PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 365 



right to a seat, or the brief sense of pleasure which the purchaser 

 receives in return, and which he can not perpetuate without renewed 

 buying, and can not transfer to another person, be entitled to be 

 called property? " When socialists and communists," says Professor 

 MacLeod, " wish to destroy property, it is not the material things they 

 wish to destroy, but the exclusive right which private persons have 

 in them." If this assertion is warranted, the question is pertinent, 

 "Why is it, when socialists or communists have the opportunity to 

 destroy property, they rarely proceed against property over which 

 private persons have exclusive control like private dwellings but 

 rather against monuments or buildings, and constructions which are 

 acknowledged to be public as respects use and control? Again, 

 Professor Macleod further holds that not only is the right to a thing, 

 which is not at the time of sale in existence, but is to be acquired in 

 the future, property; but also that a mere promise to deliver a com- 

 modity is property of the same general nature as money and an 

 actuality. 



The Foreign-held Bond Case: a New Chapter oe Progress. 

 Any review of this general subject of " double taxation " would 

 be imperfect that failed to particularly call attention to a decision of 

 the United States Supreme Court which, although of the first impor- 

 tance as touching the correct administration of a free and intelligent 

 government, has thus far attracted little attention, even among 

 members of the American bar. 



The subject in question, furthermore, illustrates the historical 

 principle that changes in free governments have more often been 

 effected through the decisions of their highest courts than by direct 

 legislation. Thus it is known to all who have examined the theory 

 and practice of local taxation in the United States, that a hundred 

 years ago or less, the lawmakers of England entertained very gen- 

 erally the same opinion in regard to this subject which is yet popu- 

 larly accepted in this country, namely, that in order to secure exact 

 justice and equality it is essential to attempt to subject all property 

 of the taxpayer real and personal, tangible and intangible, visible 

 and invisible to one uniform rate of valuation and assessment; 

 although it must then, as now, have been evident to every one on 

 reflection that, in order to attempt to do this, it would be necessary 

 to endow the assessors with more than mortal powers of perception, 

 so as to enable them to see what was invisible, and measure what was 

 intangible and incorporeal (debts and credits, for example) ; and that, 

 in default thereof, any practical application of this theory must re- 

 sult in rank absurdity and injustice. And yet it is curious to note 

 that the change in English taxation, when it came about, was not 

 due to any such process of reasoning on the part of the people, or to 



