sades. We have traced the origin of the
scutage tax as a substitute for military service and the two great
constitutional principles that all taxation must be with the common
consent of the realm; that is to say, of Parliament, later of the
House of Commons; and must also and equally be for the common benefit.
Theorists have argued, particularly with us, that under the latter
principle protective tariffs are unconstitutional; but even if it be
admitted that they are not for the benefit of the whole people, the
exception is as old as the rule; protective tariff laws, and, earlier
still, laws absolutely prohibitive of importation, being plentiful
on the English statute-books before and at the time this earliest
of constitutional principles appeared. There is a step beyond the
protective tariffs, however, which is naturally mentioned in this
connection, and that is the bounty--sums of money paid to certain
interests and derived from the general taxes fund. Under the Acts of
Congress there has been, I think, only one instance of a bounty; that
is in the case of the Louisiana sugar-growers. In State legislation it
has been a little more usual. Foreign countries, notably Germany and
France, as to beet sugar, etc., have been in the habit of giving
bounties. This precedent undoubtedly suggested it; but these countries
do not enjoy our constitutional principles. There has hardly been a
direct decision on the constitutionality of the Federal bounty, but as
to State bounties we find several, with an increasing tendency to hold
void such laws. There can be no question that they are utterly against
our whole constitutional system. The Supreme Court, when considering
sugar-bounty laws, seems to have thought that it might be sustained
as a compensation made for a moral obligation, the Louisiana planters
having been led into industries from which the protection was suddenly
removed; of such nature must be the justification, if any, for
bounties given in times of flood, fire, or public disaster, which,
however, are really sustained only in the absence of objection and on
the principle _lex non curat de minimis._ The most insidious form of
the bounty, however, is that of exemption from taxation, or, still
worse, granting subsidies or subscribing to the stock and bonds of
public-service, or even ordinary private, corporations. Undoubtedly
the exception has been established in the case of railroads. The
granting of State, city, or county ai