18 RATES AND TAXES 



when the favourable tendency breaks down 

 in their own case, and they suffer from a 

 so-called exception. 



The point I am labouring may be made 

 clear by an illustration taken from a theory 

 of taxation which has been strongly held 

 in the past, and has still some influence. 

 I will give the theory in the form in which 

 it is asserted by Sir Edward Hamilton 

 towards the conclusion of his excellent 

 Memorandum on the classification and 

 incidence of taxes prepared for the Royal 

 Commission on Local Taxation. " Perhaps," 

 he writes, " there is more truth than is 

 popularly supposed in the optimistic theory 

 of genwal diffusion^ which is, to use the words 

 of an American economist, that taxes equate 

 and diffuse themselves, and if levied with 

 certainty and uniformity, they will, by a 

 diffusion and repercussion, reach and burden 

 all property with unerring certainty and 



