of the value of their farms disappear. Their incomes have correspondingly diminished; but taxes have continued unabated, in many instances being equivalent to twenty-five per cent of the net income.1 The increase in the value of city real estate, in the periods intervening between valuations, has still further aggravated the inequality. Speaking of this subject, Governor Foraker, in his annual message of January 4, 1887, said:

The last decennial appraisement of real estate was had at a period of great prosperity; it was a time of general high values; since then there has been a heavy decline; farm property is from twenty-five to fifty per cent cheaper to-day than it was then. The consequence is that farming lands of the state, where they have not been affected by the growth of cities or other development, are now taxed on the average more nearly at their full value than any other class of property. In fact the farm lands of some of the counties are taxed at even more than they could be sold for. But while this is true of the farm lands, the reverse is true of the real estate of many of the cities of the state where there has been growth and development, as in some portions of Cincinnati and in Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and many other cities that might be named. The valuations placed upon the real estate of these cities in 1880 are in the aggregate fifty per cent of their present true value in money, and in some cases they will not exceed twenty-five per cent."

The present system of taxation, furthermore, not only puts a premium upon perjury and renders honesty on the part of the taxpayer next to impossible, but it everywhere throws the burden of supporting the state upon those least able to bear it:

The class of property that escapes taxation most is the class of property that pays the largest dividends. . . . Those who have to battle hardest with life for subsistence, are compelled to pay the most onerous taxes on the real value of their property.3

The trusts, the corporations, the millionaires of Chicago pay taxes on less than one-tenth of the value of their enormous accumulations

1 The fact that the annual net income of farm lands is frequently but two to four per cent renders this statement all the more significant.

2 Ely, Taxation in American States and Cities, p. 151. Seligman, op. cit., p. 33.

of wealth, while the small property-owners are being taxed on from one-half to one-third of the value of their humble possessions.1

An eminent financier has said:

Land is less able to bear heavy taxes than almost any other kind of property.2

And again:

I question very much that there are any farms outside of the prairies, and away from the large towns, which, if they were charged with the labor bestowed upon them, at the rate of $1.00 per day for men and fifty cents a day for women, and with other necessary outlays (their original cost not included) and credited with the market. value of their productions, and their estimated present value, would exhibit a balance on the right side of the account.3

Certain it is that the great fortunes of modern times have not been won by the owners of the soil used to supply the world with food.

The banker, merchant, manufacturer and capitalist have become wealthier than the landowner. . . . During the past thirty years, a still different source of wealth has sprung into existence. It has risen to first importance, and has created moneyed kings greater, stronger, richer even than the banker himself. A new financial era has been entered upon. Land, the old source of centralized wealth, ... no longer maintains its preeminent importance. In its place has come the natural monopoly, and a new order of men are in control. Crassus and Croesus were poor men compared with the modern Vanderbilts. A consolidated railroad has become greater than a dukedom.1

How to make the new forms of property that have come into existence in modern times contribute to public expenditure; how to make those industries that become more and more profitable with increase of population and social development, such as natural monopolies, bear the burden of taxation in proportion to their income-in short, how to secure equality of sacrifice in the payment of taxes, is the problem of taxation.

1 Stead, If Christ Came to Chicago, p. 228.

2 Hugh McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half a Century, p. 525.

8 Ibid., p. 523.

4 Cook, Corporation Problem, p. 189.

It is strange, indeed, that the farmers have not directed the influence of their organizations more zealously toward the reconstruction of a tax system that is admittedly unjust and indefensible. The fact that a tax assessed upon the value of farm lands cannot be reflected in the price of farm products and shifted upon the consumer, renders this remark all the more pertinent.

