Note 33 — SECTION IX. THE REAL BASIS OF RATES.

“A tax upon carriages in proportion to their weight, though a very equal tax when applied to the sole purpose of repairing the roads is a very unequal one when applied to any other purpose, or to supply the common exigencies of the State. When it is applied to the sole purpose above mentioned, each carriage is supposed to pay exactly for the wear and tear which that carriage occasions of the roads. But when it is applied to any other purpose, each carriage is supposed to pay for more than that wear and tear and contributes to the supply of some other exigency of the State. But as the turnpike toll raises the price of goods in proportion to their weight, and not to their value, it is chiefly paid by the consumers of coarse and bulky, not by those of precious and light, commodities. Whatever exigency of the State, therefore, this tax might be intended to supply, that exigency would be chiefly supplied at the expense of the poor, not of the rich; at the expense of those who are least able to supply it, not of those who are most able.”—(Wealth of Nations. Book 5 part 3.)