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this department. The bills to tax it, introduced into the House of Represent- 

 atives, were best condemned by themselves. But apart from their obvious im- 

 port, the principles of the entire internal revenue system are now undergoing 

 careful consideration, and we trust that they will be so changed as to keep out 

 any tax induced more by speculative interest than the general welfare. 



It may be regarded as a general rule, subject, however, to modifications by 

 the law of supply and demand, that the consumer will have to pay the tax, with 

 such profit ou it as will reimburse the various payers of it. The further, there- 

 fore, the tax is levied from the consumer, the more onerous it will be to him. 

 Many cases might be adduced to show that where the government has received 

 a dollar of internal revenue, the consumer has had to pay two dollars. A sys- 

 tem of this kind is wrongfully oppressive, because unnecessarily so, and hence, 

 taxes on the raw material of a manufacture, or on its different processes of the 

 manufactiu'e, ought to be avoided if possible, and made to bear directly on the 

 consumer. How far it may be advisable to avoid every tax on business and 

 place it on the results of business, is a question that will, doubtless, soon receive 

 a thorough investigation. Seeing that as the internal revenue system must be 

 in existence for many years, its operation upon all practicable bases should be 

 well considered. The selection of so mxuy specified articles for taxation en- 

 genders business rivalry, and creates speculative hope and projects, as well as 

 multiplies greatly the expenses of collection. 



