The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-08

The Democratic press of the country is in
full chorus denouncing the new tariff as "a
tariff of denominations" They should try
and discover or invent a new phrase. This
one is very threadbare, having been applied
by them indiscrimnately to every tariff en-
acted since the war that was intended to
raise sufficient revenue for the government.
A tariff for deficit is a beautiful thing in
their eyes, but a tariff for revenue is an
abomination. Always the abominable fea-
ture is the raising of sufficient revenue to
meet the expenditures of the government
without borrowing money and increasing
the public debt in time of peace.
Carried to it's logical conclusion the Dem
ocratic idea would require the adoption of
the British theory of taxation, under which
much of the greatest part of the revenue is
raised by excise or what we call internal
revenue taxes. 1t is probable that very few
Americans who advocate this theory realize
what it would involve. Perhaps if they did
they would not advocate it. Although it is
patiently borne in England now as a neces-
sary feature of her revenue system, it was
for long time very odious. Dr. Johnson.
in his dictionary, defined the word excise
as "a hateful tax levied upon commodities,
and adjudged not by the common judges of
property, but by wretches hired by those to
whom excise is paid" Blackstone, writing
in 17S6, said from it's first origin to the
present time its very name has been odious
to the people of England" Yet now ex-
else taxes constitute the cornerstone of
4
Strictly speaking an excise tax is one laid
on home goods either in the process of their
manufacture or before their sale to the
home consumers, but in the British system
it includes also stamps, licenses and taxes
for exercising certain privileges. Thus
England has a heavy tax on beer and on
breweries and beer dealers, wholesale and
retail; the same on distilled spirits and
dealers in them; a tax on cider and spruce
beer; taxes on vehicles of all kinds; on
playing cards; on farmhouses. shops and
warehouses; licenses to kill game and to
use and carry guns, to- sell gold and silver
plate to pursue the business of appraisers
and auctioneers, peddlers pawnbrokers, or
patent medicine vendors, to manufacture
tobaccos or snuff to manufacture or deal
in confectionery. to make vinegar and
many others. Then there are stamp taxes
on bills of exchange, checks, drafts, leases,
bonds, contracts bills of lading, delivery or
ders, deeds. mortgages-in short, every con-
ceivable form of transaction on paper.
There are taxes on rents and incomes on
inheritances, on legacies and SUGGESTIONS,
and on every form of property transfer,
There is a universal land tax of which
each parish has to raise its pro rata share.
Every horse and other beast Of burden is
taxed Every lawyer pays a separate tax
for each degree he takes in the profession,
as does every doctor. Notar1es public pay
$3.50 a year. A young man desiring TO study
law pays $500 on articles of clerkship TO a
solicitor. There is a tax of 90 cents on
every affidavit. A marriage license costs
sos and every male servant is taxed SO a
year for the privilege of being a servant.
These are some Of the features of the Brit
ish excise system which the logic of free
trade would substitute for our tariff sys7
TEN. Any person with a grain of sense
must see that such a system is utterly OPP
posed to American ideas and would be in
tolerably odious Yet those persons who
characterize every tariff for revenue as "a
tariff of abominations," and would substi-
tute the British system for the American.
regard these British denominations as beau
ties In a sense all taxes are abominable.
but they are necessary features of every