of art, jewelry, musical instruments, and the like, it is clear that its valuation, with any approximation to fairness, must be not only the work of time, but must require an amount of experience rarely in the possession of any one individual.

Whenever, therefore, a system contemplating the taxation of personal property, generally, has been projected, its authors have been led, as it were by instinct, to the conclusion that its execution with any degree of effectiveness must depend upon the employment of extraordinary and arbitrary measures. Thus, the old Romans, who first established the taxation of personal property at the period of the decadence of the empire, and who were not troubled with any restrictions of a constitutional character, or any very nice notions about personal liberty or general morality, clearly perceived this, and accordingly invested their tax officials with the power of administering torture as a means of compelling information and enforcing payment.

The board of officials of Illinois, who last year, under authority, prepared a new tax code for their state, and based their work on the hypothesis that the only way to make a better system was to enlarge and make more effective the old, also perceived this; and accordingly prepared a code, which one of the highest authorities in that state characterized in the following language:

"Without exception it is the most objectionable law that was ever proposed, and we can imagine no act which will become so justly odious and detestable. It provides for the establishment of a distinct branch of the government, which may be properly styled the grand inquisitorial and confiscatory office, clothed with powers and functions, which, if enforced, would have produced a revolution in Austria or Turkey."— Chicago Tribune.

The officials of the state of Massachusetts, also, in attempting to carry out a system which provides for the valuation of that which is intangible, and the assessment of what is invisible, acknowledge the necessity of the employment of extraordinary measures, and accordingly resort to a method of procedure which has no parallel except in the records of the Middle Ages and of the Inquisition, and constitutes, in itself, a satire upon any claim to the enjoyment of a wholly free and enlightened government. For, failing to obtain satisfactory information about the private affairs of any individual, the chief assessors

and their subordinates, to the number of some fifty, meet in secret session, in a large upper chamber set aside for the purpose, and appropriately termed the "dooming chamber," when the citizen in question, without being present either by counsel or in person, is arbitrarily doomed to the payment of any sum which a majority of those present may think proper; and from which "dooming" there can be no appeal.

Now the old pagans, the officials of Illinois, and the Boston assessors, have undoubtedly been consistent in following the only line of action calculated to render their ideas of raising revenue by taxing all descriptions of property, in any degree effective; and the people of the state of New York ought clearly to understand that the same course is the only one open to them, which can, by any possibility, make their existing system anything different from the farce which every intelligent person must acknowledge that it now is.

40. The Report of the Maryland Tax Commission of 1888: the Supplementary Report of Professor Richard T. Ely. In 1886 Maryland appointed a commission which two years later submitted an important report, the most valuable part of which was a supplementary report by Professor Ely, one of the members of the commission. Professor Ely gave the following account of the working of the general property tax in Maryland and other states: 1

OUR PRESENT SYSTEM OF TAXATION

Our present system of state and local taxation is unsatisfactory. This is recognized universally, and it is on this account that the present commission was appointed. What our existing system of taxation is, is well enough known, and is in fact so simple in its main features that it can be stated in a single sentence. The fundamental idea in it is this: Everybody should contribute to the support of government in proportion to capacity, and capacity is determined by one uniform tax on the assessed value of all property, of every description whatsoever.

1 Report, 96-103. These views Professor Ely repeated in his Taxation in American States and Cities (1888).

This is the main feature of our existing system of taxation in the state of Maryland, and in the various political units embraced within the state; yet there are other important taxes and some other sources of revenue. Licenses, especially on traders and oyster houses, yield a considerable sum to the state; taxes on commissions of executors and administrators, on collateral inheritances, and on gross receipts of railroad companies, are items of note in the comptroller's statement of receipts into the treasury of the state; while dividends on stocks are by no means insignificant. The budgets of the cities are similar to those of the state. Baltimore receives large sums from licenses, from rent of property, from dividends, from the special tax on gross revenues of street railways; but in the case of the local political units, like the state, the leading feature is the one uniform tax on the assessed value of all real and personal property, excluding of course that exempted by special legislation or constitutional provision.

