54 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



protection, the truth of this assumption has been called in ques- 

 tion in recent years, and even wholly denied by some economic 

 and legal authorities. Thus, in most of the States of the Federal 

 Union (but not in other countries), sovereignty in respect to taxa- 

 tion is assumed, or enacted to embrace " goods, chattels, money, 

 and effects, wherever they are ; ships, public stocks and securi- 

 ties, stocks in turnpikes, bridges, and moneyed corporations, ivith- 

 in or without the State " ; and where the administrators of the law 

 tax residents for personal property, even of a visible, tangible 

 character, having a situs in another State or country ; and, by 

 another irreconcilable rule, tax non-residents for all of their per- 

 sonal property having a situs within the State. (Massachusetts 

 Statutes.) 



Such antagonism would seem to be wholly due to an inade- 

 quate comprehension of the subject. It is assumed, for example, 

 that there can be no necessary reciprocity of the nature indicated 

 between the State and the subjects of taxation, because, in the 

 case of subjects persons, property, and business upon which no 

 tax is levied, there can be no correlation, and therefore no claim 

 whatever for protection ; and in illustration and support of this 

 proposition it is pointed out that churches and other public insti- 

 tutions, specifically exempt from taxation, need and receive as 

 much protection from the State as structures used for dwellings 

 and stores, and that tramps, who have nothing to pay with, are 

 equally entitled to invoke and use the power of the State for pro- 

 tection as those who are taxed for millions. " So also the busi- 

 ness that is not taxed at all, it is said, can no more be plundered 

 with impunity than that which is taxed the heaviest." * The 

 error in all this reasoning is fundamental, and arises from a fail- 

 ure to comprehend that in every civilized state every person or 

 thing is taxed, either directly or indirectly, by the diffusion of 

 taxes, and that it is not possible to name anything in such a state 

 that is exempt from taxation ; that the primary purpose for which 

 the state exists is to afford protection to persons and property ; 

 that it the state practically ceases to exist when it is unwilling 

 or unable to afford such protection ; and that, even if willing, it 

 could not protect, except through the ability that comes to it 

 through the possession of the power and the exercise of taxation. 



Fourth. Taxes should be reasonable, regular, and not arbitrary 

 as respects method, time, and place of assessment and payment, 

 and, above all, proportional. 



The justice and the necessity of these conditions as essentials 

 of a true system of taxation ought to command universal assent 



* The claim or argument in defense of extra territorial taxation will be more fully con- 

 sidered hereafter. 



