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 estate, which had been before burdened with large expenditures for schools, roads, and other things with which the local governments stand charged," and "cases can be cited in which taxation upon real estate even now falls little short of confiscation. Justice and wise policy, therefore, would seem to demand that the national government should not now adopt any measures calculated to maintain or increase these burdens, but, on the contrary, do all in its power to diminish them."

Let the nation follow this judicious advice, and dispose of the additional charge on real estate by repealing the income tax, which we cease to require, or reducing it to a tax of three or four per cent upon dividends and coupons, which will yield at least ten millions. This will furnish a sufficient rear-guard for the corps which the Commission has marshalled.

To use another happy expression in the very able Report of the Commission,—"Freedom from multitudinous taxes, espionage, and vexations; freedom from needless official inquisitions and intrusions; freedom from the hourly provocations of each individual in the nation to concealments, evasions, and falsehoods; freedom for industry, circulation, and competition,—everywhere give the nation these conditions, and it will give in return a flowing income."

We indorse the conclusions of the Commission, but would carry them to their legitimate results,—the repeal of the inquisitorial tax on incomes.

One of the Commissioners, Mr. J. S. Hayes, in a special report upon the subject, proposes to draw some part of the revenue from the national bonds. Those which are now reached by the income tax when the holders are residents here should be reached hereafter by an impost on dividends and coupons, according to Mr. Hayes's idea. He urges that these bonds were issued when the currency was depreciated to 73 per cent, or 27 per cent below par; but it was the government paper that depreciated it, and the loyal men who subscribed for the national bonds in many instances used funds drawn from mortgages upon which they had advanced in gold the money they invested. Great Britain realized only 63 per cent or less in depreciated currency from her three-per-cents, but redeems them at par, or buys them in open market. There may be instances in which individuals evade local taxes by such investments, but even this tends to popularize the loans and reduce interest; and it may well be asked whether it would not be wiser for the nation to make the loan popular, treating it as sacred, and thus save twenty or thirty millions in interest annually by reducing interest one per cent, than to attempt to save two thirds that amount by taxes, which would inspire lenders with distrust, injure the credit of the nation, and weaken its resources in a future exigency.

TAXES ON GROSS RECEIPTS.

The Commission, while they condemn charges on transportation, continue for the present nine millions in taxes on the gross receipts of steamers, ships, and railways, which it would be wise to relinquish at the earliest moment. The railways to earn one dollar must charge two, which doubles these taxes to the public, and adds to the cost of delivering each ton of coal and each bushel of grain at the seaports, so that our internal commerce now presents the strange anomaly of Indian corn selling at one dollar per bushel in Boston, and at thirty-six cents in Chicago, or less than the price in gold before the Insurrection. Such charges are an incubus on trade, and may wisely be abandoned.

PROVINCIAL COMMERCE.

For the past ten years the Central and Eastern States have drawn large supplies of breadstuffs, animals, lumber, and other materials for our manufactures, from the Provinces; and under the Treaty of Reciprocity our fisheries have grown vastly in importance. The whole amount of this commerce, including the outfits and returns of the fishermen, is close upon $100,000,000, and the tonnage of arrivals and departures exceeds 7,000,000 tons. Under the Treaty we have imported Canadian and Morgan horses, oats for their support, barley of superior quality for our ale, lustre-wool for our alpacas, and boards and clapboards for our houses and for the fences and corn-cribs of our Western prairies. Indeed, the facilities for communicating with the Provinces are so great, that for some years past we have imported potatoes, coal, gypsum, and building stone to supply the wants of New York and New England. Is it wise, then, to cripple this growing trade by placing a duty of fifty per cent on the spruce and pine we require for the new houses whose construction the war has delayed, and by denying to Maine and Massachusetts the privilege of sending their pine down the Aroostook and St. John, as those who own townships on the waters of the Penobscot propose?