MONOPOLIES AND REVENUE. T HERE is a trouble in all Treasuries,
except, perhaps, our own, which may, and we incline to think will, produce great economic consequences. The Governments are at their wits' end not for money, for they can still borrow, but for new and acceptable sources of revenue. They can get no more out of indirect taxation—that is to say, taxation on imports ; they are afraid to raise their excise-duties much, for fear of excessive unpopularity ; and they shrink back with a dread, which in England we scarcely understand, froth Income-taxes,—the truth being that the Continental mind, habituated to regard the State as hostile, does not seriously condemn false returns in- tended to mitigate taxation. Self-assessment is therefore pronounced impossible, while assessment by officials is condemned as an instrument of dopression, liable to be rendered innocuous only by widely diffused corruption. The whole system of Government on the Continent, remember, depends upon the existence of an army of small officials, who are everywhere, and who interfere with everything, and who are of necessity wretchedly paid. Their pay, in truth, is rather in consideration than in coin, and the temptation of a cheque is to them enormous. At the same time, the Governments are most anxious for more money to spend. They have perfected their system of conscription, but they would like greatly to perfect their system of supply, to keep closer step with the advances of destructive science—there is a new rifle, for instance, just invented which may cost each Government three millions—to enlarge their fleets, which are starved for want of money, and to reduce the time of mobilisation to three days,—a most expensive arrangement. Then too, to do them justice, they sincerely desire more of the paraphernalia of civilisation, light village railways, with good bridges, telephones everywhere, sanitary school- houses in every commune—which are frightfully costly— grand municipal buildings—which must be aided, if only by loans—new Universities, and in many regions new public buildings. In fact, like good owners of broad estates, they want to improve and, at the same time, to be popular with their tenants. They desire, too, naturally, to do all these things with some rapidity, for though a plan which takes thirty years to work out may be a capital plan, it does not greatly attract a King who is past fifty, a President with a seven years' lease, a Chancellor who only dreams of facing two or three Parliaments, or a Minister who may be defeated at any hour. Finally, all the Administrations in Europe outside Great Britain, including, we see reason to believe, that of Russia, are greatly harassed by the new revolt of the producers against the consumers ; and their demand, that, as they are being ruined, they shall be " protected " by laws which raise prices on the poor, or " encouraged " by bounties which exhaust the Treasury. The latter is the system which, if the money can be found, will be adopted, as it already has been in respect to the growth of beetroot. The Governments, therefore, look round anxiously for fresh sources of supply, and listen to new suggestions with a readiness that is quite novel. Of these suggestions, which are infinite, and some of them ridiculous from their inadequacy, like the " Rank-tax " of Denmark, which would make every "De" and " Von" pay, as we do for armorial bearings, and the " Bachelor-tax," so often dis- cussed in France, and the tax on servants recently pro- posed in a Ministerial Budget, the one which has the best prospect is to extend the area of State monopolies. The Government of France has done this already, having become sole manufacturer of matches, and is said to be gravely considering whether it could not go much further by monopolising the sale of spirits, of tea and coffee, of all drugs like the opiates, and even of the articles which in England we define as condiments,—pepper, mustard, and the few spices which remain in demand. The largest single party in Germany, again, wants to go further still, and combine at once Protection and the bounty system by making the State sole importer of edibles, thus regulating the prices of bread and meat, and distributing the profit in different forms of aid to the distressed agrarians. In Russia, again, M. de Witte, the energetic Minister of Finance, of whom we say something elsewhere, has already, it is asserted, commenced tentatively a great extension of monopolies. According to information which has reached the Daily News, he has already absorbed nearly all the railways in the country, and is trying the probably most profitable scheme of large reductions in fares and rates for the portage of goods ; he has accumulated immense stocks of grain, purchasing all the surplus produced, and will soon be master of the export trade ; he intends to be the monopolist of wine, sugar, and imported spirits—spirits locally made are already a monopoly in Russia—and, finally, he proposes to be the grand middle- man for the sale everywhere of coal,—a plan already announced, and the depots formed on the Baltic and the Black Sea, and in the great centres of the interior. M. de Witte, it will be observed, does not, as yet, prohibit private trade in these articles ; but as preferences are given on the railways to Government goods, as all imports pass through Government establishments, and as the Government is a capitalist who can accept 10 per cent. as sufficient profit, private competition by men who look for 30 per cent., and cannot live without 20 per cent., speedily becomes im- possible.
