204 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES

equitably, Taxation of so great an amount might be
required, that practicable methods of taxation would
necessarily involve undue recourse to burdens on special
classes. Further, taxation means compulsory payments,
and the funds might be drawn from employments where
they could ill be spared. The choice of the least inconvenient
sources of supply would be excluded, for, though tax-payers
might conceivably use the same funds as might be subscribed
to a loan, that would involve borrowing by some tax-payers
from others, and this borrowing would probably not be able
to be carried out on such terms as borrowing by the
government, if it were possible at all.
A loan to provide for non-revenue-yielding expenditure
 may, then, be necessary if the raising of the funds
by taxation would involve an extreme tax pressure, and
especially if it would involve resort to unequally distributed
taxation. To justify it, not merely is this condition required,
but also the condition that the generation which spends the
borrowed funds is not so largely interested in the results as
to require it, in justice, to bear the whole burden of providing
them. The ease of meeting expenditure by means of loans
leads to the undertaking of not a few outlays, which would
be seen not to give a satisfactory return on their cost if the
whole burden of that cost had to be met by immediate
additions to current taxation, sufficient to cover the cost in a
very short term of years. It cannot be denied, however, that
capital expenditure is sometimes as wise for communities as
it is for individuals or corporations.