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 I 
 
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 PROPERTY OF" 
 
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 PRINCIPLES 
 
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 ADVOCATED BY 
 
 F. H. BEIvIv, Esq., 
 
 HALIFAX, N. S. 
 
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 FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 
 ST. JOHN, N B. 
 
 PRESENTED 
 
 iTldl^u s.-cll Jack BcQuSk^ 
 
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 Accessi»B 5 tJift ^" Class 3 SrSL » I 
 
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 ^ L— The Problem. 
 
 There is no subject which more interests every person iri business thaii 
 lliat of taxation, none perhaps which occasions more discussion, and yet 
 tliere is none the principles of which are less apprehended. The subject 
 of taxation by the City of Halifax has been a burning one for some years 
 past. The question is of the first importance, especially to a mercantile 
 community. All taxation is a necessary evil, and it is the interest of all 
 persons that it should be as light as possible. Eut the mode of taxation, 
 and the principles by which it is regulated, make all the difference to a 
 c:ommunity in these days of close and widely extended competition between 
 ono of omoll importanooi ' Tho taai I'ftto of nono of oui Titinn in iflUM iihitn i Tit , 
 >.uccoss and failure. Compared with the question of upon what principles 
 a system of taxation is founded, the amount of taxation actually levied is 
 one of small importance. The tax rate of none of our cities is exhorbitant, 
 icmpared with that of cities of smaller size elsewhere, and they are all well 
 enough able to bear their burden considered collectively. But the burden 
 may be so placed as to bear with most unjust even crushing weight upon 
 .'Ome parts of the community, and if such is the case the community as u 
 whole must suffer. The weight which a man can carry with ease upon his 
 shoulders may bring him to an absolute standstill if tied to his foot. And 
 similarly a burden of taxation that could be borne with ease if adjusted 
 upon sound principles may be so adjusted as to be an almost insurmountable 
 handicap to a community 
 
 If there is any one thing in this world which should be conclusively 
 settled by the combined teachings of experience and of reason it is the 
 qiiestion of Civic and Municipal Taxation. The experience of Europe, and 
 particularly of Great Britain, the experience of state after state and city 
 after city in the United States, and the writings of every political economist 
 of any note who has given attention to the subject, all point to the same 
 conclusion. And yet to the great majority of the people of each muni- 
 cipality and city in which the agitation for reform is started the question 
 comes up as a brand new thing, and tho reformers are accused of seeking 
 something strange and unheard of. Such is the accusation made against 
 the Tax Eeformers in Halifax at the present time, and yet they ask nothing 
 more than to have the law changed to conform to what it has been in all the 
 cities of Great Britain for half a century, to what it has been in Montreal 
 
 .ctfti^'fitti 
 
and Quebec for nearly as long, to the general satisfaction of those com- 
 munities, and to what has been recommended by numerous Tax Commis- 
 sions in the United States. The problem to be discussed can be stated very 
 briefly. . 
 
 The reform of which the Tax Eeformers in Halifax propose is to abolish 
 the taxation on personal property, and substitute for it a system of business 
 licenses and occupation taxes, both based on real estate values. 
 
 The City of Halifax requires to raise for purposes other than those 
 connected with the Water Department a yearly sum (in roimd numbers) of 
 $355,000. This sum it has to raise in chief part by assessments on the 
 property of its citizens. 
 
 The law governing this assessment was until 1895 as follows: — It 
 provides that "the assessment shall be rated on the owners of real and 
 personal property by an equal dollar rate upon the value of such real and 
 personal property within the city, whether such real and personal property 
 fehall be possessed, occupied or owned by individuals, or by any joint stock 
 company or corporation, and whether owned by parties resident or absent, 
 according to the best knowledge and discretion of the board of City 
 Assessors. 
 
 "Under the term personal property shall be included all household 
 furniture, moneys, goods, chattels, wares, merchandize and effects, wherso- 
 ever situate within the city, owned by any citizen, company or corporation, 
 and all ships and vessels shall be assessed at half their value. * * The 
 term personal property shall also inchilde all moneys belonging to the 
 inhabitants of the city invested in public or private securities within the 
 city, and all bullion and coin of gold and silver, all Dominion notes, and 
 notes of solvent banks in the province or elsewhere, which may be in the 
 possession and the property of any citizen, or in the custody of a bank or 
 other party, except money deposited on deposit receipt, shall be considered 
 as his moneys and be assessed accordingly." Money lent on mortgage is 
 
 exempt and so also is stock in any incorporated company doing business 
 within the city and "taxed on its capital or in respect of its profits or 
 income." Partnership property is t je assessed to the firm. 
 
 By an amendment of 1895, stocks in trade are thereafter to be assessed 
 at three-fourths of their value, and ships one-fourth. 
 
 Put in a nutshell, the ruling idea of the city tax law is that all property 
 within the city, real and personal, irhall contribute equally to the support of 
 the city's burdens. "And what could be fairer?" asks the upholder of the 
 present law. Two men each have $10,000, one invests his money in real 
 estate within the City of Halifax, the other in personal property in some of 
 its many forms — a stock of goods for trading purposes, let us say, — why 
 
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 should the one form of property pay taxes and the other escape entirely? 
 Personalty has to be protected at the city's expense from thieves and fire; 
 why should it ask realty to bear its burdens for it? What justice is there 
 in allowing a wealthy man who does not happen to own real estate to wholly 
 escape taxation? These are the questions that most naturally and inevit- 
 ably occur to some minds when the proposition is made to abolish all tax- 
 ation on personal property. It is incumbent upon the reformers to meet 
 such questions, and to show why the taxation of personal property is unjust, 
 inexpedient and impractical, and then to show by what means, if it is 
 abolished, the deficiency in the city's revenue can be made up by some 
 better and jvister system. 
 
 II.— The Test of Practice. 
 
 James Mill, father of John Stuart Mill, and himself a famous writer on 
 philosophical and economical subjects, used to wax wroth over the common 
 saying that a thing was "good in theory, but bad in practice," because, he 
 said, the best possible proof that a thing was unsound in theory was that it 
 was unworkable in practice. Before undertaking any inquiry into the 
 soundness theoretically of the taxation of personal property for municipal 
 purposes it will be useful to see how it works in practice. If we find it 
 works very badly it will be time to see if we can account for the defective- 
 nesss in practice by showing an unsoundness in theory. 
 
 One prime requirement respecting a trv system is: Does it reach all 
 the things it is supposed to reach? Does it tax all the property and persons 
 it is intended to tax? If it does not, and much property and many persons 
 escape, it cannot be other than unfair and unjust. It is easy to apply this 
 test to Halifax. 
 
 It is a statement which will hardly be disputed that in a community 
 such as Halifax the value of the personal property is at least equal to that 
 cf the real estate. There is no way of making an exact or an approximate 
 calculation of the value of the personal property. But when, in addition to 
 all the property in such visisble shape as furniture and stocks in trade, we 
 consider the number of persons, who, while not owning any real estate, own 
 personal property in some form or another, the sums on deposit in our 
 banks and the amount invested in our numerous joint stock companies, we 
 do not think the statement will be disputed that the personal property 
 within the City of Halifax is worth as much as the real estate. It is, in fact, 
 a thing geuL^rally accepted among writers on economic subjects, that the 
 
personalty of any commnnity eqnals or exceeds in value the real estate. 
 Prof. Seliginan of Columbia College, New York, says (Political Science 
 
 Quarterly, March, 1890): — "In our modern civilization the value of personal 
 property far exceeds that of real estate. For personal property does not 
 denote merely moveable objects, it includes money, public obligations, and 
 the vast mass of intangible property re})resented by securities of corpora- 
 tions, of which only a small portion are certificates of ownership m realty. 
 Above all, personal property includes the entire and ever increasing annual 
 products of agriculture and industry — the gigantic mass of modern wealth 
 devoted mainly to consumption, but existing as the stock in trade of 
 individuals. Even in our most western commonwealths, where the coai- 
 munities are scill mainly a <rri cultural, it is an acknowledged fact that the 
 personalty exceeds the realty. The Auditor of the State of Washington 
 tells us that if a true valuation could be reached, it is 'clear and incontest- 
 able that the wealth of the territory in personal property, for the purpose 
 of taxation, would largely predominate over that of real state.' And if this 
 is true of the far West, how much greater must be the relative proportion of 
 personalty in the busy marts of the East." Another well known authority 
 on economic subjects, Mr. Thomas G. Shearman of New York, says: — "Lon-r 
 study of all accessible statistics has convinced the writer that the average 
 market value of improved land, irrespective of improvements, is almost 
 txactly equal to the value of all improvements affixed to it, that the value 
 of actual visible chattels is about the same, and that the value of unim- 
 proved land is about half as much. In other words, dividing saleable pro- 
 perty into seven equal parts, land would represent thref '-sevenths, improve- 
 ments on land two-sevenths and chattels two-sevenths." When to these 
 
 "actual visible chattels" is added the enormous mass of "invisible" chattels, 
 such as money on deposit in banks, and investments in stock and other 
 securities, which are supposed to be taxed by our law, it is clear that we are 
 within the mark in stating that the personal property in this city equals 
 in value the real estate. All of this personal property is supposed to be 
 taxed by our law, and consequently the value of personal property returned 
 by the assessors should be equal to that of the real estate. But actual 
 returns are very much otherwise. The value of real estate returned for 
 assessment in the current year [1895] is $15,795,810, that of personal pro- 
 perty only $5,003,650 Consequently tliere must be some ten millions of 
 the latter which should be assessed, but is not, throwing its burden upon 
 the rest of personalty and real estate. There is no doubt that this is the 
 case. There must be a good'" proportion of that amount on deposit in the 
 different banks in the city — all expressly made assessable by the law, but not 
 one copper of Avhich is reached by the assessors. Tried by this flrst test, 
 that of efficiency, our existing law is found overwhelmingly defective. 
 
