(i. e., in the form of United States bonds) for their payments. Under such circumstances small manufacturers with a limited capital were crushed, and the business of manufacturing concentrated in a very few firms, which raised the retail price of matches to an extent considerably in excess of the amount of the tax. In later years (1883), when it was proposed to repeal this tax, the singular spectacle was afforded of the larger manufacturers strenuously exerting themselves to influence Congress to prevent the repeal, and asking that they might continue to be taxed. Their efforts were, however, unavailing. The tax was abolished, and the retail price of matches immediately declined more than fifty per centum—i. e., from fifteen cents to six cents for six boxes.
Many years ago the late Henry C. Carey characterized indirect taxation in the following forcible and figurative language: "The whole system of indirect taxation," he said, "is mere petty larceny. It is an attempt to filch that which can not be openly demanded. It is one of those 'inventions' of man by which the few are enabled to grow rich at the expense of the many, and is therefore greatly favored by that class of men who prefer living by the labor of others to living by their own. The man who plunders a city is of the same species with the highway robber. The one who imposes indirect taxes is of the same species with the chevalier d'industrie. All belong to the genus of great men. All are equally destitute of manly or generous feeling. The plunderer of cities selects those which are weak and defenseless, and the collector of indirect taxes selects the commodities used by poor men who can not defend themselves; and where the system most prevails, men are most weak and cheap and food most dear."[1] (H. C. Carey, Past, Present, and Future, pp. 464, 465, Philadelphia, 1848.)
- ↑ "So long as it (indirect taxation) shall be permitted to exist, depopulation, and the system of large revenues, raised by means of indirect taxation, to be squandered by those who live by managing the affairs of others, must continue. So long as it exists, the planter and farmer must continue to give a large portion of their small product in exchange for a small quantity of clothing. So long as it exists, every attempt at the establishment of freedom of trade must be a failure. With its correction, every obstacle to the establishment of perfect freedom will disappear, and the tariff will pass out of existence. The interest of every farmer and planter, and of every laborer and mechanic, is directly concerned in the adoption of a measure that shall be calculated to promptly produce the effect desired—i. e., repeal of indirect taxation—but it is not more his interest than his duty. So long as the present system shall continue, trade of every kind must be subject to violent fluctuations which enable the few to enrich themselves at the expense of the many, and enable gambling speculators to live in palaces and ride in coaches by aid of indirect taxation levied upon the hard-working mechanic and honest trader, ruined by changes in the value of their property. It is, therefore, the bounden duty of every man desirous to promote the great cause of morality, justice, and of truth, to unite his efforts with those of his neighbor for the early accomplishment of this great object."—H. C. Carey, Past, Present, and Future, pp. 471, 472, Philadelphia, 1848.
