462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of Minnesota states that " the revenue from the corporation tax is 

 steadily increasing, and if it should continue to increase, and the proba- 

 bilities are that it will, as it has done for the last four years, it bids 

 fair to pay all the expenses of the State government." In New Jersey 

 there is no regular tax, except for schools, as the new railroad and 

 canal tax law and the tax on miscellaneous corporations maintain the 

 government. 



These are striking illustrations of the workings of a new system of 

 imposing special taxes on special classes of property, which was only 

 first tried about ten years ago. The idea of treating railroads and cor- 

 porations generally in a different manner in the tax levies from other 

 kinds of property was a development, perhaps, of the granger and 

 anti-monopoly movements. It is founded on the theory that parties 

 enjoying special privileges from the State should share with the State, 

 to some extent, the profits of their enterprises. If the Government 

 gives certain individuals peculiar advantages and protection in the 

 inauguration and prosecution of their schemes and business, it is held 

 that they should make a return for the favors granted, in proportion 

 to the success of their undertaking. In every State where the plan 

 has been tried it has worked admirably. After a stout resistance on 

 the part of the corporations, resulting in a judicial interpretation of all 

 the provisions of the statute, the execution of the new law goes on 

 smoothly in each State. The largest corporations naturally fight every 

 encroachment on their sources of income, but when the law is once in 

 full operation they submit gracefully. The various Legislatures adopt- 

 ing the system have endeavored not to make the tax too heavy. If 

 the rate is moderate it inflicts no serious burden on the corporations, 

 and yet brings a handsome sum into the public treasury. The benefits 

 of this new plan have, so far, been appreciated only in the New Eng- 

 land, Middle, and Northwestern States. Twelve States now impose 

 special taxes on railroads and other corporations. In eight more, in- 

 cluding three Southern States, insurance companies are subject to a 

 special rate. The ordinary method of levying a direct tax on real and 

 personal property still furnishes, in the large majority of States, almost 

 the entire revenue. The old poll-tax remains a favorite form of taxa- 

 tion in parts of New England and the South, twelve States raising most 

 of their school funds in that way. An examination of the tax laws of 

 each of the thirty-eight Commonwealths indicates, however, a steady 

 development of the idea of " taxation without lamentation." The at- 

 tack is not confined to corporations. There is a reaching out in every 

 direction for special subjects for taxation. If one State finds an object 

 that can pay special rates without suffering materially, and without 

 raising a popular outcry, other States follow in the line of the discov- 

 ery. On the other hand, a number of experiments have been aban- 

 doned, after a year or two of trial, because the law was unconstitutional 

 or unpopular. All the New England States have a tax on deposits in 



