AODRESS 



Delivered Before the Housatonie Agricultural Society at the AmiuaH 

 Exhibition, September p/, iSg§. 



By H. C. JOYNER. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Housatonie Agricidtxcral Society : 



In his very able and interesting address delivered to }our 

 society last year, his Honor, Judge Dewey, explained what the 

 law is. especially in reference to the owners, occupants and tillers 

 of the soil. I propose to tell you not what the law is, but what 

 it should be in reference to two subjects, two subjects of such 

 transcendent importance that I shall hardly attempt a detailed 

 discussion. Upon one of these subjects the maintenance of all. 

 government depends. Through the exercise of the other popular 

 government exists. 



Every owner of land, whether his possessions are situated on 

 the barren peak of the Dome, or in the fertile meadows by the 

 winding Housatonie, is certain each year of one product, the 

 annual tax bill. The first subject, then, to which I refer is tax^ 

 ation, a subject that in the popular sense of the word is interest- 

 ing to no one, but which so affects everyone that it has passed 

 into a proverb, " There is no escape from death or taxes." The 

 English speaking people from their earliest history have been 

 jealous of the govenment's prerogative to tax and have carefully 

 scrutinized the laws of taxation. John Hampden and his follow- 

 ers refused to pay the few pence of ship tax and thereby precipi- 

 tated a revolution that overthrew the throne of Charles the First 

 and brought the monarch to the block. The history of Ireland 

 for centuries is but the record of the struggle of a brave people 

 against what they claim is extortionate tax imposed for the sup^ 

 port of an alien church and government. The refusal to pay an 

 almost nominal tax, assessed illegally, because without represen- 

 tation in Parliament, created the Revolution through which the 

 Independence of our country was achieved. 



The Constitution of our own Commonwealth was created in 

 the midst of the Revolution, while the roar of the cannon was- 

 still heard and the smoke of battle was still seen. It was created. 



