^24 STATE BORROWING. 



The illustration given in the foregoing tabular com- 

 parison is most eloquent in demonstrating three most 

 important ethical and economical truths, viz. : — 



(i). The injustice and impossibility, if attempted, of 

 collecting from the people of the year a tax of, 

 say, 114s. 6d. to 223s. 3d., as would be the case 

 in the years 1884, 1886, and 1890, if the 

 method were adopted of charging the principal 

 of new costly works to the revenue of the year 

 in which the enterprise was contracted. The 

 tax in 1890 by this method would exceed the 

 highest yearly tax ever collected in Tasmania 

 by 148s. 8d. per head. 



(2). The impossibility on the part of the Govern- 

 ment to construct new large costly works 

 necessary to the proper development of a new 

 country by such equitable yearly instalments 

 as would do justice to the taxpayers of each 

 year, if charged with principal instead of the 

 interest thereon. 



(3). The utter impracticability, if not impossibility, 

 of any Government to devise fresh yearly 

 schemes of taxation, if the principal instead of 

 interest thereon were charged to the year in 

 which expenditure was to be contracted, owing 

 to the frequency of its extreme and eccentric 

 fluctuations. 



We can more easily realise the force of these con- 

 clusions if we ask ourselves the questions — What would 

 happen if the directors of a large corporate body, such 

 as the London and North-Western Railway Company 

 of England, in the projection of a new branch of exten- 

 sion, proposed to the shareholders of the moment 

 (whose individuality is ever changing hour by hour, like 

 the taxpayers of a State) to charge the principal of cost 

 of construction and equipment to the existing share- 

 holder (individuals !), either by an abstraction from their 

 rightful profits from the earnings of the original 

 system's working, or ])y mulcting them in a heavy out- 

 lay which, on purchasing stock of the company, was 

 never contemplated nor allowed for by them in the sell- 

 ing price? Why, the shareholder would regard it as a 

 barefaced robbery, and would at once depo&e the Board 



