PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 179 



competing commodities, submitted the following statement : " Tlie 

 revenue from imports last year exceeded twenty-seven millions of 

 dollars, of which, twenty-seven millions are paid to the Govern- 

 ment upon imports, and forty- four millions in enhanced prices of 

 similar domestic articles. This estimate is based upon the posi- 

 tion that the duty is added to the price of the import and also 

 of its domestic rival. If the import is enhanced in price by the 

 duty, so must be its domestic rival, for, being like articles, their 

 price must be the same in the same market." (Senate Document, 

 First Session, Twenty-ninth Congress, 1845-'46.) * 



In a debate in the Constitutional Convention of the State of 

 New York in 1867-'68, the late Hon. George Opdyke, a member, 

 and one of the best economic and fiscal authorities of his time, 

 stated that his investigations had led him to the conclusion that 

 consumers of imported articles in the United States are " charged 

 with at least fifty per cent in addition to the duties actually 

 received by the Government." 



As the result of a careful study of the subject, based on the 

 rates of duty imposed by the tariff law of March, 1883, Hon. Wil- 

 liam H. Springer (for a long time a prominent member of Con- 

 gress) was led to the conclusion that the average increase in the 

 prices of domestic commodities due to the duties imposed on the 

 import of competitive products had not been less than $556,000,000 

 for every year of the twenty years next precedent to 1883, "mak- 

 ing an aggregate of over eleven billions of dollars, not one dollar 

 of which went into the national Treasury." (See North American 

 Review, vol. cxxxvi. No. 319.) 



The experience of the indirect taxation of commodities also 

 shows that they favor the concentration of business in a few 

 hands, or the creation of monopolies. Of this the experience of 

 the internal revenue system of the United States has furnished 

 some curious examples. Thus a tax was imposed in 1864 on 

 matches at the rate of one cent per package of one hundred or 

 less ; and, although comparatively insignificant, it yielded at one 

 time, by reason of the immense number of matches consumed, an 

 annual revenue of over $3,500,000, which sum the manufacturer 

 was obliged to advance by purchasing and affixing stamps to each 

 package as a prerequisite to selling. To manufacturers furnish- 

 ing their own design for the stamp, the Government allowed a 

 discount of ten per cent on stamps of an aggregate value in excess 

 of five hundred dollars purchased at any one time, and sixty days' 

 credit to such manufacturers as could offer satisfactory security 



* This estimate was founded on an apparently careful investigation of the prices " of 

 sixteen leading domestic articles and the manufactures thereof, similar to those on which 

 the present duties (1845) are imposed." 



