That government will be best which confines itself most strictly within the sphere of its duties; which, recognizing the sacredness of personal freedom, imposes no more restriction upon the individual than is necessary for the safety of society, and whose laws, like those of nature, are impartial in design and general in their operation. The great mass of the people neither expect nor desire any benefits from government which are not common to all. There will always be, however, an active few seeking the advancement of their own interest by legislation, and they will never be wanting in specious arguments in their own behalf, while the public welfare is apt to be silent until it is injured.

TEST OF LEGISLATION.

The most necessary laws will often confer incidental personal advantages. School houses and highways will best accommodate those who live nearest to them; public buildings may advance the value of contiguous property; public offices involve the payment of fees and salaries to individuals.

From the nature of things it is impossible that law should equalize human conditions. There is one test, however, which should be applied to every measure of legislation-is the general good the object, and individual advantage the necessary incident? or is individual profit the object, and the general good the incident or pretext? It should always be remembered that government is only the agent of the people for spec fied purposes; that it should never attempt to do for the people what they can as well do for themselves, and that, having nothing of its own to bestow, it cannot give to one without taking from another. The law of compensation is inexorable, and in political economy it will be forever true that to seek a partial good is to incur a general evil.

No body of men was ever wise enough to adjust the conflicting interests and direct the various industries of a large community. To attempt it is to disturb the equilibrium of society. Every citizen has the same right to protection from his government. Under the security afforded by a just government, extending equal protection, enterprise and labor will find their most profitable channels, character its best development, and society its most harmonious organization. Brilliant schemes that promise immediate benefits in a particular direction appeal strongly to the imagination, but their highest success is too dearly paid for by the sense of injustice which impairs the respect for law and weakens the ties of patriotism.

IDEA OF GOVERNMENT.

It follows that my own idea of government is that law should be the simplest possible expression of the necessities of society, and administration a matter of business, not of show. It does not follow, if we all agree in this, that we shall be able to realize our ideal. I trust, however, we shall honestly try.

LOCAL AND GENERAL LAWS.

In a State so large in area and so diversified in natural and artificial resources and conditions as ours, some local regulations will always be necessary. It is the part of wisdom that the communities immediately interested should determine these for themselves, and State laws may be made general by conferring upon local authorities sufficient powers

for local government. As the State, however, is directly interested in the credit of each of its political subdivisions, and is charged with the duty of protecting every citizen from burdensome exactions, care should be taken to interpose proper restrictions against the creation of debts, the levy of excessive taxes, and the appropriation of money to private enterprises.

The provision of the Constitution which prohibits the creation of a State debt without a popular vote will be of little practical utility if the cities and counties are allowed to contract obligations which become a charge in detail upon the property of the State. Subject to these limitations, and under proper regulations to secure uniformity in the operation of general laws, every county, town, and city should be self-governing in everything which concerns its local affairs, and the Legislature be relieved of the embarrassment of considering measures of special application. If the theory of popular institutions be true, government should be brought as near the people as possible, that it may be directly amenable to public opinion, its mistakes earliest realized, and most easily remedied.

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT OF CITIES.

It is sometimes conceded that the democratic theory fails in its application to the municipal government of large cities. If it does, necessarily its ultimate failure will be entire, for diverse principles of government cannot permanently obtain in the same general system, and the tendency of population is more and more toward centralization. Perhaps the cause of failure may be found rather in the methods of application than in the principle itself. The city, where public opinion is most concentrated, and its great organ, the press, most powerful, where the interests to be affected are most immediate, should be as capable of municipal self-government as the State and nation are of general government. The experiment should be fairly tried, without divided responsibility, and with the certainty that the municipal regulations of a city, being made by itself, will be such as it deserves.

REVENUE AND TAXATION.

