PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 6i 



revenue officials, purchased square pieces of ivory for a few pence 

 and marked them for themselves. As regards packs of cards, the 

 regulations imposed by a number of complicated acts of Parlia- 

 ment were so stringent that legally cards could scarcely be made 

 or sold. Nevertheless for many years cards were hawked about 

 the streets unstamped and without a license ; and the manufac- 

 ture of cards for exportation was so flourishing that nearly half a 

 million packs were estimated to be surreptitiously made for ex- 

 portation at the time the obnoxious taxes were repealed." 



Sixth. No tax should he levied the character and extent of 

 which offer, as human nature is generally constituted, a greater 

 inducement to the taxpayer to evade rather than pay. 



The justification and wisdom of the above maxim find sup- 

 port in a lesser degree from argument than from experience, 

 although the deductions from abstract reasoning ought alone 

 to constitute its sufficient indorsement. It has been pointed out 

 by Herbert Spencer that ideal men are possible only in an ideal 

 state ; and, conversely, that a perfect social state is possible only 

 when every unit has achieved perfection. As this condition has 

 not been attained, and until the "millennium" arrives is not 

 likely to be, the inference is legitimate that a large proportion of 

 mankind are not " decently honest," inasmuch as in every variety 

 of business where opportunity for the perpetration of fraud exists, 

 much labor is expended in guarding against dishonesty. This is 

 specially exemplified in the case of railroads, " where tickets have 

 to be dated, punched, and carefully collected to prevent their 

 being used again by the masses." 



But it is in matters of taxation that the largest amount of irre- 

 futable evidence is to be found in support of the above maxim. 

 Thus in the case of smuggling or the evasion of duties on im- 

 ports, the experience of all governments and of almost all coun- 

 tries is to the effect, that when sufficient inducement in the way 

 of gain from a violation of the law is offered, such statute can 

 not be executed even when penalties as severe as death have been 

 made contingent on individual arrest and conviction. But it 

 has been reserved for that nation whose people claim to be the 

 most law-abiding and intelligent, to furnish the most confirma- 

 tory evidence on this subject namely, the United States the 

 Congress of which in 1865 imposed a tax on distilled spirits 

 amounting to more than fifteen hundred per cent on the then 

 average prime cost of production. The result was, that the 

 Government was only able in 1868 to collect the tax on less than 

 seven million gallons out of an annual product of certainly not 

 less than fifty million gallons; which last, sold as it undoubt- 

 edly was at the current market price (tax included), left to the 

 credit of popular corruption at least $80,000,000. 