ORIGIN OF OUR SYSTEM OF TAXATION

This system of taxation originated at an early period, and has, at one time or another, doubtless been in vogue in nearly every civilized nation. It has, however, been abandoned in all countries except the United States, as antiquated; in several of our commonwealths, a tendency to change our system of taxation is already manifest; and everywhere dissatisfaction with it is so marked that there is constant inquiry for better financial methods, and special commissions are frequently appointed to investigate the subject of taxation. The reason for this condition of things becomes evident upon reflection. When our present rule of one uniform tax on all property was introduced, the wealth of the country consisted almost exclusively of real property, and of such personal property as would come under the head of visible, tangible chattels - property which could not readily be concealed.

Cattle, horses, and farming implements of one kind and another comprised a large portion of the personal property. It was very easy to assess to each man all his property, and to tax all in proportion to ability to pay taxes. This was then easier

for landed property than now, as owing to its comparatively small value and uniformity, it answered practical purposes fairly well to divide it into a few classes and to tax each at one uniform rate. This method of taxation obtained in Ohio from the year 1800 to 1825 inclusive. Land was divided into three classes, according to "quality," and there were three rates of taxation per hundred acres: one for land of the first quality, another for land of the second quality, and still another for land of the third quality. These rates in 1800 were $0.85, $0.60, and $0.25 per hundred acres, according to quality. The rates in 1825 were $1.50, $1.123, and $0.75 respectively. During this period the highest rates are found in the year 1816, when they were $3.75, $3.00, and $2.00, respectively.

The history of Connecticut illustrates an analogous but somewhat different method. It was the practice in that commonwealth, from the earliest colonial times until the adoption of the state constitution in 1819, to follow the plan still in vogue everywhere in Europe, and also in the city of Quebec, Canada, of basing taxation, not on the selling value of property, but upon its probable net revenue. We tax property now in our American commonwealths on the selling value of property; but the European system and the old Connecticut system were to estimate income itself, directly. It was also the practice in Connecticut to estimate the annual income of those pursuing any trade or occupation, and to tax them accordingly. The plan is described in the following words of the Report of the Special Tax Commission of Connecticut, made in January, 1887:

Those pursuing any trade or profession were assessed on an estimate of their annual gains. Real estate was rated, not according to its value, but in proportion to the annual income, which, on the average, it was deemed likely to produce. Lands as distinguished from buildings were put in the list at a fixed rate for each kind, prescribed by statute. The best meadow land went in at $2.50 an acre; plow land at $1.67; pasture at $1.34; wood lots at $0.34, etc.; not because those sums were deemed to be the value of the lands, but because they were thought to represent the average income they would produce. Houses and other buildings were likewise listed at fixed sums, dêtermined by their size, materials, number of fireplaces, etc., but all described by the statute itself, and beyond the control of the assessors. Under such a system there was little opportunity for evading taxation. The acreage of each

farm, the general character of each lot, and the dimensions, use, etc., of each building, were readily ascertained, and the law then fixed the rate of

assessment.

A somewhat similar system obtained in New Hampshire in early days. Specific taxes were imposed on polls, slaves, horses and neat cattle, and on land; orchards were taxed one shilling an acre, "accounting an acre so much as would produce ten barrels of cider." Arable land was taxed eight pence an acre, and an acre was regarded as a sufficient quantity to produce twenty-five bushels of grain; pasture land was taxed three pence an acre, and the quantity sufficient to summer a cow was to be considered four acres.

One member of our commission, Mr. James Alfred Pearce, tells me that in Kent County land is still divided into three classes, and that a fixed valuation is placed on each acre within a given class. I am unable to say whether this obtains elsewhere in Maryland or not. It appears, however, to be customary in Kent County, and also in other parts of the state, to return horses and cattle at a certain definite valuation for each, regardless of actual selling value.

The illustrations given are sufficient to show early methods. of assessment. These obtained at one time or another nearly everywhere in Western Europe and in America, but it is needless to multiply examples in this place. The reasons why these methods were abandoned are sufficiently evident. They were adapted only to a primitive condition of society. When the classes of wealth became more numerous, and when the differences in value between articles of the same class became more important, when one acre of land was often worth ten or twenty times, or even fifty times, as much as another situated in the same commonwealth, there could not fail to arise a demand for a system of taxation which would adjust the burdens of the government more accurately and make them bear upon each. individual more nearly in proportion to his ability. It seems that our present system of taxation arose with this in view, and in our older American commonwealths, very generally, early in the present century; while the newer states simply copied the institutions of the older.