Middletown transcript., 1868-10-17
Our Taxes.

If the annual expenses of the Govern
ment, including the interest ON the public
debt, were to be paid by direct taxation,
the actual amount of tax which every
man is obliged to pay into the Treasury
annually would be so palpable, that the
Radical party would be swept out of ex-
istence by popular uprising. Four hun
dred and fifty millions of dollars were
drawn from the pockets of the people last
year, and five hundred and thirty-six mil
lions the year before, and now we are
warned that il will require four hundred
and seventy-fve millions for the present
year: and that fresh taxes must be i'm
posed, as the estimated receipts will not
be sufficient to meet the current expenses.
just think of it-four hundred and sew
enty-six millions of dollars, and this not
for one year a lone, but just so long as the
enormous pub bile debt remains unpaid
Nearly every dollar of this the consumers
have to pay. In addition to this they are
burthened with State, and county and
municiple tax es, which have been enor-
mously increased since the war, and for
the liquidation of which their property,
both real and personal, is held liable.
The United States is now the most tax
ridden country on the face of the Globe
Seven years ago it was taxed the lightest
OF Anyhow it requires an army of six
| teen thousand office-holders to collect the
Internal Revenue tax alone. There is
not shred Of clothing that the working
man has to wear which has not been taxed
over and over again-taxed on the wool,
taxed on the dye, taxed on the manufac-
ture, taxed on the sale. All these taxes
are added to the price of the article,
whatever it may be, and make up the
difference between what similar one sold
for seven years ago and what it sells for
now. 1t is the same with house rent.
The owner pays the taxes and reimburses
himself from the rent. Every commodity
IN use; every particle of food that is con-
sumed is shingled over with taxes. Every
pound of coffee is taxed in currency seven
cents; every pound of tea thirty seven
cents, every pound of sugar FIVE cents.
From these three articles alone-articlcs
that enter into the consumption of every
household and have become of prime ne
cessity-the Government draws an annual
revenue in currency of seventy-two mil
lions of dollars.
If the wages of labor were brought up
to the same standard, the condition of the
gr at bulk of the people would be Just the
same that it was before the war. No bet
ter, no worse. Such however, is not the
case. Mr.. DAVID A. WELLS, whom the
Government recognizes as an authority in
such matters, and whose access to the
necessary statistics renders his opinion of
value, declares that an extended inyestiga-
ton respecting the advance in prices of
the leading articles of consumption, and
also of rents, indicates an increase of
ninety per cent. in the year 1866 as COM
pared with the average price of the same
articles during the four years from 1859
to 1862. 1t necessarily follows that for
the worklngman to have lived as well in
1876 as he did before the war, his wages
should also have risen ninety per cent
MIR. WELLS, however, states that the ay
eragc increase of the wages of labor since
1861 has been only sixty per cent; so
that the wor kingmen, taking one class
with another, are absolutely worse off by
thirty cents on each dollar than they |
were before the Radicals got possession OF
the Government. In other words, whilst
the cost of living has been nearly doubled,
the average wages of labor fall short by
thirty per cent. of what they were before.
The great Government contractors, the
shoddyites, the bondholders and the manu-
facturers to the eastward, have grown
rich by the war; but the laboring classes
have grown poorer, because they constitute
the great bulk of the consumers, and as u
necessary consequence have to bear the
great bulk Of the taxes on diminished
wages IN proportion to the price of COM
modities. They may not be troubled with
tax bills, but they pay them, nevertheless.
The bills are adroitly hidden in every pur-
chase they make. On every pound of
coffee they buy, they pay the tax gatherer
seven cents ON every pound of tea, they
pay him thirty-seven cents, on every pound
of sugar they pay him five cents. He
does not indeed appear in bodily presence
before them; but he is there in the sugar,
and the coffee and the tea, just as GER
tainly as if he made a demand for the
tax on these commodities every time the
oohsumeT DouBnI tnem. 1t Is the same
in all things else. The importer or the
pays the tax in the first in
stance, and charges it to the wholesale
lealer, who in return charges it to the re.
tail dealer, and the latter puts it on the
price of the article he sells to the con-
sumer Gazette.
WILLIAM GATEs.-The death of Gene