hough taxes are levied upon property it is a delusion to
think that those who own no property pay no taxes. By usury the taxes
are easily slipped upon the poor.

If the tax levy is one per cent. on property then in a year the one
hundred dollars has been decreased by one dollar and is but
ninety-nine, unless that dollar has been supplied from other earnings
of the owner. Thus vacant lots, jewels and hoarded stores are a burden
to their owner. But when the property can add to itself an increase,
then there need be no diminution of the amount, and no sacrifice is
necessary on the part of the owner. If the wealth is placed in the
form of a loan on mortgage on a house, the tenant in his rental pays
the interest on that mortgage, which meets the tax and also yields a
revenue to the owner, and leaves the wealth undiminished. The tenant
earned the tax, and both property and owner are relieved. The mortgage
may be upon a manufacturing plant, when the operatives pay the tax
from their earnings.

The bonded debt of a city or state, in the ultimate result, is
collected from the productive labor. To pay the interest and
principal of the bonded debt of a city the tax levy is increased, and
a greater proportionate amount of labor is appropriated. Laboring
people without property are often amazed at the indifference of
property holders when a great bonded debt is incurred, as both
interest and principal are to be paid by a tax upon property. Those
who make the loan to the city, and all who hold mortgages and dividend
paying properties, are complacent because the taxes of a hundred years
would never diminish their property a dollar, though the tax levy
should be doubled. It would raise the interest on money, diminish the
price of labor and raise the price of goods, but those who profit by
the gain of usury are untouched by it.

Recently complaints were made by the tenants of one of the poor
districts of London because their rentals had been greatly increased.
The reply of the landlord was direct and clear: "You have voted for
public improvements and now you must pay for them."

The same is true of the interest and principal of the national debt.
The revenue is raised from a levy upon importations, as, for example,
tea, the tax on which is ten cents per pound. The tax is collected
from the importer and by him attached to the price for which it is
sold to the wholesale dealer and by him attached to the price he
charges the retail de