Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/476

434 —All general treatises on political economy devote more or less space to the consideration of taxation; and there have been many publications in the nature of official reports, compendiums of tax laws, and their interpretation by legal tribunals, and special essays on particular forms of taxes. But, at the same time, notwithstanding the vastness and importance of the subject, its symbolism and exemplification of sovereignty, its influence for weal or woe on every citizen and on every industry, according as the power involved is properly or improperly exercised, and the part it has played in history, its position in economic literature is so comparatively insignificant that there is not a single publication at present in the English language which is entitled to be considered as a full and complete treatise; certainly none such as are readily at the command of every person desirous of becoming reasonably proficient in any of the other leading branches of learning. Prof. Cossa, of the University of Pavia, Italy, in a bibliography of taxation incorporated in a brief treatise on the Science of Finance, published in 1882, and brought up to the times by an American translation in 1888, does not mention even one title of this character. And, although there are works on taxation more or less general in their scope in other languages—especially in French and German—and to some of which high merit is accorded, there are none which any considerable number of economists are willing to accept as standard or authoritative in all departments; the chapter on taxation in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations constituting the only treatise which can possibly be regarded as an exception. For such a result it is not easy to account. Possibly, owing to the want of accord among writers on economic and financial subjects, an opinion has come to prevail that no consistent treatment of the subject, as a whole, is possible; that the financial and industrial condition of nations or states differs so widely that no uniform rules of practice for the raising of revenue can be established; and, finally, if such a code of rules were universally accepted, the varying necessities of nations would