APPLETONS' 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. 



AUGUST, 1898. 



PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION". 



By DAVID A. WELLS, LL.D., D. C.L., 



COKRESPONDANT DE l'iNSTITCT DE FRANCE, ETO. 



XIX. WHAT SHOULD BE TAXED, AND HOW IT SHOULD BE TAXED. 



SOME years since (1873) a citizen of Tennessee, Mr. Enocli 

 Enslej, making no pretense of scholastic learning or private 

 interests, but earnestly desiring the material development of his 

 section of the country (Tennessee), and that it should not be retarded 

 by the adoption of an unsound system of State or municipal taxa- 

 tion, published in the form of a letter addressed to the Governor of 

 the State a little pamphlet entitled What should be Taxed, and 

 How it should be Taxed, which set forth certain fundamental proposi- 

 tions in respect to local taxation, and supported them with such 

 homely and clear illustrations as to entitle the essay to a permanent 

 place in economic and legal literature. 



Mr. Ensley commences by proposing the following rule or 

 maxim as the basis for a State (Tennessee), city, or county system 

 of taxation : 



" Never tax anything that would be or value to your State, 



THAT COULD AND WOULD RUN AWAY, OR THAT COULD AND WOULD COME 

 to YOU." 



Mr. Ensley then lays down the proposition that property 

 naturally divides itself into two classes — movable and immovable; 

 that the former, as its name implies, can be moved from one place 

 to another as its owner chooses, while the latter is fixed and can not 

 budge an inch, no matter what its owner chooses, " I hold it to be 

 true that immovable property has no value till it is occupied or 



TOL. LIII. — 30 



