5H 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



preciate the necessity of placing in our schoolrooms, and if we could 

 in our homes, persons possessing an endowment of nervous energy 

 adequate for the demands to be made upon it without inducing too 

 readily fatigue with all its train of evils. 



BEST METHODS OF TAXATION 



By the Late Hon. DAVID A. WELLS. 

 PART IL 



IN passing from the tariff, or duties on imports, to the internal or 

 excise taxes imposed by the Federal Government, there is evi- 

 dently a distinct change in purpose. However subject to abuse the 

 tax on distilled spirits has proved, and however frequently its agency 

 has been invoked to exaggerate the profits of interested parties, 

 there has never been an oj^en and avowed intention of turning it to 

 private gain. The policy that has become almost inseparable from 

 the customs tariff, and is by most people regarded as inherent in all 

 customs legislation, has not been transferred to the internal revenue 

 taxes save in one or two instances of recent application and sec- 

 ondary importance. The danger of permitting taxation to be em- 

 ployed by either State or Federal Government for a purpose other 

 than that of raising necessary revenue has been dwelt upon. When 

 a police power is exercised in conjunction with a tax framed for 

 revenue, and is regarded as the more important function to be per- 

 formed, the policy requires careful examination. If revenue is the 

 real object, the method of imposing the tax and the determination 

 of the rate which will give the highest return with the least inter- 

 ference in the production, distribution, and export of the commod- 

 ity taxed remains to be defined. If restriction in manufacture, 

 sale, or consumption is intended, the question is no longer one of 

 taxation proper, but of police regulation. The Federal taxes on 

 oleomargarine, filled cheese, and mixed flour are of the nature of 

 police inspection, and the tax on the circulation of State banks, 

 amounting, as it has, to prohibition, is a still more extreme exercise 

 of the same power. The imposition and collection of these duties 

 have a penal quality, an intention to restrict or prohibit the pro- 

 duction or sale or use of some article. They are not properly taxes; 

 they are not a proper application of tax principles, but have origi- 

 nated, in private interest, or in the deliberate intention to constitute 

 a monopoly. State or other. 



The approach of war, or its actual presence, is made the excuse 

 of an extension of taxes, and the Federal Government tacitly ad- 



