Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/22

total expenditures of the local authorities of the kingdom for 1893, defrayed from rates on the annual value of houses, or lands occupied, from gas and water rents, tolls, dues, loans, etc., and less the grant of subsidies from the Imperial Government, was about 56,000,000, making an aggregate of 131,400,000—or $657,000,000.

For the year 1890 the aggregate receipts of the Federal and State governments of the United States, mainly from taxes, as reported by the census for that year, were $1,040,473,013, apportioned as follows: Federal taxation, $461,154,000; State or local taxation, $578,328,000. Deducting the cost of postal service repaid by postal charges, and the receipts from the sale of public lands, the aggregate expenditures of the Federal Government would have been about $390,000,000.

Of these large sums it is safe to say, more especially of the latter national summary, that very small proportion, not even as much as a single dollar, has been raised under a statute framed and enacted solely from recognition of and conformity with any correct economic principles; and that in most, if not all, tax legislation, ideas not warranted by thought and experience, and based on expediency or political considerations, have always predominated. Illustrations of the truth of this assertion are abundant, but for the present one most pertinent, drawn from recent experience, must suffice. In August, 1891, the Farmers' Alliance of the State of Maryland held a convention in Baltimore, for the purpose of advocating a complete revision of the tax laws of their State, the imperfection, injustice, and practical futility of which were not questioned. And after general debate the following resolutions were unanimously adopted, not one of which is economically true; not one of which in the light of experience can be successfully enforced by other than a despotic government; and every one of which, if enforced, would prove prejudicial to the interests of the community which sanctions and enacts them:

Resolved, that the burden of all taxation ought to be imposed equally and impartially on all property, of whatsoever kind, both personal and real, without distinction and discrimination; that every exemption from taxation is equivalent to direct appropriation for the benefit of the owner of exempt property, and an increased levy on the property of those who pay taxes; that no tax law which provides for the exemption of any property of any kind can be either expedient or just; that no law, no contract, no device which by any means directly or indirectly imposes the payment of any part of any tax upon any man not the bona fide owner of that property ought to be tolerated; that debts secured by mortgages at legal interest are among the best and most productive forms of property, and should be taxed when the mortgages are recorded.^[1]

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1. In the following chapters the absurdity of the above resolutions will be specifically demonstrated.