Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/67

Rh by the magnitude of the burden of taxation, is one of the most obnoxious of all methods of distributing military burdens.

Finally, the relative burden of taxation cannot be estimated nation by nation by mere computation in symbols or money. The taxation by the measure of money of the United States for national purposes before the war with Spain was five dollars per head, tending to lessen. In Great Britain and Germany taxes for the same purposes were about ten dollars per head; in France about fifteen dollars. But this is no measure of the true burden of taxation. The annual product of this country measured by quantities is vastly greater than that of any European country. It may be approximately estimated twenty-five per cent, greater than that of the people of Great Britain and Ireland, thirty to forty per cent, greater than that of France, double that of Germany, and much more than double that of Italy. Hence, the real taxation of these European countries under their military establishments is vastly more than the mere symbols in money make it appear.

It follows that if all taxes in money stand for that part of the annual product required by Government, and that by so much as the product is diminished will the share falling to labor and capital be lessened, the only way to prevent taxation becoming a cause of pauperism or poverty is to limit the taxes to the necessary conduct of civil government and to national defense, avoiding aggression and forbidding armaments for any purpose except defense.