The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1869-10-10
Licenses.


be hoped thatit viii seriously weigh the
objections 80 freely urged now-a-d days
against the license system. The Chamber
of Commerce has already made move for
its total abolition, and no doubt that move
ment will obtain great strength if not final
success.
The license system is open to several
objections, of the which the principal are,
LIST, that it is unequal; ID, that it represses
enterprise and merit; Sd, that it is unna
tural and unjust.
The constitution of every free State
requires, as the fundamental principle of
all taxation, that it should be equal. Where
is the possibility of making it equal unless
it be calculated ON the basis of money or
propertyP Where is the equality in taxing
one man $500 for q license to carry on a
business involving sales of ten or twenty
thousand dollars q year, when the license
is just the same for a rich merchant in the
very same line whose operations amount to
several millions per annum? 1t is evident
that the rich man is taxed infinitely less
for his license than his poor neighbor pro-
measure of equality.
| If lou tax mans house or field, his
furniture, goods, income, or anything else
exactly appreciable in money, then you
can be sure of making his proportion exact
and equal, but to tax two men of the same
calling precisely the same amount each,
would not be equal, unless it should happen
that thcy made precisely the same profit
| by the business so taxed. 1t is evident that
if one physician pays license of $50 ON n
practice of $500, lie pays a tax of ten per
cent, willie another physician in paying the
same amount on practice of $4,000 con-
| tributes only in the proportion of one per
cent. Thus, though the amounts contrib
uted are equal, the proportion is unequal,
ton that taxation is required to be equal
and uniform.
Another crying evil of this system is the
fact resulting from it that enterprise is
greatly repressed. 1t is not always that
capitalism capacity are coupled together.
A young man of thorough training, great
experience and native sagacity may wish
to commence business on bis. own account
in q very small way In a few years, if
permitted, he would work his way to atllu-
ence, and become one of the business props
of the city, but you virtually tell him,
pay down in the way of a license, or because,
if, he should pay it, lie would have nothing
left for his business. This not only re-
presses industry and enterprise IN the indi
vidual, but is bad for tue community, for
it fosters mOnopolies and keeps up high
prices by choking off competition. Make
a free port of New Orleans, or at least a
cheap port, if you are willing that it should
take its natural position as metropolis of
the commercial world.
Men say, in horror, EFWhat! will you
permit penniless strangers to come here
and compete with our respectable mer-
chants 2" We answer that the laws are
made, not for our merchants, but for the
| city-for general prosperity, not local pie
thora. If our respectable merchants and
institutions have more merit and capacity
than their penniless rivals, of course COM
! petition will not hurt them and they do
not need protective tariff
The most serious objection to the license
system, however, is its inhumanity and in
justice. You tax man for his labor. 1t
is well to tax property, for whoever has it
has a surplus, but every cent produced by
! labor may be necessary for subsistence.7 II
you tax the doctor for his profession, why
| not the editor?L It's equally labor by
which each gains his living. If you tax
the lawyer upon the labor by which he
supports his family, why not the hod-
carrier Is brain work any less arduous
or less stamped with the characteristics of
labor than blacksmithing If, then, you
may tax the. Iabor by which professional
map, an artist or a barkeeper, gains his
daily bread, you may just as reasonably
tax the car driver, the drayman, the levee
| laborer, on his vocation.
| Humanity excIaims against such n course.