Year: 1876




There is no subject connected with the in
ternal administration of the State in which
the necessity of reform is so urgent as in our
system of raising taxes for the support OF
the State and local governments. We are
still pursuing the methods adopted at the
early period when agriculture was our chief
and almost our sole interest, and lands and
buildings were the only easily acces-
sible sources of revenue. Our people
would long ago have discarded this system
as obsolete and out of adaptation to the al
tered circumstances of the State had it not
century by the revenue derived from the
canals. One has only to look into the State
constitution adopted in 1916 to see how
magnificent were the expectations of an i'm
mense annual revenue from the canals over
and above their annual expenses Those
provisions for setting apart between two and
three million dollars yearly out of the sur
plus income of the canals are still nominally
in force, but they have become practically
imperative by the failure of the canals TO
yield much surplus over the expenses of
superintendent and repairs. The conse-
quence is that when we are thrown back
upon the old resources Of the ante-canal
period for meeting the State engagements
the people are suddenly awakened to true
sense of the inadequacy and injustice of
tax system which would long ago have been
outgrown and abolished if the ample canal
tolls of former years had not mitigated its
evils.


The necessity of radical reform became
apparent four or five years ago, and Gov
ernor Hoffman, by authority of the Legisia-
ture, appointed a very able commission to
examine the subject and report improved
plans. Mr. David A. Wells and Mr.. Isaac
Sherman were the most active members Of
that commission, and their report was
striking and instructive document. But
the system they recommended was such
complete innovation and was so very far
in advance of public sentiment that it
could not secure a candid hearing by men of
the grade of intelligence elected to the Legis-
lature. Even better informed minds inclined
to regard it as venturesome experiment
It is always wise to adapt reforms to the ex-
listing state of public opinion and avoid a
rude break in the customs of the people.
The physician who said, 81 did not give the
patient the best medicine but the best could
get him to take, was a great deal more use
full than if he had made more scientific pre-
scription at the hazard of its being thrown
out at the window.


Mr.. George H Andrews, who has long
served with credit and acceptance as one of
our Tax Commissioners, has lately been adj
ham, discussing the same question of taxa
ton which has become so urgent, and, after
exposing in great detail the defects and in
justice of the present system he has at
length come to the question of remedies
Mr.. Andrews is great deal more than
headed, judicious, practical man, whose
varied experience in public life, in
innate knowledge of popular sentiment,
both in the city and rural districts, and
special acquaintance with the subject of
taxation make him the most useful adviser
who has yet undertaken to handle this i'm
portant question. We did not need his
elaborate arguments and great array of
statistics and comparisons to convince us of
the inequity of the present system or of the
great wrong habitually done to the tax
payers of this city by the State Board of
Assessors in laying disproportionate burdens
on the city, which is made to pay forty-fve
per cent, or nearly one-half of the State
taxes But the remedies Mr.. Andrews pro-
poses deserve the thoughtful examination
both of the people and the Legislature.


The proposed plan of Mr. Andrews is
clearly set forth in the letter which we print
in another part of this paper. Stripped of
details it consists of two fundamental tea
tures-frst an exemption of real estate from
taxation for State purposes, and, second,
permitting the Board of Supervisors in each
county to decide whether the local taxes
shall be raised from real estate alone or from
it and personal property. He would raise
by a tax on the capital and the earnings or
dividends of corporations, supplementing it
by licenses if it should prove deficient
These sources would be ample, and the re-
lease of real estate from State taxa
ton would forever remove the injustice
practised by the State Board of Assessors,
This is not an untried experiment; it has
been for three or four years in successful op-
Grafton in Pennsylvania, where it has
wrought satisfactory cure of the same evils
from which we seek relief The other fea-
ture of the plan would enable the local leg
islative bodies to adapt the taxation of per-
sonal property to the peculiar interests of
the localities. Everybody knows how prop
erty has been drawn away from New York to
New Jersey by the exemption of mortgages
from taxation in the neighboring counties of