It is not true that the farmer can recoup himself for the taxes which he pays by adding the tax to the price of his potatoes, or wheat or other products. The price which he gets for the great bulk of the things grown upon his farm is fixed by causes which often have their roots in different lands and among different nations.1

In no other direction are efforts to promote the interest of the farmer, by means of legislative action, more likely to be fruitful of results than by a reform of the existing system of state taxation. It has been estimated that were the burden of taxation in Massachusetts equitably adjusted between real and personal property, the rate of taxation would be reduced from $15.00 to $8.44 on the $1000.2 But for the extent to which the interest of the farmer has been absorbed in matters of national politics, to the exclusion of state and local affairs, it is probable that more of his energy and zeal would have been directed to the reform of the general property tax.

Space will not permit a consideration of various theories of taxation. For the purposes of this essay it is sufficient to have called attention to the existence of a problem, in the scientific and equitable solution of which the farmer probably has more to gain than any other class. C. F. EMERICK.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

1 Ohio Tax Commission, 1893, p. 43.

2

p. 56.

Report of Senator Peffer upon the Agricultural Depression, February 15, 1894,

REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS IN BRITISH

IN

TRADE-UNIONISM.1

N a preceding article we attempted to analyze trade-union experience with the more primitive expedients of democracy; and we gave reasons for our inference that government by mass meeting, direct election of officers, the referendum and the initiative tended to result either in inefficiency and disintegration, or else in the dominance of a dictator or a bureaucracy. We have now to see how far trade unions have succeeded in adopting a more efficient form of democracy, and what are the lessons to be learned from their experience of its working.

It is an interesting fact that the two organizations in the trade-union world which have adopted the greatest measure of representative institutions are those which are the most distinctly modern in their growth and preeminence. In numbers, political influence and annual income the great federal associations of coalminers and cotton operatives overshadow all others, and now comprise one-quarter of the total trade-union membership. We have elsewhere pointed out that these two trades, industrially so unlike, resemble each other in many important respects, and notably in their establishment of an expert civil service, exceeding in numbers and efficiency that possessed by any other trade.2 They resemble each other also, as we shall now see, in the success with which they have solved the fundamental problem of democracy, the combination of administrative efficiency and popular control. In each case the solution has been found in the frank acceptance of representative institutions.

In the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cottonspinners, which may be taken as typical of cotton organizations, the "legislative power" is expressly "vested in a meeting comprising 1 Copyright, 1896, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

2 History of Trade-Unionism, p. 298.

1

representatives from the various provinces and districts included in the association." This "Cottonspinners' Parliament" is elected annually in strict proportion to membership, and consists of about a hundred representatives. It meets in Manchester regularly every quarter, but can be called together by the executive council at any time. Once elected, this assembly is, like the British Parliament, absolutely supreme. Its powers and functions are subject to no express limitations, and from its decisions there is no appeal. The rules contain no provision for taking a vote of the members; and though the agenda of the quarterly meeting is circulated for information to the executives of the district associations, so little thought is there of any necessity for the representatives to receive a mandate from their constituents, that express arrangements are made for transacting any other business not included in the agenda.2

The actual "government" of the association is conducted by an executive council elected by the general representative meeting, and consisting of a president, treasurer and secretary, with thirteen other members, of whom seven at least must be working spinners, whilst the other six are, by invariable custom, the permanent officials appointed and maintained by the principal district organizations. Here we have the "cabinet" of this interesting constitution - the body which practically directs the whole work of the association and exercises great weight in the counsels of the legislative body, preparing its agenda and guiding all its proceedings. For the daily work of administration this cabinet is authorized by the rules to appoint a committee, the "sub-council," which consists in practice of the six "gentlemen," as the district officials are commonly called. The actual executive work is performed by a general secretary,

1 Rules of the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cottonspinners (Manchester, 1891), page 4, rule 7.

2 Rule 5. The general representative meeting even resembles the British Parliament in being able itself to alter the fundamental basis of the constitution, including the period of its own tenure of office. The rules upon which the Amalgamated Association depends can be altered by the general representative meeting in a session called by special notice, without any confirmation by the constituents. - Rule 48.