Mere names, as customarily applied to governments, are apt to be
deceptive. Thus in the middle of the eighteenth century France and
England were both called "kingdoms;" but so far as kingly power was
concerned, Louis XV. was a very different sort of a king from George
II. The French king could impose taxes on his people, and it might
therefore be truly said that the government of France was in the king.
Indeed, it was Louis XV's immediate predecessor who made the famous
remark, "The state is myself." But the English king could not impose
taxes; the only power in England that could do that was the House of
Commons, and accordingly it is correct to say that in England, at the
time of which we are speaking, the government was (as it still is) in
the House of Commons.

[Sidenote: Difference between taxation and robbery.]
I say, then, the most essential feature of a government--or at any
rate the feature with which it is most important for us to become
familiar at the start--is its power of taxation. The government is
that which taxes. If individuals take away some of your property for
purposes of their own, it is robbery; you lose your money and get
nothing in return. But if the government takes away some of your
property in the shape of taxes, it is supposed to render to you an
equivalent in the shape of good government, something without which
our lives and property would not be safe. Herein seems to lie the
difference between taxation and robbery. When the highwayman points
his pistol at me and I hand him my purse and watch, I am robbed. But
when I pay the tax-collector, who can seize my watch or sell my house
over my head if I refuse, I am simply paying what is fairly due from
me toward supporting the government.

[Sidenote: Sometimes taxation _is_ robbery.]