CHAPTER XVII

GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE: TAXATION

TT discussion of the desirability of a protective system
is, in strictness, only one part of a general enquiry
into the relations of the government of a country to its
industry and trade. What kind and degree of interference
with private enterprise in the development of the resources
of a country is desirable? This is a subject of too great
scope to be handled within the limits of this chapter, so that
the reference to it will be confined to a few general considerations.
 The broad principle, that those whose livelihood
depends on their success in discovering, and putting into
practice, the best forms of industrial organisation and the
most profitable resources to which to apply their energies,
are the more likely to succeed the less they are interfered
with by officials of the government, may be accepted as a
starting-point. So far as it applies, it rests on the reasonable
assumption that men will do more to secure gain or avoid
loss for themselves, than to benefit, or to protect from injury,
the community of which they form part. Consequently they
are more likely to discover for themselves what offers the
best prospect of profit, how values may be produced sufficient
to more than offset the expenses of production, than are the
officials, who act on behalf of the government, to discover it
for them,
But the private advantage of one individual may be
secured only at the cost of injury to others, and those others
may be incapable of judging of their own best interests.
Those who are injured, too, may not suffer, as individuals, an
injury of sufficient importance to warrant making the effort
to ward off that injury. The interests of all those injured