property to be protected, receives, on an accurate calculation, twice as much protection, and ought, on the principles of bargain and sale, to pay twice as much for it. Since, however, the assumption that government exists solely for the protection of property, is not one to be deliberately adhered to, some consistent adherents of the quid pro quo principle go on to observe, that protection being required for person as well as property, and everybody's person receiving the same amount of protection, a poll-tax of a fixed sum per head is a proper equivalent for this part of the benefits of government, while the remaining part, protection to property, should be paid for in proportion to property. There is in this adjustment a false air of nice adaptation very acceptable to some minds. But in the first place, it is not admissible, that the protection of person and property are the sole purposes of government. The ends of government are as comprehensive as those of the social union. They consist of all the good, and all the immunity from evil, which the existence of government can be made either directly or indirectly to bestow. In the second place, the practice of setting definite values on things essentially indefinite, and making them a ground of practical conclusions, is peculiarly fertile in false views of social questions. It cannot be admitted, that to be protected in the ownership of ten times as much property, is to be ten times as much protected. Whether the labor and expense of the protection, or the feelings of the protected person, or any other definite thing be made the standard, there is no such proportion as the one supposed, nor any other definable proportion. If we wanted to estimate the degrees of benefit which different persons derive from the protection of government, we should have to consider who would suffer most if that protection were withdrawn; to which question if any answer could be made, it must be, that those would suffer most who were weakest in mind or 30*

VOL. II.

body, either by nature or by position. Indeed, such persons would almost infallibly be slaves. If there were any justice, therefore, in the theory of justice now under consideration, those who are least capable of helping or defending themselves, being those to whom the protection of government is the most indispensable, ought to pay the greatest share of its price; the reverse of the true idea of distributive justice, which consists not in imitating but in redressing the inequalities and wrongs of nature.

Government must be regarded as so preeminently a concern of all, that to determine who is most interested in it is of no real importance. If a person or class of persons receive so small a share of the benefit as makes it necessary to raise the question, there is something else than taxation which is amiss, and the thing to be done is to remedy the defect, not to recognize it and make it a ground for demanding less taxes. As, in a case of voluntary subscription for a purpose in which all are interested, all are thought to have done their part fairly when each has contributed according to his means, that is, has made an equal sacrifice for the common object; in like manner should this be the principle of compulsory contributions, and it is superfluous to look for a more ingenious or recondite ground to rest the principle upon.

3. Setting out, then, from the maxim that equal sacrifices ought to be demanded from all, we have next to inquire whether this is in fact done, by making each contribute the same per centage on his pecuniary means. Many persons maintain the negative, saying that a tenth part taken from a small income is a heavier burden than the same fraction deducted from one much larger; and on this is grounded the very popular scheme of what is called a graduated property tax, viz., an income tax in which the per centage rises with the amount of the income.

On the best consideration I am able to give to this question, it appears to me that the portion of truth which the doctrine contains, arises principally from the difference between a tax which can be saved from luxuries, and one which trenches, in ever so small a degree, upon the necessaries of life. To take a thousand a year from the possessor of ten thousand, would not deprive him of anything really conducive either to the support or to the comfort of existence; and if such would be the effect of taking five pounds from one whose income is fifty, the sacrifice required from the last is not only greater than, but entirely incommensurable with, that imposed upon the first. The mode of adjusting these inequalities of pressure which seems to be the most equitable, is that recommended by Bentham, of leaving a certain minimum of income, sufficient to provide the necessaries of life, untaxed. Suppose £50 a year to be an income ordinarily sufficient to provide a moderately numerous laboring family with the requisites of life and health, and with protection against habitual bodily suffering, but not with any indulgences. This then should be made the minimum, and incomes exceeding it should pay taxes not upon their whole amount, but upon the surplus. If the tax be ten per cent., an income of £60 should be considered as a net income of £10, and charged with £1 a year, while an income of £1000 should be charged as one of £950. Each would then pay a fixed proportion, not of his whole means, but of his superfluities. An income not exceeding £50 should not be taxed at all, either directly or by taxes on necessaries; for as by supposition this is the smallest income which a laboring family ought to have, the government ought not to be a party to making it smaller. This arrangement, however, would constitute a reason, in addition to others which might be stated, for maintaining indirect taxes on articles of luxury consumed by the poor. The immunity extended to the income required for neces

saries, should depend on its being actually expended for that purpose; and the poor who, not having more than enough for necessaries, divert any part of it to indulgences, should like other people contribute their quota out of those indulgences to the expenses of the state.

The exemption in favor of the smaller incomes should not, I think, be stretched further than to the amount of income needful for life, health, and immunity from bodily pain. An income of £100 a year would, as it seems to me, obtain all the relief it is entitled to, compared with one of £1000, by being taxed only on £50 of its amount. It may be said, indeed, that to take £100 from £1000 (even giving back five pounds) is a heavier impost than £1000 taken from £10,000, (giving back the same five pounds.) But this doctrine seems to me too disputable altogether, and even if true at all, not true to a sufficient extent, to be made the foundation of any rule of taxation. To tax all incomes in an equal ratio, would be unjust to those, the greater part of whose income is required for neccessaries; but I can see no fairer standard of real equality than to take from all persons, whatever may be their amount of fortune, the same arithmetical proportion of their superfluities.

Some indeed contend that this rule of taxation bears harder upon the moderate than upon the large incomes, because the same proportional payment has more tendency in the former case than in the latter, to reduce the payer to a lower grade of social rank. The fact appears to me more than questionable. But even admitting it, I object to its being considered incumbent on government to shape its course by such considerations, or to recognize the notion that social importance is or can be determined by amount of expenditure. Government ought to set an example of rating all things at their true value, and riches, therefore, at the worth, for comfort or pleasure, of the things which

they will buy; and ought not to sanction the vulgarity of prizing them for the pitiful vanity of being known to possess them, or the still more paltry shame of being suspected to be without them, the presiding motives of three fourths of the expenditure of the middle classes. The sacrifices of real comfort or indulgence which government requires, it is bound to apportion among all persons with as much equality as possible; but their sacrifices of the imaginary dignity dependent on expense, it may spare itself the trouble of estimating.

Both in England and on the continent a graduated property-tax (l'impôt progressif) has been advocated, on the avowed ground that the state should use the instrument of taxation as a means of mitigating the inequalities of wealth. I am as desirous as any one, that means should be taken to diminish those inequalities, but not so as to impair the motives on which society depends for keeping up (not so say increasing) the produce of its labor and capital. To tax the larger incomes at a higher per centage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors. It is partial taxation, which is a mild form of robbery. A just and wise legislation would scrupulously abstain from opposing obstacles to the acquisition of even the largest fortune by honest exertion. Its impartiality between competitors would consist in endeavoring that they should all start fair, and not that, whether they were swift or slow, all should reach the goal at once. Many, indeed, fail with greater efforts than those with which others succeed, not from difference of merits, but difference of opportunities; and it is the part of a good government to provide, that, as far as more paramount considerations permit, the inequality of opportunities shall be remedied. When all kinds of useful instruction shall be as accessible as they might be made, and when the cultivated