66 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for great national emergencies, in wliicli tlie necessity of a large 

 additional revenue overrules all objections." 



Mr. Gladstone, speaking in 1853, also said, " I believe it " (an 

 income tax) " does more than any other tax to demoralize and corrupt 

 the people." And Mr. Disraeli subsequently in Parliament ex- 

 pressed his agreement with Mr. Gladstone by saying, " The odious 

 features of this tax can not by any means be removed or modified "; 

 and with these opinions nearly all educated financiers and economists 

 are in complete unison, except a comparatively few persons who, 

 educated in Germany, have embraced the idea that because income 

 taxes are effectively collected in countries having a despotic form of 

 government, they can be equally collected in countries under a popu- 

 lar government.* 



In support of these conclusions attention is asked to the following 

 historical evidence. It is well known that one of the principal causes 

 which led to the great French Revolution was the inequality (class 

 exemptions) and multiplicity of taxes; and one of the first acts of the 

 ISTational Assembly of 1789 was to repeal all inquisitorial and arbi- 

 trary taxes of every name and nature; and this repeal was based on 

 the report of a committee of some of the most eminent members of the 

 Convention — La Rochefoucauld and Talleyrand being of the number 

 — which commenced with the following proposition : " Every system 

 of taxation which necessitates personal and arbitrary inquisitions for 

 its execution is inconsistent with the maintenance of a free people." 

 And although, from that day to this, France, by reason of a national 

 debt greater than that ever borne by any other nation, has been com- 

 pelled to resort to almost every expedient for obtaining revenue, it 

 has, theoretically at least, endeavored to maintain a system of gen- 

 eral taxation not inconsistent with the above principle. 



Under the head of indirect taxation, however, which includes the 

 general direction of the stamp tax, " domainal public land " revenues, 

 customs, duties on imports, salt and sugar taxes, and monopolization 

 of the manufacture of powder and the sale of tobacco and matches, 

 the so-called communes of France have a right to "levy a tax of three 

 per cent on the annual income (interests, dividends, etc.) of personal 

 property, such as French or foreign securities, shares, bonds issued 



* As the opinions of English authorities (above referred to) have been disparaged on 

 the ground that they represent old-time utterances and imperfect fiscal experiences, atten- 

 tion is here asked to the following extract from a letter of Prof. Thorold Rogers, late mem- 

 ber of the British House of Commons and Professor of Political Economy, University of 

 Oxford, under date of August 25, 1884: "Nobody defends the income tax. It was first 

 imposed on the tyrant's plea that the administration can not do without it, and it has been 

 continued for the same reason. Every Chancellor of the Exchequer has condemned it in 

 principle and has continued it in practice. It is not wonderful, therefore, that, fortified by 

 these avowals, people who can evade the tax do so." 



