ty of the United States is 1000 per cent, or a rate 150 per cent above
the rate abroad. Great Britain, in her compact territory, has employed
7,200 men in the preventive service, and 66 cruisers to check the
evasions of her duties on spirits and tobacco; and it is estimated by
good judges that a large part of the spirits, and more than half the
tobacco, consumed in England escape the duty. Several thousand seizures
are made annually, and it has been testified before Parliament that not
one evasion in sixteen is detected. If this be so in Great Britain, it
is not surprising that the government has failed, in this country, with
its sparse population, to collect a duty of 1000 per cent, or that the
experiment has cost the nation more than fifty millions. Such excessive
duties may well be styled over-taxation, and tend to demoralize and
corrupt our revenue officers, to encourage fraud, and to enrich illicit
traders. The Commission believe that the reduction of the duty will
restore alcohol to the arts, diminish fraud, and give us a revenue of at
least $40,000,000 annually,--a sum nearly equal to the proceeds of the
income tax.

INCOME TAX.

The Revenue Commission clearly demonstrate by their Report and table of
income, that this tax will not be required to meet our interest and
current expenses, and they apparently retain a portion of it as a flank
guard for their other items of revenue; but it is obvious from their
very guarded Report that this flank guard may be dispensed with. The
Commissioners very properly suggest that it is better to place this tax
upon created wealth and net income than to levy it upon production, and
in this all sensible men will concur; but we require at this time no
surplus revenue of $81,000,000. Our revenue from foreign duties must
exceed their estimate; and if it did not, a sinking fund of $32,000,000
is ample for a debt of $2,700,000,000, $400,000,000 of which draws no
interest, and the residue of which we may well presume will soon be
permanently funded at reduced interest. The income tax in Great Britain
is but 1-2/3 per cent, and it is wise to reduce our own tax on the
surplus incomes of the rich from ten to five per cent; but the
suggestion that an income tax should be imposed on rents exceeding $300
is in conflict with the Commissioners' suggestion, at page 60 of their
Report: "The general government has taken to itself nearly every source
of revenue, except the single one of real esta