We come back, then, to the fundamental question: Will individuals
decide the better whether to make things for them- selves or to make commodities to exchange for them, or will the State be the better judge of which course is to be taken ? Not being Socialists, we believe that the individuals will make the better choice. There remains the perfectly different question of tariff for revenue. Governments always have found, and probably always will find, it convenient, though wasteful, to collect taxes by means of Customs and Excise,- i.e., internal Customs. Taxation for revenue, though so similar in appearance, has, however, nothing whatever to do with taxation for such fantastic and illusory purposes as preventing unemployment, either by checking exchanges or by unjustly penalising the owners of particular forms of property under the delusion that such action will bring more of that property into the market,—i.e., make it cheaper.
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