1 
 
 \ 
 
 Most obviously there is something very wrong with a tax system which 
 pretends to tax all personalty property, but only succeeds in reaching one- 
 third of it. 
 
 The upholders of the system will perhaps, at any rate if they have not 
 .riven any study to the question of taxation in other countries, say that the 
 remedy is to e/iforce the huN— assess all the property that escapes. We will 
 deal more at length with thai answer further on. For the present it is 
 enough to say, a statement which will not be challenged by any one in the 
 slightest degree familiar with the subject, that the history of taxation in 
 the United States for the past quarter of a century has been nothing but 
 an incessant attempt by most rigorous and inquisitorial laws, and equally 
 rigorous inspection, to reach all personal property, and everywhere the 
 attempt has been nothing but a most conspicuous failure. 
 
 But when we examine further into the result of the attempt to assess 
 personalty in this city, we discover another fact — that in one respect it is 
 vastly more successful than it is in any other, and that one the very respect 
 in which taxation is hardest to bear, and in which excessive taxation can do 
 .the most injury to the community as a whole. Of the five millions of per- 
 sonalty discovered by the assessors, nearly four millions consisted of goods 
 held by persons in business for the purposes of their trade or as a manufac- 
 turing plant. In 1891 (and there has been no material change since then), 
 an examination of the assessors' returns disclosed the fact, that of the total 
 amount collected from personalty in the city, fifty business firms, principally 
 engaged in wholesale trade and manufactures, contributed nearly one-half, 
 twenty contributed one-fourth, and ten firms actually paid one-fifth. All 
 the other people in the city, n'' the large and numerous retail establish- 
 ments, all the commission houses doing so large a share of the city's trade, 
 all household furniture, all the people of wealth combined, only paid one- 
 half of the amount collected from personal property. The other half fell 
 upon the wholesale and manufacturing business of the city. No further 
 or strong proof is required, that these trades are bearing a most unfair 
 and unjust share of the burden of taxation. ' 
 
 Now if there is any part of the community less able than another to 
 bear taxation, and the undue taxation of which will work disastrously to the 
 community as a whole, it is the wholesale trade and manufactures of a city. 
 But the discussion of this point must be reserved for our next article. 
 
III.— The Goose that Lays the Golden Egg. 
 
 Last issue we showed that the wholesale and maniifactnring business 
 of Halifax were being most unfairly over-assessed in respect of personal 
 property, they bearing no less than one-half of the total taxation on per- 
 bonalty. Of course it is easy to see why this is the case. The assessors can 
 "get at" their personal property, at the rest of personalty they cannot. No 
 diligence on the part of an assessor can discover the amount of money a man 
 has deposited in a bank, and if he did discover it the only effect of trying to 
 tax it would be to drive it to some more hospitable and rational city. It is 
 impossible to get at a man's investments in stock and other securities. But 
 the goods of a wholesale merchant cannot be concealed, and the assessors 
 pounce down upon them, make a guess at their value, and tax them on that. 
 
 We said last issue that if there was any one thing which should not be 
 taxed, and the taxation of which would do more harm to a community than 
 another, it was the wholesale ant^ manufacturing trades of a city. It is 
 worth while to dwell on this a little because we believe misconception and 
 want of thought on that point have much to do with the opposition to 
 Reform. The average man is apt to think the retail trade of a place just 
 as important as the wholesale. One sells by bigger lots than the other, that 
 is all. He is apt to think of the wholesaler as being a richer man than the 
 retailer, doing a bigger business, and therefore reasons that if there should 
 be any discrimination it should be rather in favor of the retailer that the 
 wholesaler. One of our City Fathers actually said, "If the wholesale people 
 don't like our taxes, let them go somewhere else. We can do without them 
 better than they can do without us," and no doubt he spoke the minds of 
 numbers. And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, the wholesale trade is far 
 less able to bear taxation than the retail, and if there is to be any discrimi- 
 naiion it should be in favor of the former, and not of the latter. 
 
 What makes a city — what causes a multitude of people to drav together 
 at that one spot on the face of the earth? Nothing but wholesale trade and 
 manufactures — the trades that do business beyond fh'a limits of the cit}' — 
 that deal with the outer world and bring some portion of its wealth into the 
 community. All the other businesses in the community, important though 
 they be, and no matter how money-making they may be to the individ- 
 uals engaged in them, are nothing but the machinery for distributing the 
 wealth brought into the community by the wholesalers and manufacturers. 
 If those last were to be destroyed, every other business in the place would 
 instantly shrivel up like an autumn leaf. 
 
'i 
 
 i 
 
 Suppose some huge manufacturing concern, employing thousands of 
 workmen, such as one of the great ship-building concerns on the Clyde, or 
 the American Watch Company at Waltham, or Lever Brothers' mammoth 
 Sunlight Soap works at Birkenhead, were for some reason to locate at some 
 out-of-the-way spot in Nova Scotia. A city would immediately spring up 
 round the works. The workmen would require houses to live in. There 
 would be mecbanics of all sorts, shops of every description, places of amuse- 
 ment, churches, professional men. For every one person employed directly 
 about the works there would probably be one or more engaged in some oc- 
 cupation not connected with them. And yet every dollar of money circulat- 
 ing in the place would come from the big works, and if they were removed, 
 the town would disappear as quickly as it arose. If anyone thinks this is a 
 fanny sketch, let him read the history of some of the abandoned mining 
 towns of the Western Stat< s. They owed their existence to the discovery 
 of the mines. While these flourished they grew apace — stores, theatres, 
 churches, hotels, every branch of business and industry found a place in 
 them. Tbe mines ceased to pay and the towns died as suddenly as if the 
 plague had smitten them. Johannesburg and Kimberley, the new cities of 
 South Africa, have grown up entirely in consequence of the gold and 
 diamond mines; and if these failed, v^'ould vanish as quickly as they have 
 sprung up. There are Avhole communities in tbe world dependent upon the 
 one industry in which they have something to supply the world at large. 
 1\irk's Island in tbe West Indies is one such. It is a busy place, with a 
 population of about five thousand people, fairly well to do and comfortable, 
 among wliom are to be found representatives of almost every calling. And 
 yet the whole place is absolutely dependent upon one industry prosecuted 
 by some half-dozen firms, that, namely, of making and exporting salt. If 
 that business were for any cause to be rendered unprofitable Turk's Island 
 would not be long in becoming a deserted rock once more. To pursue the 
 last illustration a little further, Turk's Island has keen competitors among 
 the other Baham? Islands in the salt trade, and prices have to be cut very 
 fme. Suppose our assessment law, which so many uphold as so eminently 
 fair and reasonable, were put in force there. There would be no difficulty 
 in enforcing it. The principal wealth of the place lies all about in huge 
 white heaps, open and exposed, the easiest mark imaginable for the assessor. 
 But the very first attempt to saddle it with the one-and-a-half per cent, 
 imposition which our Halifax wholesale merchants are called upon to pay 
 upon all of their goods that the assessors can find would drive the salt mer- 
 
 .i)ii 
 
8 
 
 chants into baukrupLcy, close up the salt pans, or hand over the trade io 
 their competitors, and make the island a desert. The variety and multi- 
 plicity of our employments in Halifax prevent us seeing as clearly as in 
 such an illustration as this the all-important fun-^tion of wholesale trade and 
 manufactures in this or any other connnunity, and the evil consequences 
 sure to flow from unfair and excessive taxation upon them. But there is 
 no difference. It is only ils manufactures and its trade with the world 
 beyond its own limits that make the difference between Halifax and Chez- 
 zetcook. All our civic life and industry centre in these and depend upon 
 them; and if our worthy alderman coald see his sugfrestion carried out and 
 the wholesaler driven out of the city, there would soon be no city left 
 behind them. 
 
 We can now see why taxation affects the wholesale trade and the retail 
 60 differently. In one sense it makes very little difference what taxation 
 you impose upon the latter. So long as you taxe(3 all retail grocers or 
 bakers or dry goods dealers in tbe city equally in proportion to the value of 
 their stock or the volume of their trade (supposing such a thing to be pos- 
 sible) it would not make much difference what the rate of taxation was. As 
 they have only to compete against one another, they would have no diffi- 
 culty in making their customers pay the tax in the prices of the goods. But 
 the wholesalers and the manufacturers have to compete with the world, and 
 if they are subject to any tax to which tbeir competitors are not subject they 
 must bear the loss themselves, they cannot add it to the price of the goods; 
 the TT-holesale trade of the place will languish and the whole community 
 suffer in consequence. Tbis is no suppositious case. It actuallly has hap- 
 pened; here is one illustration. Says Prof. Seligman:— ''The liability of 
 stock in trade (in England), at first generally disputed, was finally affirmed 
 by Lord Kenyon (Chief Justice) in 1795. The results were doubly dis- 
 astrous. For the early success of the experiment led tbe Justices of the 
 peace to begin that most unjust and iinprovident metliod of poor relief, 
 known as tlie allowance system And secondly, the practice of rating stocic 
 in trade, wldch was confined to the old clothing district in the south and 
 west of England, resulted in the rapid decline of the ancient staple trade 
 and a transfer of the business to Yorkshire, where nersonalty was not 
 assessed. The law of 1840, wbich is re-enacted yearly, finally exempted all 
 personalty from taxation; but it was powerless to brinjj the trade back to 
 its ancient channels." It was a case of the load being tied to the foot, 
 instead of carried on the back. , 
 

 IV.— How the Attempt to Tax Everything 
 
 Has Succeeded. 
 
