320 Mr. Holyoake (“History of Co-operation in England,” p. 99) quotes as follows from another’s experience: “My own pass-book shows that I paid on November 3d, of last year (1860), £1 to become a member of a co-operative store. I have paid nothing since, and I am now credited with £3 16_s._ 6_d._, nearly three hundred per cent on my capital in a single year. Of course, that arises from my purchases having been large in proportion to my investment. In a co-operative store you get five per cent upon the money which you invest as a shareholder; and, if the store be well conducted, you will get seven and a half per cent addition.”
321 For a full account of the proper steps to be taken in establishing a store, with many practical details, see Charles Barnard’s 324 “History of Co-operation,” vol. ii, chap. ix.
327 Pp. 27, 31, 32.
Count de Paris; Brassey’s “Work and Wages,” chap. xiii.
331 See Walker, “Wages Question,” p. 283. Also see Mill, Book IV, Chap.
VII, § 5, for an account of M. Leclaire’s experiments in France with house-painters.
332 See also Von Böhmert, “Gewinnbetheiligung,” second edition, 1878, and Jevons’s “Methods of Social Reform” (1883). Professor Jevons (“The State in Relation to Labor,” pp. 146, 147) has given a brief bibliography, which I reproduce here: Charles Babbage, “Economy of Manufactures,” chap. xxvi; H. C.
Questions 12,485 to 12,753 [Parliamentary Documents]; “The Industrial Partnerships Record”; Pare, “Co-operative Agriculture” (Longmans) 1870; Jean Billon, “Participation des Ouvriers aux Bénéfices des Patrons,” Genève, 1877; Fougerousse, “Patrons et Ouvriers de Paris” (Chaix), 1880; Sedley Taylor, “Society of Arts Journal,” February 18, 1881, vol. xxix, pp. 260-270; also in J. C. Van Marken, “La Question Ouvrière: Essai de Solution Pratique” (Chaix) 1881.
333 In his last edition of his “Manual,” Professor Fawcett thus describes a co-operative experiment in agriculture: “The one that has attracted the most attention was made nearly forty years since by Mr. Gurdon, on his estate at Assington, near Sudbury, in Suffolk.
Mr. Gurdon was so much impressed with the miserable condition of the agricultural laborers who were employed on his estate, that he was prompted to do something on their behalf. When, therefore, one of his farms became vacant, he offered to let it at the ordinary rent, £150 a year, to the laborers who worked upon it. As they, of course, had not sufficient capital to cultivate it, he in the first instance loaned them the requisite stock and implements. The laborers were, in fact, formed into a company in which there were eleven shares, and no laborer was permitted to hold more than one share. The plan was so eminently successful that in a few years sufficient had been saved out of the profits to repay all that had been advanced, and the stock and implements became the property of the laborers. Each share greatly increased in value. Mr. Gurdon was so much encouraged, not only by the pecuniary advantages secured to the laborers, but also by the general improvement effected in their condition, that some years afterward he let another and a larger farm on similar terms. Although no statement of accounts has ever been published, the remarkable pecuniary advantages secured to the laborers is proved by the fact that, after enjoying at least as high wages as were paid in the district, they were able in a few years to become the owners of a valuable property, consisting of the stock and implements on the farms. One of the most significant and hopeful circumstances connected with the experiment is, that it was not carried out by a picked body of men; and if so much could be done by laborers who were probably among the worst educated in the country, it maybe fairly concluded, that when the intelligence of our rural population has been better developed, co-operation may be applied in a more complete form to agriculture, and with even more striking results than were obtained at Assington...In the description which has been frequently given of the system of peasant proprietorship, it is shown how powerfully the industry of the laborer is stimulated by the feeling of property. When he cultivates his own plot of ground, he exerts himself to the utmost, because he knows that he will enjoy all that is yielded by his labor. Each year, with the extended use of machinery in agriculture, it is becoming more advantageous to carry on farming on a large scale. When, therefore, co-operative agriculture becomes practicable, land may be cultivated by associations of laborers, and thus many of the advantages associated with the system of peasant proprietorship may be secured, while at the same time the disadvantages of small farming may be avoided. The progress toward co-operative agriculture will no doubt be slow and gradual.”
334 Godkin, “North American Review,” 1868. Also see Hermann Schultze-Delitsch, “Die Entwickelung des Genossenschaftswesens in Deutschland” (1870). This eminent philanthropist died April 29, 1883. For other forms of co-operation, building associations, etc., see Barnard, “Co-operation as a Business”; Pajot, “Du Progrès par les Sociétés de Secours Mutuels” (1878).
335 See “Economics of Industry,” by Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, p. 223.
336 “Wealth of Nations,” Book V, chap. ii.
