TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 765 



agents, pawnbrokers and plate dealers, which are also stated in the Memorandum, 

 are not included in the tables given in this paper, as it was not possible to apportion 

 them in a satisfactory way between the two heads of expenditure which are the 

 subject of the present investigation. 



The Author has taken the amounts raised under the two general heads mentioned 

 above, in each of the municipal boroughs and counties of cities included in the 

 statement — all of which, with the exception of York, Exeter, Lincoln, Chester, 

 Gloucester, Worcester, and Canterbury, had populations exceeding 50,000 at the 

 last Census. These places were forty-nine in number. In the case of one. West 

 Ham, the investigation could not be carried out in the same manner as the others, 

 as the published returns do not supply the value of the assessment. 



The method of investigation followed in the paper is to compare the amounts 

 raised by the two different descriptions of licences, which may roughly be taken to 

 indicate the expenditure of the working classes and of the wealthier classes of the 

 population respectively, both with the numbers of the population by whom it is 

 presumed these duties are paid, and with the wealth of each place as indicated by 

 the assessment value — the object desired being to ascertain whether the incidence 

 of these duties is in any way uniformly distributed over the country. The facts, 

 as indicated by the tables annexed to the paper, indicate that this is far from being 

 the case. 



Thus, taking the maximum amount contributed by the publicans' licences, in 

 proportion to population, in the place where these duties are the heaviest, namely, 

 Nottingham, at 100 ; the minimum, in the place where they are the lightest, namely, 

 Wolverhampton, is 26. The same results, nearly, are shown when these duties 

 are compared with the assessable value. Taking the maximum, in Norwich, also 

 at 100, the minimum, in Salford, is 24. 



The results of the carriage, &c., licences are even more unequal, comparing 

 these in the same manner with the population, and the maximum, in Worcester, 

 at 100, the minimum, at South Shields, is 2. Comparing these same duties with 

 the assessable value, and taking the maximum, at Chester, at 100, the minimum, 

 at Salford, is 7. 



The inference which may be drawn from this inquiry is, that the incidence 

 of these taxes is far from being uniform over the whole of the country, and 

 the advisability of further investigation into the question of the incidence of 

 taxation becomes obvious. The amounts dealt with in the present paper are, com- 

 paratively speaking, small, and a wider inquiry is desirable. 



3. The Standard, or Basis, of Taxation. By Clair J. Grece, LL.D. 



The thesis to be upholden is that neither capital nor income, but expenditure 



that is to say, destructive expenditure — is the right standard, or basis, for fiscal 

 computation, and the abstract of the memoir was as follows : — 



The contributions of the various members of the State to its burdens, or 

 charges, must be unequal. This fact is apparent from the inequality of the means 

 and resources of the contributories, and is, indeed, implied in the very term taxa- 

 tion, or assessment ; for, were the contributions all alike, it would be a payment, 

 but it could not properly be called a tax. From this palpable inequality of 

 resources in the contributories has probably proceeded the common and erroneous 

 opinion, to which even the clear and penetrating mind of Adam Smith would 

 appear to have yielded, that the contributions should be proportional to the means 

 or resources of the contributories. Combined with this opinion another principle 

 has been industriously at work, that many members of society are in the possession 

 of means largely in excess of their rational needs, and that this excess may be 

 legitimately drawn upon for the purposes of the State, a principle which finds its 

 expression nowadays in the demand for graduated imposts upon successions and 

 upon incomes. But the principle to be established is that, in apportioning the 

 burdens of the State among the contributories' rights, the diversity and the 

 inequaUty of means and resources should be disregarded as impertinent. The 