 We have shown in previous articles— (a) that the present system of 
 taxation in Halifax operates most imfairly, inasmuch as while all personal 
 property in the city is supposed to ^ear an equal share of the burden, as a 
 matter of fact, not above one-third is actually reached; (b) that of what is 
 reached an altogether unfair proportion is made up of the stock-in-trade of 
 wholesale merchants and the plant of manufacturers, these being in fact 
 assessed at pretty nearly their full value, amd (c) that the wholesale and 
 manufacturing trades thus singled out for excessive taxation are precisely 
 the things least able to bear it, and the taxation of which is best calculated 
 to injure the community. Before going farther it will be as well to deal 
 with one point sure to be raised. If the present law, it will be said, is 
 defective and unjust in operation because so large a proportion of per- 
 sonalty escapes, then amend it so that personalty can no longer escape — it 
 can surely all be reached if the law is made stringent enough and enforced 
 with sufficient vigor. 
 
 The answer to this is that for the past quarter of a century and more, 
 the hifjtory of taxation in the cities and states of the United States has been 
 nothing but one long continued struggle by most rigorous laws and most 
 determined efforts at enforcement, to reach for assessment and taxatior all 
 descriptions of personal property, with no other result, apparently, than 
 that the more vigorous the attempt the more complete the failure. 
 Volumes could be filled, and have been, with the history of these attempts, 
 all ending in failure. It will be impossible in our space, to do more than 
 give in the briefest outline an account of some of them. 
 
 Probably the most vigorous of such attempts is that made by the State 
 of Ohio, and it may be taken as a fair illustration. According to the laws 
 of this state, the folloM'ing subjects are suppose(l to be taxed by a uniform 
 
 rate of taxation: — "All moneys and debts; all investments in bonds, stocks, 
 joint stock companies or otherwise; all real and personal property according 
 to its true value in money; all notes and bills discounted; effects and dues 
 of every description; all banks and bankers; so that all property employed 
 in banking shall always bear a burden of taxation equal to that imposed on 
 the property of individuals." Certainly no one can complain of want of 
 
 comprehensiveness in these. To carry them out a system of enforcement 
 equally inquisitorial is provided. Blanks are made out containing lists of 
 every conceivable kind of personal property. These are sent to every person 
 
over tuenty-one, and a full answer must be returnctl on oath under ]ioa\y 
 penalties. By law the return to these blanks is required to set forth: — 
 
 "'first, the number of horses, and the value thereof; second, the number of 
 cattle, and the value thereof; third, the number of i ules and asHes, and the 
 value thereof; fourth, the number of sheep, and the vahie thereof; fifth, the 
 number of hogs, and the value thereof; sixth, the number of pleasure-car- 
 riages, and the value thereof; seventh, the total value of all articles of 
 personal property not includ?d in the preceding or succeeding classes; 
 eighth, the number of piano-fortes, and the value thereof; ninth, the, 
 average value of the goods and merchandise which such a person is required 
 to list as a merchant; tenth, the value of the property which such a person 
 is required to list as a banker, broker, or stock jobber; eleventh, the average 
 value of the materials and manufactured articles which such a person is 
 required to list as a manufacturer; twelfth, moneys on hand or on deposit; 
 thirteenth, the amount of the credits; fourteenth, the amount of the moneys 
 invested in bonds, stock, joint stock companies, annuities or otherwise; 
 fifteenth, the monthly average amount or value for the time held or con- 
 trolled the same within the preceding year of all money's, credits, or other 
 eiTects. invested in bonds of the T'nited States, or of lo.ih own state." These 
 
 returns art to be verified by oath. If the assessors are not satisfied with 
 that, they have the power to bring the taxpayer before them and examine 
 him upon oath^ and if any person refuses to list his property or b«; sworn, 
 the assessors have power to fix an arbitrary amount as the value of his pro- 
 perty, against which he cannot appeal. Surely the partisans of rigorous 
 law and vigorous enforcement can desire nothing further; and now for the 
 working: — 
 
 For this Prof, Ely quotes the Governor of the State in his "Special 
 Message" of 1887: "Personal property is valued all the way from full value 
 down to nothing; in fact, the great majority of the personal property of the 
 State is not returned, but is entirely and fradulently withheld from taxation. 
 So far as personal property is concerned, the fault is chiefly with the people 
 who list the property taxation." The message goes on to show that during 
 a period of increasing wealth, and with a steadily increasing assessed valu- 
 ation of real estate, the valuation of personal estate has steadily diminished, 
 notwithstanding every effort to get at it. In 1883 the value of personnl 
 property assessed in the State was (leaving off the odd figures) $543 
 millions. In 1884 it was $528, and in 1885 $509. Between 1882 and 1887, 
 the amount of money in the state dwindled by no less a sum than $11 
 millions. Between 1882 and 1892, the amount of "money on hand" in 
 Hamilton County, in which the great city of Cincinnati is situated, fell 
 away from $2,321,502 to $1,535,375. "Credits" in the same time dwindled 
 from $6,571,029 to $4,289,901. Apparently the more rigorous the taxes 
 
, llllf. ,Ufl«),^| 
 
 ;:v; ■ • : -'ii. ^- ' . '■ '--■■■ ■,- 
 
 were made, and the greater the vigor shown in attempting to enforce theni, 
 the less successM they were in reaching personal property; and there is 
 certainly a reason why it should be so. So long as the laws are moderate, 
 no particular effort is made to evade them. Bnt with greater vigor comes 
 two things, — first, the discovery how easy it is to evade such laws, and 
 second, a blunting of sensibilities and conscience by evasion, which leads to 
 still greater evasion. 
 
 In our next we propose to give briefly the experience of a few other 
 
 states and cities. ^ 
 
 v.— Further Illustrations of the Attempt to 
 
 Tax Everything. 
 
 Last week we gave the experience of the State of Ohio in its determ- 
 ined attempts to assess personal property of every description, with the sole 
 result that the more determined the eifort, the more personal property 
 seemed to slip out of sight. ^Ye propose this week to give briefly the experi- 
 ence of some few other states. There is no difficulty in finding the 
 material. Every State in the Union has the same story to tell. 
 
 Take first the Empire State of New York. Certainly there can be no 
 dculit cs to the enormous amount of personal property there, if only it could 
 be got at. For twenty-five years the history of taxation in that State has 
 been nothing but a history of attempts to reach personal property, with 
 absolutely no success. The laws are rigorous, very similar to those oi 
 Ohio, of which wo furnished an abstract last week; the assesssors and boards 
 of equilization have by general admission done their utmost to carry these 
 laws out, but the result has been the same as in Ohio: — "Only those are 
 reached who are least able to pay." The State assessors in one of their 
 annual reports, say of taxation upon personalty: — 
 
 "Women, heirs, executors, administrators, guardians, and trustees of 
 persons of unsound mind, are assessed beyond all measure of justice. A 
 man dies, leaving in personal property an amount, the interest of which is 
 barely sufficient, with rigid economy, to support the widow. The records 
 of the Probate Oourt or the publication of loss of life by an insurance com- 
 pany rpv(i;.nls the fact, and the assessor, bound by his oath to be 'diligent' in 
 his ent|uiry for personal property, enters the lull amount on his roll; and 
 if in the city, the tax of from two to four per cent, must be paid from this 
 amount, already too small to provide the necessities of life. 
 
 "This same assessor, however, if not forgetting his oath, when enquir- 
 ing of the wealthy neighbor as to his personalty, very likely accepts the 
 negative answer as truthful, though it is well known to the community that 
 
he possesses larpje meaus. The one has not yet learned how to cover the 
 personal property bv an assumed indebtedness, while the other is well versed 
 in the many devices by which he may escape even the 'diUgent' assessor. This 
 is no fancy picture; many cases of hardship on assessing personal property 
 have come to our notice. Here is one: — A man in comfortable circum- 
 stances, with a business giving him good support, becomes insane; his 
 business is placed in charge of a trustee, who converts his effects into 
 money. Awaiting a better opportunity for investment, the amoiint is 
 deposited in a savings bank at 4 per cent, interest, the only means of support 
 for the wife and family. The assessors placed the full amount thus 
 deposited on the assessment roll, and yet they could tnithfully say that they 
 ha,d not violated the law in so doing. The common practice of many is to 
 create an indebtedness to bridge over the 1st July, after which the assessor 
 cannot reach the party for personal assessment. It must, however, be 
 patent to everyone that has given attention to this matter of the assess- 
 ment of property, that the present ])ractice is a farce, and should no longer 
 be tolerated.^' 
 
 Between 1871 and 1884, the amount of personalty assessed in the State 
 diminished by $107,184,371. Between 1875 and 1885, the assessed value 
 of realty rose from $1,960 millions to $2,763 millions, an increase of $801 
 millions. Yet in the same period the assessed value of personalty dwindled 
 from 407 millions to 322 millions, a decrease of 75 millions. Between 1871 
 and 1888, the realty of the State increased in value from 1,599 to 3,122 
 millions. Yet in the same period the personal property of this great State 
 shrank, according to the assesssors, from 452 millions to 346 millions. 
 
