sum of money if the besieging army will depart and leave them in peace. The offer is accepted, and so the matter is amicably settled. As the worthy citizen is about to take his leave, the general ventures a word of inquiry as to the cause of the town's revolt. "What, then, is your grievance, my good friend?" Our hosier knight, though deft with needle and keen with lance, has a stammering tongue. He answers: "Tutatuta tutatuta - too much taxes!"

Too much taxes."

"Too much taxes:" those three little words furnish us with a clue wherewith to understand and explain a great deal of history. A great many sieges. of towns, so horrid to have endured though so picturesque to read about, hundreds of weary marches and deadly battles, thousands of romantic plots that have led their inventors to the scaffold, have owed their origin to questions of taxation. The issue between the ducal commander and the warlike tradesman has been tried over and over again in every country and in every age, and not always has the oppressor been so speedily thwarted and got rid of. The questions as to how much the taxes shall be, and who is to decide how much they shall be, are always and in every stage of society questions of most fundamental importance. And ever since men began to make history, a very large part of what they have done, in the way of making history, has been the attempt to settle these questions, whether by discussion or by blows, whether in council chambers or on the battlefield. The French Revolution of 1789, the most terrible political convulsion of modern times, was caused chiefly by "too much taxes," and by the fact that the people who paid the taxes were not the people who decided what the taxes were to be. Our own Revolution, which made

the United States a nation independent of Great Britain, was brought on by the disputed question as to who was to decide what taxes American citizens must pay.

What, then, are taxes? The question is one which is apt to come up, sooner or later, to puzzle children. They find no difficulty in understanding the butcher's bill for so many pounds of meat, or the tailor's bill for so many suits of clothes, where the value received is something that can be seen and handled. But the tax bill, though it comes as inevitably as the what is taxautumnal frosts, bears no such obvious rela- ation? tion to the incidents of domestic life; it is not quite so clear what the money goes for; and hence it is apt to be paid by the head of the household with more or less grumbling, while for the younger members of the family it requires some explanation.

It only needs to be pointed out, however, that in every town some things are done for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the town, things which concern one person just as much as another. Thus roads are made and kept in repair, school-houses are built and salaries paid to school-teachers, there are constables who take criminals to jail, there are engines for putting out fires, there are public libraries, town cemeteries, and poor-houses. Money raised for these purposes, which are supposed to concern all the inhabitants, is supposed to be paid by all the inhabitants, each one furnishing his share; and the share which each one pays is his town tax.

From this illustration it would appear that taxes are private property taken for public purposes; and in making this statement we come very near the truth. Taxes are portions of private property which a government takes for its public purposes. Before going

Taxation and

main.

farther, let us pause to observe that there is one other way, besides taxation, in which government eminent do- sometimes takes private property for public purposes. Roads and streets are of great importance to the general public; and the government of the town or city in which you live may see fit, in opening a new street, to run it across your garden, or to make you move your house or shop out of the way for it. In so doing, the government either takes away or damages some of your property. It exercises rights over your property without asking your permission. This power of government over private property is called "the right of eminent domain." It means that a man's private interests must not be allowed to obstruct the interests of the whole community in which he lives. But in two ways the exercise of eminent domain is unlike taxation. In the first place, it is only occasional, and affects only certain persons here or there, whereas taxation goes on perpetually and affects all persons who own property. In the second place, when the government takes away a piece of your land to make a road, it pays you money in return for it; perhaps not quite so much as you believe the piece of land was worth in the market; the average human nature is doubtless such that men seldom give fair measure for measure unless they feel com‐ pelled to, and it is not easy to put a government under compulsion. Still it gives you something; it does not ask you to part with your property for nothing. Now in the case of taxation, the government takes your money and seems to make no return to you individually; but it is supposed to return to you the value of it in the shape of well-paved streets, good schools, efficient protection against criminals, and so forth.

In giving this brief preliminary definition of taxes

What is

and taxation, we have already begun to speak of "the government" of the town or city in which you live. We shall presently have to speak of other "governments," as the government of your state and the government of the United States; and we shall now and then have occasion to allude to the gov ernments of other countries in which the peo- governple are free, as, for example, England; and of some countries in which the people are not free, as, for example, Russia. It is desirable, therefore, that we should here at the start make sure what we mean by "government," in order that we may have a clear idea of what we are talking about.

ment?

Our verb "to govern" is an Old French word, one of the great host of French words which became a part of the English language between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, when so much French was spoken in England. The French word was gouverner, and its oldest form was the Latin gubernare, a word which the Romans borrowed from the Greek, and meant originally "to steer the ship." Hence it very naturally came to mean "to guide," "to direct," "to command." The comparison between governing and steering was a happy one. To govern is not to command as a master commands a slave, but it is to issue orders and give directions for the common good; for the interests of the man at the helm are the same as those of the people in the ship. All must The "ship float or sink together. Hence we sometimes of state." speak of the "ship of state," and we often call the state a "commonwealth," or something in the weal or welfare of which all the people are alike interested.

Government, then, is the directing or managing of such affairs as concern all the people alike, as, for example, the punishment of criminals, the enforce

ment of contracts, the defence against foreign enemies, the maintenance of roads and bridges, and so on. To the directing or managing of such affairs all the people are expected to contribute, each according to his ability, in the shape of taxes. Government is something which is supported by the people and kept alive by taxation. There is no other way of keeping it alive.

The business of carrying on government-of steering the ship of state- either requires some special training, or absorbs all the time and attention of those who carry it on; and accordingly, in all countries, certain persons or groups of persons are selected or in some way set apart, for longer or shorter periods of time, to perform the work of government. Such persons may be a king with his council, as in the England of the twelfth century; or a parliament led by a responsible ministry, as in the England of to-day; or a president and two houses of congress, as in the United States; or a board of selectmen, as in a New England town. When we speak of "a government" or "the government," we often mean the

"The gov ernment."

group of persons thus set apart for carrying on the work of government. Thus, by "the Gladstone government" we mean Mr. Gladstone, with his colleagues in the cabinet and his Liberal majority in the House of Commons; and by "the Lincoln government," properly speaking, was meant President Lincoln, with the Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.

"The government" has always many things to do, and there are many different lights in which we might regard it. But for the present there is one thing which we need especially to keep in mind. "The government" is the power which can rightfully take