The Ripublique Francaise of the 17th inst. publishes an article
supposed to embody M. Gambetta's view of his party's financial policy. The late Assembly found itself compelled to increase taxation by nearly £25,000,000 a year, and obtained the greater part of this amount from indirect taxes. M. Gambetta thinks this injudicious, as rendering high-priced living compulsory, and pro- poses instead to order a new cadastral survey of France, so as to re- move inequalities in the land-tax, and thus augment the revenue; to impose an income-tax, and to stop all subventions to the Rail- ways. We have discussed these proposals elsewhere, but may observe here that if M. Gambetta is thinking of obtaining serious aid from an income-tax, it must be a heavy one. France is probably a richer country than England, but it is not so rich in taxable incomes, and to obtain £5,000,000 sterling it would pro- bably be necessary to lay on a ninepenny tax. The official objec- tion to an income-tax pleaded in the last Assembly was that official assessment would cost too much, and that self-assess- meht would not work at all. Every one liable to the tax would declare that because it was not universal it was confiscatory, and would take a pride in sending in the lowest possible return.
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