Morning journal and courier., 1882-07-18

RAILROAD RULE IN NEW JERSEY
 A committee was appointed by the Legis- lature of New Jersey to investigate the rela- tions of the railroads to tho State, and though it has not yet finished it's work it has made some very interesting discoveries The committee has been inquiring concerning the extent to which the railroads help bear the
 burden of taxation, and it is found that prac-
 tically the railroad corporations which own
 property in New Jersey assess themselves
 and pay about what they please
 When new road is built in New Jersey
 the officers are obliged to return the cost of the road and its equipment to the State Con- troller. If subsequent purchases made 1 these, too must be reported. The statements of the officials themselves, it is said, are cepted as final in the matter. No inquiry is ever made into them. The Controller testi- fled before the committee that he did not know that ha had any right to go behind the returns He thought that he was not author ized to demand even en itemized report. Nor could he say whether the returns filed in his office are as full as those presented to the stockholders. He had never compared them, and, unless he had some outside unofficial in. timation that the property of road had been grossly undervalued, want of time and the pressure of other duties would forbid an effort on his part to enforce fair and correct valuation. The difficulty of adjusting the values is increased
 by the fact that even after the first cost has been reported, the railroads have the full lib-
 erty of cutting down the figures on the pre-
 tense that the value has deteriorated. It is
 the value and not the cost which is the basis
 of taxation, and it is found that nothing
 loses value in New Jersey like railroad prop
 erty.
 There is Railroad Tax Commissioner in
 New Jersey, who is paid the magnificent
 salary of $1,Oo0 year. He is obliged to de-
 pend entirely upon the returns of the local
 assessors. A writer in the New York zinaes
 says of the local assessors f'The local
 sessors are, in almost every part of the State,
 under the control of the corporations, and
 they return the figures which the companies
 want them to return. In Jersey City, for in-
 stance, they get their appointments from the Board of Finance, four of the five members of which are not only interested in the rail
 roads, but are in the service of one or the other of them. One of the assessors is him. self in the pay of the Erie railroad"
 Controller Anderson has prepared an inter esting table showing the value of taxable railroad property in New Jersey in 1876 and 1880. From this table it appears that several of the railroads of New Jersey had much less taxable property in 1880 than they had ! in 1876. The Camden and Atlantic took off { a slice of $35O.OOO. The Charlottsburg and ! Greenwood Lake reduced from $75, ,OOO to | 1920, ,000; the Delaware and Bound Brook
 about $150,o00; the Easton and Amboy I about $65o,ooo; the Erie, $60o,0oO the Northern, of New Jersey, $153, ,OOO. It is ! thought that if the railroads of New Jersey
 were not practically allowed to fix their own X assessable values they would pay nearer their share of the taxes