culture and experience; to provide such fair education for its children as shall fit them to successfully fill the demands of citi zenship; to encourage the growth of commerce and the liberal arts; to guard and foster patriotic feeling; to promote virtue, and to crown loyalty.

These are the optional functions of the state, and, together with the necessary ones of public and private defense, form the demand of the state treasury upon the private purse. The public honor requires cautious and wise expenditures, and cheap and incurious collection. Private honor requires a ready and generous contribution.

II. How should such a tax lexy be made?

Again, with Adam Smith, "the tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought to be clear and plain to the contributor and every other person." Taxes should be assessed upon predetermined rules, by acknowledged authorities, and in accordance with public opinion. "The time of payment should be clear and plain;" nothing should be left to the option of the gatherer. "The manner and the amount clear and plain" also; nothing should be left to the decision or the humor of the gatherer. A very small degree of uncertainty undermines the sense of cheerful contribution with which all lawful tax should be accompanied. Taxes should be both levied and gathered so as to leave such a "sweet taste in the mouth" as do such things which, when purchased, show a value received. And further, "every tax should be levied at the time, or in the manner, which is most likely to be convenient to the contributor to pay it." The time for the collection of taxes should suit the main industries of certain communities. Agricultural folk should pay tax after harvest, and fishing folk in fishing season, etc.

It is quite certain that men of our day and in this free country do dislike to pay tax. When they ask themselves what public protection they would consent to go without, or what product of former taxations they would abandon, they are forced to acknowledge that their liberty and property, their education and social advantage are purchased cheaply enough, yet they regard the as

sessor and the collector as enemies. Men of sense and business capacity readily acknowledge that they could not protect themselves if left without the assistance of the state, nor would they be so contented, so rich, so full of house comfort and social pleasure, if that which taxes buy for them was withdrawn; yet do they still pay taxes with an air of grievance, while all other purchases are held in the light of either expedient necessities or agreeable possessions. This dislike is so notorious as to have led one wise chancellor to have proposed a measure whereby all taxes should be collected from the estates of deceased persons, who were therefore incapable of growling their dislikes; and another to propose to levy in a gross amount, and allow citizens to assess it themselves upon such property as they pleased. Perhaps certain of this dislike is a mere "survival" of the tyrannous taxation of church and king in years gone by. Perhaps some of it keeps its ground upon the foundation of a certain insolence shown by vulgar men "clothed in the little brief authority" of the collectorship. But, likely enough, the bitterness arises from the divided public opinion as to what constitutes the taxable commodity, person or thing, together with a latent sense of injustice in taxation arising from the exemption of corporations from the taxes paid by individuals.

III. Let us ask, "Upon what should taxes be levied ?"

They have been levied in five principal ways, viz., upon persons, upon incomes, upon merchandise, upon personal estate, and upon real estate.

Revenue may be raised by a capitation tax, that is an equal sum paid alike by every one. This form of tax is objectionable only when it imposes a large sum as poll-tax, and when it is the only form of levy. If such a capitation be but a small part of the whole amount of revenue, and be in itself but a small sum, it is remarkably equitable and just. For in all other forms of taxation there is a want of recognition of the general protective power of the state. Life is equally desired by rich and poor. Liberty is the right of every man without regard to station. Equality before the law is the birthright of all members of the commonwealth. These are afforded, without distinction, to all, by every free state.

Therefore every adult person ought in equity to contribute the same sum of money in return for this impartial protection. Indeed the very highest advantages of an enlightened state, whether of school, of industry, of art, or of morality, are enjoyed by the poorest as well as by the richest citizen, and by women as well as by men. Moreover, in the commonwealth, the majority of those who govern the state and who impose taxes are not able to pay in any other way than by a capitation, being possessed neither of an income that is spontaneous nor of property that is remunerative. Every one therefore should be required, and should cheerfully agree, to pay a small capitation in return for value received, in protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Taxation of income is open to the gravest difficulties. For, first, income must not be classed as of one kind. There are spontaneous incomes and industrial incomes. A spontaneous income is that money derived from property which has not been earned by the enjoyer. Industrial incomes are those which accrue from personal effort and labor.