 California is another State in which the most desperate efforts have 
 been made to reach every description of personal property. Tn 1879 a 
 new Constitution was adopted for the State. It was carried through by 
 the votes of the farmers exclusively, the moneyed classes voting solidly 
 against it. By it every conceivable description of personal property and 
 wealth in every form was proposed to be made subject to taxation, and 
 holders of stock in corporations were avowedly and intentionally made sub- 
 ject to double taxation, i'list, upon the corporate property, and again upon 
 
 the stock held by them, ''it was supposed,' says Mr. Shearman, "alike by 
 the friends and enemies ')f the new constitution, that under its operation 
 personal property of every description would be thoroughly reached, and at 
 any rate that whatever was by any chance overlooked, would be more 
 than made up by double taxation for that which was found. The actual 
 result has been to falsify all the predictions of both the friends and 
 enemies of the constitution, for it has done none of the good or evil which 
 was anticipated, for the reason that the capacity of the patriotic taxpayer 
 to comnut perjury, and the susceptibility of the assessors to bribery, had 
 
 '.i ■ ■ 
 
■Tl 
 
 . :^ '•■.;■- "•-•■ ^ lb . - ■ -■ .■ 
 
 been altogether ucderestimated. Some of the results are positively ludic- 
 rous. * * * Personal property is vanishing from San Francisco, loans 
 of money are becoming unknown in the rest of the State, municipal bonds 
 are not heir] within tlie State to an amount equal to one-tenth of the bonds 
 known, to be outstanding, and money has been smitten by a pesl,ilence, 
 two-thirds of all that there was before the adoption of the constitution hav- 
 ing taken to itself wings and showing no signs of reUirning/' in San 
 Francisco, which it was espet-ially desired to "get at," where real cslate has 
 increased in value between 1880 and 181)4 from 122 millions to 1T8, and 
 "improvements on land" from 43 millions to 83 n\illions, the amount of 
 money in the same time has unaccocuntably shiiveied away from 19 millions 
 to I", and all other personal property from 08 millions to only 56. Over 
 the whole State the general result was that the proportion of personal 
 propertv to the whole assessed value of property has steadily fallen from 50 
 per cent, in 1860, to 34 per cent, in 1874, 26 per cent, in 1880, and 13 1-2 
 per cent, in 1894. 
 
 In Connecticut the special tax commission appointed to deal with this 
 very question said: — "The terms of the law taxing all descriptions of per- 
 sonal property are plain, and the penalties for its infringement are probably 
 as stringent as the people will bear. Many attempts have been made from 
 early times to create effectual ones, with but little success. * * '•' The 
 truth is, no system of tax law can ever reach directly the great mass of 
 intangible property. It is not to be seen, and its possession, if not volun- 
 tarily disclosed, can in most cases be only the subject of conjecture. Such 
 considerations as these, coupled with the results of an investigation of now 
 nearly three years into the practical working of our tax system, have brought 
 us to this conclusion, that all items of intangible property ought to be 
 struck out of the list. As the law stands it may be a burden on the con- 
 science of many, but it is a burden on the property of the feAv; not because 
 there are few who ought to pay, but because there are few who can be made 
 to pay. * * * rjij^p result is that a few towns, a few estates, and a few- 
 persons of a high sense of honesty bear the entire Aveight of the tax. Such 
 has been the universal result of similar laws elsewhere. 
 
 The West Virginia Commission in their report said: — .At present all 
 the taxes from invisible property come from a few conspicuously con- 
 scientious citizens, from widows, executors, and guardians of the insane 
 and infants; in fact, it is a comparatively rare thing to find a shrewd 
 trader who 'gives in' any considerable amount of notes, stocks and money; 
 the truth is, things have come to such a condition in West Virginia, that as 
 regards paying taxes on this class of property, it is almost as voluntary, and 
 is considered pretty much in the same light as, donations to the neihbor- 
 hood church or Sunday-school." 
 
 If space permitted, such illustrations might be multiplied iiifinitely — to 
 
 use the words of Prof. Ely — "The one uniform tax on all property as an 
 exclusive source of revenue, or the chief source, never has worked well in 
 
■■"■■ ""■ ' •■•"'■ 14 ■■ • • •'■■ ''■ ■ 
 
 any modern cominuiiity or state in the entire world, though it has been tried 
 thousands of times, and although all the mental resources of able men have 
 been employed, to make it work," — In Prof, Seligman's words, such a tax is 
 "beyond all peradventure the worst tax known in tiie civilized world — it 
 sins against the cardinal rules of uniformity, of equality, and of universality 
 of taxation. Tt puts a premium on di.shonesty, and deoauches the publ''^ 
 conscience. It reduces deception to a system, and makes a science of 
 knavery. It presses hardest on those least able to pay. It imposes double 
 taxation on one man. and grants entire immunity to the next. In fact, it \'a 
 so flagrantly inequitable, that its retention can be explained only through 
 ignorance or inertia." 
 
 In the face of so enormous a mass of testimony, surely no one will ask 
 the City of Halifax to add .mother failure co the thousands of attempts to 
 tnx all classes of personal property. The remedy of better laws for that 
 purpose and more vigorous enforcement must be dismissed a,> worthless, 
 
 VI— An Income Tax. 
 
 When the tax reformer has succeeded in demonstrating that the exist- 
 ing tax system is grossly unfair and injurious to the best interests of the 
 citv, and that the overwhelming testimony of experience has proved that by 
 no possibility can the present system of a uniform taxation of all kinds -^f 
 property, real and personal, be made anything else than unfair and oppres- 
 sive, he is almost certain to be confronted with the suggestion of an income- 
 tax. There is something about the income tax, its superficial fairness and 
 apparent sim-plicity, that seems to commend it to persons who want to do 
 what is right in matters of taxation, but have not given much thought or 
 
 study to the question. "If A has ten times as large an income as B, why 
 should he not pay ten times as much taxes, he is ten times as well able to." 
 
 Such ie the rough and ready form of argument usually adopted. 
 
 The fallacy in the argument lies in what is takcL for granted, viz.: 
 that the standard by which a person's contribution to the civic treasury is 
 to be measured is his ability to make contribution. That assumption, so 
 common, will not stand a moment's examination. Suppose two young 
 professional men to start in Halifax at the same time. One is clever, 
 industrious, energetic, assiduous, and the other dull, idle, careless. At the 
 end of five years the one is making a net income of say $3000 a year, the 
 other $750. What right, justifiable on any ground of logic or ethics, has 
 the city to exact from the former four tiines as great a contribution as from 
 the latter. The city gives no more to the one than the other. To both she 
 gives an opportunity to practice their profession, both have the same benefit 
 
 '? , 
 
 'iaiitm 
 
15 
 
 of all the jity services — streets, schools, fire, police protection, &c. Two 
 merchants do business side by side — one is thrifty and capable and makes 
 money, the other incompetent, rash, possibly unfortunate. Wliy should the 
 incompetence, or rashness, or misfortunes of the latter be a reason for 
 exempting him from bearing his share of the common burden. The city 
 had no share in causing his losses. Why should it be called upon to bear 
 a portion of them? There is no more reason in the city calling upon one 
 of its citizens to pay a greater tax merely because he has a greater income, 
 than there would be in a landlord demanding a higher rent for the same 
 reason. The only ground on which such a basis of civic taxation can be 
 defended is pure communism, — Kobin Hood's doctrine, that it is right and 
 justillable to rob the rich and give to the poor. The contribution which 
 the city demands from any citizen should bear some proportion to the 
 return made by the city to the citizen. If the wealthy man receives a 
 larger return (as he almost invariably does) he should paj a bigger tax. 
 But if he voluntarily chooses to take no greater return from the city than 
 the poorest citizen, there is no reason why he should be compelled to pay a 
 larger contribution. Suppose Mr. Vanderbilt were to take up a residence 
 Among us for a couple of years, occupying a suite of rooms at one of our 
 hotels. The theory of the income tax would require that he should con- 
 tribute to our civic finances upon his three millions of income, merely 
 f>'>r the pleasure of sojourning among us. It may be said that this is an 
 illustration so extreme as to be absurd. But the true way to test the sound- 
 ness of a theory is tc put extreme cases. A soimd theory will stand any case, 
 however extreme. If a theory becomes absurd the moment it is carried to 
 its logical extreme its unsoundness is manifest. 
 
 Have the people who recommend an income tax considered the diffi- 
 culty of working it as a part of a system M'hich endeavours to tax all kinds 
 of ]iroperty? Income is derivable from property. To tax the property 
 and the income also is an imposition so gross that no one proposes it. A 
 practical scheme of exemption is beyond the wit of man to contrive. To 
 say, tax all income not derivable from property already taxed sounds 
 plausible, but what does it mean? In theory all property within the city 
 is taxable already. If the assessor can discover any property it is taxed 
 and the income from it is not. If it cannot be discovered, then how is the 
 income from it to be got at? The tax would reach (supposing it to be 
 capable of practical operation) the incomes of professional men and men on 
 salaries; but it would be Avholly inadequate to reach the propertied classes 
 
whom so many wish to "get at," and (uliat is more important) wholly 
 inadequate to redress the frrievances under which the mercantile and manu- 
 facturing classes are suffering, and which is the occasion of the agitation for 
 reform. ' 
 
 An income tax in the City of Halifax at the present tinu' would be an 
 absolute "leap in the dark." No one could predic' with the slightest cer- 
 tainty what revenue it would produce. If coupled, as it would have to be. 
 with a eonriidorable measure of exemption of property now taxed, it might 
 easily happen that the revenue would fall considerably short of the require- jr 
 
 ments of the city. This is a risk that the city cannot afford to take. By -J 
 
 far th(! greater part of the city's revenue is pledged in advance to meet I 
 
 fixed charges — interest, salaries, and the like. Out of the $355,000 spent 
 yearly, no much more than $25,000 is really "controllable" expenditure. 
 It should be a sine qua non of any plan of reform tliat the amount of ., ' 
 
 revenue to be raised under it can be foretold with accuracy. An income tax v 
 
 would he the most uncertain of all forms of taxation. '1 • 
 
 The income tax deri-\es most of its support from the supposed >■ 
 
 efficiency c Ihe British income tax. P)Ut persons who point to that as an 
 analogy, should bear in mind: (1) That that tax is national, not municipal; ;., 
 
 (2) That is is not accompanied by the taxation of property in any form, and '. 
 
