The Hawaiian gazette., 1881-04-13


what is to become of the three Hawaiian waits
who are adrift in the European world? They
have basked, according to their own account
in the Don's greatness, "but a man cannot live
upon air, and probably your Government will
soon be called upon for something more sub
stantial.
DOUBLE TAXATION.
Two things only in human affairs are certain,
death and the Tax-Collector: the latter, or
rather his dcdut courier, the Assessor, bursts
upon the vision of the citizen of the State, on
the first Monday in March; previous to that
day the citizen is furnished with carefully
wordcd blank, in which all holes are carefully
stopped and queries intended to deveope the
whole truth are put to him. This blank is to
be fortified with an oath and fanked with a
penalty, puts the citizen on his honor or his
mettle, depending somewhat upon the char
acter of said citizen.
This present March, whatever truths said
citizen may hold, regarding double taxation,
This new Constitution, framed as has been said
by men ignorant of or contemptuous, of the
elementary principles of Political Economy.
he must determine and report u value upon
all property tangible or constructive, which
he may happen to hold. Like good boy he
must tell the Assessor of all the tangible per-
sonal property of which lie happens to he
seized, then of the goods of other persons con-
signed to him, (iable to be seized or not by
said consignees, according as to whether or
not, he is liable to emotional insanity y then
of all the solvent amounts due him, unsecured
by mortgage, from which he may deduct what
ever he owes to residents in this State, outside
creditors not being counted in (probably the
contingency of his paying foreign creditors be-
ing considered too remote or too misty to af-
ford good ground for reductions), then account
of all mortgages or secured credits, then his
franchises, his money in hand or in banks, and
his stocks in corporations. When the good
citizen has done all this, as well MS made re-
turns of several special properties, named
seriatim in the blank, he is supposed to have
discharged his whole duty, and is fit for the
Kingdom of Heaven from the political stand
point.
Why should the average citizen puzzle his
head about what is property? 1t is one of
those copundrums which has posed and divided
the acutest minds, and although if man has
any valuables, he is not troubled about finding
out their worth himself, without much waste
of intellect, still he cannot be expected to
know as much as a Legislature or the Trainer
of Constitutions. Men and newspapers here,
fall together by the ears, about what consti-
tutes double taxation, and so have they done
on your edenic islands, where if man owns
a dime or a dimes worth, either he, or his
neighbors are apt to know it.
One of your honorable citizens has made
warfare with vigorous steel upon this hydra,
backing him to bay against the logic wall of
plantation stock, and your Courts have decided
in this case at least that evidences of property
are not the reality. Here under the New Con-
stitution, the warfare about stocks is again re-
newed. The1past two years have witnessed
such declension in this species of property,
such cleaning out Of men who deemed them
selves rich, that if now, one OWNS stock, (min-
ing especially, and subject to assessments,
he would he esteemed crazy, out of his head,
TO Imagine or believed that he possessed
valuable. Formerly man or a company paid
taxes on stock, concentrated or watered will
ingly, so long as it had character enough TO
be put upon the market, and thus draw
dividends from the con6ding public, in default
of legitimate income; would pay taxes on
liberal assessment rather than risk swearing
it down, but when close times like the present
are on hand they become casuists about what
is, and what is not property.
The Chronicle which supports the New
Constitution says:
Inc revenue law anu TIE TUleS Established
by the Board of Equalization provide that the
aggregate market value of the capital stock of
every corporation must be ascertained, and if
this aggregate value exceeds aggregate as
sessed value of all the other property of the
the amount of such excess must
be divided by the entire number of shares is
sued, and each share must be assessed to the
owner for its proportionate value of the ascer-
tanned excess. Such rule cannot work any
injury. 1t cannot be truthfully termed double
taxation, for ihe real property, machinery,
etc, is only assessed once, and the excess in |
value of the shares once. No exceptions will |
be taken to it by companies doing business
upon an honestly stated capital Only those |
corporations whose stocks are watered, and |
who yearly fleece the people out of the i'm
mense sums necessary to pay the round div
dends OH their fictitious capital are injured |
BY it,"
Here we see that stock is property not
evidence only of it, for smart bull or bear
,an or may turn an honest penny ont of it.
On the contrary, the Bulletin, which was
lnti-C Constitution, says:
"The Constitution does declare Article
KILL, Section /, ''that all property in this
=. II 4 /