ABSTRACT

The topic of this article is the development of the tax system of the Cape Colony from 1820 to 1910. This period was crucial for the introduction and diffusion of modern taxes, and the Cape constitutes an important case as the prime settler-colony in Africa. The article uses a new tax dataset and evidence from official documents to trace and explain the Colony’s growing revenue problems during this period. It shows that few changes were made to the tax system from the annexation of diamond fields in 1877 until the end of the South African War in 1902 and that the public coffers mainly benefitted indirectly from the Colony’s increased prosperity via railway earnings. This, it is argued, largely reflected the success of efforts by the mining industry to block the introduction of new taxes. The article emphasizes the unusual form of this resistance: instead of undertaking conventional lobbying activities, industry representatives obtained positions of policymaking authority in the Cape Colony’s then still immature system of democratic institutions. Hence, it draws on the experience of the Cape to show that immature democratic institutions can hamper fiscal capacity-building.

摘要

本文的主题是1820至1910年开普殖民地税制的发展。这一时期对于现代税的引入和传播至关重要，开普省是非洲主要的定居者殖民地。本文使用了新的税收数据集和官方文档中的证据来追踪和解释该时期殖民地日益增长的收入问题。它表明，从1877年吞并钻石区到1902年南非战争结束，税制几乎没有改变，公共库房主要通过殖民地的铁路收入增加而间接受益。有人认为，这在很大程度上反映了采矿业阻止新税种的成功实施。本文强调了这种抵抗的不寻常形式：行业代表没有进行常规的游说活动，而是在佛得角殖民地当时仍不成熟的民主体制中获得了决策权。因此，它借鉴了开普角的经验，表明不成熟的民主体制会阻碍财政能力建设。