accordingly used his best endeavors to promote the researches of his fellow-naturalists in every part of the world.
"Resolved, That his kindly disposition, equable temper, singleness of aim, and unsullied purity of motive, along with his facile mastery of affairs, greatly endeared him to his subordinates, secured to him the confidence and trust of those whose influence he sought for the advancement of the interests he had at heart, and won the high regard and warm affection of those who, like the members of this board, were officially and intimately associated with him."
Prof. Baird was succeeded in the office of Secretary by the present incumbent, Prof. Samuel P. Langley, LL. D., known to the scientific world by his masterly researches in solar physics. Under his administration the Smithsonian continues its prosperity with undiminished vigor.
In a second article we shall consider the present status and many activities of this noble institution.
| PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. |
By DAVID A. WELLS, LL.D.. D. C. L.,
CORRESPONDANT DE L'INSTITUT DE FRANCE, ETC.
I.—THE COMPARATIVELY RECENT TAX EXPERIENCES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. PART II.
WITH the close of the war a marked change speedily occurred, in the nature of discontent, in the temper of the people in respect to taxation. But this discontent at the outset was restricted almost exclusively to the so-called "internal revenue taxes," and extended in little or no degree to the war taxes imposed on imports; which last, so long as the internal revenue taxes continued to be levied upon every manufactured product, and also upon the separate constituents of such product, were not only wholly justifiable, but absolutely necessary, if the fiscal burdens of the war between the domestic producers and their foreign competitors were to be equalized. In some instances, through oversight or neglect, the tariff taxation was made actually less upon the imported article than was the internal taxation on the domestic product manufactured from it; one illustration of which was, that the charges imposed on the import of Manilla rope were fifty-six dollars per ton, while the internal taxes on the rope manufactured in the United States from the Manilla fiber ranged from forty-eight to seventy-three dollars per ton.
It soon became evident that the country could not endure for any great length of time the war system of taxation, and, furthermore, would not, when a return of peace had made its continu-
