Unequal Taxation

Adam Smith's canon of taxation is that "the subjects of every state should contribute toward the support of the government in proportion to their ability; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy, under the protection of the state." There is very little dispute as to the correctness of this canon, the difficulty seems to be to secure Hs enforcement. If the property constata of stocks and bonds, the tax is invariably evaded; if it be real estáte the tax is shifted on some one else; if it be money loaned on mortgages, the mortgagor pays the tax; if, then, this property fails to bear its share of taxation, it is clear that some one else's property must bear more than its share. Here s a specific instance by way of illustration. It is a notorious fact that when Mr. Gould died he was paying taxes on but five hundred thousand dollars' worth of property, yet it is generally known that his wealth was nearly one hundred million dollars. The rate of taxation was about 2 per cent. His assessment being five hundred thousand dollars, his taxes would be ten thousand dollars. A fair estímate of His wealth would be seventyflve mililon dollars. Allowing these figures to be true, and his taxes to be ten thousand dollars, then his taxes would be one seventy-flfth of one per cent of his wealth. Now, contrast this with the case of a farmer whose property is of such a nature that it can be readily reached for the purpose of taxation. The average farmer has no stocks and bonds and money to lend, and the only real estáte he owns is what he actually uses himself. His property is invariably assessed at from 80 to 90 per cent of its valué and he pays his full share of taxation. In the one case the taxes would be nearly 2 per cent of the wealth, while in the other case the tax is but one seventyfifth of one per cent of the wealth. The burden of taxation rests heaviest on those who are least able to bear it. Esterhazy is evidently a dangerous man. This fact is shown by the folio wing report of an interview had v.ith him by a correspondent in Paris: "I spent this evening with Count Esterhazy, who granted me an interview, in the course of which he said: " 'I appear in the witness box tomorrow. I am half dead with bionchitis and shall not be able to speak well, but I have no fear of Iaborie. I never knew of fear. I first faced fire as a soldier when 17 years old, and my heart did not beat more than it does now. 1 am so little afraid of Zola and his crowd of 1,500 scoundrels that I wish they were all in this room and Ihad a stick, and though I have only one lung I would face them all. Dreyfus was guilty. There were 157 piecea of documentary evidenoe against him. iHis trial will never be revised. If Drèyfus wtre ever to set foot in Franc j again there would be 100,000 corpses of Jews on the soil. If Zola i acquitted there will be a revolatlon in Paris. The people will put me at thei head in a massacre of the Jews.' " According to dispatches from Paris in this morningr's papers, matters in th' French capital are assuming a very threatening look. The trial of Zola in the Dreyfus case is causing the great ëst excitement and the bitter hatrec of the arrny party against the Jews 's manifested in an exceedingly markec degree. A dispatch from London says: "An eminent English politieian has received news from influential political friends in Pajis, with whom he has close relations, which shows that the Dreyfus affair has reached an acute and serious crisis. The revelations of the Zola trial are causing a steadily growing revoluuon of public feeling, and the French ministry is convinced a rehearing in Dreyfus' case is becorning inevitable. It would be granted forthwith were the ministers not afraid of offending the chief of the army. "The increase of the Paris garrison was taken 'on the initiative of the military governor of Paris, which M. Melin, the premier, was afraid to veto, though its object was known !o be not so much a sruarantee of order as to strengthen the hands of the military party. The militarists, according to well authenticated reports, are suspected of being in negotiation ,vith the Orleanists, and the fear gains ground that, rather than accept a revisión of the Dreyfus court-martial, so-me of the military chiefs will join in a coup to overthrow the republic. France is practically under a military terrorism, which makes opllution of the spring cf justice the condition of its continued loyalty to the republic. The general feeling is that the republic is now in a more perilous plight than at any time during the Boulangist agitation."