Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/306

296 ment may be called voluntary; yet by these and similar taxes, England is made the property of a monied aristocracy; and such taxes were felt in the United States as a regular progression towards the same system. Did neither of these countries sustain an injury, because the injury was inflicted through the medium of voluntary taxation? Is the sale of church paper, for enriching a clergy in this world, under pretence of excusing the sins of the buyer in the next, innoxious to mankind, because the traffick is voluntary?

Whether the ignorance of the payer that he is taxed, so as to diminish or destroy the responsibility of a government to a nation, is a good or a bad argument in favour of indirect or voluntary taxes; it does not at least justify the imposition of such taxes for the sake of the argument: it does not prove, supposing it is a good stratagem to keep the people ignorant of the amount paid, that this amount ought to be given to corporations or private individuals; it does not justify the establishment of chambers of taxation, entrenched in impenetrable secrecy, with power to commission and scatter tax gatherers wherever they please. Whatever therefore can be urged in defence of indirect taxation for the benefit of a nation, leaves the collections made by banking for the benefit of a chartered company, as defenceless as before.

Admitting then, that the tax paid to banking, arises from the voluntary acts of individuals, it is by no means an argument in its favour, stronger than the voluntary purchases of church paper or indulgences, in favour of that practice. The question would still remain, whether it is wise or just to suffer the passions of individuals to be used as channels, for drawing the wealth of a nation into a few hands.

But it is denied that the profit of banking belongs to the voluntary class of taxes ; and in the course of the following observations, we shall urge sundry reasons to shew, not only that it is a tax, but an inevitable tax.

A, whom we will consider as representing the whole class of borrowers from a hank, must acquire a profit upon