The record-union., 1898-08-12
WILL THE WAR REVENUE TAXES
REMAIN?

The accomplished statistician and po-
litical economist, Edward Atkinson, eX-
presses the opinion that the war rev.
e1ue taxes will remain after the cause
that brought them on has ceased and
the war is ended. His reasons certainly
present a possible new revenue issue.
His thought is that these war tax
revenues will be continued with some
slight notifications. The national rev.
enue has heretofo been collected in
directly from articles of common con-
sumption. Wherever revenue by indi-
rect taxes is employed, the burden fails
upon a few articles of consumption by
the masses of the people. This appears
TO be the rule everywhere. Hence such
taxes in many countries, as the salt
tax, the tobacco and the sugar tax.
Great Britain, therefore. for reasons
of necessity, adopted first a stamp and
then an income tax, at first as tenn
porary measures, and then as part of
the permanent system. Since then she
had added the estates duty to divide
the burden the more and put taxation
upon property. We have formed, he
holds, no exception in this country to
the rule of concentration of taxes.
For twenty years or more our normal
expenses have been s. a head. 1t IS
probable that the outgo for old pen
sions will be reduced by as much as the
increase of new or additional pensions.
SO when the war ends liquor, tobacco,
sugar, miscellaneous permanent re-
ceipts with stamp and succession taxes
will yield a revenue Of So a head while
the permanent expenditures of the
country will not be increased from So
a head by more than 81.
Hence, he concludes, it is altogether
likely that the war revenues will be
continued, as such taxes are the most
easily collected, with the least friction
and expense. Internal revenue is al
ways collected with less friction than
customs revenues, for no bonded ware
houses are needed for them no special
collectors, no custom houses, etc. The
revenues from miscellaneous duties, he
holds, will therefore become a surplus.
If the tariff shall then be reduced to a
revenue basis, with incidental protec-
tion, the country Will be out of debt in
fifteen or twenty years.
Mr. Atkinson thinks that the signs OF
the times indicate that such will he
the necessary policy imposed on both
parties by the existing conditions Of our
commerce. We are now exporting at
the rate of 500, 100000 a month. With
out the home market in our seaports
created by this immense foreign de-
nnand we would be in a state of eX-
treme difficulty and depression. This
relief from excess of production above
any possible demand for domestic con-
sumption, affects every branch of in
dustry except a few now crippled by a
heavy tariff on crude materials of for
eign origin which are necessary in their
conduct. To give full exposition Of Mr..
Atkinson's views, which, however, are
not shared by the radical protectionist
advocates, we quote him fully:
We export few or no wooden and
worsted fabrics, and shall never do so
as long as Great Britain and Germany
enjoy the benefit of untaxed wool, while
our manufacturers are oppressed by
that tax The world must have our sur
plus OF food and cotton so long as ii
can pay for It. In the present year
the excess of exports over the import
OF foreign goods comes to S6O0. .000000
With that and our previous excess we
have paid nearly all of our foreign in
,debtedness and we have imported as
much gold as we can use in support Of
our domestic credit.
What then will be the conditions with
which we shall be face to face in the
next year? May they not be the neces-
sary reduction Of duties from a pro-
hjhitive or very obstructive standard
to low revenue duties, in order that
foreign countries which need our excess
OF products may beable to pay for them
an goods rather than in gold? We can
not follow up our demand for gold an
other year without bringing a. financial
crisis upon every European bank, and
IF we did, what could we do with the
gold except to spend 1t for foreign
goods?
am, therefore, Of opinion that the
war revenue taxes have come to stay,
and that our tariff system will Of ne
cessity be adjusted to the conditions
which 1 have endeavored to present.