GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE: TAXATION 273

restrict the use of water for sanitary purposes, and thus the
ends in view may be better served if the supply is not
afforded on a basis of price, with a reduction for supply on
a large scale. In fact, large users may find it to their real
advantage to pay at a higher rate for their supply than is
charged to the inhabitants of the overcrowded dwellings of
the poor.
in the matter of other government services, such as those
of the police, general defence and the like, no measure of the
amount of service rendered to each can be applied, and thus
no price in the ordinary sense can be fixed for these services.
The distribution of such charges has to be determined. In
other words, not merely are land, labour, capital, etc.
claimants for a distributive share in the annual available
output of wealth in the community, but the government is
also a claimant, in respect of the expense of rendering
services which are not paid for in prices charged for the
services or products yielded. This share of the government
is claimed and yielded in the form of taxation, and the
problem now before us is to consider how the burden of
taxation ought to be distributed, for here it is a case of what
ought to be, rather than, as in the case of ordinary prices, what
results from the action of the forces known to be in operation,
The problem of equity in taxation has two sides. The
one is the determination of what aggregate amount of
taxation each individual ought to be called on to bear. The
other is the consideration of the distribution of burden
brought about by specific forms of taxation, so as to choose
such forms, and to use those forms in such degrees, as to
yield that distribution which has been determined on as
equitable. A connected question is that of the proper limits
of government services for which taxation is to provide the
means of covering the expense. How much government
services the community can afford is a question of the same
order as how much food a citizen can afford. The restriction
of expenditure on government services to such limits as are
reasonable, in view of the total resources of the community
available for all purposes, is obviously as worthy of attention
as the mode of providing for such expenditure,
2