60 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



REVENUE* 



NATIONAL, STATE AND MUNICIPAL. 



In accepting an invitation to address you upon the topic which has been 

 assigned me, I must disclaim, at the outset, any special taste or fitness 

 for the task. But as I am also unable to name any one of our number who 

 has given the subject the complete examination that it requires for its proper 

 elucidation, and as it is one that needs an early as well as a thorough sift^ 

 ing, I liave thought that such a work had better be begun, even imper- 

 fectly, than not done at all ; and that while I might know a little of it, 

 some of you might know less. In any event both you and I have the en- 

 couragement of knowing that legislators and political economists who, 

 by virtue of opportunity, should understand this subject better than we, 

 have failed as utterly as we can in arriving at a satisfactory theory and 

 practice of Finance. 



"The ends of Government," said John Stuart Mill, "are as comprehen- 

 sive as those of the social union. They consist of all the good, and all 

 the immunit}'^ from evil, which the existence of' government can be made, 

 either directly or indirectly, to bestow." Governments have current ex- 

 penses, such as the construction of roads and bridges; the maintenance 

 of common schools; the support of the poor; the confinement and refor- 

 mation of the vicious; the care of the insane, the idiotic, and other unfor- 

 tunate classes ; the making, executing and adjudicating of laws, the support 

 of armies and navies, and varied other functions requiring the expendi- 

 ture of capital. Thence the necessity of Revenue. 



Revenue, in this sense is the Public Income. It is the sum of the 

 amounts received by Township, County, State or Nation from its annual 

 levies on the tax-payers, or from the miscellaneous sources, too varied to 

 mention, such as our nation's sale of public lands, or the interest on the 

 school fund of one of our Illinois townships furnish instances of This 

 revenue, however, even though it may be profitably spent, and still more 

 when unprofitably spent, often runs behind the public expenditure. Great 

 public works of real or supposed public utility tempt the nation to im- 

 prove the mouth of the Mississippi, or the school district to build a new 

 school house, and to draw drafts on their future prosperity. And these 

 drafts are light compared with the demands and consumption of war. Mr. 

 Burritt has calculated the annual war charge of what are called the Chris- 

 tian nations, at $2,600,000, including, I suppose, the yearly appropriations 

 to pay the cost of past wars, as well as the expenditures necessitated bj' the 

 large armies and navies of the present day. " Assuming that $2,600,000 a 

 year is substantially correct, that sum constitutes a first and indefeasible 

 lien, or mortgage upon the earnings of all the workingmen of the civil- 



*Ati address delivered by Wm. C. Flago, before the Patrons of Husbandry, at their 

 annnal mooting, December, 1875. 