It is clear that these two sorts of benefit cannot be considered as identical. The income of the day laborer, who must earn in six days what may support his family for seven; the income of the professional man, whose whole time and energy must be given to the pursuit of his profession; the income of the farmer, who has to contend against every manner of exigency and risk; the income of the merchant, who has to strive against the harass of competition, cannot be justly taxed in common with those whose property has been inherited or derived, without the greatest injustice to the builders of their own fortune. And further, a common income tax cannot be equitably levied upon incomes that are contingent and those that are permanent, even though both may be industrial. For the income of the laborer, farmer, merchant, or professional man which depends upon health, custom, weather, or continuance of wages, cannot be classed with those incomes derived from property which has been saved by individual exertion and put into permanent investments. If, therefore, it is desirable to impose a tax upon income it should be so levied as to include the following three propositions, viz.:

(1.) Incomes should be assessed upon a system of averages founded upon the principle that the sum needed for necessities of life should pay the smallest share of public revenue. (2.) All incomes should be divided into "spontaneous" and "industrial," and the first should bear a much heavier tax than the latter. (3.) Income derived from yearly labor, whether of brain or hand, shall bear a much smaller tax than such income as is derived from the accumulation of earnings.

But, second, there is a grave objection to all income taxes, arising from the difficulty of finding the amount to be assessed, from the disagreeable espionage of such a form of levy, and from the inducement such a system offers for dishonest disclosures and statements. These objections will not lie against income tax in countries where the form of government is either despotic or "paternal," but they are of very grave importance in a free and constitutional state, where the power reposes in the consent of the governed. Yet, despite these well-founded objections, it must never be forgotten that a properly adjusted income tax is one of the fairest ways of raising revenue.

The possibility of earning and of enjoying an income results from the protection of the state, and every one should be willing to tax his earnings and his savings in fair proportion, for this protection. The omission of an adjusted income tax from the budget of the state leaves a gap that can be filled by no other tax or form of levy. By an income tax everyone contributes to the need of the state in exact proportion to the benefit he derives, while, "by falling equally on all, it occasions no change in the distribution of capital or in the direction of industry, and has no influence on prices." (McCullock.) It is the fairest, but at present it is the hardest to operate, mainly from a lack of knowledge as to means, and of generosity as to ends.

The most unfair in theory and unjust in practice is the tax on merchandise. All the evils that are most dreaded in the theory of just taxation are possible here, and most of them are practiced. Taxation of merchandise, whether it be that of imports and exports, or of "inland revenue," is open to the two most grave objections before stated, viz: that more money is taken out and

kept out of the pocket than is needed for purposes of revenue; and there is no popular certainty concerning such a tax.

The collection of revenue upon merchandise is performed by a most cumbersome and expensive machinery, eating up, by charges, a large part of that which is collected. Again, the imposition of indirect taxes upon commodities of necessity and luxury, leaves the citizen completely "in the dark" as to the amount he annually pays for his share of state protection. He neither knows "the time of payment, the manner of payment, nor the quantity paid, all of which ought to be clear to the contributor, and to every other person." Besides, the imposition of indirect tax on merchandise leads to unjust practices, and fosters crime. The tax is paid apparently by the merchant; it is really paid by the consumer (and if the merchant has evaded the tax the consumer pays him and not the government); hence he pays "not according to the benefit which he receives from the government, but according to the amount of taxable things which he consumes." Hence, also, he who consumes little is taxed little, although he may need protection for property to the extent of millions of dollars, while he who is taxed much because he consumes much may not owe more to the state than others who consume little.

It has been claimed as merit that taxing articles of use and commerce gets rid of the dissatisfaction of direct taxes; that duties upon imports and the impost of internal revenue bring the gov ernment a large sum, and cost consumers but a few pennies at a time. "The people must pay and not know it; be deceived a little, or they would not pay after this fashion." The fact is, however, that such deception works nothing but ill in a free. country. In a free country nothing is more necessary than that the people should feel both that they are taxed, and why they are taxed. We cannot too strongly feel that every appropriation comes, to some extent, out of our pockets. "A free people ought to know what they pay for freedom, and pay it joyfully; and they as soon should scorn being cheated into the support of their children as into the support of their government." (W. E. Channing.)

All taxes upon articles of commerce are artificial drags upon