Wrong and Right.

Under indirect taxation, every person contributes to the cost of government in proportion to his personal outgoings, and not to his personal income. This is wrong; because a certain amount of expenditure is necessary to life, as well as a certain amount of income wherewith to maintain the necessary cost of life.

So far as maintaining the cost of a frugal life, neither income nor outgoings should be taxed. Every dweller in a country ought to be free from taxation, until he reaches the point of either income or spending which is superfluous, or unnecessary to a frugal life.

The right principle of taxation, then, is to collect the cost of Government only from income and expenditure, which is in excess of moderate wants.

The man of the poorest class, therefore, has no fairly taxable income: but there is some point at which this right of exemption ceases.

Direct taxation is the only way in which the whole of a man's superfluous income can be made to contribute to the cost of Government: because, if taxation be levied on expenditure only, he can save all the surplus, and leave poorer people to pay the cost of protecting him in gaining it.