Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1911-08-10
THE TAX QUESTION.

-
N. Hartman on the subject of taxation
that represents in a measure the views
Of large number in this section. That
the people in the eastern part of the
State hold different views will be shown
from the following quotations, the first
being from the Richmond Times-Dis-
patch which says:
Instead of securing earth. sea and
sky to find something else to tax. the
Newcastle Record thinks that the State
Tax Commission would be doing better
work If they would bend their efforts in
way to economic on the revenues al
ready coming into the State Treasury.
The Tax Commission. however, has
nothing to do with the disposition of the
States revenues. Its duties are spe-
| clfic-to find out why there are ineoual-
tiles IN the rate of assessment of tax
able property; why, for example, a
piano for which Craig county man
paid $500 in Roanoke should be returned
for taxation at only S19 in Craig county.
We agree with the Record that the
State has been exceeding the speed
limit in its treatment of the CORPORA
tons, and that it should now even I'D
things bit. Good government is Just
as necessary to the plain citizen as it is
to the public carrier"
This is the view of the Tidewater sec
ton with the soft pedal on but to get a
nearer expression of the views of the
Eastern portion of the State the second
article from the Manchester Bee-a pa-
per without a soft pedal, and that ex-
presses its opinion straight out-wiT
serve better to show what they really
mean to do to the Southwest with their
new scheme for taxation.
Since the Saviour was on earth and
his heavy tilt with his enemies as to
paying his taxes, there has been a dis
pute as to this pointed and disputed
question and he was so hard up to meet
the exigencies of the case that he had
to send out fishing parties to raise the
necessary fund to pay his way out of
the unfortunate pressure of the times.
There was such scarcity of the coin
of Caesars realm as to produce a great
hardship to get the price to paw the
charge with.
but amid the great array of the
Smart Alecs of the present day there
has arisen one smart man who thinks ''he
knows 1t all'' and will be able to fur
nlsh the solution that will brush the
trouble to one side and send the good
old ship of State out on the commercial
sea of ease and comfort that has been
loading her down since the late unpleas-
antness with the declaration that tax
alton should be equal and uniform and
those people who have any education at
all, and are informed on this point
know that there has not been since the
war the least effort to make the taxa
ton equal and that the persistent effort
has been to make it as unequal and as
unfair and unlawful as it was possible
to make it and to place as little tax
upon the taxpayers in certain sections
o. the State as it was possible to set
down to them and their amounts are
shameless and out of all question or
sense or reason.
Now it is fact that there are
thousands of acres of good land in the
State that is set down at the trifiin9 as
sessment of rs cents per acre that if
put on sale would bring at least $40. 90
per acre being worth more than any
kind In Chesterfield county.
NOW the question we want to ask
Mr.. Freeman is this: Why does he al
ways give his talks and sayings in bated
breath? Why does he not come out and
give his views in honest, plain words
and language and tell US of what he
proposes to do and say plainly what he
proposes to propose to the people of
Virginia and give them a chance to
think it over and judge for themselves
as to whether his (Freeman's) views
are sensible or not or is he showing and
merely trying to use up time and throw
away the chance he has of curing the
sick while the waters are being stirred.
''Now Mr.. Freeman must know that
this question abnut the taxes was put
into the mill merely to salve the East
ern Virginians, who know that under
the present plan they, the fasteners,
taxed 8 or 4 times as much as their
statesmen in Southwestern Virginia and
to raise their taxes will be to place the
men in Southwest solid in the Republi-
can ranks.
at is the very last thing on this earth
that Mr.. Stuart will propose to do will
be raise the assessment to Henry
Stuart's land to its actual value when
it is fact that acre for acre Mr..
Stuart's lands are worth double as
much as any lands in Eastern Virginia,
not setting aside the beautiful and rich
,f C1nt1noko~ "A