Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1912-03-29

BY JOSEPH A. DE BoER.

mont Commission on the Conservation
of Natural Resources.
Conservation is the proper and eco
nomical use of things in nature which
cannot be reproduced, like minerals,
coal and stone, and the wise husbandry
and use of what can be restored and
reproduced, like soils and forests, ami
NAL and fish life and capital and wealth.
The conservation or equitable use of all
material things in nature or what man
produces for his needs, his happiness
and his progress is surely and perma-
nently influenced by the government
under which he lives, its customs and
laws, its ideals and activities and the
extent to which it makes practical pro-
vision for the chance on the part of
every man and woman to share in a
just exchange or the results of work.
For that makes the opportunity, first,
of obtaining a livelihood under COM
Portable and lasting conditions and,
next, of creating some property or COM
potency for the care of old age and the
family after death concludes their work.
RECOGNIZED PRINCIPLES.
Some specific principles are now rec
ognized as fundamental to all legisla-
ton by an equitable government
Q) That the workman is worthy of
his hire.
(2) That good homes and care Of
their inmates constitute the foundation
of lasting governments.
(3) That successful government of
any kind, especially self-goverment of
the people and by the people, must re-
spond to the test of constantly increas-
ing its service to all the people as a
real proof that it is also a government
for the people.
(4 That, inasmuch as the govern
ment obtains its power from their con-
sent, so too the people must exercise it
and demand its restoration where it has
been lost or impaired.
(5) That in concurrence, while con-
servation of material things and their
increase should be constantly sought,
all causes and conditions must equally
tend as well to the constant progress of
men S intellectual and moral life; and,
| finally,
(6) That, while great talent and hon.
est ambitions for either power or wealth
should not be stayed, yet all laws should
primarily safeguard and promote the
interests in all things of all and not of a
few.
THE BLIGHT OF DEAD-LETTER LAWS.
1t costs public money to place law
upon the statute book. If it proves to
be a good law, the return upon the
expenditure is great because every
body's interests are conserved thereby.
If it proves to be bad law and is so
recognized, it at least supplies public
experience and can be changed or re-
called when the Legislature next sits.
If laws exist, however, which are bind
ing upon the courts, if called upon to
|
ignored because they are out of date or
unjust or really unenforceable, their
continued existence on the statute book
not only teaches dsrespect of law but
also in the case of some, like certain of
our unenforced tax laws, breeds crime
and, further, through inequalities in the
treatment of different classes of prop
erty, seriously interferes with their
honest acquisition and natural use, thus
retarding industrial development and
expansion. The conservation of our
progress as a state government and of
our chance to develop our natural oppor-
tunities as a state, founded upon the
prosperity of individuals, rests funda-
mentally upon sound laws, and among
these none are of more Importance and
none will better advance conservation
in every one of its forms than proper
and just tax laws, uniformly applied
and perfectly administered just so far
as that object can be capably achieved
THE STATE LIVES UPON ITS TAXEs.
The existence of the state rests upor
its power to tax and to collect the tax
That fact involves the power also tC
destroy or to retard the growth of prop
erty and the power to discriminate
unjustly between different classes OF
property and groups of men and between
individuals and corporations. Wher
such unfair discrimination exists anC
when laws are not made to compel mer
and property, according to opportunity
and kind and in just proportion, to con
tribute to the maintenance of govern
ment and its legitimate public works
there may be said to be a condition
which tends to the non-conservative anC
} abnormal acquisition and use of prop
erty and to concealment of the state