Delaware State journal and statesman., 1866-05-08
From the Phlladelphia American.
NOT ENOUGH REDUCTION.

The amended Revenue bill has at last
emerged from the Committee of Ways and
Means, and gone before the House Of Rep
res,antatives and the country, but too late to
have any effect upon the collection of the
taxes for 1865. Oppressive and crushing as
the existing taxes are, we must bear their
load for another year, instead of receiving
from the government that relief for which
we had right to look. Weat length know
what the Ways and Means propose What
Congress may choose to make out of the bill
remains to be seen. The consideration of
the question has not yet begun, and when it
shall there is no guessing where it may end.
We embrace the present occasion, therefore,
of saying that, in our judgment, while the
princi piles upon which the bill was framed
SCENE d fair, the committee has hardly gone
as far as it might judiciously have done in
reducing: our enormous load of domestic
taxationA
1t does not seem to have been borne in
mind by the members of the committee that
the State and local authorities have, during
the progress of the civil war, become heavily
embarrassed with loads Of debt caused by
paying bou.uties to volunteers 10 fill their
quotas of tro ops under the conscription law,
and by main tanning the families of soldiers
during their absence in service. In New
York State these debts reach an aggregate
Of about eigh ty-five millions, and every
where in the loyal States they arc enormous,
and the people have to bear the burden of
taxes to pay interest on these debts in addi-
tion to the national taxation. The great
duties of government are so largely deVolved
upon States aud local authorities, by the
framework Of our institutions, as in the
nature of things to render it unavoidable
that our State and local revenues should be
we'll sustained in order to preserve order,
enforce the laws, foster improvements, etc.
In the large cities we sec this illustrated
very forcibly, but it would be serious mis-
take to suppose that the rural districts are
in anywise free from these embarrassments.
Their burdens are quite heavy, and thus,
between the national, the State and the local
authorities, the taxpayers are about as badly
borne down by taxation as any part OF Eng
land ever was, Notwithstanding that we have
traditionally regarded England as peculiarly
the land of taxes. When we recollect that
all these various taxes pass into the rents o.
property, the prices of provisions, the values
of goods and wages for all kinds of toll, il
will be seem that it is nonsense to talk of re-
ducing the initiation by the mere reduction o.
the paper currency. The great evil is exces
sive taxation, and of that it is our duty tC
try to rid the country as far as possible.
To President Johnson we are mainly in
debted for that great blessing, the disband
ment of an Immense army, and the discharge
of the vast swarms of military employee
rendered necessary by the civil war. 1t re
mains now for Congress to do its part of tn,
work by reducing our taxation from wa
standard to that Of peace; and howeve
puch we may approve of the tax bill as re
ported, we may as well say frankly that WI
approve of it only as beginning, and be
cause we expect much more TO come in tn