PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 



*5 



of the maritime world, yet its apparent rank as a snip-owning port 

 is insignificant." 



It is important also to notice how changes in the methods of doing 

 business, in the facilities for transporting persons and property, and in 

 the constitution of society and standards of morality, antagonize and 

 nullify the popular ideas concerning taxation of personal property. 



Formerly (as has been already pointed out) a man could not 

 conveniently live in one place and carry on business in another. 

 But now men may live and be taxed at places where the taxes are 

 light and do business every day in a city twenty, thirty, or fifty miles 

 distant where taxes are high, and there be exempt from all taxation. 

 And yet how are you going to prevent a citizen from deciding for 

 himself where he will live and where, under the accepted fiction of 

 law that personal property follows the owner, his personal property 

 shall be taxed? Formerly, to bargain for the sale of goods in a 

 place not farther removed than New York is from Boston or Phila- 

 delphia, transport them there, and receive the proceeds of the sale, 

 was an affair of weeks. Now a man living in Boston may bargain 

 for a sale of thousands of dollars worth of goods in New York, trans- 

 port them there, and receive his pay in the space of a single day. 

 Nay, more. A man may acquire property and part with it at places 

 on the opposite side of the globe with the greatest ease and security 

 within the space of a few hours. 



A change in the standards of morality has been alluded to as an- 

 tagonizing methods of taxation. Thus, not very many years ago, 

 every man knew, at least approximately, the amount and kind of 

 property of all his neighbors, and knew that his neighbors knew 

 the same in respect to himself. " He was willing to admit, under 

 oath or otherwise, what everybody knew; and he would hardly 

 dare to drive six cows to pasture every morning and swear in the 

 afternoon that he had none." But now let us see from an indis- 

 putable experience of very recent date how the conditions of prop- 

 erty and of morals have changed. Previous to January 1, 1889, 

 the State of Connecticut, in accordance with common practice, 

 taxed personal property in the form of bonds and notes from one 

 to two or more per cent, wherever it could be found. The result 

 was that the State from the outset could never reach for assess- 

 ment but a small fraction of such property, although every citizen 

 was required to annually submit a list to the assessors and make 

 oath that he had included in it all property of the character in ques- 

 tion; and this fraction, furthermore, tended to rapidly decrease. 

 Thus, in the so-called grand list or aggregate valuation of the State 

 for the year 1855, the value of the notes, bonds, and money at inter- 

 est made subject to assessment constituted about ten per cent of 



