Taxes in an Aristocracy

[8] No taxes are to be imposed by the senate on the subjects.

To meet the expenditure required by decree of the senate for transacting public business, it is not the subjects but the cities that should be assessed by the senate, each city having to contribute a share of the expenditure proportionate to its size. This sum the patricians of the city will collect from their own townsfolk in whatever way they please, that is, either by direct assessment or, as is much fairer, by indirect taxation.

[9] Although the cities of this state are not all maritime and senators are not drawn exclusively from maritime cities, they can still be assigned the same remuneration that was laid down in Section 31 of the previous Chapter.

For this purpose, means can be devised, in conformity with the state’s constitution, whereby the cities may be more closely bound together. The other measures concerning the senate, the court oflaw, and, in general the entire state, indicated in the previous Chapter, are also to apply to this state. So we see that in a state where sovereignty is held by several cities it is not necessary to assign a fixed time or place for the meeting of the suprerne council.

However, for the senate and the court of law a place should be appOinted in a country town or in a city that does not possess voting rights. But I return to matters that concern cities individually.

[1O] The procedure to be followed by the supreme council of a single city in appointing city officials9 and ministers of state and in making decisions should be the same as described in Sections 27 and 36 of the previous Chapter; for the considerations are the same in both cases. Next, there should be a council of syndics subordinate to the council, having the same relation to the city council as the council of syndics of the previous Chapter had to the council of the whole state.

Its duties, within the bounds of the city’s jurisdiction, should also be the same, and it should enjoy the same remuneration.

But if the city, and consequently the number of patricians, is so small that it cannot have more than one or two syndics, these being insufficient to constitute a council, the supreme council of the city should assign judges to assist the syndics in their investigations as circumstances require, or else the issue must be referred to the supreme council of syndics.

For every city should also send a number of their syndics to the place where the senate is in session, to see that the laws of the entire state are preserved inviolate and to sit on the senate without the right to vote.

[II] City consuls 10 are also to be appointed by the patricians of that city to form as it were the senate of that city. Their number I cannot determine, nor do I think it necessary, since matters of great weight concerning their city are dealt with by its supreme council, and those matters which concern the state as a whole, by the grand senate. However, if they are few in number, it will be necessary for them to vote openly in their council and not by secret ballot as in large councils.

For in small councils where voting is in secre� he who is a little more cunning can easily detect the author of each vote and has many ways of outmanoeuvering members who are less sharp. [ 1 2] In every city, too, judges are to be appointed by its supreme council; but their judgments should be subject to appeal to the supreme court of the state, except in a case of openly established guilt or a confessed debtor. ll But these matters need not be pursued further.

[13] It remains, then, to discuss those cities that are not in control of their own right. 12

If these are situated on territory or land administered by the state and their inhabitants are of the same race and language, they ought to be regarded, just like villages, as parts of neighbouring cities, which means that each of them must be governed by some city or other that is in control of its own right. The reason for this is that patricians are not chosen by the supreme council of the state but by the supreme council of each city and will vary in number according to the number of inhabitants within the bounds of that city’s jurisdiction (Section 5 of th is Chapter).

So it is necessary that the population of a city that is not in control of its own right should be included in the register of the population of another city that is in control of its own right, and should be under its guidance.

But cities that have been captured by right of war and annexed to the state should be regarded as allied to the state, to be won over and bound by favour shown; or else colonies that would enjoy the right of citizenship should be sent there and the native population removed elsewhere; or else the city should be utterly destroyed. 13

[14] These, then, are the measures which should form the basis of this kind of state.

That it is better organised than the state which takes its name from one city only, I conclude from the following considerations. The patricians of each city, as human ambition goes, will be anxious to maintain, and if possible extend, their right both in the city and the senate.

They will therefore endeavour as best they can to win popularity with the people, governing by kindness rather than by fear and increasing their own numbers, since the more numerous they are, the more senators they will appoint from their own council (Section 6 of this Chapter) and consequently the more right they will have in the state (by the same section).

Nor is it an objection to this view that, with each city intent on its own interests and jealous of the others, they will frequently be at odds with one another and waste time in disputes. For if “wh ile the Romans debate, Saguntum is 10st;’ 14 on the other hand when all decisions are made by a few men who have only themselves to please, freedom and the common good are lost. The fact is that men’s wits are too obtuse to get straight to the heart of every question, but by discussing, listening to others, and debating, their wits are sharpened, and by exploring every avenue they eventually discover what they are seeking, something that meets with general approval and that no one had previously thought of. 15 We have seen many examples of this in Holland.16

If anyone retorts that the state of Holland has not long endured without a coun t or a deputy to take his place, 17 let him take th is for a reply.

The Dutch thought that to maintain their freedom it was enough for them to abandon their count and to cut off the head from the body of the state. 18

The thought of reorganising it in a different form has never entered their minds; they have left all its limbs as they had previously been, so that Holland has remained a county without a count, like a headless body, and the state without a name.

So it is not surprising that most of its subjects have not known where its sovereignty lay. And even if this were not so, those who in fact held the sovereignty were far too few to be capable of governing the people and suppressing their powerful opponents. 19 As a result, the latter have often been able to plot against them with impunity and finally have succeeded in overthrowing them.

Therefore the sudden20 overthrow2l of this same republ ic resulted not from waste of time in useless deliberations but from the defective constitution of that state and the fewness of its rulers.

[15] There is a further reason why this aristocracy, where the sovereignty is held by several cities, is to be preferred to the other. There is no need, as in the case of the first kind, to guard against the possibility of its entire supreme council’s being overthrown by a sudden attack, because (by Section 9 of this Chapter) no time or

place is appoin ted for its meetings. Moreover, powerful citizens are less to be feared in this type of state. For where freedom is enjoyed by a number of cities, it is not sufficient for someone’s having designs on the sovereignty to seize just one city in order to hold dominion over the others. Finally, in this kind of state, freedom is shared by more of its members; for when one city has sole rule, regard is paid to the good of others only as far as it suits the ruling city.