duties are no longer included in those to be replaced, they should not be part of the dividend; this being so, since the quotient will be correspondingly lower, the general public will be subject to the old barriers, with no benefit for the treasury.
The implication is that if the minister intends the yield of current taxation to be maintained, circulation and license duties will be levied twice, once directly by virtue of the new law and a second time through the single tax, since they are included as elements in the calculation of this tax.
Last, a fourth modification introduces a new basis for conversion of spirits into liqueurs.
This is not all. The minister makes it clearly felt that it will not be long before he raises the tariff on wines and spirits to the levels of 1829. Many distinguished authorities, he said, considered that it was the right time to cancel the exceptions allowed in 1830.
Many other such authorities consider that if the minister refrains from making a formal proposal in this respect, it is to allow the Chamber of Deputies the honor of this initiative.
We will now leave the reader to measure the space that separates us from the July revolution. Ten years have scarcely elapsed, and here we are with our legislation on wines and spirits shortly to be indistinguishable from that under the empire or restoration, except for an increase in charges and severity.
[print edition page 16]
§2. If only this growth in severity had as its aim just the current interest of the tax authorities, we could at least hope that it satisfies their requirements in full. But it does not even leave us this illusion, and by proclaiming that they wish a particular dispensation to carry the day, the tax authorities are warning us that we have to expect new requirements until such time as this dispensation has been fully implemented.
“We have considered it just (says the “statement of the reasons”) to restrict the exemption to circulation duty in favor of owners to the just limits within which it might be legitimately claimed; that is to say, to restrict it to the products of their harvest which they intend for their consumption and that of their family, in the actual place of production. Beyond this, it was a privilege that nothing justified and that violated the principle of the equality of duties. For the same reason, we propose to cancel the discount of 25 percent to the wine producer who sells the wines of his production at retail.”
Now, from the instant the government has the equality of duties as its aim, with the understanding that this language means the subjection of all the classes affected by the law on wines and spirits to the full total of the obstacles weighing on the most maltreated class, then for as long as this aim is not reached, the most rigorous measures can be only the prelude to still more rigorous measures.
We should fear it above all in the knowledge that the master4 has carried out and recommended a pitiless but prudent tactic in this connection.
We have seen that the 1816 law extended the owner’s exemption from circulation duty to the entire territory of France.
Shortly afterward it was restricted to the limits of the département or to bordering départements (law dated 25 March 1817, Article 81).
Later it was reduced to the limits of bordering districts (law dated 17 July 1819, Article 3).
Now, the proposal is being made to circumscribe it to the limits of a village or bordering villages (draft law, Article 13).
One step further and it will have totally disappeared.
And this step undoubtedly will be taken, for while these successive restrictions have circumscribed the privilege, they have not destroyed it. There still remains one case in which the harvester consumes a wine that has circulated without paying circulation duty, and it will not be long before it is said
[print edition page 17]
that this is a totally unjustified privilege, which violates the principle of equality of taxes. At the level of application, therefore, the tax authorities have compromised with principle but have also, in principle, made clear their intent, and is it not enough for once that they have come down from the district to the commune without stopping at the canton?
Let us be quite sure, therefore, that the reign of equality is coming and that in a short time there will be no exceptions at all to this principle. On each removal or displacement of wine, cider, or perry,5 duty will be levied.
But should this be said? Yes, we will be expressing our entire thoughts, even though we may be suspected of giving way to exaggerated distrust. We believe that the tax authorities have perceived that, when the circulation duty is extended to all without exception, equality will have reached only half of its career; it will still subject owners to the yoke of customs inspection.
We consider that in Article 14 the tax authorities have sown the seed of this secret intention.
What other aim could this measure have?
Article 13 of the draft restricts the exemption from circulation duty to the limits of the village commune.
The rationale is careful to declare that anything exceeding this exemption is a privilege that is totally unjustified.
And Article 14 immediately restores the right that Article 13 removed from us; it gives it back without limits, provided that the owner subjects himself to the obligations imposed on wholesale merchants.
A concession like this is designed to arouse our mistrust.
This floury sack bodes no good.6
Note the specific character of this Article 14.
First, it appears to be a corrective. Article 13 may have seemed rather harsh; Article 14 comes to offer some consolation.
Second, it goes somewhat further than sugar-coating the pill; it hides the pill and hints at the customs inspection without referring to it explicitly.
[print edition page 18]
Last, it pushes prudence to the point of being optional; it goes even further, it makes Article 13 optional. How can we complain? Can we not escape circulation duty by taking refuge in customs inspections and find shelter against customs inspections in circulation duty?
Let us hope we are mistaken! However, we have witnessed an increase in the tariff, and we have witnessed an increase in circulation duty; we are right to worry that customs inspections will increase, too. As the teller of fables told us: “What is small will grow large . . . , provided that God keeps it alive.”7
The gradual progress toward equality is also shown in the development of retail duty.
We have seen that current legislation allows owners two forms of exemption in this respect: first, by giving them a discount of 25 percent on the duty; second, by exempting the owner from home inspections when the point of sale is in a different location.
For the moment, current legislation merely limits itself to calling for the withdrawal of the first of these exemptions. However, the principle of equality is not satisfied, since owners continue to enjoy a privilege denied to café owners, that is to say, the privilege of not having to open their houses, their bedrooms, and their cupboards to the gaze of customs agents, always provided that, in order to sell their wine, they rent premises on an official lease.
§3. If we redirect our gaze to France’s external relations and how these relate to the sale of wine, we will find scarcely any grounds to console us for the internal regime that burdens our industry.
We cannot examine here all the matters that relate to this huge subject. We have to limit ourselves to a few considerations on a question currently being negotiated, a trade treaty with Holland.
After having announced during the session on 21 January that according to this treaty: “Our wines and spirits in barrels will be exempt from any customs duty upon entry into Dutch territory; should they be imported in bottles,