1 68 AMERICAN FARMS. 



cient revenue may thus be obtained by a direct system 

 in the simplest manner at less cost of collection, and 

 with no interference with the operations of trade. 



" The present house duty affords the best foundation 

 on which to build a system of direct taxation, extending 

 to all interests beyond the owners of land. Every man 

 resides in a house of some kind. Household suffrage is 

 now the basis of our parliamentary franchise, and this 

 fact will go far to reconcile even the lower classes to a 

 revenue system constructed upon it. Adam Smith 

 observes that ' a proportional house tax might perhaps 

 produce a more considerable revenue than any that has 

 been drawn from it in any part of Europe.' Again he 

 says : ' A tax put upon house rents would in general 

 fall heaviest upon the rich, and in this sort of inequality 

 there would not be any thing unreasonable.' 



" It is not very unreasonable that the rich should con- 

 tribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to 

 their revenue, but something more than that proportion. 

 To this, however, as well as to any other proposal whatever, 

 a hundred objections will be raised. But a graduated tax, 

 beginning with the exemption of the very poorest class 

 having a bare subsistence, and rising in a scale adjusted 

 not according to rent alone, but taking also into ac- 

 count the occupation, profession, and position in rank, 

 might, and doubtless would, bring in a more elastic and 

 productive revenue than our present income tax." 



The more these matters are studied, the clearer it will 

 appear that the matter of adjusting a progressive tax, 

 is not a more insurmountable difficulty than that of 

 adjusting a single tax by taking the unearned incre- 

 ment of land. And, whether with or without the single- 

 tax system, all lands held for speculative purposes 



