Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/317

Rh market-stalls, funerals, clubs, canals, the keeping of shops, and other commodities and occupations.—Testimony of J. A. Crowe, British Commission.

In Italy, according to the British consul-general at Florence (British Commission), the income-tax in 1884 was above thirteen per cent, and the land-tax in some instances as high as twenty-five per cent upon the gross rental. These are independent of local taxation, included in which is the octroi, which is also described as "very onerous, and, not being confined to articles of food only, have raised a quantity of small internal barriers, which, in a minor degree, replace the customs barriers of the several small states into which the country was formerly divided."

In respect to Great Britain, the British Commission, as the result of their investigations into this matter, says: "Of the fact of the increase, especially of local taxation, there is no doubt. At the same time it will probably be found that, relatively to the population and wealth of the country, the burden of taxation is now far lighter than in any previous periods."

The published opinions of certain persons of note on the subject are also worthy of attention. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, in his book entitled "Bad Times," London, 1885, expresses the opinion that among the most efficient causes for the current depression of trade are "wars and excessive armaments, loans to despots or for war purposes, and the accumulation of vast wealth by individuals."

Dr. Wirth, of Vienna, finds a like explanation in the excessive conversion, or rather perversion, of private wealth for public purposes. Dr. Engel, of Berlin, regards the millions wasted in war by France and Germany, from 1870 to 1871, and continued and prospective expenditures for like purposes, as culminating causes of almost universal business calamities; while, in the opinion of Professor Thorold Rogers, the scarcity and consequent dearness of gold have been the factors of chief importance.

But side by side with all the theories that the "depression" has been occasioned by the destruction or non-production of vast amounts of property by wars, bad harvests, strikes, loss of capital by employment in worthless enterprises, the conversion of an undue amount of circulating capital into fixed capital, and extravagant consumption, should be placed the facts, that statistics not only fail to reveal the existence of any great degree of scarcity anywhere, but, on the contrary, prove that those countries in which depression has been and is most severely felt are the very ones in which desirable commodities of every description—railroads, ships, houses, live-stock, food, clothing, fuel, and luxuries—have year by year been accumulating with the greatest rapidity, and offered for use or consumption at rates unprecedented for cheapness. If lack of capital, furthermore, by destruction or perversion had been the cause, the rate of profit on the use of capital would have been higher; but the fact is, that the rate of