neceflaries
of life, and the excife has only been a new and larger canal to aflift the circulation of
money. The King, who regularly purfued his plan of making the country independant
of foreign induftry, took care the money paid by the fubject fhould flow back from the
exchequer by the fureft channels. Thus all that was {pent by the foldier, and all that
the inhabitants of great towns fpent for the comforts of life, flowed back again to the
farmer, and encouraged internal agriculture and indu(try. In order that this might be
fo, the duties on foreign goods, fuch as cloths, linens, and the like, were always fo high,
that only the higheft degree of luxury could prefer them to the fame commodities made
at home; and it was proper that thofe who had this degree of luxury fhould be punifhed
for it.
As to the exportation of Pruffian manufactures, which of courfe would be affected
by the excife; all that is to be faid is, that the leffer evil is to be preferred to a greater.
Luxury is the ruin of a ftate. Immoderate enjoyment is the greateft political fin. An
unequal participation of national riches is the caufe why half a people are tyrants, and
the other half flaves. Thus cry out our philofophers here, and they are in the right.
Still more, you find it obferved in almoft every parliamentary debate in England, that
Britifh freedom will be ruined by the difproportionate riches of part of its members, and
the facility there is of acquiring them. ‘They fay that pleafure, corruption, ambition,
and extreme poverty, have enervated the nation; but how is it poflible to fet bounds to
luxury and immenfe riches, except by the Pruffian excife? The more a man {pends,
and the richer he is, the more he pays to the ftate, which divides this overflow of the
richer
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