[5] In order to obtain the effects described in the various illustrations it is necessary in several cases to regard the figures for a considerable time and with close attention. The reader is requested not to give up in case the first attempt to secure the effect is not successful, but to continue the effort for a reasonable period. Individuals differ considerably in the readiness with which they obtain such effects; in some cases, such devices as holding the diagrams inverted or at an angle or viewing them with the eyes half closed are helpful.
[6] It is fortunate that Mr. Wells had practically completed his essays on taxation before death put an end to his activity. The manuscript of two chapters was found among his papers—one on the Best Methods of Taxation, and the other on the Law of the Diffusion of Taxes, begun in this number. The first manuscript has some pages missing, and it has been thought best to postpone its publication, in the hope that the missing pages may be found. It is evident that the last touches were yet to be put upon the chapter on the diffusion of taxes—a chapter that was to sum up the theory of taxation developed by the writer. So much of that summary is contained in it as to make the meaning of Mr. Wells unmistakable, and its publication is further amply justified by the number of practical illustrations and happy application of theory to fact, in the selection and explanation of which the author excelled. The entire series, which has been running in the Popular Science Monthly for more than three years, will now be collected in a volume—a worthy memorial to one whose powers of popular exposition of abstract problems placed him among the first of economists in the United States.
[7] On the Shifting and Incidence of Taxation, by Prof. Edwin R. Seligman, 1892.
[8] The assertion would not be warranted that the masses of New York were wholly unanimous in condemning Tweed, for a portion of them were undoubtedly well content with the situation. He had curried favor with the very poor and ignorant by distributing coal and flour, and making ostentatious presents of money; and these "charities" are remembered to this day in the poorer parts of New York city, and Tweed is esteemed by many as the victim of injustice, and a man who suffered because he was the friend of the people.
[9] Of the net ordinary receipts of the Federal Government ($385,819,000) in 1893, only about $12,000,000 was derived from sources that could not be regarded as taxes, and were mainly receipts from the sales and surveys of public and Indian lands ($4,120,000) and of other Government property.
[10] In 1897 the merchant tailors of the United States, who ought to know something about the incidence of a custom tax on imported clothing, united in a petition to Congress asking that Americans returning from Europe be permitted to introduce only two suits of foreign-made clothes free of duty; and in support of their request they comment as follows on a ruling of the Treasury in respect to this matter: "Under this ruling it was possible to enter free of duty vast quantities of foreign-made garments which had never been actually in use, and which were so imported solely because there exists a relative difference of at least fifty per cent in values between the cost of made-up garments in the United States and Europe, thus saving to the purchaser of garments abroad one half of their actual value upon arrival within the United States duty free." But if the foreigner who made and sold the goods in question was liable to pay the duty on dutiable clothing, and attended to his duty, there would be no profit to the returning tourist in importing clothing free of duty. It is further evident also that American tailors agree in opinion with Alexander Hamilton that the consumers of imported articles pay the customs taxes.
The records of the commercial relations between the United States and Canada are exceedingly instructive on this matter. They all show that for the products which the Canadian sends to the United States, and on which somebody pays the duty, he receives exactly the same price as for those products which he sends to England, on which nobody pays any duty. This experience is exactly the same as that of the farmers of the Northwestern States of the Federal Union, who usually get the same price for their wheat furnished to a Minnesota flour mill, or for shipment to free-trade England, as to countries like France and Germany, where heavy duties are assessed upon its import. The term "usually" is employed, for producers in the United States and Canada alike do not always get as large a price for the articles they export as for the same articles they sell to their fellow-countrymen. Again, if it be true, as the advocates of extreme protection assert, that the foreign exporter and not the consumer pays the duties on goods sent by him for sale in this country, how does it happen that it is not true concerning the farm produce and live stock exported from Canada? And why should American farmers be exempt from this rule in sending their grain to Europe? Has anybody ever known of England buying American products any cheaper in New York than France or Germany, and is it not also true that the French or German or Italian consumer usually pays at least the amount of the duty levied by his Government more for American products than his English competitor has, whose imports are subjected to no duty? During the period from 1854 to 1866 there was, under the reciprocity treaty, practically free trade between Canada and the United States in live stock, wool, barley, rye, peas, oats, and other farm products, while subsequent to 1866, when the reciprocity treaty had been repealed, duties were imposed on all these articles on their import from Canada into the United States. During the first period Canadian horses, for example, sold under free trade for shipment to the United States at from sixty-five to eighty-five dollars each, while during the years next subsequent to 1866 the value of the Canadian horses imported into the United States was returned at from ninety-two to one hundred and four dollars each; thus showing that the United States tariff did not force the Canadian horse breeders to lower their prices in order to compensate American purchasers for the duties exacted. And as regards the other products mentioned, the official data show that in no case did the imposition of duties under the United States tariff reduce the prices paid by American purchasers to the Canadian farmers for their products. These are very commonplace, very familiar, and very convincing facts which ought to silence all this talk about the foreign exporter or anybody else but the consumer paying the duty; but it is not at all probable that they will.
[11] 1877, p. 214.
[12] 1861 b, pp. 227 and 331.
[13] Glück, 1896 a. Jacobs, 1890, p. 82, did not find a trace of it in the Sephardim congregation in London. See Andree, 1878, in this connection.