TAXATION AND GOVERNMENT.

In that strangely beautiful story, “The Cloister and the Hearth,” in which Charles Reade has drawn such a vivid picture of human life at the close of the Middle Ages, there is a good description of the siege of a revolted town by the army of the Duke of Burgundy. Arrows whiz, catapults hurl their ponderous stones, wooden towers are built, secret mines are exploded. The sturdy citizens, led by a tall knight who seems to bear a charmed life, baffle every device of the besiegers. At length the citizens capture the brother of the duke’s general, and the besiegers capture the tall knight, who turns out to be no knight after all, but just a plebeian hosier. The duke’s general is on the point of ordering the tradesman who has made so much trouble to be shot, but the latter still remains master of the situation; for, as he dryly observes, if any harm comes to him, the enraged citizens will hang the general’s brother. Some parley ensues, in which the shrewd hosier promises for the townsfolk to set free their prisoner and pay a round sum of money if the besieging army will depart and leave them in peace. The offer is accepted, and so the matter is amicably settled. As the worthy citizen is about to take his leave, the general ventures a word of inquiry as to the cause of the town’s revolt. “What, then, is your grievance, my good friend?” Our hosier knight, though deft with needle and keen with lance, has a stammering tongue. He answers: “Tuta tuta tuta tuta too much taxes!”

It only needs to be pointed out, however, that in every town some things are done for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the town, things which concern one person just as much as another. Thus roads are made and kept in repair, school-houses are built and salaries paid to school-teachers, there are constables who take criminals to jail, there are engines for putting out fires, there are public libraries, town cemeteries, and poor-houses. Money raised for these purposes, which are supposed to concern all the inhabitants, is supposed to be paid by all the inhabitants, each one furnishing his share; and the share which each one pays is his town tax.

Government, then, is the directing or managing of such affairs as concern all the people alike, as, for example, the punishment of criminals, the enforcement of contracts, the defence against foreign enemies, the maintenance of roads and bridges, and so on. To the directing or managing of such affairs all the people are expected to contribute, each according to his ability, in the shape of taxes. Government is something which is supported by the people and kept alive by taxation. There is no other way of keeping it alive.

If we are in any doubt as to what is really the government of some particular country, we cannot do better than observe what person or persons in that country are clothed with authority to tax the people. Mere names, as customarily applied to governments, are apt to be deceptive. Thus in the middle of the eighteenth century France and England were both called “kingdoms;” but so far as kingly power was concerned, Louis XV. was a very different sort of a king from George II. The French king could impose taxes on his people, and it might therefore be truly said that the government of France was in the king. Indeed, it was Louis XV’s immediate predecessor who made the famous remark, “The state is myself.” But the English king could not impose taxes; the only power in England that could do that was the House of Commons, and accordingly it is correct to say that in England, at the time of which we are speaking, the government was (as it still is) in the House of Commons.