ii6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



capable of sustaining liimself in comfort and welfare. This con- 

 clusion — that labor receives a constantly increasing share of an 

 increasing product, and that capital receives a diminishing share 

 of an increasing product — which Mr. Atkinson has demonstrated, 

 is one of the most encouraging facts that have been discovered in 

 the progress of modern civilization. It tends to show, what we 

 now know to be the fact, that there is a gradual equalization in 

 the distribution of property, and that a larger number of persons 

 in this age possess a competence than in any other period of the 

 history of the race. 



The proi^osition that the burden of a tax upon any commodity 

 is measured by its ratio to the margin of profit rather than to the 

 entire cost of the product, is vigorously presented in an article on 

 " The Visible and Invisible in Protection," which was published 

 in the " Atlantic Monthly " for February, 1872. Its truth is even 

 more evident in the condition of our country to-day than it was 

 at that time. Classifying commodities subject to taxation, as those 

 which are of necessary use in processes of domestic production, 

 and those which are of voluntary use on the part of the consumer, 

 the paper lays down the principle that, " in accordance with the 

 rule that it is fit to take, under the necessity of taxation, a small 

 portion of the luxury or even the comforts which men seek as the 

 end of their labor, rather than to impair their means of subsist- 

 ence, taxes should not be imposed upon articles of the first class, 

 but may be imposed upon those of the second class." The effect 

 is then considered of the taxes then and now imposed upon ar- 

 ticles of the first class in their relation to profits, and is gauged 

 by comparison with an imaginary tax upon an article in Uni- 

 versal use on which no tax would be tolerated, if it were imposed. 

 Such an article is milk, with its products, butter and cheese. Sup- 

 pose their price were increased by the imposition of a tax of fifty 

 per cent. " There would surely be controversy, bitter discussion, 

 and perhaps violent resistance, should such a tax be imposed ; 

 and yet the general cost of subsistence would be no more increased, 

 while the power of enlarged production would be far less re- 

 stricted and hampered, by a tax of fifty per cent upon dairy 

 products, than they are now by the tariff taxes imposed on 

 foreign imports of crude or partially manufactured materials. 

 N"or would the burden be distributed more widely. The use 

 of dairy products is no more universal or necessary than the use 

 of the articles of foreign import named in our list" (including 

 a number of articles of the first class) ; " and there is almost as 

 much luxurious consumption of dairy products as there is of for- 

 eign imports. It may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, 

 that all these articles imported from other countries are as much 

 the product of American labor as the dairy product, or as if they 



