PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 13 



objects under the general head of personal property, and the exemp- 

 tion of the same classes of property from any corresponding assess- 

 ment in the British provinces of North America, and in all foreign 

 countries with which the United States enter into extensive com- 

 mercial intercourse and competition. Boards of trade and commer- 

 cial conventions may pass " deploring " resolutions concerning the 

 decay of American commerce, and committees of Congress may 

 continue to investigate the same subject, but so long as ships, en- 

 gaged in the carrying trade on the free ocean, and owned in Canada, 

 England, France, Germany, and Holland, are not directly taxed, 

 and ships engaged in competition in the same business, and owned 

 in Portland, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, and San Francisco, 

 are taxed, and taxed heavily, commerce will incline to move in the 

 paths which are made easy and profitable to it. The difference in 

 cost of a single penny per bushel in laying down grain at Liverpool 

 may alone be determinative of the question whether millions of 

 bushels shall be supplied by the wheat fields of the United States 

 or those of Russia, India, or Hungary. 



" As a rule, the States of the Federal Union tax shipping as 

 other property is taxed, regardless of the fact that the other leading 

 maritime nations usually impose no taxes on shipping as property, 

 but tax only the actual earning of shipping; assuming doubtless, 

 and correctly, that from the very nature of its use shipping can not 

 fairly share in the benefits which accrue from state and municipal 

 taxation for public purposes. In short, when a vessel is fulfilling 

 the function for which it is built, it is navigating the ocean, remote, 

 except during brief stay in port, from the fields and purposes to 

 which state and local taxes are applied." 



Only one State — Delaware — exempts shipping from all taxation; 

 New York and Alabama exempt so much of their shipping as is 

 engaged in foreign trade; Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and 

 Connecticut tax the earnings only of their shipping in foreign trade ; 

 and, under decision of the United States Supreme Court, Pennsyl- 

 vania imposes no tax on its shipping in interstate or foreign trade. 



All the other States tax all classes of vessels as personal property, 

 making no distinction between those engaged in foreign and domes- 

 tic trade. 



The comparative burden of taxation on shipping in the United 

 States and the maritime states of Europe finds practical illustration 

 in the following examples : The city of Portland, Maine, levied more 

 taxes in the year 1893 on its shipping (63,206 tons, valued at $909,- 

 000) than the Cunard Company paid to Great Britain in the same 

 year on a valuation of their ships of nearly $9,000,000. The taxa- 

 tion of shipping at Charleston, S. C, is five times heavier than that 



