PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 493 



exceedingly ephemeral, and are mainly confined to results which the 

 State with a view of encouraging removes for a limited time from the 

 natural laws of competition by granting patents, copyrights, and fran- 

 chises. Of things which are strictly limited in respect to supply, 

 what and where are they? Only a very few can be specified: ivory, 

 Peruvian guano, whalebone, ambergris, and the pelts of the fur seal. 

 Of wealth in the process of transmission, or in the hands of final con- 

 sumers, it is not tangible wealth unless it is tangible property, which 

 conforms under any correct system of taxation to the principles of 

 taxation; and if any one advocates the taxation of the right to re- 

 ceive property which has already been taxed, he in effect advocates a 

 double exaction of one and the same thing. If it be asked, Will an 

 income tax on a person retired from business be diffused? the answer, 

 beyond question, must be in the affirmative, if the tax is uniform 

 on all persons and on all amounts, and is absolutely collected in 

 minute sums. Would any one pay the same price for a railroad bond 

 which is subject to an income tax as he would for it if it was free 

 from tax? If one's land is taxed, either in the form of rent or in- 

 come, will not the tenant have the burden primarily thrown upon 

 him? And, finally, will not the consumer of the tenant's goods pay 

 through or by reason of such consumption? 



Respecting the incidence of the tax on mortgages, it does not make 

 any difference how mortgages are taxed — no earthly power can make 

 the lender pay it. If the borrower would not agree to pay the tax, 

 the lender would not loan him money, and whenever possible loans 

 would be foreclosed and payment insisted upon if the borrower 

 should refuse to pay the tax. 



Let us next subject to analysis the incidence of the so-called taxa- 

 tion of land. Considered per se (or in itself), land, in common with 

 unappropriated air and water, has no value; and it can not in any 

 strict sense be affirmed that we tax land; and when such affirma- 

 tion is made, its only legitimate and justifiable meaning is that we 

 tax the value of land; which value is due entirely to the amount 

 of personal property (in the sense of embodied labor) expended upon 

 it, and the pressure or demand of such property or labor to use, 

 possess, and occupy it. 



Yattel, in his Law of Nations, enunciates as a self-evident and 

 irrefutable proposition that " Nature has not herself established 

 property, and in particular with regard to lands. She only approves 

 this introduction for the advantage of the human race." 



One of the most striking examples of evidence in illustration and 

 proof of this proposition is to be found in an incident, which has 

 heretofore escaped attention, which occurred during a debate in the 

 Senate of the United States in 1890 on a bill for revision of duties 



