204 Regulation of trade. [i?65 The right of acquiring property depended on the rights of others ; the right of acquired property solely on the owner. Why should this right be sacred in England, and an empty name in the colonies ? From the principle stated arose the power of England ; should that power now be exerted in suppression of the principle ? Dulany, Hamilton, and others pointed out that the past regulations of trade plainly were not taxation. The whole remittance from all the taxes in the colonies, on an average of thirty years, had not amounted to 1900 a year, of which not above 800 had been remitted from North America ; while the cost of the machinery necessary to collect the sum amounted to 7600 a year. It would be ridiculous to suppose that Parliament would raise a revenue by taxes in the colonies, when to collect them would cost three times the amount of revenue. But how could any distinction be made between legislation generally and legislation over commerce ? The nature of the Act must, Dickinson answered, determine whether the object was to raise revenue or to regulate trade. Sometimes it might indeed be difficult to decide, and in a case of doubt it would be wise to submit. It signified nothing that certain taxes were called external ; although the duties lately imposed on paper and glass had been thus distinguished from those of the Stamp Act. There was no distinction in fact between the two. Parliament had no power to lay any tax whatever on the colonies ; and a tax was a burden laid for the sole purpose of raising revenue, under whatever name. Otis, who also had denied the distinction, put the case thus : the tax on trade is a tax on every one concerned in it, or it is not. If it is not, it is unequal. If it be said that such a tax is an equal tax on all, what becomes of the distinction between external and internal taxation ? Duties imposed in the regulation of trade were however sometimes called external taxes. In that use of the term the question whether there was any distinction between duties or "external taxes'" imposed in regulating trade, and internal taxes, was put to Franklin on his examination by the House of Commons, 1765, in regard to the repeal of the Stamp Act. "I never heard any objection," Franklin had said, "to the right [of Parliament] of laying duties to regulate commerce ; but the right to lay internal taxes was never supposed to be in Parliament, as we are not represented there." Could he name any Act of Assembly, or public Act of the colonial governments, that made such a distinction ? " I do not know," was the reply, " that there was any. I think there was never an occasion. . .till now that you have attempted to tax us. That has occa- sioned resolutions of Assembly, declaring the distinction, in which I think every Assembly on the continent., .has been unanimous. 1 " "Now can you show that there is any kind of difference between" external and internal taxes "to the colony on which they may be laid?" " I think the difference is very great. An external tax is a duty laid on com- modities imported; that duty is added to the first cost and other
