A word here in reference to the popular idea that the exemption of any form of property is to grant a favor to those who possess such property. This idea has, however, no warrant for its acceptance. Thus, an exemption is freedom from a burden or service to which others are liable; but in case of the exclusion of an entire class of property from primary taxation, no person is liable, and therefore there is no exemption. An exclusion of all milk from taxation, while whisky is taxed, is not an exemption, for the two are not competing articles, or articles of the same class. It is true that highly excessive taxation of a given article may cause another and similar article, in some instances, to become a substitute or competing article; and hence the necessity of care and moderation in establishing the rate of taxation. We do not consider that putting a given article into the free list, under the tariff, is an exemption to any particular individual; but if we make the rate higher on one taxpayer or on one importer of the same article than on another taxpayer or importer, we grant an exemption. We use the word "exemption," therefore, imperfectly, when we speak of "the exemption of an entire class of property," as, for example, upon all personal property; for if the removal of the burden operates uniformly on all interested, or owning such property, then there can be no primary exemption. FOOTNOTES: [13] "Senator Paddock: I should like to ask the Senator from Nevada if, in the region of country where borax is found, by reason of finding it the land in the particular State or Territory is appreciated in value on account of its existence. "Senator Stewart: Not at all. "Senator Paddock: The value then given to it is all in labor."--_Congressional Record, July, 1890._ [14] "In America, where there has been but little serious study of taxation, the few writers of prominence are, remarkable to relate, almost all abject followers of Thiers," the French economist and statesman, who claimed to have invented the term "diffusion" of taxes. [15] "Our conclusion is, that under actual conditions in America to-day the landowner may virtually be declared to pay in the last instance the taxes that are imposed on his land, and that at all events it is absolutely erroneous to assume any general shifting to the consumer. In so far as our land tax is a part of a general property tax, it can not possibly be shifted; in so far as it is more or less an exclusive tax, it is even then apt to remain where it is first put--on the landowner."--_Seligman: Incidence of Taxation, p. 99._ [16] Seligman. Shifting and Incidence of Taxation. [17] Professor Marshall.