PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 503 



According to these conclusions, the greatest consumers must be 

 the greatest taxpayers. The man also who evades a tax clearly robs 

 his neighbors. The thief also pays taxes indirectly, for he is a con- 

 sumer, and must pay the advanced price caused by his own roguery 

 for all he consumes, although he does steal the money to pay with. 

 Idlers and even tramps pay taxes, but the amount that they indirectly 

 pay into the fund is much less than they take out of it. People are 

 sometimes referred to or characterized as non-taxpayers, and in 

 political harangues and socialistic essays measures or policies are 

 recommended by which certain persons or classes, by reason of their 

 extreme poverty, shall be entirely exempt from all incidence or bur- 

 den of taxation. Such a person does not, however, exist in any 

 civilized community. If one could be found he would be a greater 

 curiosity than exists in any museum. To avoid taxation a man must 

 go into an unsettled wilderness where he has no neighbors, for as 

 soon as he has a companion, if that companion be only a dog, 



and collected, would be diffused, and that the laborer would be the mere conduit through 

 which the tax would pass to the public treasury. Thus he says, " While the demand for 

 labor and the price of provisions, therefore, remain the same, a direct tax upon wages can 

 have no other effect than to raise them somewhat higher than the tax." 



The German economist Bluntschli, who has carefully studied this question of the final 

 incidence of all just and equitable taxes, is in substantial agreement with the above conclu- 

 sions, but prefers to use a different term for characterizing such finality than consumption, 

 and expresses himself as follows : " In the end taxes fall on enjoyments. Hence the amount 

 of each man's enjoyments and not his income is the justest measure of taxation." (Blunt- 

 schli, vol. x, p. 146.) 



M. Thiers, the French statesman and economist, was also a believer and earnest advo- 

 cate of the theory of the diffusion of taxes, and lays down his principles in the following 

 words : " Taxes are shifted indefinitely, and tend to become a part of the price of commodi- 

 ties, to such an extent that every one bears his share, not in proportion to what he pays the 

 state, but in proportion to what he consumes." And in his book Rights to Property he thus 

 illustrates the method in which taxation diffuses itself : " In the same manner as our 

 senses, deceived by appearances, tell us that it is the sun which moves and not the earth, 

 so a particular tax appears to fall upon one class, and another tax upon another class, 

 when in reality it is not so. The tax really best suited to the poorest member of society is 

 that which is best suited to the general fortune of the state ; a fortune which is much more 

 for the possession and enjoyment of the poor man than it is for the rich ; a fact of which 

 we are never sufficiently convinced. But of the manner, nevertheless, in which taxes are 

 divided among the different classes of the state, the most certain thing we can say is : That 

 they are divided in proportion to what each man consumes, and for a reason not generally 

 recognized or understood, namely, that taxes are reflected, as it were, to infinity, and from 

 reflection to reflection become eventually an integral part of the prices of things. Hence 

 the greatest purchasers and consumers are everywhere the greatest taxpayers. This is 

 what I call ' diffusion of taxation,'' to borrow a term from physical science, which applies 

 the expression ' diffusion of light ' to those numberless reflections, in consequence of which 

 the light which has penetrated the slightest aperture spreads itself around in every direc- 

 tion, and in such a manner as to reach all the objects which it renders visible. So a tax 

 which at first sight appears to be paid directly, in reality is only advanced by the individual 

 who is first called upon to pay it." 



