Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/196

186 government; the consumption of salt being necessary to all, and its production and distribution being capable of control, and so of comparatively easy assessment. In short, if a man can avoid paying rent, make no accumulations, and will live exclusively on what he can himself gather from the bounty of Nature, he can not be taxed, except by a capitation or poll tax; and it would be difficult to see how in such a case even such a tax could be collected. But, the moment he enters into society and recognizes the advantages of the division of labor and exchange, he begins to pay taxes, and the higher the civilization he enjoys the greater will be the taxes.

But the greatest obstacle in the way of tax reform in Mexico is to be found in the fact that a comparatively few people—not six thousand out of a possible ten million own all the land, and constitute, in the main, the governing class of the country; and the influence of this class has thus far been sufficiently potent to practically exempt land from taxation. So long as this condition of things prevails, it is difficult to see how there is ever going to be a middle class (as there is none now worthy of mention), occupying a position intermediate between the rich and a vast ignorant lower class, that take no interest in public affairs, and are only kept from turbulence through military restraint. Such a class, in every truly civilized and progressive country, is numerically the greatest, and comprises the great producers; and because the great producers, the great consumers and tax-payers—for all taxes ultimately fall upon consumption—and so are the ones most interested in the promotion and maintenance of good