" the contributor, and to vex them the " person - Where it is otherwise, very
" person subject to the tax is put "more or less in the power of the " tax gatherer, who can either
either aggravate
obnoxious
" the tax upon any "Contributor, or extort by the terror " of such aggravation, some present " or perquisite to himself - The " uncertainty of taxation Encourages "the insolence and,
I favors the
"
" corruption of an order of men who
" are naturally unpopular, even
When they are neither insolent nor " corrupt. The certainty of what " each individual ought to pay " is in taxation, a matter of so
"great importance, that a very
"considerable
it
449
degree of inequality,
"It appears, I believe from the experience
" of all
all nations, is not near so great " an evil, as a very small degree of " uncertainty "
This maxim condensed was the Governor's proposition just two years ago got Sir Brooke on behalf of the
Chinese
arguing against it although it is a principle which John Stuart Mill
lays
"has been so generally
so
concurred in that it has become classical.
(Signed) J. Russell
Police representation
Colonial Secretary