The  fact  that  the  payment  of  direct  taxes  to  the  Gov-
ernment would  be  compulsory,  instead  of  voluntary,  as  it
now  is,  deserves  serious  consideration,  in  determining
whether  direct  or  indirect  taxation  shall  prevail.  No  owner
of  property  could  escape  them  withqut  fraud,  for  which  hs.
3,2.
498  HISTORY  OF  THE   PROTECTIVE   TARIFF.
would  be  made  liable  to  punishment  —  perhaps  criminally
—  if  detected.  Their  collection  would  require  the  appoint-
ment of  many  thousands  of  assessors,  collectors,  clerks
and  other  agents  —  a  number  sufficiently  large  to  reach
every  home  and  every  individual  in  the  country.  To  say
nothing  of  the  additional  expense  required  to  compensate
such  an  army  of  employes,  they  would  constitute  a  body
of  most  unwelcome  visitors  to  every  neighborhood,  and
would  often,  by  extortions  in  the  name  and  by  the  author-
ity of  the  Government,  rob  labor  of  a  large  portion  of  its
reward.
The  number  of  those  who  openly  avow  themselves  the
,  advocates  of  a  system  of  direct  taxation,  has  not  yet  be-
come very  large.  But  all  the  supporters  of  free  trade,
like  those  of  the  "  Cobden  Club" — whether  they  acknowl-
edge it  or  not — must  be  put  down  as  preferring  it  to  the
indirect  taxation  which  is  part  of  the  protective  system.
Not  only  do  all  their  arguments  lead  to  this,  but  there  is,
in  point  of  fact,  no  middle  ground  for  them  to  occupy.
Some  of  them,  who  are  entitled  to  credit  for  sincerity,  seek
to  escape  the  result  behind  the  plea  of  duties  for  revenue
only  —  that  is,  duties  too  low  to  discriminate  for  protection
— without  seeming  conscious  that  there  is  but  a  single  step
from  an  exclusively  revenue  tariff  to  free  trade,  and  that
free  trade  leads,  unavoidably,  to  direct  taxation.
