PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 583 



way, and if the head of every family was compelled to perform 

 annually some twenty days' labor to discharge the obligation in- 

 cumbent on himself and family to pay taxes, which would be 

 about the amount which the head of every family in the United 

 States would have to perform to meet its present annual expen- 

 ditures. Everybody would then be talking economy ; and the 

 politician who wanted votes, instead of promising public build- 

 ings, or more salaried offices to his constituents, would say, " Gen- 

 tlemen, give me your votes and elect me, and I will have your com- 

 pulsory labor cut down next year from twenty-five days to twenty, 

 or even fifteen." And yet the difference between that state of 

 things and the present is merely a difference of appearance. 



W.HAT IS Taxation ? — The popular or dictionary definition of 

 taxation — namely, " the act of levying a tax or imposing taxes " — 

 is as indefinite and imperfect as the ordinary definition of a 

 " tax " has been shown to be. Scientifically considered, taxation 

 is the taking or appropriating such portion of the product or 

 property of a country or community as is necessary for the sup- 

 port of its government, by methods that are not in the nature of 

 extortions, punishments, or confiscations ; and a systematic and 

 orderly arrangement and presentation of the knowledge gained 

 by experience and discussion, with a view to effect such a result 

 with certainty, uniformity, and the minimum of cost and trouble 

 to society and its individual taxpayers or contributors, consti- 

 tutes the Science of Taxation.'* 



In what will be hereafter said, the word taxation will be used 

 as far as possible in the sense in which it has been defined ; but 

 at the same time the employment of the unscientific term has 

 become so general that its use in default of any satisfactory syno- 

 nym is almost unavoidable, especially in the historical treatment 

 of the subject. 



Such a limitation of the meaning and nature of the word tax 

 as has thus been given is clearly of the first importance, and a lack 

 of its recognition is undoubtedly responsible in a high degree for 

 the present unsatisfactory position of the subject of taxation as 

 a department of economic knowledge ; and also for a very general 

 belief that in determining the forms of taxes the only rule to be 

 followed is that of expediency. It may be too much to claim that 

 a general recognition and practical acceptance of the proposed 

 definitions and limitations are absolute essentials for the concep- 



* Essentially the same definition of taxation has been given by Mr. J. R. McCulloch. 

 " It is," he says, " the name given to the branch of the science of political economy which 

 explains the mode in which different taxes affect the public interest, and in which the 

 revenue required for the public service may be most advantageously raised." — Treatise on 

 the Principles of Taxation^ J. R. McCulloch, 1875. 



