These facts show that when a reduction of taxation is about to take place, it is exceedingly important that great care and judgment should be exercised in the selection of the tax to be reduced, in order that the maximum of relief may be afforded to the public, with the minimum of injury to the revenue.
The best test to apply to the several existing taxes for the discovery of the one which may be reduced most extensively, with the least proportionate loss to the revenue, is probably this: excluding from the examination those taxes, the produce of which is greatly affected by changes in the habits of the people, as the taxes on spirits, tobacco, and hair-powder, let each be examined as to whether its productiveness has kept pace with the increasing numbers and prosperity of the nation. And that tax which proves most defective under this test is, in all probability, the one we are in quest of.
If this test be applied to the principal branches of the revenue, it will be found that the tax on the transmission of letters is the most remarkable for its non-increasing productiveness. A mere glance at the following table must satisfy every one that there is something extremely wrong in this tax as it now stands.
