Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1898-10-13
a world Of lying has been done. 1 have

world Of lying has been done. have
no doubt whatever that Mr.. Fleming
can rest his fame as prophet, if he is
ambitious in that direction, upon his
prediction that "as the masses become
better educated to their rights and as
they discover the disguised forms under
which the inequalities of taxation are
foisted upon them and perpetuated to
their disadvantage, they will demand
change" They will demand it dead
sure pop. and. what is more, they will
get it.
Following up that philosophio preface
and coming directly to the income tax
Mr.. Fleming said:
"There is no perfect system, but if a
day on governmental and economic sub
jects were asked what kind of tax
most nearly approaches perfection it is
no rash statement to affirm that the con-
sensus of opinion would be overwhelm-
ingly in favor of properly adjusted in
come tax. Especially would this con-
sensus be stroISg if we should eliminate
those who agree with Mr.. George in his
novel theory of a single tax on land,
which, after all, is not intended so
much as means of raising revenue as
means for more even distribution of
wealth.
Two Classes of Taxation.
fLet us examine the subject briefly:
All taxes may for general purposes be
divided into two classes-taxes based on
possession of property and taxes based
on consumption of commodities. The
former tax falls Immediately on the
possessor or owner. The latter usually
falls on the consumer in the form Of
the additional price of the commodity
An increase of the tax on a piece of
land tends to lower its market value,
because the net gains from it will be
less. An increase of the tax on a box of
cigars tends to raise its market value,
because the final purchaser seeks no
money gains from 1t, but graulncaulon
inseparable from the use or consumption
of the cigars. In this regard there is no
difference between an import duty, such
as we have in our tariff system, and an
excise duty, such as we have in our in
ternal revenue system.
''But in another respect there is a
vast difference between these duties
The full amount of the internal tax
taken out of the pockets of the consum-
ers goes into the government treasury,
but the tariff tax yields to the govern
ment treasury only such sums as are
paid upon articles actually imported,
while the domestic manufacturers or
producers of the same class of articles
put into their own pockets the increased
prices they are enabled to charge con-
sumers by reason of that tariff tax. An
excise tax goes wholly to the govern
ment An import tax goes partly to the
government and partly to protected
classes.
cit is manifest that any system Of
taxation based wholly on consumption,
embracing, as it may, both import du-
ties and excise duties, is lacking in the
elements of justice and equality. Under
such system wealth necessarily escapes
its due proportion of the burden of sup
porting the government from which it
receives protection and on which it de-
ponds for opportunity TO increase its
gains. On this particular point the Hon.
John Sherman, in speech before the
senate in 1871, in opposition to the re-
peal of the income tax, made the fol-
lowing explicit deliverance:
If you leave your system of taxa
tion to rest solely upon consumption,
without any tax upon property or in
come, you do make an unequal and I'M
just system.
Tax on Property.