March 19, 1896] 



NATURE 



459 



matter, though this field has been often traversed, and 

 there is less scope for his originality. He shows us 



'' that it would be inelastic, and that it would intensify 

 the inequalities resulting from unjust assessments ; that, 

 although proposed chiefly from social considerations, it 

 would prevent the Government from utilising the taxing 

 power for other social purposes, and that it would divorce 

 the interests of the people from those of the Govern- 

 ment ; that it would offend against the canons of univer- 

 sality and equality of taxation, and would seriously 

 exaggerate the difference between profits from land and 

 profits from other sources ; and, finally, that it would be 

 entirely inadequate in poor and new communities, that it 

 would generally have an injurious influence on the 

 farmer, and that even in the large urban centres it would 

 exempt large sections of the population without bring- 

 ing any substantial relief to the poorer classes " (p. 93). 



We have in this book what the title of it leads us to 

 expect — a series of detached essays, and not any con- 

 nected series of arguments, growing one out of another 

 like the chapters of a book. There is nothing but a play 

 of words, for example, to make " Double Taxation " 

 follow the " Single Tax," for single and double are 

 not used in the same senses in the two cases described. 

 Perhaps the most important discussion in the chapter 

 on " Double Taxation " is that on the taxation of 

 aliens. Seligman considers that the principle of 

 economic interest should be the guide here. We should 

 find out from what place an individual gets his income, 

 and in what place he spends it. " Only in this way can his 

 real economic interests be located " (p. iii). The question 

 is even more difficult in the United States than here, for 

 members of different States are financially foreigners, 

 and even the relations of Scotch law to English law do 

 not quite help us to understand the relations of (say) the 

 laws of New York to those of California. In the case 

 of the United States among themselves, seeing that there 

 is no real political severance, it ought to be easy to accept 

 " economic allegiance as against the antiquated political 

 allegiance" (p. no). But between the United States as 

 one unit, and Canada as another, for example, a critic 

 might observe that such a view will not so readily find 

 acceptance. 



After a short chapter on inheritance taxes, we come to 

 the taxation of corporations, or, as we should say, com- 

 panies. Mr. Seligman here, as elsewhere, makes very effec- 

 tive use of the Swiss Federation and its difficulties as a 

 European parallel to the case of the United States (p. 248). 

 On the subject generally, perhaps his most striking 

 contention is that the bonds and loans of companies 

 should be taxed as well as their stock and shares, 

 since the bonds and stock together form the working 

 capital of the company, from which the said company 

 derives its income. He thinks that in the case of an 

 individual, on the other hand, interest on debt must be 

 deducted from income, or else there will be double tax- 

 ation (pp. 214, 215, &c.). This is one of the few cases where 

 he does not produce conviction. The conclusion would 

 more naturally be that all money borrowed to carry on 

 or extend business may be included in the borrower's 

 capital, whether the said borrower be an individual or a 

 company. 



After these essays on particular taxes comes a 

 '■ Classification of Public Revenues " (chapter ix.), which 

 NO. 1377, VOL. 53] 



might have been better placed at the beginning of the 

 book. It brings out the author's favourite distinction 

 of fees from taxes. There is a good chapter on the 

 " European literature " about taxation. The author's wide 

 knowledge of it makes us surprised at his inacquaintance 

 with Grote's remarks on Greek taxation (see p. 85, note). 



English readers will find little to criticise in Prof.. 

 Seligman's account of the Betterment Tax (embodied in 

 the Tower Bridge Act of 1895), and Sir William 

 Harcourt's Finance Act of 1894. Surely, however, the 

 Professor is wrong in supposing that we have no special 

 assessments on landlords (p. 312). They are certainly 

 under obligation to pay for the making of the roads in 

 front of their property ; and his description of " special 

 assessments " fits their case exactly. Perhaps the dis- 

 tinction of these assessments from fees is less strongly 

 marked than Mr. Seligman thinks ; they are at least 

 species of the same genus. 



The language of the " Essays " is excellently suited \.o 

 the subject, and there is no waste of it. It is just possible 

 that love of antithesis is occasionally a snare to the 

 writer. 



" In the case of the private business the monopoly 

 [monopolist ?] seeks only the greatest possible profits ; in 

 the case of the public monopoly the Government seeks the 

 greatest possible public utility " (p. 296). 



If this were so, France would be proverbial for the 

 excellence of her tobacco. 



In a new edition perhaps the arrangement might be 

 improved, and possibly the lesser book on " Shifting and 

 Incidence" incorporated, so as to make the whole a con- 

 nected treatise on taxation with more evident order and 

 connection of parts. Till Mr. Seligman has done this for 

 his book, it will not produce on the general public the 

 impression to which its high merits entitle it. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Handbuch det Mineralchemie. Von C. F. Rammelsberg. 

 Zweites Erganzungsheft zur Zweiten Auflage. Pp. 

 475. (Leipzig: Engelman, 1895.) 



No fewer than fifty-five years have passed since the 

 author issued his " Dictionary of the Chemical Part of 

 Mineralogy," and yet his energy is unabated. The 

 present work is the second supplement to the second 

 edition (1875) of his well-known " Handbuch der Mineral- 

 chemie," a treasury of condensed information relative 

 to the results of the chemical analysis of minerals, and 

 the supplement is a concise record of chemical work on 

 minerals published during the last decade. As in the 

 original treatise, the author restricts himself to the ex- 

 pression and criticism of observed facts, and avoids as 

 far as is possible the discussion or even mention of con- 

 stitutional formuhe. And for the purposes of the student 

 it is doubtless convenient to have collected for him into 

 a smgle treatise the observed solid facts upon which all 

 speculation relative to the chemistry of minerals is to be 

 based. Once more the mineralogical chemist is reminded 

 how rarely the analysed material is tiuly pure, and how 

 necessary it is to record its morphological and physical 

 characters, the mode of its occurrence, and the nature 

 of the accompanying minerals : it is only by regard to 

 such records that the true composition of a mineral can 

 in many cases be deduced. And the author points out 

 how imperfect is our knowledge of the chemical com- 

 position of many of the commonest minerals notwith- 



