books and pamphlets, exclusive of congressional speeches and newspaper articles, have been issued from the American press; fourth, the "Free Trade" and "Protection" question; fifth, the monetary metallic standard question; sixth, the relations of the State to common carriers, and the methods of internal intercommunication; seventh, the subject of local or State as contradistinguished from national or Federal taxation; on which latter topic, although it relates to methods by which the people of the United States at present annually contribute to local or State governments a sum nearly equal to the present total annual revenue of Great Britain from all imperial taxes, there had not been up to 1870, a single publication in the United States apart from official reports that pretended intelligently to discuss it. Since this date, however, a much greater interest has been manifested on this subject. Several publications of great merit, exhibiting the situation in its legal aspects, and the theories, controversies, and experiences of the past, have appeared;[1] and this interest has been especially intensified and popularized by the scheme of the so-called "single tax," which, if not originated by Mr. George, has been so ably advocated by him as to have attracted, previous to the development of the silver problem, more of popular attention on both sides of the Atlantic than any other economic topic brought forward during the present century.
Some better acquaintance with the literature of taxation than has hitherto been acquired by most educated men would seem to be essential to a full understanding of many of the great events in the world's history, inasmuch as nearly all great political revolutions have been primarily occasioned by the exercise of arbitrary power in compelling contributions of property from the masses by those in authority. Thus, going back to ancient history, the disruption of the Jewish monarchy and the secession of the ten
- ↑ Of such publications the following are specially worthy of notice: A Treatise on the Law of Taxation, including the Law of Local Assessment, by Thomas M. Cooley, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of Michigan, 1876; A Treatise on the Law of Taxation, as exercised by the Government of the United States, by W. M. Burroughs, 1877; The Law of Taxation, by Francis Hillard, 1875 (three publications in which questions of political economy, as not necessarily involved in discussion of legal points, have received little consideration); The Shifting and Incidence of Taxation, 1892, Progressive Taxation in Theory and Practice, 1894, Essays on Taxation, 1895, by Prof. Edwin R. A. Seligman, of Columbia College, N. Y., three publications characterized by great historical research, and a repertory of information not otherwise readily accessible. Cohn, Science of Finance, a recent work of sufficient merit to warrant its translation from the German under the auspices of the University of Chicago, is nevertheless of such a character that it will never be generally read, or have the slightest influence on the mass of the people of a country like the United States, who select the legislators who determine what shall be the policy of their Government in respect not only of taxation but of all other fiscal or economic subjects.
