New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-11-06
SITE LAWS on INSURANCE.

SITE LAWS on INSURANCE.
We have received an appeal to the people
and Legislatures of the several States against
the common practice of levying State taxes in
such a manner as to discriminate in favor of
insurance companies located in the State and
against those established elsewhere. The ZAP
peal" claims that the practice is both unconsti-
tutiona and impotic-mconstitution be-
cause in violation of the provision Of the Con-
stitution declaring that the citizens of each
State shall be entitled TO all the privileges
"and immunties of the citizens of the several
States = and impOlitc because it is only by
the frccst competition that the highest stand
ing of insurance companies can be maintained
and the security of the insured be most chcaply
promoted.
Whether such legislation is polite is a Qucs-
ton of divided merits, which must bc decided
by each State Legislature for itself, according
to that which seems to it to be the interest of
the people for whom it is lcgislating. Every
State or Nation has a distinct individuality,
midway between the single citizen and the
world at large, and in the interest of It's State
or national individuality it is bound TO lcgis-
late, upon the principle that the aggregate of
States, rs well as of individuals, will be- best
provided for when each State or individual
provides in the best manner for itself and
that what is for the interest of each cannot
mar the harmonious interests OF all There can
be no doubt, therefore, of the moral right and
even the duty of each State 10 adjust lis own
burdens of taxation, where il can, in the in
terests of its own people. The true question
i xxh he pf q af lac Ia
of any State are best promoted by protecting
its home insurance companies, so far as dis
elimination in taxation may do so, against
competition with foreign companies, or by lcav-
ing them free TO struggle against such COMPETE
ton. The discrimination IN taxation promotes
cheap insurance TO the people of State by
developing home companies, which would not
otherwise have existed On the other hand
free competition of the home with the foreign
companies may promote cheap insurance 10y
preventing the home companies from becOm-
ing a monopoly.
The question is analogous TO that between
free trade in foreign wares and protection of
the home manufacture, and may be deter
mined on similar principles. There are two
periods when country may afford free trade
i'm foreign warcs-the first when it is so dcsti-
tute Of capital, labor, and resources that it can
not, with any degree of protection, proftably
manufacture its own wares; and the second,
when it is so abundant in capital, labor, and
resources, that il can, without any prOte ction
whatever, fully supply with manufactures its
home markets.
Between these two periods, rs between the
utter helplessness of infancy and the perfect
independence of maturity in the individual
man, there is an era of greater or less duration
in the life of every nation when it needs gov
emmental protection, education and develop
ment-whcn with these aids it can succeed in
manufactures which, without them, it would
not undertake So Of insurance. There has
been a period in the history of each of Our
States when any attempt to coninc the people
of a State to its home companies would only
deprive them of the benefits of insurance, with
ont developing safe home companies. There
has been, on will be, period when their home
companies will be fully able to defy all compe-
ttion from abroad, and when in the interest of
the insured they ought TO do so. 1t is for the
legislators of each State to decide whether, in
the interim between these periods, protection
to their home insurance companies, so far rs
discrimination in taxation may secure that end,
is desirable. Non-residcnts of the State will
have no just reason for quaueling with their
decision on the ground that it is contrary to the
interests of the people of the State legislated
for, since of that question its legislators, and
not its non-resdents, are the proper Judges;
nor OF tho ground that it is against the in
tcrests of non-resdents, for no State Legisla-
turc is called upon to legislate in the interests
of non-residents.
All that the constitutional provision referred
TO means is that the citizens of each state,
on going into and becoming residents of a State,
shall attain the rights of citizen thereof, and
the same terms as if he were a citizen Of any
other State than that from which he enters;
aud that the citizens Of each State, not going
into or bccOmlng re,dents Of d narlIcular