He proceeds to uproot that hardy perennial of fiscal culture—the opinion that no expenditure at home can be injurious to public opulence. Let us suppose, he says, that my father leaves me a thousand pounds’ worth of the necessaries and conveniences of life. “I get a number of idle folks around me, and eat, drink, tear and wear till the whole is consumed. By this I not only reduce myself to want, but certainly rob the public stock of a thousand pounds, as it is spent and nothing produced for it.” In the same way money spent on war is wasted wherever the war is waged and wherever the money employed in preparations is laid out. Finally, he sums up for free imports in language that could not be strengthened:— “From the above considerations it appears that Britain should by all means be made a free port, that there should be no interruptions of any kind made to foreign trade, that if it were possible to defray the expenses of government by any other method, all duties, customs, and excise should be abolished, and that free commerce and liberty of exchange should be allowed with all nations, and for all things.” Holding, then, that all taxes upon exports and imports, as well as all excise duties,[18] hinder commerce, discourage manufactures, and hamper the division of labour, Smith was inclined in his rather meagre treatment of taxation to favour direct imposts. He was not one of those who think that taxation is the royal road to prosperity, and insist that the only way to save the nation is by picking its pocket. On the contrary, believing that the best method of raising revenue is to save it, he introduced taxation as one of the causes that retard the growth of opulence. But as the thriftiest government has some expenses, and therefore some taxes, an economist was bound to weigh the merits and demerits of each. Though in comparison with the corresponding chapters in the _Wealth of Nations_ his paragraphs on taxation seem raw, the doctrine is already far in advance of Hume’s. He dwells on the immense advantage of the land-tax, which only cost the government about eight or ten thousand pounds to collect, over the customs and excise, which produce such immense sums, but “are almost eaten up by the legions of officers that are employed in collecting them.” Another advantage of the land-tax over taxes on consumption was that it did not raise prices; and it was better than a tax on capital or income (“stock or money”), in that, land being visible property, the sum required could be assessed without very arbitrary proceedings. “It is a hardship upon a man in trade to oblige him to show his books, which is the only way we can know how much he is worth. It is a breach of liberty, and may be productive of very bad consequences by ruining his credit.” Yet Smith was far from being a single taxer. “If on account of this difficulty you were to tax land, and neither tax money nor stock, you would do a piece of very great injustice.”