Book V: Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

OF THE SOURCES OF THE GENERAL OR PUBLIC REVENUE OF THE SOCIETY.

The revenue which must defray, not only the expense of defending
the society and of supporting the dignity of the chief
magistrate, but all the other necessary expenses of government,
for which the constitution of the state has not provided any
particular revenue may be drawn, either, first, from some fund
which peculiarly belongs to the sovereign or commonwealth, and
which is independent of the revenue of the people ; or, secondly,
from the revenue of the people.

PART I.

Of the Funds, or Sources, of Revenue, which may peculiarly belong
to the Sovereign or Commowealth.

The funds, or sources, of revenue, which may peculiarly belong to
the sovereign or commonwealth, must consist, either in stock, or
in land.

The sovereign, like, any other owner of stock, may derive a
revenue from it, either by employing it himself, or by lending
it. His revenue is, in the one case, profit, in the other
interest.

The revenue of a Tartar or Arabian chief consists in profit. It
arises principally from the milk and increase of his own herds
and flocks, of which he himself superintends the management, and
is the principal shepherd or herdsman of his own horde or tribe.
It is, however, in this earliest and rudest state of civil
government only, that profit has ever made the principal part of
the public revenue of a monarchical state.

Small republics have sometimes derived a considerable revenue
from the profit of mercantile projects. The republic of Hamburgh
is said to do so from the profits of a public wine-cellar and
apothecary's shop.{See Memoires concernant les Droits et
Impositions en Europe, tome i. page 73. This work was compiled by
the order of the court, for the use of a commision employed for
some years past in considering the proper means for reforming the
finances of France. The account of the French taxes, which takes
up three volumes in quarto, may be regarded as perfectly
authentic. That of those of other European nations was compiled
from such information as the French ministers at the different
courts could procure. It is much shorter, and probably not quite
so exact as that of the French taxes.} That state cannot be very
great, of which the sovereign has leisure to carry on the trade
of a wine-merchant or an apothecary. The profit of a public bank
has been a source of revenue to more considerable states. It
has been so, not only to Hamhurgh, but to Venice and Amsterdam. A
revenue of this kind has even by some people been thought not
below the attention of so great an empire as that of Great
Britain. Reckoning the ordinary dividend of the bank of England
at five