The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-05 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1853.

The Income Tax and the Ballot—what a singu-
lar pair ! We are not, however, about to publish
the banns of matrimony between them, but only to
show that they are in one respect very near rela-
tions, and must both defend themselves on one
and the same principle. The Income Tax is secret
tax-paying ; the Ballot is secret voting ; and it is
as striking as it is curious to observe how the
same objections and the same irresistible defence
apply in each case. The crack objection to the
Ballot, while the suffrage is not strictly universal,
is that it is the interest and right of the non-elec-
tors to know how the electors vote. The former
are trustees, it is said, for the latter ; they may
injure or benefit them by their votes, and hence
the electors ought not to have the power to wrong
the non-electors in secret. We have shown,
indeed, long ago, that in nine cases out of ten it
is not the unenfranchised who tyrannise over the
poor and dependent voter through his open vote,
but those who possess votes themselves, and fre-
quently other political power also. Overlooking,
however, this and other considerations, and
admitting that in theory every man in a limited
constituency ought to vote under the eyes of the
non-electors, we remark that the same objection
applies in even greater force to secret tax-paying
than to secret voting. Secret tax-paying, of
course, affords the opportunity of wronging all
a man's fellow taxpayers. Our moralists always
apprise us that whoever defrauds the Revenue
not only escapes his fair share of taxation, but,
in proportion as his practice extends, necessitates
additional taxes on his conscientious neighbour.
Nor is this mere declamation. Mr. GLADSTONE,
in his place in the House of Commons, assigned
the fraudulent returns on trade incomes, of which
he gave proofs, as one of his reasons for not mo-
difying the rate of Income Tax in favour of a class
whose incomes are, beyond doubt, disproportion-
ately taxed ; hence it is the obvious interest, we
may almost say right, of every taxpayer to know
. . .

what his neighbour has paid. It is even more
the interest of the whole community than in
the case of voting, since it is not alleged that a
man's fellow-electors have a right to know how he
votes, but our fellow income-tax payers have the
strongest possible right to know whether we pay
honestly, for not only do they share with all other
Persons the burdens of Custom, Excise Duties,
ate., which must be kept at a higher rate in pie-
Portion to the frauds practised on the Revenue,
but they suffer through their own class, and, it
Ina)! trade . be, through their actual competitors in

What, then, is the.
paying 7 The
_ e single defence of secret tax-
the Ballot. identical The injury
one of the advocates of
which must frequently
accrue to the individual by the exposure of his
affairs. It may
injure his love of reserve ; it
may injure his pleasant
it
may
injure
e with his neigh-
bours, but, and chiefly,
vont.% •
.311. re him seriously
it may even
in his trade or professional pn
literallye
endanger his means of getting a livelihood. All
these consequences would describe
elec-
tors certain results to hundreds and thousands
might be
tors of voting openly in accordance with their
a actual sentiments. Their open, honesty
their ruin, just as it might be in paying the
Income Tax. Hence, although it is known that
through secret paying hundreds do wrong the
revenue and their fellow-taxpayers, it is held that
Government is bound even at this hazard to pro-
tect the man whom it taxes. Why then is it not
much more bound to protect the man whose vote
it also requires. If it secures him from injury
when it needs his money, why not when it needs
his political judgment ? If it bear with wrong
on the part of some in collecting a man's taxes,
solely to protect the honest taxpayer, why can it
not bear with some unprincipled tvo ers also, i 4
order to secure the many from oppression ? 1
Of course, it will be said that this is an argue- I