176 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



poor. All classes pay indirect taxation : the middle and wealthy 

 pay direct ; but indirect taxes press much more seriously on the 

 laboring population." 



An instructive comparison of the method and influence of 

 direct and indirect taxation may be instituted by supposing the 

 two systems to be put into practical operation under similar cir- 

 cumstances, for effecting a purpose which all are willing to admit 

 is most desirable or necessary. For example, a town meeting is 

 held to provide means for building a bridge. The direct and 

 honest way would be to assess and levy an equitable tax, ade- 

 quate to provide for the proposed expenditure, on the property of 

 the citizens of the town. An indirect way, as exemplified by the 

 tariff (omitting the complicated machinery for appraising mer- 

 chandise), would be to provide that the storekeepers of the town 

 should charge, on account of the proposed expenditure, an excess 

 over general prices to the extent of two cents a pound on sugar, 

 twenty-five cents more per yard on woolen cloth, five cents more 

 for each tin pail or cup, and, keeping an account, return the 

 results of the extra prices paid on the above-mentioned and other 

 like commodities by their consumers, to the town treasury. 

 Would it not be evident that under such a method of procedure 

 the wealth of the town would in a great degree escape taxation 

 for the construction of the bridge, and that its expense and bur- 

 den would fall mainly upon the poor ; inasmuch as the average 

 amount of consumption of sugar, cloth, and tin by the citizens of 

 the town, and the average per capita taxation contingent on the 

 same, would have no just or uniform relation to their ability to 

 pay for the same ? A man with ten thousand a year income will 

 not probably consume ten times as much sugar as one with one 

 thousand a year. 



In the case of imported commodities charged with import 

 duties, not only is the price of the imported commodity enhanced 

 directly by the duty, but the price of a much larger quantity of 

 competing product of domestic origin is increased to approxi- 

 mately the same extent. Thus, in the case of iron and steel, the 

 average difference in the prices of these commodities in England 

 and the United States during the ten years from 1878 to 1887 in- 

 clusive, occasioned by the imposition of indirect customs taxes 

 by the latter country on such a comparatively small proportion 

 of its domestic consumption as was imported, increased the cost 

 of the total consumption of these products in the United States 

 during the period mentioned, to the extent of at least $550,000,000. 

 Such an increase represented an average of $55,000,000 per annum 

 in excess of the cost of a like quantity to consumers in Great 

 Britain during the same period ; an aggregate, according to the 

 census data of 1880, in excess of the entire capital invested in the 



