The Arizona champion., 1890-06-21

uation was caused by the destruc-
 tion of irrigating ditches by the foods of February last. The heavy
 pecun;ary loss so inflicted, in my
 opinion, should be taken into con- sideration by the board, and the
 values I have placed on ranches so affected should be allowed to re- main without being increased.
 3d. The lowering of the assess ment on cattle from eight to seven dollars per head, the latter price being in my opinion more fair and just valuation in view of the great depression existing in the cattle market.
 In submitting the assessment roll to you, I feel it due to the tax payers of the county to publicly call attention to two classes of property which, in my opinion, unjustly and wrongfully escape their due share of the burdens of taxation, namely:
 lst. The money loaned in the form of mortgages; and
 2d. The land owned and con- trolied y the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad company and other wealthy foreign corporations in our county.
 Under the first class, the records of Yavapai county show that dur ing the last year alone there has been loaned in the form of mortga- ges, and which are still in force SPY, 1902, the average interest on which is 24 per cent. per annum, yet on this vast sum not a single | cent of taxes can be collected under our present laws, although there IS not an industry in the county that gives such enormous returns with | so little risk. This puts a premium on Shylockism, and at the same time increases the taxes borne by every other class of taxpayers to favor the money lenders. While I recognize the fact that your board can do nothing to reach this class of tax shirkers, I feel that the neces- sities for doing so should be brought prominently before the public, in order that the next legislature should so legislate thatin the matter of taxes the man who lends money will be placed on the same footing as the man whose poverty compels him to borrow.
 In the matter of the railroad grant lands belonging to the At lantic & Pacific and other corpora tions, 1 have, after due considera- tion, assessed the same at $1.25 per acre-the maximum price charged for public lands by the Government notwithstanding that the same assessment made by me in 1889 was reduced by your honorable board to the nominal valuation of 30 cents per acre. In making this assessmenv I have done so believ-i ing that as the six hundred odd thousand acres of these lands on which taxes are paid, are merely about one-tenth Of the entire grant and are also tbe finest timhered and watered lands in the southwest, that Sl,25 per acre was a small valaa- tion, especially as the average valu- ation Of all other lands in the county is not less than $50 per acre. In this connection, 1 would also call your attention to the fact that while the amount of grant lands taxed is but a trife over 600,. 900 acres, tie Atlantic < Pacific railroad, to which the grant was originally ma'c, has sola to different parties several million acres on which all taxation is avoided by the refusal of the company to apply for title to the same. That is to say that the Atlantic & Pacific railroad, while exercising all the rights of ownership over millions of acres of land in your county, while cutting the timber from it at the rate of millions of feet per annum, while selling the same, and treating as trespassers all persons whom they may see fit to treat as such, are merely paying taxes on about one acre out of every ten granted them, while at the same tine demanding every advantage l