ABSTRACT
Security is the principal advantage possessed by modern society beyond every previous stage of man’s social existence; and not as in an ancient society, security only for privileged races or classes, but, in most civilised countries, security for all. A tax is a portion of the property of individuals living in society given by them to their government in exchange for the security which it affords them. Taxation is the general levy of particular taxes upon the community; the word is also used to mean that part of the science of political economy which treats of the manner of levying taxes. All citizens are interested in having public protection for their private property; therefore all are bound to pay taxes to maintain those persons without whom this public protection would not exist. Political science, cultivated in free countries, has now demonstrated that all taxation should be for the public good, and is justified by necessity alone.
