THE FARMER AND THE TAX-GATHERER. 189 



effective. At any rate, they have been abandoned, and none 

 better — at least more effective— have been discovered. I pre- 

 sume it may be acce[)ted as impossible to get an approxi- 

 mately correct list of property for the purposes of an ad valorem 

 assessment, and tjiat increasing financial pressure will, in the 

 end, compel us, as all other countries are compelled, to rely 

 more and more on licenses, income taxes, inheritance taxes, 

 taxes upon traffic,* and the like, to produce a revenue. Cer- 

 tainly I see little use, within the limits of a chapter, to try 

 to suggest remedies for the evils of ad valorem taxation, which 

 have baffled the ingenuity of generations of statesmen. 



It will be more profitable to consider some possibilities of 

 economy in expenditure. 



One great source of waste is the salary account. For that 

 part of its work which involves little or no exercise of discre- 

 tion, and no financial responsibility, the American public pays, 

 probably, nearly twice what private concerns would pay for 

 the same work. Under proper conditions the same men who 

 now do tlie work — or as many of them as would be necessary — 

 would undertake to do all the work that is now done, for two- 

 thirds the present total expenditure, and in so doing would be 



they can do so they are as had as others. The iiumher of pounds of wool pro- 

 duced in California in 1896, us compiled hy the wool dealers, divided hy the 

 number of sheep assessed in the state, gives the average clip of about fifteen 

 pounds per head. The real average could not have exceeded seven and one-half 

 pounds, which would show that sheep owners lied about the number of their 

 sheep. In that state "Angora" goats are assessed higher than "common " 

 goats, and the assessors, in 1896, could find but eight thousand two hundred'and 

 thirty-four such goats in the state. The largest breeder wrote me, at the time, 

 that there were not less than seventy thousand Angoras in the state. In my 

 own county not a single "Angora" was returned, and yet I personally know 

 of two large flocks and there are doubtless others. To save a little tax the 

 goats, none of them less than half bred, were listed as "common "—and the 

 lists were sworn to. 



♦We now tax incoming foreign traffic, collecting the tax at the port of 

 entry. It has been proposed than Congress tax interstate traffic, relying, 

 apparently, on the books of the railroad companies for the assessment, the 

 railroads, of course, to pay the tax. This, at any rate, would have the advan- 

 tage of definitely separating interstate and intrastate traffic, so that, in assessing 

 for state purposes, the revenue derived from state traffic, and assessable there, 

 could be known. 



