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WHO PAYS YOUR TAXES?

our lips, we are not continually sanctioning laws andpractices not only inconsistent with freedom, but ob-structive of growth and development ?

Business is founded on credit, on borrowing; but totax indebtedness is to tax the borrowing. If any onedoubts that a tax on indebtedness is a tax upon the bor-rower, or the property which the indebtedness covers,that question can be easily decided by an honest uni-form tax on all State, county, town, and city bonds here-after issued, by making them all subject to an annual taxof one, two, or more per cent., and by providing that thetax shall be deducted at the time of the payment of theinterest. Is there any one who believes that these bondswill sell in the market at the same rate that they wouldcommand if, by law, they were free from taxation?

We can also test the effect of an honest uniform taxupon mortgages, by providing that mortgages hereaftermade shall operate to reduce, for assessment, the valua-tion of the land mortgaged to the amount of the mort-gage, and that the mortgageor shall pay the tax on themortgage, and deduct the tax from the principal orinterest when paid to the mortgagee. But who believes,under such a law, with the legal rate of interest at sixper cent., that any money would be loaned on mortgagesin this State?

It needs no argument to show that a system ofonerous taxation of mortgages must have a tendency tore-enact the Roman policy, and in time we may thus see