286 Chapter XII
economic development. Such a tax, he observed in 1783, with “no difference be-
tween the possessions of men, to whatever estate or order they might belong,” with
no difference “between the property of noble and peasant, or of state and church,”
would allow all internal tolls and tariffs to be abolished, “and a free trade among
twenty million people to emerge.”^6 To enlarge the source of such a land tax, as
well as to give incentive for production, Joseph offered crown lands and lands con-
fiscated from the church for sale to private owners, though with some difficulty
because of the lack of private capital in his dominions. The new civil code, pub-
lished in 1786, also favored the multiplication of individual properties, by prescrib-
ing equal division of inheritance in place of primogeniture, and restricting entails.
Several years passed in the preparation of the new cadaster. Valuations were
based on actual income for the previous ten years. Owners had to make declara-
tions of income, and surveyors, appraisers, and agricultural experts went to work.
The result was the decree of February 10, 1789, in many ways the climax and turn-
ing point of Joseph’s reign.
The decree again announced the principle of taxation in proportion to income
from land regardless of social order. All landowners, in all provinces, were to pay
twelve per cent of annual revenue, except that in Galicia they would for a time pay
only eight per cent. Under the new system Bohemia, Austria, Styria, and Carinthia
would pay less than in the past; Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, Gorizia, Carniola, and
Galicia would pay more. (Belgium and Lombardy were not included.) The same
decree, explaining that the state desired the peasant to be a property- owner, and
able to pay his taxes, set forth a solution to the problem of forced labor. “The sub-
ject,” announced the decree, meaning the peasant who was to have a secure and
hereditable tenure of land, “shall retain 70 gulden in a hundred of his gross income
for his own needs, and only the remaining 30 shall be used for payments due to the
nobleman and to the state.”^7 Optional conversion of forced labor into money pay-
ments having led nowhere, conversion was now required. The law was not, how-
ever, inflexible. Money was rare in the villages, and peasants and lords were al-
lowed, if they wished, by agreements in each case, to convert the money payments
into payments in kind; but no such agreement could run for over three years (that
is, they must not become perpetual); and all such agreements must be approved by
the Emperor’s district chief. In any case, the peasant, while free from forced labor,
still owed payments to his lord as well as to the state. And in any case the lord,
whether he received money or produce, would lose the forced labor. The govern-
ment was to send special lawyers into the villages to counsel the peasants and assist
them with legal papers. It may be surmised that their arrival was not anticipated by
the gentry with much satisfaction.
The difficulty in Joseph’s position was that it expressed no general or public de-
mand, no groups of interested parties with formulated ideas and habits of working
together. There was no one to whom he could appeal. His important followers
were his own bureaucrats and officials. In the Hapsburg empire—the empire
proper, without Belgium and Lombardy—property, position, education, breadth of
6 Ibid., 418.
7 Ibid., 617.