338 Book III, Chap. XIX, § 5.
339 A higher rate is now imposed on landed than on professional incomes.
340 Cf. Walker, “Land and Rent,” page 134.
341 I have changed the sums mentioned in this illustration into our own money.
342 Another common objection is that large and expensive accommodation is often required, not as a residence, but for business. But it is an admitted principle that buildings, or portions of buildings, occupied exclusively for business, such as shops, warehouses, or manufactories, ought to be exempted from house-tax.
It has been also objected that house-rent in the rural districts is much lower than in towns, and lower in some towns and in some rural districts than in others; so that a tax proportioned to it would have a corresponding inequality of pressure. To this, however, it may be answered that, in places where house-rent is low, persons of the same amount of income usually live in larger and better houses, and thus expend in house-rent more nearly the same proportion of their incomes than might at first sight appear. Or, if not, the probability will be that many of them live in those places precisely because they are too poor to live elsewhere, and have, therefore, the strongest claim to be taxed lightly. In some cases it is precisely because the people are poor that house-rent remains low.—MILL.
343 I have here also changed the amounts into our own money.
344 This illustration has also been changed, but only so far as to fit the trade between England and the United States.
345 Probably the strongest known instance of a large revenue raised from foreigners by a tax on exports is the opium-trade with China. The high price of the article under the Government monopoly (which is equivalent to a high export duty) has so little effect in discouraging its consumption that it is said to have been occasionally sold in China for as much as its weight in silver.—MILL.
346 A land-tax is, to its extent, an evidence that the state claims a certain right in the soil, and that it stands to the contributor, as it were, in the place of a landlord. This tax, however, is generally so small that it does not materially diminish the rent of land. So far as it goes, it is a tax on rent.
347 Some argue that the materials and instruments of all production should be exempt from taxation; but these, when they do not enter into the production of necessaries, seem as proper subjects of taxation as the finished article. It is chiefly with reference to foreign trade that such taxes have been considered injurious.
Internationally speaking, they may be looked upon as export duties, and, unless in cases in which an export duty is advisable, they should be accompanied with an equivalent drawback on exportation.
But there is no sufficient reason against taxing the materials and instruments used in the production of anything which is itself a fit object of taxation.—MILL.
Wells.
350 The old condition of things was well described by Sydney Smith: “We must pay taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth or covers the back, or is placed under the foot. Taxes upon everything which is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. Taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion. Taxes upon everything upon earth and the waters under the earth. On everything that comes from abroad or is grown at home. Taxes on raw material. Taxes on every value that is added to it by the industry of man. Taxes on the sauce which pampers man’s appetite and the drug which restores him to health. On the ermine which decorates the judge and the rope which hangs the criminal. On the brass nails of the coffin and on the ribbons of the bride. At bed or at board, couchant or levant, we must pay. The beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road, and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine (which has paid 7 per cent) into a spoon (which has paid 30 per cent), throws himself back upon his chintz bed (which has paid 22 per cent), makes his will, and expires in the arms of the apothecary (who has paid £100 for the privilege of putting him to death). His whole property is then taxed from 2 to 10 per cent; besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel: his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble, and he is then gathered to his fathers to be taxed no more.”
352 “Handbuch der Verfassung und Verwaltung in Preussen und dem Deutschen Reich,” by Graf Hue de Grais (second edition, 1882), p.
138.
353 “Le Budget. Revenus et Dépenses de la France,” by M. Block (1881), pp. 57, 82.
354 Taken, with modifications, from Milnes’s “Problems in Political Economy,” p. 377.
356 Although Mr. Mill had reference to the French wars in the beginning of this century, his words apply also to the circumstances of our own late war, 1861-1865.
358 Book I, Chap. IV.
359 Mr. Mill here takes up political considerations, which are not properly to be included in a purely economic treatment. (See the beginning of § 6.)
360 See “Sketch of the History of Political Economy,” _supra_, p. 6, note 1.
361 For bibliography of the United States shipping question, see Appendix I.
363 See F. W. Taussig’s “Protection to Young Industries as applied in the United States” (1883).
364 In a letter written February 26, 1866, to Mr. Horace White, published in the Chicago “Tribune,” and reprinted in the New York 365 Business men constantly use the term “cost of production” when in reality they mean that which to the economist is expressed by “cost of labor.” If cost of labor becomes higher, it takes from profits—the place where they feel the difficulties of competition—but they say that the cost of production has risen: the cost, to them, only has risen, that is, the “cost of labor,” not 366 Cf. Cairnes, “Leading Principles,” pp. 324-341; and _supra_, Book III, Chap. II, § 4.
367 The fact (sufficiently established by Mr. Brassey) is not considered also that England gives higher wages to operatives than the Continent, and yet England is able to undersell France and Germany in neutral markets. It is evident, however, that England can undersell only in occupations in which she has advantages.
371 The United States have at the present time but five persons engaged in agriculture for each square mile of settled area.
373 “Fifteenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, 1884,” by Carroll D. Wright.