Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/336

 314 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL twenty-one and three-quarter million florins. By 1874 it had grown to forty-eight million florins, and has continued to increase.  Like the salt monopoly that of tobacco was in Italy derived from the states out of which the present kingdom has been formed. For the period 1863-7 the state retained the monopoly of sale in its own hands. From 1868 to 1882 inclusive, it was farmed to a company whose payments for 1868 were sixty-eight and a half million life, for 1876 eighty-seven million life, and for 1880 one hundred and four million life. After 1882 the monopoly reverted to the Government, who received in 1886 a net return of 182 million life. e The results of the Spanish monopoly are also satisfactory, the yield for 1884-5 being estimated at 5,480,000. There is no necessity for fuller notice of the Prussian monopoly of the last century, but it is significant that a vigorous attempt was lately made to introduce the system in the German Empire in place of the present duties. The net receipts of the proposed system were estimated at 165 million marks after allowing for cost of production and interest on capital. The hostility of the smaller German States, supported by the Catholic vote, caused the defeat of the project in the Reichstag. England also, though she has not adopted the monopoly, has found it necessary to infringe just as seriously on industrial liberty by prohibiting altogether the cultivation of native tobacco. s On the whole, the conclusion is strongly suggested that, when it is necessary to tax this particular commodity at a high rate, a state monopoly is the nost efficient and economical mode of so doing. It is, however, apparent that no more suitable object of taxation is in existence; since it is at once a luxury, and one which, if not injurious, is certainly not beneficial. It is at the same time an object of general consumption, and yet its taxation does not trench on the mini- mum of subsistence. The combination of all these conditions seems to mark it out as being designed for a leading financial resource, such as it has in most countries become, and the superiority of monopoly to other modes of taxation is admitted by the majority of competent inquirers. Another side of the question remains to be considered. What  Wagner, vol. iii. p. 104; Leroy-Beaulieu, vol. i. p. 706; Stein, Finanzwisseaschaft (Sth ed.), vol. iii. pp. 866 7. ' See Alessio, vol. ii. pp. 299--307; Fournier de Flaix, Traiti des Institutions Financires, pp. 530--81. 3 For this reason Garnier, TraitS. des Finances, p. 140, and Hock, Abtjaben, p. 138, speak of England as having a monopoly. In the last few years experimental cultiva- tion has been allowed by a license from the Inland Revenue.