Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1906-04-11

At the meeting of the city charter com
nittee last night before doing any work
there was "a discussion over the statements
made by former City solicitor Robert G.
llarman at the meeting last week Mr..
llarman is n member of the committee,
but that was the first meeting he had at
tended as he was away He informed
the committee that in his opinion In
would be unNise to get lp a new charter
at this time and thought it would be much
better to amend the present one. II a
new charter was enacted by the Legis-
lature, he stated, the present city ordi-
nance would not conform with it and 1t
would be hard work and take a long time
to get up new ordinances.
Some of the members said that since
Mr.. Harmans talk. they were not sure as
to what it would be hest to do and others
thought as larger cities had been given
entirely now charters and arc working
under them satisfactorily. Wilmington
should be able To do the same lhonas
| H. Savey, president of the Board of
Trade, said lac thought tho committee
! should agree on something 30 that all
OF the work is not wasted and then en-
deavor to get the Legislature TO pass il.
At this point il was decided to 60 on
with the work where II was left off two
weeks ago, before MIR. Harman made his
statement
Mr. Haman arrived at the meeting
after several sections of the 1908 draft
had been read. He inquired OF the mem
bcrs what they desired to do; If they were
going To- continue on to prepare a new
charter or do as he suggested amend the
present charter Mr. liarman made IL
plain that Inc did not want 10 force any
thing on the committee but merely wanted
to explain how he stands. Practically
the same charter the committee is now
working on, he said. has been turned
down twice by the Legislature and to
him it looks like a ridiculous farce to 60
before the General Assembly with it
again. The trouble, he said, IS that the
people do not know what is i'm the present
charter and ordinances. BY amend
ments, he said, the committee could get
anything out of the present charter it
desires He explained that while his
services were all gratis, if there were any
flaws in an entirely new charter, he would
be blamed for it, as he is the only attorney
on the committee. He concluded by say
ing that if the committee is going to con-
tinue and keep up the idea of an entirely
new charter he would have TO withdraw
from the committee as he would not be
in sympathy with the work and could not
put his heart in It,.
After some further talk on the matter
of how to proceed with the work. there
was a general discussion on the matter o
raising revenue. Mr. Harman said that
there was no doubt but that the city
requires more money from taxation, bui
he did not think it should come from rea
estate as that is now groaning under th,
burden He said that two good method.
would be to tax the franchises OF publ,
service corporations and to tax persona
property such as furniture. Mr. BayarC
suggested that the city should dcriv,
some of the revenue from the whisky
tax. as the sale of it costs the city q large
amount, as it makes it necessary to kecl
a large police force. He thought il tho
State would not give up part OF the ia,
it gets from whisky then the city SHOULD
levy an extra tax.
II was finally decided to take weel
to think the matter over and at the neN
meeting decide by a vote as TO whetho
the committee shall prepare an entirel,
new charter or amend the present one.