In effect, direct universal suffrage, counted by heads, is in local society a discordant element, a monstrous system, to which it is adverse. Constituted as this is, not by human judgment, but by the preponderance of numbers and their force, its mechanism is determined beforehand; it excludes certain wheels and connections.4206 That is why the legislator must write laws which reflect the nature of our existence, or, at least, translate this as closely as he can, without any gross contradiction. Nature herself presents him with ready-made statutes.4207 His business is to read these properly; he has already transcribed the apportionment of burdens; he can now transcribe the apportionment of rights.

So, we have seen, local society renders two distinct services4208, which, that the expenses of both may be met, require two distinct assessments, one personal and the other real, one levied on everybody and of which the amount is alike for all, and the other levied only on those whose amount is based on what he spends, on the importance of his business, and on the income from his real estate.—In strict equity, the amount of the former should be equal to the average amount of the latter; in effect, as has been shown, the services defrayed by the former are as many, as diverse, and as precious, still more vital, and not less costly than those of which the latter is the price. Of the two interests which they represent, each, did it stand alone, would be obliged to secure the same services, to take upon itself the whole of the work; neither would obtain more in the dividend, and each would have to pay the whole of the expense. Accordingly, each gains as much as the other in the physical solidarity which binds them together. Hence, in the legal bond which unites them they enter into it on an equal footing, on condition that each is burdened or relived as much as the other, on condition that if the latter assumes one-half of the expense the former shall assume the other half, on condition that if the latter quota on each one hundred francs expended against calamities and for public roads is 50 francs, the former quota shall also be 50 francs.—Practically, however, this is impossible. Three times out of four the former levy with this apportionment would not be returned; through prudence as well as humanity, the legislator is bound not to overburden the poor. Recently, in organizing the general tax and the revenue of the State, he has looked out for them; now, in organizing the local tax and the revenue of the department or of the commune, he looks out for them to a still greater extent.

In the new financial scheme, so many centimes, added to each franc of direct tax, form the principal resource of the department and commune, and it is through this extra charge that each taxpayer pays his quota of local expenditure. Now, there is no surcharge on the personal tax, no additional centimes. Under this heading, the laborer without any property or income, the workman who lives in lodgings, on his wages, and from day to day, contributes nothing to the expenses of his commune or department. In vain do "additional centimes" pour down on other branches of direct taxation; they are not grafted on this one, and do not suck away the substance of the poor.4209—There is the same regard for the half poor, in relation to the artisan who furnishes his own room, but who lodges in an upper story, and in relation to the peasant whose hovel or cottage has but one door and one window.4210 Their rate of taxation on doors and windows is very low, purposely reduced, kept below one franc a year, while the rate of their personal tax is scarcely higher. "Additional centimes" may be imposed on so small a principal and be multiplied in vain, never will they reach more than an insignificant amount.-Not only are the destitute relieved of both principal and "additional centimes," the verified poor, those who are registered and are helped, or should be, that is to say 2,470,000 persons;4211 but, again, others, by hundreds of thousands, whom the municipal council judges incapable of paying.—Even when people possess but a small piece of land, they are also relieved of the land tax and of the numerous additional centimes which increase it. Such is the case with those who are infirm or burdened with a family. The exchequer, so as not to convert them into beggars and vagabonds, avoids expropriation, selling out their concrete hovel, vegetable garden, and small field of potatoes or cabbages; it gives them receipts gratis, or, at least, refrains from prosecuting them.4212 In this way the poor peasant, although a land-owner, again exempts himself, or is exempted from his local indebtedness. In truth, he pays nothing, or nearly nothing, otherwise than by prestations (payments) in money or in kind; that is to say, by three days' work on the district roads, which, if he pays in kind, are not worth more than 50 sous.4213 Add to this his portion, very small and often null, of the additional centimes on the tax on doors and windows, on the personal tax, and on the tax on real estate, in all 4 or 5 francs a year. Such is the amount by which the poor or half-poor taxpayer in the villages liberates himself toward his department and commune.—In the towns, he apparently pays more, owing to the octroi. But, at first, there are only 1525 communes out of 36,000 in which the octroi4214 has been established; while in the beginning, under the Directory and Consulate, it was revived only on his account, for his benefit, in behalf of public charity, to defray the expenses of asylums and hospitals ruined by revolutionary confiscation. It was then "an octroi for charity," in fact as well as in name, like the surplus tax on theater seats and tickets, established at the same time and for the same purpose; it still to-day preserves the stamp of its first institution. Bread, the indispensable provision for the poor, is not subjected to the octroi nor the materials for making it, either grain or flour, nor milk, fruits, vegetables, or codfish, while there is only a light tax on butcher's meat. Even on beverages, where the octroi is heavier, it remains, like all indirect taxes, nearly proportional and semi-optional. In effect, it is simply an increase of the tax on beverages, so many additional centimes per franc on the sum of indirect taxation, as warrantable as the impost itself, as tolerable, and for the same motives.4215 For the greater the sobriety of the taxpayer, the less is he affected by this tax. At Paris, where the increase is excessive, and adds to the 6 centimes paid to the state, on each quart of wine, 12 centimes paid to the city; if he drinks but one quart a day, he pays, under this heading, into the city treasury 43 francs 80 centimes per annum: but, as compensation for this, he is free of personal tax of 11 3/4%, which this adds to the amount of each rental of the 11 3/4%, whereby this would have added to his rent, and therefore 47 francs per annum as a rent of 400 francs. Thus what he has paid with one hand he gets back with the other. Now, at Paris, all rentals under 400 francs4216 are thus free of any personal tax; all rentals between 400 and 1000 francs are more or less free, and, in the other octroi towns, an analogous discharge reimburses to the small taxpayers a portion more or less great of the sum they pay to the octroi.—Accordingly, in the towns as in the country, they are favored at one time through fiscal relief and at another through administrative favor, now through compulsory deduction and now through total or partial reimbursement. Always, and very wisely, the legislator apportions the burden according to the strength of the shoulders; he relieves them as much as he can, at first, of the general tax, and next, which is still better, of the local tax. Hence, in local expenditure, their quota diminishes out of all proportion and is reduced to the minimum. Nevertheless, their quota of local benefit remains full and entire; at this insignificant price they enjoy the public highways and profit by all the precautions taken against physical ills; each profits by this personally, equally with any millionaire. Each personally receives as much in the great dividend of security, health, and convenience, in the fruit of the vast works of utility and enjoyment due to improved communications, which preserve health, assist traffic, and beautify the locality, and without which, in town as well as in the country, life would be impossible or intolerable.

