come, property and inheritance tax, to a height which until then
was impossible.

"It is one of our demands at the present time that such a tax shall
be substituted for all others, especially for the indirect tax.

"But even if we had to-day the power to carry through such a
measure with the support of the other parties, which is plainly
impossible, because no bourgeois party would go so far, we would at
once find ourselves in the presence of great difficulties.

"It is a well-known fact that the higher the tax the greater the
efforts at tax dodging.

"But when a condition exists where any concealment of income and
property is impossible, even then we would not be in a position to
force the income and property tax as high as we wish, because the
capitalists, if the tax on their income or property pressed them
too closely, would simply leave the State.

"Above a certain measure such taxes cannot rise to-day even if we
had the political power.

"_The situation is completely changed, however, when capitalist
property takes the form of public debts._

"The property to-day that is so hard to find then lies in broad
day-light.

"It would then only be necessary to declare that all bonds must be
public, and it would be known exactly what was the value of every
property and every capitalist income.

"_The tax would then be raised as high as desired_ without the
possibility of tax frauds.

"It would then also be impossible to escape taxation by emigration,
for the tax could simply be taken from the interest before it was
paid out. [A similar tax exists in France to-day.]

"_If necessary it might be put so high as to be equivalent, or
nearly so, to a confiscation of the great properties._

"It might be well to ask what is the advantage of this round-about
way of confiscation over that of taking the direct road?

"The difference between the two methods is not so trifling as at
first appears.

"Direct confiscation of all capitalists would strike all, the small
and the great, those utterly useless to labor, in the same manner.

"It is difficult, often impossible, in this method to separate the
large possession from the small, when these are united in the form
of money capital in the same undertaking.

"Direct confiscat