Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/90

 out, however inefficiently, its declared purpose without undertaking expeditions not proper to that purpose. Yet certain problems lie within the automatic function of such a State, and some of these may be briefly indicated.

There is, for example, the question of taxation. In most countries of late movements have arisen demanding that taxation should be charged upon wealth and not upon the heads of the population. This has, necessarily perhaps, taken the form of a class-war in these other countries; but it is at bottom not a class question at all, but a question of a sound and a fairly obvious economic principle. A State can only levy taxation in proportion to its wealth, and therefore can only levy taxation upon that wealth, wherever that wealth be held. To attempt to discover that wealth by a mere counting of heads is a procedure the falsity of which could be exposed by a class of school-children. That means that any taxation by heads of population, direct or indirect, however it be scaled, graded or disguised, is bad national economy, and therefore bad national finance. How otherwise, then, can taxation be levied? Here again the old State comes with a suggestion. We have seen that, though there is no direct proof that the system was completed, its taxation was levied on the stateships, presumably with some regard to their capacities. That taxation was redistributed by them in their own assemblies according to their local circumstances. If that method were adopted again the State would derive its revenues from its stateships, and would levy it