 (3) That the income tax is by no means an object of unqualified admiration 
 
 even among British political economists. The English Commissioners cf , - 
 
 Inland Revenue, in their report of 1S70, said of it: 
 
 "We therefore think we may venture to generalize upon the facts 
 which the most recent occasion of compensation has furnished. Those ■ / ■ < 
 
 facts are that 40 per cent, of the persons assessed had underated their 
 incomes to such an extent that a true return would give an addition of 130 
 per cent." :•; /' 
 
 And Professor Thorold Rogers, an eminent economist, characterized , . ' / - 
 ^he tax as "the worst which has ever been invented or imposed, and which 
 has done more to degrade the historical integrity of Englishmen than any 
 other fiscal expedient whatever, not excepting lotteries." 
 
 Finally the testimony of experience on the American Continent is 
 decidedly against an income tax for municipal purposes. Prof. Ely, while I 
 
 advocating the tax for State purposes, expresses his conviction as the result " 
 
 of studying the question throughout the Union, that "it is not suitable for 
 a city." The Tax Commission for the State of Maine in 1889, referred to 
 itas follows: — > : 
 
 "In practice it is almost universally a failure. In theory, it seems 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 I 
 J 
 
 u. 
 
 •^'.jnst that a person should be taxed on the net yield of his occupation or 
 "investments, the best iruage of his taxable ability, but in the levying of suoli 
 "a tax it has always been found that art, subterfuge, evasion, and downright 
 ^'perjury have rendered the system inellicient and futile. To tax capital, 
 ^'property, lauds, and also the income arising from their employment, is 
 "intolerable as double taxation; to exempt such property, and rely on the 
 "income from then; alone, leaves open a hundred ways for evasion, and is 
 open to grave objections as being in conflict with the constitutional pro- 
 vision requiring that all property shall be taxed according to its just 
 value. It has been tried in several States ])ut has proved unsatisfactory 
 ''in all, and it is a potent argument against this form of taxation, that in 
 "the efforts that have been made in most States of the Union, during the 
 *'nast ten years, to find new sources of revenue, there has been so little 
 ^•disposition to resort to income taxes." 
 
 The experience of this Province, as to the working of the income tax 
 as part of a scheme of municipal assessment in this Province, is entirely 
 unfavorable. 
 
 As an expedient for redressing the grievance of the mercantile and 
 manufacturing community, shewn to exist at the outset of this series, and 
 the existence of which is hardly disputed, the income tax must be dismissed 
 as being as impractical as the notion of making the present law effective 
 to reach all the millions of personal property that now escape, 
 
 VII.— The Distribution of Taxation. 
 
 It may be useful to recapitulate the points which we hope we have 
 thus far succeeded in establishing. They are: — 
 
 (a^— That the existing taxation in the City of Halifax is unfair 
 because while assuming to assess all personal property it only in practice 
 assesses about one-third. 
 
 (b) — That the third which is assessed is the very portion of all others 
 leaBt able to bear taxation and the taxation of which is most calculated 
 to injure the community — namely, the stock in trade and manufacturing 
 plants of our wholesale merchants and manufacturers. 
 
 (c) — That an enormous accumulation of experience proves that any 
 effort to remedy this by attempting to tax all personal property, either by a 
 rigid enforcement of the existing law or amendments to it, is predestined to 
 utter failure. 
 
 (d) — And finally, that the remedy of an income tax is not adapted to 
 purposes of civic taxation, has been a complete failure elsewhere, and would 
 do nothing whatever to remedy the grievance with the statement of which 
 we set out. 
 
 ■-"-'-•'■"^ 
 
It is in order then for ns to answer tiie question. Hew do we T)ropos«e 
 to remedy the grievnnce? 
 
 To do this it will be neeeg^ary t(. discnss brieily the principles on whieh 
 any rational scheme of civic taxation must he based. No plan of reform 
 Mill be satisfactory th.at is not based upon principles that commend them- 
 seh^es to reason. Of course any extended discussion of tbe principles of 
 taxation would be out of place in such a series as this; but some such dis- 
 cussion is inevitable. 
 
 The one principle to bear in mind and which will carry one clearly 
 through any discussion of civic taxation, is that the taxation should be in 
 proportion to benefit, and as a corollary to this, that the fairest system ol 
 taxation is that which will distribute itself most readily and ea.sily among 
 the people who have to bear it, in proportion to the benefit they respectively 
 derive from the city. That system is also to be preferred under which the 
 r^xes will be collected most easily and certainly, with the smallest oppor- 
 tunities for evasion, and the smallest temptation to fraud and purjury; and 
 finally, such a system should be preferred as will i)e fair, not only among 
 the citizens themselves, but will not handicap the city as a whole in com- 
 petition with other cities with which it is compelled to compete. 
 
 rt will, perhaps, be as well lo deal first wth the question as to the dis- 
 tribution of taxation, because nothing in connection with the subject is so 
 constantly overlooked, and the want of apprehension on this point is in 
 reality the source of nearly all the erroneous reasoning one encounters. 
 
 Nothing is more common, for instance, than to meet the landowner 
 who arrogates to himself the right to speak authoritatively on the subject 
 of taxation because of the amount of taxes he pays. "I have twenty 
 houses, and I have to pay $1,000 a year to the city. There is Mr. So and So. 
 He is a great deal richer man than I am, doing a big business. He has only 
 a rented house and an office, and he doesn't pay a hundred dollars a year. 
 I'd like to know what fairness there is in that?" Such is a fair specimen 
 of the reasoning one so often encounters. And yet a moment's considera- 
 tion ought to be enough to show anyone the absurdity of it. The land- 
 owner's houses are all let. His rents are calculated to«give him not only a 
 fair interest on the money invested, but a sufficient margin to cover repairs, 
 insurance and taxes. His may be the hand that pays the money into the 
 .City Treasury, but it is the tenants who really pay it and on whom its 
 burden falls. This is obvious, and would scarcely be questioned but for 
 the unfortunate fact that a :^ood deal of real estate in Halifax is to-dav 
 
 idUi 
 
 ^ 
 
* .'. \ 
 
 19 
 
 
 (".■■;i 
 
 worth a good deal les« than it was some yoars a<(o, and that conaeiiuently 
 the renials ohtainahlo do not yield a fair return on the capital invested. 
 That, however, is simply the mi? fort line of the man who has put his 
 money into a property whieh has deprocinted. That it is, even in the ease 
 of these properties, the tenant and not the landlord who i)ays the (greater 
 part }it least of the taxes, is ol)viou'^ from the consideration that if the city 
 taxes Avere by some miracle wholly wiped out of existence the competition 
 of other owners of land, more favorably situated or houj^ht at lower prices, 
 would at once drive the rents of the unproductive properties lower than 
 they are to-day hy the amount of the taxes remitted. Turn now to the 
 case of the other man who, according to the land-owner, pays so little. It 
 is true that the tax he ictually pays to the City Treasury is small, but does 
 that represent his real contriliution to the city's revenue? He lives in a 
 good rented house; he pays the tax on that to his landlord. The same is 
 true of his office. But this is only the l)eginning. He is, we will suppose, 
 engaged in the business of dealing in fish, hivgely on ct^mmission. In the 
 course of a year he handles say half-a-million dollars worth. As he owns 
 no wharf or stores of his own, he is compelled to store it for longer or 
 shorter periods on the property of other ])ersons. He pays, in the run of a 
 year, thousands of dollars wharfage and storage to the owners of wharves 
 and stores. These owners pay the taxes on their properties, but from whom 
 does the money come but from the persons whose goods fill them? 
 
 This perhaps also is obvious. But take another illustration — ^the 
 favorite one of the "young man who pays no taxes." Suppose the case of 
 a man on salary — say $1200 a year — unmarried, living in a boarding house. 
 His direct contribution to the city's revenue is perhaps nothing, perhaps a 
 poll tax, at most on an assessment of $300 personalty, for the sake of a 
 vote. Such a person is the favorite object of attack when tax reform is 
 discussed. But let us consider his case. To begin with, his salary is paid 
 by some firm or corporation engaged in business in the city. The salary 
 paid him is what that firm can afford to pay after deducting the charges on 
 the business, among which the taxes are of course included. Consequently 
 as a part of the business of that firm he bears a share of its taxes. Then he 
 probably lives in a good boarding house, paying seven or eight dollars a 
 week in board. His landlady pays i ^r taxos; but from whom does she get 
 the money but from her boarders? He spends $150 yearly in clothes, and 
 his tailor can be depended upon to make his prices high enough to get 
 from his customers all the charges upon his business, taxes of course in- 
 
 . 
 
30 
 
 dueled, lie belongs to a clul). from the siihKcriptioiis to which the clubV 
 taxes are of course paid. TdHsihly lie h-aves fifty or a hundred dolhirs a 
 year with the naloons and billiard hallK (/!' tlie city. L)<u's any one suppose 
 the proprietors of these phicos run lliem as cimritabk' institutions, payinj; . . i 
 the taxes out of their own pockets? And so at every turn, in almost every ' 
 payment that he makes, some portion, it may be infinitesimally small — of 
 the money that he pays ultimately finds its way — it may be throuj^'h many 
 hands — into the treasury of the city. The larger a nunrs expenditures the , 
 
 greater is the contribution he in substance makes to the sum total of the -• . || 
 city's revenue. We cannot escape taxes if we live in I he city and spend 
 any money in it. We pay them at every turn, and the man who ultimately 
 hards them into the city collector no more pays them in reality than the • 
 
 merchant pays the custom duties when he hands them to I he collector (»r 
 customs. Everybody could see the absurdity of a claim that the importer 
 was the man who really paid the customs duties, and not the ultimate con- ' ' , 
 sunier. But that is merely because the facts are tjimple. The claim that 
 the city's taxes really come out of the pockets of the men who hand them 
 into the treasury instead of being distributed over the whole of the city's 
 population is just as untenable, only the facts are a good deal more com- 
 plicated, and the absurdity consequently not so apparent. 
 
