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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: II
All these advantages, to repeat what I have said, may, I believe, be
traced primarily to the soil and position of Attica itself. But these
natural blessings may be added to: in the first place, by a careful
handling of our resident alien[1] population. And, for my part, I can
hardly conceive of a more splendid source of revenue than lies open in
this direction. Here you have a self-supporting class of residents
confering large benefits upon the state, and instead of receiving
payment[2] themselves, contributing on the contrary to the gain of the
exchequer by the sojourners' tax.[3] Nor, under the term careful
handling, do I demand more than the removal of obligations which,
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