444 EEPORT — 1889. 



once were of great importance, and even now tne Britisli Empire, as 

 distinct from the United Kingdom, can show a goodly list of them. An 

 inquiry into these taxes is facilitated by their relation to import duties. 

 We can assume that there is a kind of symmetry in the action of both 

 classes, so that export duties are really import ones reversed ; but some 

 little caution is needed in order to make the right comparison in each 

 ■case.' 



An export duty is, then, using this parallelism as a guide, ' a charge 

 imposed on a commodity on its leaving a given area or nation.' The first 

 ■effect will probably be to raise the price to foreign countries ; whether the 

 higher price can continue will, as with import duties, depend on demand, 

 but on the demand of the non-taxing nations, not of the taxing one. When 

 the foreign demand is very keen the first condition for enabling the duty 

 to be shifted to the foreigner is present. This of itself does not suffice : 

 the foreign consumer will, like the foreign producer in the case of im- 

 ports, seek to escape paying the increased amount, and when other markets 

 4ire open to him he will generally succeed. If, however, the commodity 

 be a monopoly in the hands of one country, then, given the further con- 

 dition of keen demand, it is extremely likely that the duty will be passed 

 on to the consumer. As in the case of import duties, such instances are 

 veiy rare — even India has not an absolute monopoly of opium. If a large 

 proportion of the supply comes under the action of the tax, then, with an 

 intense demand for the product on the part of foreigners, there will be a 

 partial shifting of the tax, and where special markets are supplied from 

 n single source it may be possible to throw the tax on purchasers in them 

 up to the limit set by the cost of procuring the commodity from the next 

 best source of supply. Substitutes free from the tax will also help to 

 check the shifting of the duty, and they are obviously less easily stopped 

 in the case of exports than of imports. When the export duty is not 

 accompanied by a corresponding excise charge, the home consumer tends 

 to gain by any limit to the rise of price, since he gets the article duty free. 

 With regard to the incidence on producers in the exporting nation, the 

 same questions arise as with taxes on imports. Given the usual or 

 ' natural ' state of ti-ade, and the duty will tend to drive capital out of the 

 production of the taxed article. Common labour and ordinary business 

 ability will also leave this comparatively unprofitable business ; but 

 specially trained labour, the peculiar abilities of the entrejpreneur &nd, in 

 the case of extractive industries, land suited for the pi'oduct, will, or at 

 least may, obtain lower returns. It is also probable (and a like remark 

 holds good respecting the effect of import duties) that fixed capital used 

 for turning out the taxed article will lose some of its value. Foreign 

 producers of the ware will, in accordance with the analogy of consumers 

 in respect to import duties, probably gain by the increased demand at 

 higher price, which they will, under favourable circumstances, obtain. 

 And if there be no excise duty the home consumer will, as we have seen, 

 so far benefit, just as special classes of home producers may gain by a 

 protective duty. 



The examination of taxation on exports, then, strengthens the belief 

 which we had already formed from the study of import duties that the 

 operation of all such taxes varies widely under different conditions, and this 



' The essential point of difference is that the expoi-t duty affects a limited area of 

 production, the import one a limited area of consumption. 