It is more than probable that there is a good deal of "previousness," as the slang now runs, in all these state- ments, the Governments concerned having rather con- sidered than accepted many of the propositions; but we have noticed for some time past a kind of hesitation in the rejec- tion of plans for creating monopolies, which have in their favour an influence other than that of Treasury necessities. Taxation through monopoly does not meet on the Continent with the resistance it would encounter here, while it is sup- ported in a rather singular way by the opinion of great sections of the people. All men who are tinged in any degree with Socialist opinions, believe that the State ought to take many branches of industry entirely into its own hands, and use the profits so obtained in reduction of taxes which press on the poor. If, therefore, a Govern- ment proposes, say to monopolise coal, the Socialists are not irritated, while the better class is pleased at the relief from a threatened Income-tax, and the peasantry, who ara not rich, and not Socialist, hope thit they may secure from the resulting revenue some re- lief for their " distressed " condition. Active resist- ance is, therefore, confined to the traders in the article absorbed ; and on the Continent the only traders who can defeat Governments are the traders in money. The dealers in foreign corn or in spirits or in spices have no control of any voting class, and no means of exciting so much as a riot, not to mention insurrection, in any important locality. The Governments, therefore, in re- sorting to this form of taxation, would be rather popular than unpopular with the masses and the upper class, while it is by no means certain that they would seriously injure the community. Some commercial careers would be closed, but they would not be many, for the modern tendency of all business is to concentrate itself in few hands, while the work of distribution would go on as before, though in a somewhat different way. The tobacco monopoly of the French Government, for example, kills out alike the great importers of cheap tobacco, and the independent shops at which tobacco used to be sold, but the profit made is distributed by the State as much as if the great importers had made it, while the distributors of tobacco are nearly as numerous, and are actually a better class, being selected, in theory at all events, for their services to the community. The people who consume get their tobacco even cheaper than before, and the principal evil to be set against the financial gain is that the tobacco is bad. Owing partly to the absence of competition, partly to the greediness of the Treasury, and partly to some preferences shown to Colonies, the tobacco sold in France is inferior stuff even for its price ; but we do not know that this result matters much to the nation.
The tobacco sold is not poisonous, and it is not an object with hygeists to cultivate and extend the taste for good tobacco. The result of a monopoly of spirits might be much worse, for profit is largest on the sale of raw spirits, and raw spirits are exceedingly unhealthy, while it has been found in Russia that as the Government is seeking profit, its agents promote consumption even more than the private dealers do. That is bad ; but that could.
be prevented by the Chambers, and is prevented, we imagine, in Sweden, where, however, the object of the Gothenburg system is not profit. In any case, the economic result of the system, apart from the hygienic, is not bad enough to frighten the community, or induce a Government to resist the immense financial temptations offered by the scheme. They will say that they confine their monopolies either to injurious luxuries or to imports which are ruining the class that produces armies ; and as we have pointed out, they will be applauded rather than resisted by the majority. State needs and the Socialist idea will be for once in accord about an experiment, and unless we are greatly mistaken as to the coming require- ments of the European Treasuries, it stands every chance of being fairly tried. There is not much danger or hope of any project of the kind in England, where the very word " monopoly "rouses exasperation, and where we cannot bring ourselves to allow the prisons to be made self-supporting ; but if ever there is a cry for economy in this country, we may see some large extensions made in the functions of the State as trader for the sake of revenue. No one here is opposed in principle to the State regulating the means of com- munication, and we feel by no means sure that the idea over which Mr. Gladstone hovered years ago will never be carried out. An unrivalled opportunity of buying the railways cheap was suffered to pass then ; but what with low rates for goods, workmen's trains, and an incessant rise in the value of skilled labour, the opportunity may come round again, while the slow decline in the rate of interest may in a very few years enable the State to raise enormous sums without unendurable risk. Moreover, there are businesses other than railways in which the State as trader has enormous advantages, and on which the principle of not competing with private enterprise has already been given up. We shall have to revise the Poor-law one day, and whenever we do, there will be inquiry whether the State, which cannot fail, would not be the best insurer both against death and fire, a business which, if both insurances were made universal and compulsory, might be expected to yield a gigantic revenue. That is a dream, of course, and to many economists it will seem a wild one ; but it is in that direction that official opinion on the Con- tinent is now marching, and all Continental ideas are sooner or later at least considered here. We are all Englishmen, no doubt, and therefore impervious to suggestions ; but it is curious, when we go to the Colonies or India, how receptive we become. The nationalisation of insurance is a smaller thing by far than the nationalisa- tion of the land, and that is the principle in reality on which Rhodesia, like India, is to be administered and taxed.
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