The most important and difficult functions of the State Government relate to revenue and taxation. To combine economy with efficiency in administration and to apportion taxes equitably are the ever recurring problems which address themselves to the legislator and political economist. In public as in private life, economy requires the sacrifice of show to substance and the wise adaptation of means to ends. Blind parsimony may prove as wasteful as wilful extravagance. The people expect their representatives to deal honestly with them, to make appropriations intelligently for the necessary purposes of good government, and to exact strict accountability for their proper expenditure. No offices should be created for the sake of affording places; the cost of public buildings should be limited to fair estimates; appropriations for necessary expenses of State institutions (as prison, asylums, etc.) should be sufficient, so that demands against the State should not be discounted while money is lying idle in the General Fund, and every care should be taken to prevent the credit of the State from being pledged, directly or by implication, beyond the exact authorization of law.

The fiscal affairs of the State should be managed as a prudent business man manages his own, paying well for services rendered, and for no more. Every dollar of taxation represents the labor of some one-labor contributed to the State for the common good, to the "commonwealth," but which is felt as an unjust exaction, a wrongful use of arbitrary power, when devoted to individual or partial benefit.

DEFECTS IN OUR SYSTEM OF TAXATION.

A very large proportion of the revenue of the State is raised by direct taxation upon property.

The Constitution requires that taxation shall be uniform throughout the State. "All property in this State shall be taxed in proportion to its value, to be ascertained as directed by law; but Assessors of town, county, and State taxes shall be elected by the qualified electors of the district, county, or town in which the property taxed for State, county, or town purposes is situated." The difficulty in giving a literal construction to the final clause without the most complicated and expensive machinery seems insuperable, as is ably shown by Commissioner Lindley in the preface to the Chapter on "Town Governments," in the report of the Revision Commission.

No scheme of taxation has ever been devised which was absolutely just. Perhaps none can be. The theory of our Constitution on the subject is perfectly fair; its failure in everything except raising the necessary revenues is confessed. The burdens of taxation are practically distributed as follows: The non-taxpayer feels them in the increased expense of living, and if he depend upon his daily labor, as over taxation discourages industrial enterprises, in diminished wages and diminished opportunities of employment. Among taxpayers the proportion paid by each is in inverse ratio to his ability-the wealthiest paying the least percentage on the value of their property. There are exceptions, but probably not more than to every general principle. A perfectly just system, if attainable, would reverse this rule.

If every member of the community knew that he was called upon to pay only his just proportion of the necessary expenses of government, no obligation would be more cheerfully met. As the distribution is felt to be unfair, each is apt to fancy himself the greatest sufferer, and to look upon the Assessor and Collector as his natural enemies. Too low a valuation in one county is made the excuse for one still lower in another, and no individual willingly returns his property at its full market worth, knowing that the rate has been fixed on the assumption that not more than fifty per centum of all values will be reached. Under our Constitution, while a "State Board of Equalization" may be very useful in bringing gross abuses to light, it is doubtful if its powers can be more than moral, or extend beyond recommendations and instructions. The difficulty of determining by a single Board the values of real estate and visible personal property, is manifest in a State so large and of such varied conditions as ours; while moneys and solvent debts, not evidenced by public records, so easily elude observation, and the latter are susceptible of such varied definition, that the old system of torturing the body by rack, thumb screw, and lash, and the modern device of torturing the conscience by oaths administered by the Assessor, have alike failed to fully disclose them to the tax gatherer.

Apportioning the assessment of a railroad to the various counties through which it passes, leads to the absurdity of attempting to estimate

the value of a road cut off from connections at both ends, and to inquire into the probable worth of the iron and ties, "as they lie," for purposes other than the only one for which they are fit.

Between the perplexing questions whether the shares in a corporation should be assessed to individual holders, the market value of the property belonging to the incorporation assessed to the company, or the value of the franchise be included, the rule is usually adopted which yields the lowest valuation.

The law which allows a property holder to cancel a tax by showing some technical irregularity is a premium on litigation without risk, and enables large taxpayers, individual and corporate, to dictate their own terms of compromise.

Our system not only fails in proper distribution, but its influence is demoralizing; and every system which largely involves the exercise of individual discretion and the universal administration of oaths to parties in interest will have the same result.

PLAN OF TAXATION SUGGESTED.

