“It would be strange in most people, Morgan. I know it is said by some that an income or a property tax must drive individuals to invest their money abroad; but I am sure that except in a few rare cases, it would not be so. A man has so much more confidence in the stability of the institutions of his own country than in those of any other,—there are so many inducements to keep his treasure where his heart is,—near his kindred and his father’s house,—his obligations are so much more calculable at home than abroad,—and, above all, it is so clear that the substitution of a direct for an indirect tax must set free the exercise of his capital and his industry,—that a man must be burdened indeed before he would think, for this reason alone, of placing his capital elsewhere. Jane’s case is different.” “Ah! Mr. Henry, she has left off loving her kindred and her father’s house.” “Not so, I hope: but she is no longer happy among them, for reasons which we can understand.” “She owned as much to me, sir, as that she could not bear to think of yon poor young woman and her children having what had been so hardly earned; or to see the waste and dawdling going on in Mrs. Peek’s family; or to pay her taxes in a heavy lump when the government chose to call for it, instead of buying a little of this and a little of that, when she liked, without having to remember that she was paying taxes.” “Ah! that is the reason why people like those indirect taxes. But I should have thought that Jane had seen enough of the waste that there is in the collecting them, to think very ill of them.” “The taking stock of my master’s tea, sir, once a-month—what a farce it was! How many officers were paid for little more than not seeing cheats! and when one thinks of the permits, and the entry books, and the army of spies,—for so they are,—that have to be paid out of the duties collected, one wonders that Miss Jane, or anybody else, should be found to speak up for such an extravagant plan.” “Those will be most ready to do so who are unwilling to pay in proportion for the protection which is of most importance to those who have the most property. But they forget the plain rule that when the people’s money is raised to be spent for the good of the people, as little as possible ought to be wasted by the way. It is a shame that the cost of collection should be seven pound ten in every hundred pounds, when the odd shillings would be enough under good management.” “But is that true, sir?”