The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-27


no income, and yet is rapidly enriching its
| owners. The consequence is, that great num-
| bers of men reputed in their own COM
| munities to be wealthy-some of them sup
posed to be worth millions-return scarcely
any income at all. Neighbors of theirs, re-
ceiving small and preoarious incomes whose
| continuance depends on the uncertainties of
| life and health or the caprice of employers,
pay burdensome tax, while these shrewd,
rich men who are rising to be nabobs and
| all whose heirs will be millionaires, pay
none. If the industrious earners of small in
comes, who are dependent on salaries or
professional fees, die, they leave their fami-
| lies penniless; but if these rich lmen without
incomes die, their families are left in
| afhuence. The present income tax does not
| reach, and it is impossible to devise an in
come tax which would reach, this constant
growth in the value of property. In old and
densely- -peopled countries there are few such
opportunities of making great fortunes by
buying up unimproved real estate; and in
such countries an income tax is not attended
with such gross and fragrant injustice. Its
effect here is to relieve a very large proper
tion of the accumulations of our richest men,
and lay the whole burden on those whose
| growth in wealth comes in the shape of tangi-
BILE money incomes, and, still worse, upon
| those who make no accumulations at all, but
are barely able to live upon their salaries or
| their professional fees.
Another reason why an income tax is not
suited to the circumstances of this country
| and necessarily works injustice, lies in our
| system of agriculture. In England proprie-
| tors of the land are not for the most part its
actual cultivators. The land is owned in
large estates by the nobility and other wealthy
men, who give long leases at fixed rent
rendering the income FROM farming lands as
| tangible, and as easily ascertained, as income
| of inf in p11ffr
where nearly all the land is cultivated by its
| owners, there is no means of ascertaining
| agricultural incomes, and hardly any income
| tax is paid by our farmers Thus our largest
interest and greatest source of accumulation
almost entirely escapes q burden which
weighs heavily upon some other classes
| of the community. A farmer returns
as income (when he makes an income re-
turn at alD only the proceeds of the crops
he sells, making no account of the consump
ton of his family. Other people spend a
| great part of their taxed incomes in purchas-
ing the subsistence of their households. Good
farming constantly increases the value of the
| lands cultivated; but such enhancement of
value is never returned as income, although
it is as real an addition to the wealth of the
owner as the money which he receives for
his surplus crops. Thus a thriving farmer,
who is every year improving his circnm-
stances and adding to the value of his pro-
perty, pays no income tax; while multitudes,
whose yearly earnings are consumed in their
yearly expenses, and whose DEATH sickness,
loss of situations, or loss of professional re-
pute would plunge their families into desti-
tuition and distress, have their scanty means
diminished by this unequal and unjust i'm
position.
DECLINE IN GOLD-GOOD EFFECTS
OF GENERAL GRANTS POLICY.
From the N Y. Herald.
The remarkable decline in gold-the price on
Thursday touching 12493 the lowest since the
year 1S63-is the fruition of the policy which
General Grant inaugurated when he delivered
his brief and simple address on the 4th of
March last. The promise which he then
made of reducing the expenditures and of
faithfully gathering the revenues of the Gov
eminent is being fulfilled in the falling of
the price of gold which is but the financial
sign and index of the increasing credit and
stability of the Government. The practical
effects of his policy are now quite visible
since the smashing of the gold ring and the
breaking up of the Wall street combinations
that were formed in midsummer to advance
the price of the precious metal. 1t will be
remembered with what delight his enemies
then pointed to the rise in gold as a proof of
the weakness of his efforts. The gold gam
blers were the sole cause of the upward move
ment, and in pushing it onward abandoned
themselves to the belief that they possessed
the power to undo all the good work which
General Grant set out to perform. His sim
pie order to sell a few millions from the
Treasury ruined their fond anticipations and
dissipated the gold corner in the most effec-
tual manner.
The results of General Grants policy are
all the more remarkable for the reason that in
taking hold of the reins of government he
was encountered by the abuses bequeathed tc
him from the previous administration Be
fore setting his own plans in operation he was
under the necessity Of righting what wai
wrong in the various departments. He ha(
to unearth and put an end to all the various
! frauds and schemes Of corruption clinging tC
the appointments of the former Tegjile, anC
make a general clearing out of the public
Offices The formidable conspiracy which at
tackled the gold market was an obstacle for
time to the operation OF his plans, but ht
eventually triumphed, as the apparent dis
credit of the Government finances implied il
! the rise in gold was the result of artificial in
r fluences only, which had in the long run t.
succumb to natural causes. The good result
? of his honest determination to faithfully col
> lect the revenues and to oretrench the expenses
of the Government are at length reflected il
the gradual and steady but sure appreciation
of the national credit. Under the cir
| cumstances of our present politica
t situation gold is commodity who's
price depends, on the one hand, upol
= the condition of the national credit
and, ON the other, upon the relations o
our foreign trade The burden of the public
y | debit ia NOT nnrassarily on lnSurD, on nto bl,