The change proposed is so great that its realization may be far off, and the evolution of law may be rivalled by the evolution of evasive ingenuity, so that the commonwealth may be compelled to prohibit evasive ante-mortem donations, and to reinforce the succession tax by more stringent measures, from which there can be no escape, and which will control plutocracy as effectively as any succession tax, and thus render the latter of less importance; but it is none the less important that the principle should be asserted, that the dead shall not rule the living.
There are two obvious measures, and one of them is sure to be adopted soon, without waiting for the abolition of unlimited inheritance. The income tax is made almost necessary by the last Congress, which emptied the treasury, and the income tax, if made accumulative, increasing its rates with the increase of income, will be as effective a control over plutocracy as the people wish to make it. The increasing rate of taxation upon superfluous wealth, is a sacred principle for which every reformer should contend.
But even this is not fortified against evasion, and we need the most efficient tax of all—the progressively accumulating tax on wealth, which will gather a large rental from all the superfluous millions, compelling the holders to use them profitably. A three per cent. tax on all over ten millions would not only enrich the commonwealth, but stimulate industry in millionnaires. How long will the millionnaires be able to defeat such legislation?
These are the coming taxes. They are not untried theories, for Switzerland, the foremost nation in democracy, enjoys both the income tax and the progressively accumulating tax, which falls most heavily on the largest properties.
It is to be hoped that political corruption and intrigue will not delay many years this assertion of the sovereignty of the commonwealth by taxation, which will give the republic a solid foundation, and that the power of the commonwealth thus enlarged will, through the Department of Productive Labor, and by educational progress, give us a true and a happy republic. These suggestions are not farther in advance of public opinion to-day, than was the nationalization of the land, when I urged it in 1847. They will find fit champions in a few years.
To what extent the Department of Productive Labor should be fostered by every State, and to what extent it may be authorized by the federal constitution, we need not yet consider, for it is apparent that the due administration of the national domain and development of the arid region by irrigation, will furnish ample employment, if we adopt as a sacred principle, the demand of justice, that not another acre of the national domain shall ever be sold. Let us give settlers the easiest possible terms, but never surrender to monopoly the land of the commonwealth.
“ÆONIAN PUNISHMENT.”
BY REV. W. E. MANLEY, D. D.