 The things therefore to be studied in any tax sysl;em are (1) that it 
 ehall he such that the total tax burden will distribute itself moat easily 
 among all the people of the city, and 
 
 (2) — That the distribution will be m accordance with some fair and 
 equitable principle, that principle being, as we shall show in our next article, 
 that the contribution of each person shall be in accordance with the l)enetit 
 he derives from the city. 
 
 VIII.— Real Estate Values. 
 
 In our last article, after endeavoring to show the manner in which tax- ". ' 
 ation inevitably distributes itself over the whole community, and that the 
 aim of every tax reformer should be to seek such a principle of taxation as 
 will ensure an easy and equitable distributicm of the burden, we ventured 
 to lay doAvn the proposition that this principle would be found to be, tha: 
 the contributicn of every person should 1)e in accordance with the benefit 
 he derived from the city. 
 
 In discussing this principle, the first thing is to understand what we 
 mean by it. When people talk of the benefit derived from the city, they are 
 
21 
 
 ■'■ 1 • 
 
 Mj)t to think too exclusively of the benofits conferred ])y the expenditure of 
 money by the oity, schools for instance, police protection, protection from 
 fire, and the like. We do not mean these, or rather these things are but i 
 part of what we mean. What we mean is the benefit which every human 
 being in a city derives from the mere fact that he is in the city, that he is to 
 any extent a part of its life, business, and social environment, a partaker 
 of the benefits and advantaires which the acrtjregation of human beings 
 called a city create and mut\mlly confer one upon another. The man of 
 business finds it to his advantage to be in the city; but for the city with its 
 Ihousand advantages, he would find it almost impossible to do businesi*. 
 The professional man finds the opportunity of practising his profession in 
 the city. The man of wealth and leisure find in the city the means of 
 gratifying his tastes and of social enjoyment. The "young man who pays 
 no taxes" finds in the citj^, both the business that gives him his income and 
 the means of spending it according to his inclinations. We all find in the 
 city, in the gathering of human beings on this one spot of earth, some bene- 
 fit or some advantage which makes it worth our while to be here rather 
 than elsewhere. And yet w^e, each of us, do somethino; more or less to make 
 up the aggregate on which we are all dependent. This is human society. 
 NoAV our civic expenditure is simply the price that this aggregauon of 
 humanity (created a corpv.rif^^on for legal convenience), finds it necessary 
 or desirable to pay for certain things, without which it would be' more or 
 less difficult to get along,- and obviously all that justice requires is that 
 each unit of the aggregation should pay in proportion as he derives benefit. 
 Now fortunately there is one thing which ahsolutely measures and 
 defines this benefit, and that is the value of the real estate occupied by the 
 people of the city, and there is the most obvious reason why it should be 
 so, because that value is produced w^holly by the people of the city, and is 
 wholly dependent for its continued existence upon the maintenance of 
 human society at this particular spot of the earth's surface. Other descrip- 
 tions of property have a value in themselves — they can be eaten or worn or 
 minister to our comforts or pleasures. Their value is not dependent on 
 locality, their value in one place as compared with another being determ- 
 ined mainly by cost of transport; their quantity can be increased or lessened 
 according to demand. But the land of the city is a thing that has no value 
 apart from the presence of human beings to occupy it. The land on which 
 Halifax stands lay for millions of years without a value. It began to have 
 a value on the day on which Lord Cornwallis landed. That value has 
 
gone on increasing ever since, but it would diminish to nothing with the 
 departure of hnman beings from this spot. Tlie value of real estate is only 
 the price which men are willing to pay for the privillege of occupying it, and 
 therefore it is, reprefrented in dollars and cents, (the only way in which 
 such a thing can be measured), the exact measure of the sum total of the 
 benefits and advantages which the people of any place derive from their 
 own presence there. The sixteen millions of dollars at which the roiil 
 estate of Halifax is assessed exactly represents (allowing for human infirmity 
 in making the assessment) the sum of the benefits and advantages which 
 the 40,000 people of the city find they derive from living and doing busi- 
 ness on that real estate, and forming the community which occupies it. 
 And therefore it is that wo may feel absolutely certain that if we take thai; 
 value as our guide, we shall have a standard by which to measure exactly the 
 benefits (in the fullest sense of that word), derived from forming a part of 
 the community. Any tax based on real estate value is simply the city, as a 
 sort of landlord, appropriating to itself a part of the value which its citizen'^ 
 have created. 
 
 Tt is obvious also that any tax based upon real estate values must dis- 
 tribute itself not only rapidly and easily, but exactly in proportion to the 
 benefit each person derives from the city. No one can live or do business 
 in the city without either occupying some portion of its surface or doing 
 business with someone else who does. Ultimately in the way described 
 in our last article, the tax paid in the first instance by the occupier of the 
 land within the city will diffitse itself over the population, and each person 
 will bear his share of it in proportion to the extent to which he avails 
 himself of the privileges and advantages which the community offers to its 
 members. The man Avho spends freely will pay a heavy share of the tax- 
 ation, even though his nominal contributions may be the merest pittance. 
 On the other Jiand, if the man of wealth chooses to live in the style of a 
 begcrar, that is, to deliberately refuse to avail himself of any of the bene- 
 fits of city life or business opportunity, there is no reason or justice in call- 
 ing upon bin: to bear more than a beggar's contribution. 
 
 The tax is based upon real estate values, but upon what does it really 
 fall? Certainly not on real estate. As a matter of fact, real estate does not 
 and cannot pay one cent of taxes. There is only "one source available fo'' 
 purposes of taxation, and that is the incomes of the people of the place on 
 which the tax is laid. Out of those incomes the taxes must come, no matter 
 on what principle they are assessed. There is no danger of income escap- 
 
 ^-•■■"^■'■'-- 
 
'23 
 
 ing taxation, it must pay the whole of it. It is upon the incomes of the 
 people of any place in the last analysis that the values of its real estale musr 
 rest. If the incomes of all the people of Halifax were suddenly abolished 
 to-morrow and no new citizens with new incomes came forward to supply 
 their places, how much value would there he left to its real estate? The 
 fallacy lies in confusing the standard by which taxation is to be regulated, 
 and the sources from which it is pad. All taxation is to be regulated, and 
 the sources from which it is paid. All taxation must ultimately come out 
 of income, but income is no standard by which to regulate the amount of 
 rhe individual's taxes, because it has no necessary relation to the amount 
 (if benefit derived by the individual from the city. 
 
 One point more requires a word of explanation. On what principle are 
 we to regulate. the taxation of the groat civic monopolies— gas, water, light, 
 transport, etc., which play so large and increasing a part of our modern 
 civic life? The principle is the same, only the mode of application varies 
 wlightly. These monopolies derive their Imsiness opportunities solely from ' 
 the existence of the city, so much so that the tendency in all municipalities 
 is to take tbom to themselves and to give the citizens the full benefit of the 
 service, the op})ortunity for which they have themselves created. Halifax 
 made an excellent beginning in so doing in taking over, years ago, the 
 business of supplying itself with water. Why it has not gone on, in imita* 
 lion of the great English municipalities, and taken to itself the benefit of 
 the other civic monopolies is somewhat hard to understand. But if they 
 are to continue in private hands, then by all means let them be taxed, and 
 in proportion to the business opportunity afforded them by the city. It 
 if in the ascertainment of this benefit that the application of our principle 
 has to be somewhat varied. The value of the real estate occupied by them 
 is ao longer a safe guide, because they necessarily avail themselves of por- 
 tions of the area of the city not included in the assessment roll, namely the 
 streets. Consequently an estimate of their fair return for the benefit 
 received must be made in some other way, such, for instance, as a propor- 
 tion of their gross receipts, or by the city allowing them to retain only lo 
 much as will yield a fair return on the capital invested, with a fair allow- 
 ance for the risk of investment. But this is a matter of detail. The im- 
 portant thing to grasp is that the true principle of civic taxation is that it 
 should be in proportion to benefit derived, that the infallible measure of this 
 in real estate value, and that any tax based upon that value must inevitably 
 diffuse itself among the people of the community in proportion to the 
 
 ..i*.- 
 
t-' 
 
 extent to which they chose to avail themselves of the benefits of civic life. 
 
 If we have succeeded in making good this principle, it only remains: 
 as briefly as possible to deal with its practical application to Halifax, and 
 with a few of the leading stock-in-trade objections to any reform based 
 upon it. 
 
 IX.— How the Reform Would Work in Practice. 
 
 If we have succeeded in making good thus far the propositions, (a) that 
 civic taxation should be in proportion to benefit derived from the city, and 
 (b) that the true measure of that benefit is the value of the real estate 
 occupied within the city, it only means to apply these principles to the 
 City of Halifax, and to see first, how our existing tax system squares with 
 them; and second, if the application of them will remedy the grievance of 
 the merchants and manufacturers, with the statement of which this series 
 was begun. 
 
 The amount raised yearly in the City of Halifax by taxation exclusive 
 of water rates, may be stated in round figures at $355,000. The rate of 
 taxation fluctuates about $15 on the thousand, and that rate may be as- 
 sumed as constant for the purpose of this discussion. At that ratr the 
 sixteen million dollars of real estate pays (again iu round numbers) about 
 $240,000. At the same rate the five million dollars of personal property 
 which the assessors succeed in discovering (out of at least three times -that 
 amount liable to assessment if :t could be got at) contributes some $75,000, 
 of which mercantile stocks, manufacturing plants, and ships pay about 
 $50,000, and other personal property, consisting almost entirely of house- 
 hold furniture, about $25,000. The remaining $40,000 is made up from a 
 number of miscellaneous sources, including $16,000 from the banks on a 
 special tax, the result of an agreement arrived at several years ago, $12,000 
 from liquor licenses, rents of city property, fines in police court, special 
 taxes paid by gas and light companies, etc. 
 
