GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE: TAXATION 273
on a wholesale scale might fairly receive some reduction of
charge, as compared with others. Further, the owner of
great wealth sometimes does much to secure for himself, at
his own cost, the guarantees of peaceable enjoyment which
are provided for others by general expenditure on government
services. Might not this entitle such wealthy men to make
a smaller contribution than the amount of their wealth would
otherwise require? So far as a satisfactory solution is
possible, it is suggested that the same test, of the marginal
utility of government services, does not give any general
support to these proposals.
Passing from that conception of equity in taxation which
finds it in equal contributions by each of the contributors,
we find it suggested that each is bearing his just burden
when each pays in accordance with his ability, that is his
power to bear tax burdens without being crushed by them.
This test, again, is not easy to apply without some
satisfactory conception of how the ability to bear burdens is
to be measured. Shall wealth be the measure, or revenue?
Or, shall the test of equality of burdens be afforded by
considering the sacrifices involved in bearing them? This
last test, that equality of burdens means equality of sacrifice
imposed in their support, seems the most satisfactory, but
requires some further examination. We have already disposed
 of the idea that, when wealth is unequally distributed,
equal amounts of tax burden mean equal sacrifices for all.
The next proposal to consider is that the principle of equal
sacrifice leads to taxation in proportion to wealth or revenue,
The latter, revenue, rather than the former, wealth, is the
better test when equal revenues are derived from unequal
amounts of wealth, and, in any case, in view of the fact that
large amounts of revenue are received as the reward of
personal service, wealth and revenue have to be compared in
some way as indices of tax-bearing power. To estimate
wealth according to the revenue it yields, and deal with
revenue alone as the measure of taxable ability, is the best
method. As taxes are recurring payments, in the main, they
are properly considered in relation to revenue rather than to
the capital or other source of revenue. In exceptional cases