PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 185 



little of food other than what is produced almost spontaneously, 

 the problem of how to raise revenue by any form of taxation for 

 defraying the necessary expenditures of the Government has been 

 one of great embarrassment. For the year 1884 these expenditures 

 averaged three dollars and forty cents per head of the entire 

 population, and of this amount an average of about fifty cents per 

 head could only be obtained from any internal taxation, and this 

 mainly through the indirect agency of licenses and stamps, and not 

 by any direct assessment. The balance of required revenue was ob- 

 tained from a special tax on some set manufacture, and from export 

 and import duties. A similar state of affairs in Mexico, heretofore 

 noticed somewhat in detail (see vol. xlix, No. 1, pages 45, 46), would 

 also seem to necessitate a resort to a system of indirect taxation. 



It is interesting to note, in connection with this subject, that 

 while the States and municipal governments of the Federal Union 

 derive their revenues almost entirely from direct taxation, the 

 national revenues flow almost wholly from indirect taxes on com- 

 modities or personal property. 



Attention is here also particularly directed to a fact that has 

 almost entirely escaped the notice of economic and fiscal authori- 

 ties and writers, and that is the remarkable change that has taken 

 place within the last fifty years in the British tax system, where- 

 by, through an extensive substitution of direct for indirect taxa- 

 tion, the burden of tax incidence has been shifted to a great extent 

 from the community at large to the propertied classes. Thus, in 

 1841-'42, indirect taxes yielded seventy-three per cent and direct 

 taxes twenty- seven per cent of the total imperial revenue, but in 

 1895-'96 indirect taxes yielded fifty-two per cent and direct taxes 

 forty-eight per cent. Is not the inference warranted, that in the 

 change in the incidence of British taxation above noted is to be 

 found at least a partial explanation of the remarkable and pro- 

 gressive increase, in comparatively recent years, in the consump- 

 tion of the various commodities that enter into the living of the 

 laboring classes of Great Britain, and is it not also singular that 

 the above facts and their possible inference do not as yet seem 

 to have attracted the attention of those most interested in social 

 economics ? 



[To be continued.] 



THE Mazamas is the name of a society of mountain climbers organized 

 on the summit of Mount Hood in 1894 for the promotion of mountain ex- 

 ploration, the protection of forests and scenery, and the acquisition and 

 dissemination of knowledge concerning these things. The qualification 

 for membership is the ascent of a recognized snow-cap peak. The meeting 

 at which the society was organized was attended by 193 people, who as- 

 cended 11,225 feet for the purpose. 

 VOL. LI. 14 