 The tax problem presented by this set of facts is really a very simple 
 one, and one to which the application of the principles which we have 
 endeavored to lay down is comparatively easy. We are free from most 
 of the troubles which stand in the way of reform in many of the cities of 
 the United States, such as systematic fraudulent undor-valuation of real 
 estate. The $240,000 now raised from real estate, two-thirds of the total 
 assessment, requires no alteration. The tax is paid in the first instance by 
 the owners, and then by degrees distributed over the whole comnrunity in a 
 proportion that is bound to be just, because it is necessarily in proporton 
 
to the extent to which the individuals ultimately paying it choose to avail 
 themselves of the advantages of civic life. The $40,000 likewise raised from 
 miscellaneous sources can all with, little exception ho justified upon the 
 principles discussed in this series. The tax on liquor licenses, for instance, 
 is one the legitimacy of which no one disputes. The city has a perfect right 
 to make the right of dealing in stimulants an exceptional privilege, to be 
 paid for accordingly, and any tax so imposed is bound to distribute itself 
 among the patrons of the liquor dealers precisely in proportion to the 
 extent to which they avail themselves of the facility afforded for obtaining 
 liquor. The taxation of civic monopolies — gas, street railway, telephone 
 companies, electric light companies and the like, has already been dealt with. 
 The only anomaly under this head is the taxation of the banks. There is 
 no reason for taxing a bank upon a basis different from the taxation of any 
 other business. The magnitude of a ])ank's capital confuses the mind and 
 imagination of persons who have not thought the question out on principle. 
 But the sole connection between the l)ank and the city is that the latter 
 affords the former a certain amount of local business, and a place in which 
 tc locate the head othce from which to direct its business. In respect of 
 these two things the city has a right to tax, but in respect of anything else 
 the bank derives no benefit from the city and should pay nothing to it. 
 
 The one glaring anomaly in our tax system is the $75,000 raised in 
 respect of personal property. The $50,000 paid l)y the merchants and 
 manufacturers in respect of their merchandize, plant and ships, is a tax 
 levied absolutely without reference to any proportionate benefit derived by 
 them from the city. The amount of stock which a man requires to carry 
 to do business is no criterion of the business privilelge he enjoys. Some 
 businesses require a large stock to be carried, others equally extensive are 
 able to dispense with it entirely. The mere chance of the time of year when 
 the assessment is made, the accident that one man's stock is full and 
 another's comparatively low, the impossibility of making an assessment upon 
 mercantile stocks that will be more than the roughest guess — these and 
 similar chances cause the grossest inequalities in the tax paid by people in 
 business enjoying precisely the p"me business privileges. Such inequalities 
 will not rectify themselves by distribution. If one man in trade pays double 
 the tax in respect of his business that another man engaged in the same 
 business and doing about an equal volume, pays, he cannot distribute it in 
 the shape of an addition to the price of his goods. Similarly, if all the 
 merchants of Halifax are liable to a tax in respect of the ^' .J ^ in which 
 
they deal, from w^hich their competitors in other cities are free, out 
 merchants must bear the whole of it; they can distribute no part of it oi> 
 their customers. This is no mere supposition, as is well known. There 
 is not a foot of territory in which our Halifax merchants have not to con- 
 tend against the keenest competition from Montreal, whose merchnats ar.' 
 free from any taxation on personal property, paying only a '^business tax" 
 based solely on the value of the real estate occupied by them for business 
 purposes. The only criterion of business privilege is the value of the real 
 estate required to do business on. That is a matter entirely within the 
 control of the business man, and his own self-interest can be depended on 
 to take what his business requires and no more. The city has nothing to 
 do with the use he may make of the privilege, whether he carries a stock or 
 does wthout it, whether he makes money or loses it. All the city has a 
 right to say is: "You have a business privilege worth so much, that value 
 being exactly measured by the value of the premises you require to do your 
 business on; pay us for that privilege and make the most you can out of it." 
 Such a tax would be in every way fair and just. It would put an end to all 
 inequalities between people engaged in the same line of business, it would 
 be impossible of evasion, it could I'e assessed with ease and accuracy, it 
 would put our own merchants on an equlaity with their competitors in 
 Montreal, it would relieve the wholesale merchants and the manufacturers 
 of the gross over-assessment of which they now complain, Kiid would bring 
 up to a fair proportion of taxation a number of other businesses which now 
 enjoy most valuable business privileges without paying anything like a 
 fair equivalent for them, and it would at once and forever do away with 
 the absurdity of a law which, while pretending to assess all personal pro- 
 perty in practice assesses onlv one-third of it, and that third the very 
 ]iortioTi of all others that ought not to be taxed. 
 
 There is fortunately no ditHculty in making the tax of business pro- 
 |)crtionate to the value of the privilege. The business men of Halifax now 
 pay to the city $50,000 yearly on the assessors' estimate of the value of 
 their personal propert}', a business tax to all intents and purposes, but 
 grossly unfair and uneven in its distribution, because of the absurdity of 
 its basi.?. They occupy in order to do business real estate assessed at (in 
 round numbers) $5,500,000. A tax of one per cent on the assessed value, 
 paid by the occupiers, would give the city $55,000, and would be absolutely 
 fair and just in its incidence and distribution. 
 
 The same simple and effective method of reform can be applied to the 
 
\ ' ' 
 
 Temaining $25,000 now collected in respect of household furniture. It is 
 in effect nothing but a household tax, paid l^y householders in return ioi- 
 the benefit and privilege of occupying a house in the city. But the asses- 
 8or3' guess as to the value of the furniture in the house is an absurd thing 
 by which to measure the value of that benefit. The assessed value of tho 
 dwelling houses in the city is (in round figures) $10,000,000. a tax of one- 
 iourth of one per cent paid by the occupier gives the sum required to be 
 raised. 
 
 This is the whole reform in a nutshell. Repeal the tax which pro- 
 fesses to tax personal pwperty, but which in reality does nothing of the sort, 
 but simply furnishes an utterly absurd and inadequate basis for businciiS 
 and household taxes, and in its place substitute the only true basis for such 
 taxes, namely, the assessed values of the real estate occupied. The change 
 will give the city all the monov raised by the present sj^stem and will com- 
 pletely reform the admited grievances of the mercantile community with 
 the statement of which this series sets out. It would give us a perfect law — 
 perfect, that is, in the sense of being based throughout upon an intelligible, 
 defensible principle, needing only honesty and ordinary intelligence in its 
 administration to ensure as near an approach to perfection as can be hoped 
 for. 
 
 In our next and concluding article we shall deal briefly with a few of 
 the commonest objections to +he plan of reform here presented. 
 
 X. — Some Objections Considered. 
 
 "We propose in this concluding article to consider briefly some of the 
 objections most commonly iirged against the proposal to substitute a 
 "business tax" and "household tax," both based on real estate values, for 
 the taxation now levied in respect of m.erchandise and domestic furniture. 
 
 1. — The abolition of the taxation of personal property is dericiiiioed 
 as a sweepinar change. But personal property is not taxed now, except in 
 name, seeing that over two-thirds of what is supposed to be taxed escapes, 
 and will escape, do what we will. Wc are paying a "business tax" and a 
 "household tax" now in reality, though not in name, but being based upon 
 a wrong principle they are grossly unfair. The change would simply 
 recognize things as they really are, and redress an admitted wrong by placing 
 these taxes upon a correct basis. 
 
 2. — That the change would enable a number of wealthy firms to "un- 
 load" their taxes on to the shoulders of other poeple. The argument is 
 simply a begging of the question — an assumption that the business firms. 
 
 5*.*„.:A 
 
' ^-^W'"* 
 
 now 30 grossly over-taxed, are rightly taxed. The only rational mode of 
 discussing this question is to ascertain what should be the correct principle 
 and regulate taxation accordiTigly. If we have succeeded in demonstrating 
 what that principle should be, then the amount of relief afforded to any- 
 business by its application is simply the measure of the injustice of the 
 present system. Moreover, the assumption that the firms so grossly over- 
 taxed at present are all wealthy is purely gratuitous. How little founda- 
 tion there may be for it has been more than once unpleasantly demonstrated 
 by the unsparing revelations of bankruptcy. Firms that have been assessed 
 on the supposition that they were the owners of many thousands of dollars 
 worth of merchandize, have been shown to have been for years worth 
 many thousands Jess than nothing, and consequently the hypothesis upon 
 which their business tax was based shewn to have been an absolute false- 
 hood. 
 
 3. — That the proposed change is inmical to the interest of real estate, 
 and would throw a large proportion of taxation upon the holders of that 
 species of property. 
 
 To this charge, so constantly made, there are a number of answers, 
 <;ach of which ought to be conclusive. It is not proposed to place one 
 dollar additional on real estate, or to alter in the least its assessment, nor tr 
 lessen the amount now contributed by business and households, but simpiy 
 to provide a rational mode of assessing these last. If the chnage has any 
 etl'ect at all on real estate it will, by promoting the prosperity of the com- 
 munity, tend to enhance the value of real estate. But furthermore, it can 
 easily be demonstrated that the present system inevitably tends constantly 
 tc throw a greater and greater proportion of the taxation on the owners of 
 real estate. As we have already shown the proportion of personalty to 
 realty grows constantly less. Ten years ago in Halifax it was 5 to 15, 
 to-day it is 5 to 16. In communities of more rapid growth the tendency 
 is far more marked. In New York State in 1869 real estate contributed 
 78 per cent, of the public revenue, personal 22 per cent.; in 1879 real estate 
 was made to pay 87 8-10 per cent., personal only 12 2-10. In California, a 
 State which has made the most strenuous efforts at the assessment of per- 
 sonal property, the only result of those efforts has been that the proportion 
 of personalty to the total value of assessed property has fallen steadily from 
 50 per cent, in 1861 to 34 per cent, in 1874, 26 per cent, in 1880 and 13 1-3 
 per cent, in 1894. In the city of Providence, R. I., the assessed value of 
 realty rose between 1867 and 1886 from 45 millions to 98 millions. In the 
 
29 
 
 same time the assessed personalty of the place dwinclled from 40 millions to 
 33 millions. In the former year the proportions of the total assessment 
 lorne respectively by realty and personalty were 53 and 47 per cent.; in 
 the latter they had become 80 and 20. In Boston in .1 867 real estate con- 
 tiibuted 56 per cent, and personalty 44. Last year the proportions had 
 become 71 and 39. Taking the United States as a whole, while assessed 
 estate real estate increased 87 per cent, between 1860 and 1880, assessed 
 personal estate diminished by 34 per cent, in the same time. From these 
 figures the following deductions appear to be inevitable. If the total tax- 
 ation of the city continues to grow, and the assessed value of real 
 estate also continues to grow, but the assessed value of personality 
 stands still or diminishes, the proportion of taxation borne by the owners 
 of real estate must continue to become larger year by year. So long as we 
 persist in our present system of basing the taxation of business upon the 
 amount of stock carried by a business man this condition of things will 
 inevitably continue. 
 
