592 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



taxation wliich have obtained popular credence may be liere ap- 

 propriately noticed. 



Thus, it is not infrequently assumed that any injurious influ- 

 ences of excessive or unnecessary taxation are largely or wholly 

 imaginary, inasmuch as they are really returned to the contribu- 

 tors (taxpayers) through the expenditures of Government ; which, 

 by increasing demand for commodities and services, create or 

 extend markets, maintain prices, and enlarge the sphere or op- 

 portunity for industrial employment, and favor an increase in 

 the supply and circulation of money. This assumption is obvi- 

 ously but a reproduction in another form of the fallacy (before 

 noticed) that industry can be stimulated by taxation ; and which 

 in turn finds its antetype in a favorite idea of the middle ages 

 that the destruction or waste of commodities "made good for 

 trade"; and which maxim, it is said, a guild of glaziers in Paris 

 ]jractically carried out by encouraging their apprentices to break 

 windows, who may have attempted to justify their conduct by 

 asking themselves the question, " Wha,t would become of the 

 glazing business if nobody ever broke windows ?" 



A general answer to this fallacy is, that to break, spoil, or 

 irasfe by fire, pestilence, war, famine, shipwreck, or injudicious 

 and unnecessary taxation and public expenditure, always entails 

 a loss to society ; and if these results give to certain class interests 

 an opportunity to perform unnecessary work, or sell products 

 at an advance over their current prices in the world's market, 

 and thereby inflict unnecessary and additional taxes on other in- 

 dividuals, it can not be regarded as other than an evil, and preju- 

 dicial to public interests. 



To those who live on the produce of unnecessary taxation and 

 correlative governmental expenditure, any consequent encourage- 

 ment of industry by increasing demand and extension of mar- 

 kets, will very naturally seem to be in the highest degree bene- 

 ficial. But, in order that industry may be truly benefited, the 

 market must be real and not artificial, or one created by unneces- 

 sary taxation and expenditure. " It is absurd to suppose that 

 either individuals or states should receive the smallest benefit 

 from the demand of those whom they have been previously and 

 unnecessarily obliged to furnish with the means of buying. To 

 keep up useless regiments and overgrown establishments on the 

 pretense of encouraging industry is quite as irrational as if a 

 shopkeeper were to attempt to increase his business and get rich 

 by furnishing his customers with money to buy his goods." — 

 McCulloch. 



Hamilton (a Scotch economist) puts the case even more forcibly. 

 " To argue," he says, " that the money raised in taxes, being spent 

 among those who pay it, is therefore no loss to them, is no less 



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