But these works which cost so much, these defensive operations and apparatus against inundations, fires, epidemics, and contagions, these 500,000 kilometers of district and department roads, these dikes, quays, bridges, public gardens, and promenades, this paving, drainage, sweeping and lighting, these aqueducts and supplies of drinkable water, all this is paid for by somebody, and, since it is not done by the small taxpayer, it is the large or average taxpayer who pays for it. The latter then, bears, besides his obligatory weight, a gratuitous surplus burden, consisting of the weight of which the other is relieved.

Evidently the greater the number of the relieved, the heavier will be this overweight, and the relieved count by millions. Two millions and a half of declared poor4217 are relieved of any direct tax, and, therefore, of all the centimes which have just increased the burden. Out of 8 millions of real-estate owners,4218 3 millions, considered as insolvent, pay neither the real estate tax nor the centimes which it comprises. In the octroi towns, it is not the minority but the majority of the inhabitants who are relieved in the way just described; in Paris,4219 out of 685,000 rentals, 625,000, in other terms twelve out of thirteen lodgings, are exempt, wholly or in part, from the personal tax, the principal and "additional centimes." On each franc of this principal there are 96 of these superadded centimes for the benefit of the town and department and because the department and the town expend a good deal, and because receipts are essential for the settlement of these accounts, this or that sum is noted beforehand in every chapter of receipts, and the main thing now is to have this paid in, and it must be paid by somebody; it matters little whether the peasants are few or numerous; if among thirteen taxable persons there is only one that pays, so much the worse for him, for he must pay for himself and the other twelve. Such is the case in Paris, which accounts for the "additional centimes" here being so numerous,4220 owing to there being less than 60,000 rentals for the acquittance of the entire tax, and, besides paying their own debt, they must discharge the indebtedness of 625,000 other rentals, the tax on which is reduced or null.—Frequently, before the Revolution, some rich convent or philanthropic seignior would pay the taxes of his poor neighbors out of his own pocket; willingly or not, 60,000 Parisians, more or less well lodged, now hand over the same sum, bestow the same charity, on 625,000 thousand badly or only tolerably lodged Parisians; among these 60,000 benefactors whom the exchequer obliges to be benevolent, 34,800 who pay from 1000 to 3000 francs rent, bestow, under this heading, a pretty large sum for charitable purposes, while 14,800, who pay more than 3000 francs rent, pay a very large one. Other branches of direct taxation, in the country as well as in the city, present the same spectacle: it is always the rich or the well-to-do taxpayers who, through their over-tax, more or less completely relieve the poor or straitened taxpayers; it is always the owners of large or small properties, those who pay heavy or average licenses, the occupants of lodgings with more than five openings,4221 and whose locative value surpasses 1000 francs, who in local expenditure pay besides their own dues the dues of others and, through their additional centimes, almost entirely defray the expenses of the department and commune.—This is nearly always the case in a local society, except when it chances to possess an abundant income, arising from productive real estate, and is able to provide for its wants without taxing its members; apart from this rare exception, it is forced to tax some in order to relieve others. In other words, the same as with other enterprises, it manufactures and sells its product but, just the reverse of other enterprises, it sells the product, an equal quantity of the same product, that is to say, equal protection against the same calamities, and the equal enjoyment of the same public highway, at unequal prices, very dear to a few, moderately dear to many, at cost price to a large number, and with a discount to the mass; to this last class of consumers the discount goes on increasing like the emptiness of their purse; to the last of all, extremely numerous, the goods are delivered almost gratis, or even for nothing.

But to this inequality of prices may correspond the inequality of rights, and compensation will come, the balance may be restored, distributive justice may be applied, if, in the government of the enterprise, the parts assigned are not equal, if each member sees his portion of influence growing or diminishing along with the weight of his charge, if the regulations, graduating authority according to the scale of the levies, assigns few votes to those who pay the lowest quotas of expense and receive alms, and many votes to those who give alms and pay the largest quotas of the expenditure.