It is difficult,
indeed, to fix a standard of local preference on account of the one, or
of the other, or of both, because some provinces may pay the more of
either or of both on account of causes not intrinsic, but originating
from those very districts over whom they have obtained a preference in
consequence of their ostensible contribution. If the masses were
independent, sovereign bodies, who were to provide for a federative
treasury by distinct contingents, and that the revenue had not (as it
has) many impositions running through the whole, which affect men
individually, and not corporately, and which, by their nature, confound
all territorial limits, something might be said for the basis of
contribution as founded on masses. But, of all things, this
representation, to be measured by contribution, is the most difficult to
settle upon principles of equity in a country which considers its
districts as members of a whole. For a great city, such as Bordeaux or
Paris, appears to pay a vast body of duties, almost out of all
assignable proportion to other places, and its mass is considered
accordingly. But are these cities the true contributors in that
proportion? No. The consumers of the commodities imported into Bordeaux,
who are scattered through all France, pay the import duties of Bordeaux.
The produce of the vintage in Guienne and Languedoc give to that city
the means of its contribution growing out of an export commerce.
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