74 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Gladstone, in an address to tlie country, especially asked that the con- 

 fidence and continued administration of the Government be given 

 him on the ground that he contemplated an early repeal of the 

 income tax. Circumstances, however, have prevented any such 

 action, and in subsequent years of office Mr. Gladstone has not 

 hesitated to raise the tax Avhenever the necessity of additional 

 revenue for the Government became imperative. That he has re- 

 gretted his inability to abolish it is evident from his saying, in his 

 financial statement in 1853: "I think some happier Chancellor of 

 the Exchequer may achieve this great accomplishment, and that some 

 future poet may be able to sing of him: 



" He took the tax mcay, 

 And built himself an everlasting name. " 



From the outset the income tax has been more odious and unpopular 

 in Great Britain than any other form of taxation. Among states- 

 men and economists there is hardly any dissent from the opinion 

 that the tax is bad in principle, because unequal and unjust in its 

 assessment, and incapable of being made equal and just; and this, 

 too, although the administration of the revenue laws of Great 

 Britain — owing to the comparatively small area of territory sub- 

 jected to supervision, and the fact that the tenure of office on the 

 part of officials is dependent solely on honesty and intelligence — is 

 wonderfully efficient, far more so than can be expected under exist- 

 ing conditions in the United States. The annual reports of the 

 British Commissioners of the Inland Revenue always mention ex- 

 tensive CA'asions of the income tax. For the year 18 64-' 6 5 the 

 amount of such evasion was estimated to have been equal to about 

 one sixth of the revenue collected under it. The demoralizing effects 

 which are inevitably produced by the habit of making false returns 

 respecting income are regarded by many British authorities as far 

 more deplorable than those resulting from any inequality contin- 

 gent on this form of taxation; as the transition from a fraud upon 

 the Government to a fraud upon the public is comparatively easy. 

 The reported product of the income tax of Great Britain for 1893- 

 '94, was £15,200,000 ($76,000,000); an amount beyond the esti- 

 mate. 



Note. — The following incident, which has become a part of English political history, is 

 curiously illustrative of the state of public opinion in England at the time of the first impo- 

 sition of the income tax under the statute of Mr. Pitt, and is derived from the memoirs of 

 John Home Tooke : 



Mr. Tooke was an Englishman who participated actively in British politics during the 

 latter third of the last century. He early espoused the side of the Americans in their 

 struggle for liberty, and was persecuted, fined, and imprisoned by the British Government 

 for publishing an advertisement for a subscription for the widows and orphans of the 

 Americans " murdered by the King's troops at Lexington and Concord." After his release 



