i 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



levied by Great Britain or Germany. During the year 1893 the 

 city of San Francisco levied taxes to the amount of $85,675 on its 

 shipping, a sum within $600 of the combined taxes paid during the 

 same year by the Cunard Line, the Hamburg- American Line, the 

 North German Lloyd, and the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique 

 of France to their respective Governments; their combined ship- 

 ping comprising upward of 700,000 tons of the best steel and iron 

 steamships valued at upward of $58,000,000. And in addition 

 to this onerous and (in comparison with other countries) discrimi- 

 nating burden of taxation or shipping, the income-tax act of 1894 

 imposed an additional and new tax of two per cent on the earnings of 

 shipping in excess of $4,000, which would have fallen mainly on 

 that portion of the United States merchant marine — i. e., the great 

 American steamships — which is most exposed to foreign competi- 

 tion, and which it is regarded as especially desirable to nationally 

 foster. 



On the other hand, Great Britain, Germany, France, and the 

 Netherlands tax only the earnings of shipping — i. e., an income tax. 

 Austria in 1894 suspended for five years all taxation of its vessels 

 engaged in foreign trade. Under this system of vessel taxation by 

 the great maritime countries of Europe it is, furthermore, to be 

 noted that the ownership of a ship that is idle and not earning does 

 not entail any burden of taxation ; but in the United States it makes 

 no difference whether a ship be at work or idle, profitably or un- 

 profitable employed, she pays taxes all the same. 



The experience of the several States in respect to the taxation 

 of vessels affords, however, a very striking illustration of the facility 

 with which obnoxious taxes are evaded in the United States, or 

 shifted upon those who are less able to bear them, and is thus related 

 in the Report of the United States Commissioner of [Navigation for 

 1894: " It is relatively an easy matter for the owner of several ves- 

 sels to form a partnership with the resident of another State in 

 which low taxes are imposed on shipping, and by allowing the ves- 

 sels to stand in the name of such partner to escape the endeavor of 

 the law to tax him more than his competitors in navigation are 

 taxed. Thus, some years since, the authorities in Chicago decided 

 to tax the shipping owned at that port on its full insurable value 

 at the rate fixed for municipal taxes. The vessel owners of the city, 

 in self-defense and to enable them to continue in business against 

 competing ports, were compelled to make nominal transfers of their 

 property, and thousands of tons of shipping, doubtless owned in 

 Chicago, appear on the records of the National Bureau of Naviga- 

 tion as owned in other States. Though in the number and tonnage 

 of its entries and clearances Chicago ranks with the greatest ports 



