The
Difficulty Has Not Been With The People Who Should Pay The Taxes,
But With The Minister And The Congress Which Did Not Know How To
Levy Them.
Certainly not as yet have those who are now criticising
the doings on the other side of the water a right to say that the
American people are unwilling to make personal sacrifices for the
carrying out of this war.
No sign has as yet been shown of an
unwillingness on the part of the people to be taxed. But wherever a
sign could be given, it has been given on the other side. The
separate States have taxed themselves very heavily for the support
of the families of the absent soldiers. The extra allowances made
to maimed men, amounting generally to twenty-four shillings a month,
have been paid by the States themselves, and have been paid almost
with too much alacrity.
I am of opinion that the Americans will show no unwillingness to pay
the amount of taxation which must be exacted from them; and I also
think that as regards their actual means they will have the power to
pay it. But as regards their power of obtaining access to those
means, I must confess that I see many difficulties in their way. In
the first place they have no financier, no man who by natural
aptitude and by long-continued contact with great questions of
finance, has enabled himself to handle the money affairs of a nation
with a master's hand.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 398 of 531
Words from 106390 to 106642
of 142339