 4. — That if the rate of business tax is fixed while that on real estate is 
 left open then any increase in taxation will fall upon the latter and not 
 on the former. This diflficulty can be easily met by providing that the rate 
 of business tax shall always bear a fixed proportion to the rate on real 
 estate. Thus, assume that the rate on real estate at present is $1.50 p. c, 
 and that the rate of business tax requisite to give us the amount now realized 
 from merchandise and shipping would be 1 per cent., on the value of the 
 premises occupied. Provide that the proportion between those rates should 
 be maintained in all increases or decreases. Then supposing the rate on 
 realty to raise to $165, the rate of business tax would rise to $1.10, and 
 similarly a fall to $1.35 would involve a reduction in the latter to .90. 
 
 5. — That the proposed reform is something new and radical. It may 
 be new in Halifax and startling to people who have not read anything on the 
 subject of municipal taxation elsewhere, but it is very old and well tried in 
 other places. For more than half a century municipal rates in all the cities 
 of Great Britain have been based entirely on the assessed values of real 
 estate, and such a thing as the taxation of personal property in any manner 
 is, in the language of a distinguished economist, "only mentioned to be 
 laughed at." 
 
 More than a century ago, in 1775, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of 
 England, pointed out as clearly as has ever been done since, the anomalies 
 and absurdities of the attempt to take personal property into account in 
 
•WW5JWV 
 
 50 
 
 aagessing to the poor rate The ease (Cowper's Reports, 326) came before 
 the Queen's Bench on a motion to compel the Justices of Ringwood to take 
 into account on the assessment the stock on hand of certain brewers, valued 
 at £4,000. liord Mansfield said: — 
 
 "In general I believe neither here nor in any other part of the king- 
 dom is personal property taxed to the poor 1 think the justice^ 
 
 would not have done very wrong if they had acquiesced in the practice which 
 has obtained ever since the stat. 43 Eliz., of not rating this species of pro- 
 perty The justices at session^ should have amended the rate if 
 
 they thought this property ratable; and then on attempting to do it they 
 would have discovered the wisdom of fjonforming to the practice whicli 
 they expressly state in the case, of not rating it. If they had tried to have 
 amended it, how would they have rated this stock? Are the hops and tlie 
 malt and the boiler to be rated at so much for each? Or is the trader to he 
 rated for the gross sum which hif- whole stock would sell for? If tho 
 justices had considered, they would have found out the sense of not rating 
 it at all, especially when it appears that mankind has, as it were, with one 
 universal consent refrained from rating it; the difficulties attending it arc 
 too great, and so the justices would have found them. As to the author- 
 ities which have been cited, they are very loose indeed; and even if they were 
 less so, one would not pay them very much deference, especially as thoy 
 differ; and the rules they lay down have not been carried into execution 
 for upwards of a hundred years. They talk of visible property. What is 
 visible property? I confess I do not know what is meant by visible pro- 
 perty If ever}' visible thing should be determined to come under that 
 description, in that case a lease for years, a watch in a man's pocket, 
 would be rateable. Visible properly is something local in the place where 
 a man inhabits. But that does not decide what a man's personal property is. 
 Consider how many tradesmen depend upon ostensible property only.'* 
 The decision of the judges in ] 706, that a tradesman was liable for his stock, 
 was, Lord Mansfield added, extra-judicial. "But supposing it were nor, 
 what do they mean by the visible stock of an artificer? Some artificei-s 
 have a considerable stock-in-trade; some have only a little; others none at 
 all. Shall the tools of a carpenter be called his stock-in-trade, and as suoh 
 be rated? A tailor has no stock-in-trade; a butcher has none; a shoemaker 
 has a great deal. Shall the tailor, whose profit is considerably greater than 
 Ihat of the shoemaker, be untaxed, and the shoemaker taxed?" 
 
 By the Act of 1840 personal property of every description is absolutely 
 exempted from being rated. - 
 
 Montreal has for years had a business tax based on rental values, to 
 the complete satisfaction (so far as the mode of assessment goes) of the 
 entire community. Speaking of the Montreal system, Mr. David A. Wells, 
 perhaps the most eminent living authority on this subject, says in a private 
 letter: — "I think the Montreal system the best in existence. It consists 
 
^tflWTP'' — 
 
 31 
 
 mainly of a tax on the market value of land, and then a tax on rentals for 
 Imsiness occupancy, with something additional in the way of licenses. The 
 fault of the system is, that it does not tax rentals or rental values other than 
 for business. I would tax all, as a substitute for all taxes on personal 
 property/' or in other words the addition of a "household tax" to the "busi- 
 ness tax." In Philadelphia these is practically no tax on personalty. 
 
 Singularly enough, we have in operation in Halifax one part of our 
 tax system based upon the principles here contended for, to the perfect 
 satisfaction of everybody. We refer to our water rates. These are levied 
 under a separate Act, but they are Just as much a tax as the money paid for 
 schools or police or the fire brigade or and other of our civil services. They 
 are directed by the Act to be "levied on the assessed value of all real estate 
 property in the City of Halifax." When the works of the old water 
 company were taken over by the city, the Water Commissioners adopted 
 as the plan of their rates those in use in Glasgow. They have proved per- 
 fectly satisfactory, but there was nothing to prevent the Commission basing 
 them, as well as the rest of our tax system, on real and personal property 
 within the city, and if they had been, every argument now urged against 
 a reform of the rest of the tax system could have been urged with equal 
 force against a reform of the water rates. 
 
 r. H. BELL. 
 
 The Assessment Committee of the St. John Board of Trade, under 
 whose auspices (with the kind consent of Mr. ¥. H. Bell) the foregoing 
 pamphlet has been re-published, feel that a few figTires may be useful to 
 show citizens of St. John the manner in which the principles, so ably stated 
 by Air. Bell, have been applied in the City of Montreal and in the proposed 
 Halifax bill now before the Legislature of Nova Scotia. The system of 
 taxation here recommended for favorable consideration briefly stated is as 
 follows, viz: 
 
 1. A tax on real estate. 
 
 2. A business tax, in the form of an assessment, based on the annual 
 rental of the business premises — to be paid by the occupier. 
 
 3. A household tax , in the form of an assessment based on the annual 
 rental of the dAvelling — to be paid by the occupier. (The annual rental 
 referred to in No. 2 and 3. above, shall be deemed to be ten per cent, of the 
 assessed value of the premises — smaller rentals exempt). 
 
 4. License fees — to be paid by Incorporated Companies (such as 
 Eailways, Gas Company, Banks, Insurance Companies, &c.), professions, 
 horses, carriages, bicycles, telephones^ &c., &c. 
 
^ 
 
 — VKiKTa 
 
 .■'"'•■■ 82 
 
 5 A special tax on every person having a yearly income of $ 
 
 or over, and who is not assessed in respect of Business tax, Household tav 
 or License fees. 
 
 N. B. It Avill be observed that no rate of taxation is named under any 
 of the forgoing heads. It is not possible to name rates at this stage, a care- 
 ful study of the local conditions being requisite before rates for St. John 
 can be fixed. Attention is directed to the fact that in the proposed Halifax 
 bill business rentals of $50 and under and household rentals of $1"3() and 
 under, are exempt. Water assessment is not included in any of the forego- 
 ing or either of the following statements. 
 
 In Montreal the taxes fixed are: 
 
 1. Real estate 1 1-4 per cent, on assessed value, 
 
 2 Business tax 7 1-2 per cent, on the annual rental. 
 
 3, Household tax None at present. 
 
 4. License fee Fixed sums, as scheduled. 
 
 6. Special tax None at present. 
 
 A bill is at present before the Quebec Legislature containing clauses 
 amending the present Assessment law in the City of Montreal; in this bill 
 incomes over $500 — on all persons doing business or earning their livelihood 
 in the City of Montreal paying thereto no tax.'* 
 
 In Halifax the proposed rates are: 
 
 1. Real estate 1 1-2 per cent, on assessed value. 
 
 2. Business tax 10 per cent, on the annual rental — rentals under $50 
 exempt. 
 
 3. Household tnX 3 per cent on the annual rental — rentals under $1:30 
 exempt. 
 
 4. License fees, fixed sums, as scheduled. 
 
 5. Special tax — $10 on all persons whose yearly income is $700, or 
 over, and who is not assessed in respect of Business tax. Household tax, or 
 License fees. 
 
 The Committee of the St. John Board of Trade have urged that such 
 legislation may at once be obtained as may enable the Board of Assessors to 
 secure all necessary information in order that the local conditions of the city 
 and the varying interests affected by civic assessment may be fully and intel- 
 ligently considered. - . 
 
 .St. John Board of Trade, 8 March, 1899. 
 
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