Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/337

 TAXATION THROUGH MONOPOLY 815 is the effect of monopoly on the production of the article ? The superiority of private enterprise is generally taken for granted; but, judging from the evidence, the French state manufacture keeps up ts position most creditably, ts products ben free from adulteration and preferred to those of foreign manufacture. h- vention does not seem to be very active in the industry; all that is required, according to Leroy-Beaulieu,  is attention and honesty. [Public industry is therefore in this case freed from its greatest drawback, the want of vigorous initiative and of spirit to take up new methods. Nevertheless there is unquestionably a difficulty in the introduction of the monopoly form of tax. Where a flourishing private industry exists, its members have acquired an amount of connection, and immaterial as well as material capital, for which they will naturally seek compensation, e&. the placing of the English tobacco industry ha the hands of the state, if for other reasons it were desirable, which it is not, would be likely to be as bad a bargain as the purchase of the telegraphs. This con- siderati0n had great influence on the Cerman Commission that reported against the introduction of the monopoly into that country. The effect on the different districts. of a country may also vary, and some may gain at the loss of others. Wurtemburg, for instance, was the only state that favoured the policy of monopoly, inasmuch as it expected peculiar advantages, and the same conflicts of interest would inevitably arise elsewhere, as they actually did between Austria and Hungary. 2 OPIUM. The tobacco monopoly has at present little practical interest for any part of the British Empire; but in India, which is so rich a storehouse of financial illustration, the treatment of opium shows very remarkable resemblances. What is commonly described as the opium monopoly is, in fact--like the salt tax-- applied in different ways. In Bengal the method is very similar to that adopted in France for tobacco. The area under culti- vation is regulated; the product is taken at a definite price by the state;it is manufactured at two places (Patna and Ghazipore), and then sold by auction for export solely. The Bombay part of the duty is really a transit charge levied on opium from the native states of Malwa and Gujerat. This employment of different systems, according to the particular circumstances, brings out more clearly than perhaps anything else the fact that monopoly is simply a special form of taxation !erhebungsform) that has to be compared with other forms in regard to each commodity. The P. 701. For Germany, cf. Roscher, Finanzwissenschaft, pp. 180, 186.