Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/760

738 as has been above shown, than is borne by many other domestic industrial products. Again, it is said that "beer is the poor man's bread,"' and therefore it ought not to be taxed. But if beer is exempted from making a fair contribution to the revenue necessities of the state, the deficiency will be made good by increased taxes on other commodities of general popular consumption, the ultimate incidence of which, if indirect, as they are likely to be, will fall heaviest on the consumer who, by reason of his poverty, is forced to buy in small quantities. The most potent source of opposition, however, to an increased tax on beer is undoubtedly to be found in the popular assumption that "no political party will commit itself to an additional tax of a dollar a barrel on beer, because it is feared that it would involve the loss of too many votes. It somehow happens that beer has a great many friends, and, whether correctly or not, it is apprehended that doubling the tax on it would be resented by a large number of voters." And if partisan politics is to become the essential feature of the revenue system of every popular form of government, as the experience of the United States and of France seems to indicate it will be, nothing further need be said on this subject.

—The present consumption of tobacco in all its forms by the people of the United States will probably average about four pounds per head per annum. The aggregate quantity which the Internal Revenue took cognizance of for taxation in 1896 was 266,215,736 pounds, a gain of 18,136,846 pounds over the aggregate for 1894. The number of cigars and cheroots subjected to taxation preliminary to consumption in 1896, was over four billions (4,237,755,943), an increase over the number assessed in the preceding fiscal year of 73,983,503. As a basis for estimating the revenue prospectively available from this source, the comparative per capita consumption of tobacco in other countries is especially worthy of attention in this connection. For the United Kingdom the amount for 1891, officially reported, was 1·61 pound; France (estimated), 1 pound; for the population of the city of Paris, 3 pounds Germany, 4 pounds; Belgium and Holland, 3 pounds. The annual consumption of tobacco in the United States is therefore certainly much greater than in most other countries, and is equaled in not more than one or two. This result may be referred to several agencies: to the greater cheapness of the taxed commodity; to greater ability on the part of the masses to consume it, and to a larger use of tobacco for chewing, the quantity manufactured for this purpose in 1895 being