30. Suppose that a man has an income of one thousand dollars, of which he has been saving one hundred dollars per annum with no tax. Now a tax of ten dollars is demanded of him, no matter what kind of a tax or how laid. Is he to get the tax out of the nine hundred dollars expenditure or out of the one hundred dollars savings? If the former, then he must cut down his diet, or his clothing, or his house accommodation, that is, lower his standard of comfort. If the latter, then he must lessen his accumulation of capital, that is, his provision for the future. Either way his welfare is reduced and cannot be otherwise affected, and, through the general effect, the welfare of the community is reduced by the tax. Of course it is immaterial that he may not know the facts. The effects are the same. In this view of the matter it is plain what mischief is done by taxes which are laid to buy parks, libraries, and all sorts of grand things. The tax-layer is not providing public order. He is spending other people’s earnings for them. He is deciding that his neighbor shall have less clothes and more library or park. But when we come to protective taxes the abuse is monstrous. The legislator who has in his hands this power of taxation uses it to say that one citizen shall have less clothes in order that he may contribute to the profits of another citizen’s private business. 31. Hence if we look at the nature of taxation, and if we are examining protectionism from its own standpoint, under the assumption that it is true, instead of finding any confirmation of its assumptions, in the nature of the means which it proposes to use, we find the contrary. Granting that people make mistakes and fail of the highest prosperity which they might win when they act freely, we see plainly that more taxes cannot help to lift them up or to correct their errors; on the contrary, _all taxation, beyond what is necessary for an economical administration of good government, is either luxurious or wasteful_, and if such taxation could tend to wealth, waste would make wealth. (_D_) EXAMINATION OF THE PLAN OF MUTUAL TAXATION.