"But, if necessity demands that something shall be exacted of the people, then it is the part of a good prince to do it in such a way that the least burden may fall upon those who have least. For it may be a good thing to summon the rich to frugality, but to compel the poor to hunger and the gallows is not merely inhuman, but dangerous as well.... Let him well ponder this, that an expense once incurred at some emergency as pertaining to the advantage of the prince or the nobility, can never be abolished. When the emergency is past, not only ought the burden to be taken from the people, but the outlay of that former period ought, as far as possible, to be remedied and made good. Let him who cares for his people beware of the corrupt precedent. If he rejoices in the calamity of his own citizens or gives no thought to it, he is as far as can be from being a prince, no matter by what name he is called. "It ought to be provided for that there be not too great inequality of wealth;--not that I would have anyone deprived of his goods by force, but that care should be taken lest the wealth of the whole community be limited to a certain few. For Plato would have his citizens neither too rich nor too poor, because the poor man cannot be of profit to the state, and the rich man, after his kind, does not want to profit it. Nor do princes even gain wealth by exactions of this sort. If anyone would prove this, let him consider how much less his ancestors took from their subjects, how much more they gave, and yet how much more of everything they had, because a great part of these present taxes slips between the fingers of those who collect and receive them, but only a very small part ever gets to the prince himself. "Then, whatever things are in common use by the mass of the people, these a good prince will tax as lightly as possible, as for example, corn, bread, beer, wine, clothing, and other things without which human life cannot go on. But now these things are especially burdened, and that in many different ways: first, by the very heavy exactions of the contractors which the people call assizes, then by duties which have also their contractors, and finally by monopolies which bring little to the prince, but crush the poor by higher prices.