BEST METHODS OF TAXATION. 525 



mits its inability to increase indirect taxes on consumption by its 

 general resort to an extension of the internal taxes and excise. The 

 instrumentalities of business offer a fair field for stamp taxes, and 

 these, when not so burdensome as to invite evasion, are acceptable 

 because of the ease with which they are assessed and collected. A 

 specific duty on the more important acts of commerce and daily busi- 

 ness may be evaded, it is true, but not when the paper or instrument 

 taxed must become public evidence. Stamps of small denomination 

 on bonds, debentures, or certificates of stock and of indebtedness; 

 on a bill of sale or memorandum to sell; on bank checks, drafts, or 

 certificates of deposit; bills of exchange, draft, or promissory note; 

 money orders and bills of lading; on express and freight receipts, on 

 telegraph messages, and a large number of legal and other instru- 

 ments, such as leases, mortgages, charter party, insurance policies 

 these are simple duties, productive of large returns, and not unequal 

 in their weight. The law of 1898 included such stamp taxes, as well 

 as others on proprietary articles and wines. It was not simple to pre- 

 dict the incidence of these rates, and the distribution has been un- 

 equal. The charges of one cent on telegraph messages and express 

 packages are paid by the sender in the larger number of cases, the 

 companies merely adding a penny to their rates. This was not the 

 intention of th,e law, and the courts have held that it was not so in- 

 tended. The individual is powerless in a few transactions, and only 

 the great concerns are able to avail themselves of this decision. The 

 duties for seats or berths in a parlor car or for proprietary medicines, 

 are paid by the company or manufacturer, though in certain prepa- 

 rations the price to the consumer was advanced on the passage of 

 the act. With all their drawbacks, and they are not few in number, 

 these stamp duties afford a ready means of obtaining a good revenue 

 without increasing unduly the general burdens of taxation. The 

 law of 1898 was modeled after that of 1863, and many of the rates 

 and descriptions will undoubtedly be incorporated into the perma- 

 nent internal revenue system of the country a measure enforced 

 by the remarkably unequal returns derived from the customs. 



The existing system of internal duties is even more defensible 

 than the tariff as a source of revenue. Its inequalities, due to the 

 haste in which the measure was prepared and the inexperience of 

 those who framed the provisions and fixed upon the rates, are worn 

 away in use, and where the rates are moderate and are not infected 

 with a penal quality, the community adapts itself to them, accept- 

 ing them as a necessary convenience. In the United States this 

 spirit of acquiescence is most marked, not only because of a natural 

 patience of tax burdens, but because of as natural a fear of other 

 untried and more radical or oppressive measures. The situation of 



