ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 349 



Now, what does happen when light dues are imposed by legisla- 

 tion ? Why, either the Legislature making the law fixes a scale of 

 dues sufl&cient to pay the whole expense, or it apportions the expense 

 in a way which it deems to be equitable and reasonable between 

 the coimtry at large and the owners of the ships, so that that part 

 of the burden shall be borne by the coimtry which is proportionate 

 to the benefit the country gets to its commerce, its prosperity, and 

 wealth, and that part of the burden shall be borne by the ship- 

 owners which is appropriate to the special benefit the shipowners 

 get, and the two are quite distinct things. 



Many coimtries take the entire burden. Canada, for example, 

 takes the entire burden. She charges no Hght dues. She goes so 

 far as this : that among the lighthouses along this rocky coast about 

 the Straits of Belleisle, Canada, on Newfoimdland's territory, 

 maintains, I think it is seven, of the Ughthouses at her own expense 

 for the benefit of her transatlantic steamship service. There the 

 benefit to the country is deemed so great that she maintains her 

 own lighthouses without charging the vessels anything,, and even 

 maintains Ughthouses on the shores of the other colony. 



Now, when there is an apportionment of the burden, the citizen 

 of Newfoundland who pays through this system of indirect taxation 

 by paying a Httle higher price for the things that he uses, who pays 

 his share of the burden that is covered by general taxation, is not 

 paying any share of the other burden that it casts specially upon the 

 ships. They are two quite different things, and when he is ex- 

 empted from his share of the burden that ought appropriately to 

 be defrayed by the ships, he is exempted from something that is not 

 made up for by his having to pay his share of the burden commen- 

 surate with the benefit which his country gets and which he gets 

 as a citizen of the country. One man fives in Gloucester, Massa- 

 chusetts, and owns a fishing vessel that comes to the Newfoundland 

 coast; another man Uves in St. John's, Newfoundland, and owns 

 a fishing vessel that comes to the same coast; if one of them is 

 exempted and the other is charged, there is a discrimination that 

 is not made up by the fact that the Newfoundland man has paid 

 his share of the benefit that his country gets. The Gloucester man 

 has not got any part of the benefit, and therefore he has paid no 

 part of it; but the Gloucester man and the St. John's man both 



