Perth Amboy evening news., 1904-10-20

49,
being a state In which terminals Of
great railroads are located, and owing
to its peculiar position it receives a tax
' on personal property largely in excess
of what would be received were it a
state crossed by lines of railroad. We
now tax rolling stock which today Is
In Jersey City and twenty-four hours
later in Chicago. 1t Is already being
debated as to whether under the inter
state commerce provision of the Unit
ed States constitution the federal gov
eminent should not take advantage OF
this branch of taxation and tax this
property for its benefit, and the day Is
not Naf INSTANT when the amount Of
tag be derived from the personal
Property Af railroads is likely to be
veg much reduced.
Is if9fot a good proposition to hold
on to4fhis income as long as we can?
VaI9atioA of Railroad Property Conn
paf&A with other Property.
Uqgep he constitution it is necessa-
ry $fat Tie valuation of property for
taxation must be fixed at an amount
which will equalize it with the valua-
ton placed on other properties of q
like kind similarly situated, and it
must be taxed at a uniform rate and
under a fixed rule. The courts have
held that railroad tax of 1884 was con-
stitutional and that railroad property
was a class by itself and that 1t need
not be equalized with other property.
This is the reason why it is possible to
multiply the average value of an acre
of railroad property used for the main
stem by a multiple of two or three, and
no n WI be SO unreasonable as to
say that the bare land i'll itself used for
q roadbed is worth three times the
amount of a like quantity of land used
for other purposes. If the present law
is changed to conform to the Demo
cratic platform railroad property must
be valued and taxed at a valuation and
rate which will cqualizc it with other
properties of a like kind. Whether it
would be constitutional TO separate the
different parts of Il main line of rail
road and tax it locally Is a difficult le-
gal question. There is no question
however. that if it Is to be taxed local
ly the valuation placed upon it Illst
be equaliZed with the value OF other
property, and it will no longer he pos
sihle 10 separate it into a class by IT.
self Otto take the cost of construction
as a criterion of value. Railroad prop
erty Win be valued at as much rs, am
no more titan, the farm, the woods, the
sands, the swamps or the mountains
through which it runs.
The Question of Chnrtcr Rights.
PRACTICALLY all of the roads of New
Jersey are operated under special char
tiers granted by legislatures, and 10
most Of the. charters special exemptions
arc giy%nrss4n some of the charters the
rate of taxation is fixed SO that it shall
not exceed one-half of l per cent upon
the true value. In others it is fixed
so that the railroad shall pay a fixed.
rate on each passenger and each ton of
freight.
First let us take up the question Of
the fixed rate. That rate ayas tixcd-in
the charters at one-half of 1 per cent.
the same rate which now prevails, and
the rate of One-half Of 1 per cent was
fixed Oh the main stem, franchise and
personal property in 1884, because the
railroads claimed that they had a con
tract with the state for that rate and
that the, state could not take thei
rights Away from them. The lawyers
representing the state in the %contro-
versy from 1884 to 1886 recognized the
gravity of that question and, in order
to obtain n general railroad tax law,
agreed upon that as a fixed rate for
those classes of property.
In those charters the tax collected at
the rate of one-half of / per cent was
for safe purposes, sc we find that the
rate ppta xation is as old as the char
tors ofrthe RAILROAD and that the pur-
pose for which the tax was to be used
was always for state and never for
local purposes.
Some of the railroads had a charter
which provided that they should pay
to the state 8 cents for each passenger
carried and 10 cents for each ton of
freight transported in lieu of a tax. In
other charters the sum of 4 cents per
passenger and o cents for q ton of
merchandise was fixed in lieu of a tax.
Most of the railroads have paid their
tax under the law of 1884 under pro-
test, claiming that they still were en-
titled to their charter rights, and if the
law of 1884 is repealed the provisions
of the charters will again become the
subject of legal Interpretation.
An interesting instance of what would
happen if a railroad was compelled to
pay the state 8 cents for each passen-
ger carried. as provided by the charter,
is to be found in the committing dis
trict of north Jersey. If the railroads
were compelled to pay 8 cents per pas
senger the development of the counties
in which the commuters live would
certainly be retarded, as the railroads
would add the amount of the tax paid
to the charge for a Communication ticket.
This question of the old charter rights
&c a-raru-aariaua and y vn ono anl