184 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



than would suffice for the people, through legal methods, to com- 

 pel its modification. One explanation i. e., of inconsistency 

 on the part of the people who pay taxes is, that although the 

 benefits derived from the institution of government (which practi- 

 cally can not exist without taxation) are of the first importance, 

 they are not so very obvious, nor so striking, as to be readily 

 recognized and appreciated by the masses, who are accordingly 

 apt to look with complacence upon a direct (personal) demand 

 for a tax in the light of a compulsory payment, for which no 

 equivalent is returned. Indeed, this feeling is so strong that it 

 has become an almost popular maxim in all countries that " there 

 is nothing which a person so hates to do as to pay taxes," in case 

 they are direct. But by the ingenious plan of taxing articles on 

 which incomes are expended, rather than openly demanding a 

 portion of the income itself, the amount of taxation is concealed 

 from the mass of taxpayers, and its payment is made to appear 

 in some measure voluntary. The indirect tax being generally 

 advanced rather than paid, as has been already shown, in the first 

 instance by the importers, the ultimate purchasers for consump- 

 tion confound the tax with the natural price of the commodity. 

 No separate demand being made upon them for the tax, it es- 

 capes their consideration, and the article which they receive 

 seems the fair equivalent of the sacrifice made in acquiring it. 

 Indirect taxes have also the advantage of being paid by degrees, 

 in small portions, and at a time when the commodities are 

 wanted for consumption, or when it is most convenient for the 

 consumer to pay them." * 



In the attempt, furthermore, of civilized rulers to maintain a 

 civilized government over an uncivilized people, there seems to be 

 no practical method of compelling such a people to help maintain 

 a proper and desirable government except through a resort to in- 

 direct taxation. Thus, in British India, a country of low civiliza- 

 tion, small accumulation of wealth, and under such climatic con- 

 ditions as necessitate the minimum of clothing, shelter, and food, 

 the only way by which the mass of the native population can be 

 compelled to contribute anything whatever, apart from a tax on 

 land in the form of rent, toward the support of a government 

 whose beneficent and civilizing influence has become a matter of 

 history, is by the taxation of salt, the consumption of which is 

 a necessity to all, and the production and distribution of which 

 can in a great measure be controlled. 



In the British island and colony of Jamaica, populated mainly 

 by emancipated blacks and their descendants (557,132 out of a 

 total of 580,804 in 1881), who own little or no land, and consume 



* J. R. McCulloch. Taxation and the Funding System. 