Since it is practically impossible to impose taxes directly upon all property according to its value, the question ought to be seriously considered whether they may not be so imposed as to "equitably distribute themselves." A tax upon land, if uniform, becomes a fixed quantity in the calculation of its value; it is a known encumbrance, and modifies its price. To that extent land values will adapt themselves to a uniform rate of taxation. If land values (including, of course, village, city, and country) alone were taxed, the revenue of the State would be in the nature of a reserved rent, stipulated for at every transfer, and modifying the consideration at every sale. If that policy had been originally adopted, speculation in unoccupied lands would have been in some degree prevented, the lands would be more generally cultivated by owners, and bear the whole burden of taxation with more ease than they now do their proportion, leaving all improvements and personal property free. The vested rights of land owners will probably forever prevent a recurrence to this policy.

I beg to submit for public consideration the brief outline of a plan, for some of the suggestions of which I am indebted to the very able report of the "Commission on Local Taxation," recently appointed by Governor Hoffman, of New York.

Lands, other than town, city, and suburban lots, to be classified, the Assessor to determine the class to which each tract belongs, when the law will fix its value for purposes of taxation. The classification could be so adjusted as to discourage the holding of land in large bodies for purposes of speculation, and made effective to that end by recognizing possessory rights and inchoate titles as taxable. The State to determine the value of the franchises of such corporations as railroad, banking, gas companies, etc., by aggregating the market value of their stock and bonds, collect a fixed rate percentum on the whole, and give the counties and cities a fair equivalent for their right of local taxation. Moneys to be indirectly reached by a stamp tax on notes, bonds, mortgages, etc. This would leave town, city, and suburban lots, and personal property other than moneys and debts, to be assessed by appraisement.

I have dwelt upon the whole subject at some length, as any radical, and I believe, any beneficial change in our revenue system requires a

change in the Constitution, and this is the only opportunity I shall have of officially addressing the people directly.

I know the suggestions offered are imperfect; I trust, then, general discussion will result in the maturing of some plan which will apportion taxes more equitably, collect them more cheaply, and in a greater degree check one of the growing and threatening evils of our time-land monopoly. The theories of the most advanced writers on political economy and the practice of the civilized world outside the United States, condemn our present system as cumbersome in machinery, unjust in distribution, and demoralizing in influence. Our constitutional provisions, like many other laws, practically defeat their own theory.

SUBSIDIES.

It is the history of every country that with increasing wealth there is an increasing tendency toward centralization, and a growing danger that aggregated capital will obtain undue political influence. "It is one of the problems of government to prevent the ruling power from becoming all-powerful." Whether the ruling power is found in numbers, where it is supposed to be, or in money, where it too often is, every care should be taken to restrain its exercise within the bounds of justice. In administering the government we are called upon to consider not only immediate material advantages, but ultimate moral effects. It is certain that where money is a political power at all, there is a constant danger that it will become all-powerful. It is the most active principle of society, forever seeking its own, and not apt to be content with that. When the accumulation of wealth is the legitimate result of energy and sagacity, it is a stimulant to industry and enterprise, and their just reward; when conferred by favoritism of law, it is first an incentive to, then a source of political corruption. If any favors are granted at all they should be to the weak, and not the strong. But the law should be no respecter of persons, if for no other reason, because favors granted to any are certain to gravitate to the strongest power.

These considerations, together with the manifest injustice of weighing benefits to some, against injuries to others, even if the benefits preponderate, have had a determining influence in forming public opinion on the subject of State and local subsidies to railroad and other corporations. In order to give effective expression to the pronounced will of the people, the Act known as the "Five Per Cent Law" should be repealed, and the necessary steps be taken to amend the Constitution so as to prevent similar legislation hereafter.

FARES AND FREIGHTS.

The right of the State to regulate the rate of freights and fares on railroads is founded on the fact that every railroad invokes the exercise of one of the State's highest prerogatives-the condemning of private property, in its construction. The Legislature should exercise this right with due consideration, to protect the public from overcharges, and at the same time afford proper guarantees to invested capital, and give liberal encouragement to the building of railroads. The present rates were established at a time when the standard of values was much higher than now, and when the construction of railroads in this State was regarded as a costly and hazardous experiment. That they are too high is a fair deduction from the facts that they are not less than three