20 SEVENTH REPORT OF THE SHELL FISH COMMISSIONERS 
Again: “Is the Commission worth $13,884.06 to the State?” 
To this the Commissioners say that it is worth all it has cost, and 
all that it will cost. But, although it justly cost the sum named 
last year (ending June 1, 1886), it by no means follows that it will 
cost that sum in the current year and afterwards. In fact, it will 
not cost anywhere near that sum, as we have already shown. 
The discharge of the field party saved to the Commission an 
annual expense of $2,900 in salaries, besides other expenses 
attendant upon the work, and the estimates for engineering and 
surveying made for the coming year were consequently greatly 
reduced long before any opposition to the Commissioners was 
manifested. 
Again: “They say that the oyster growers must be taxed suff- 
“ciently to maintain the Commission.” The Commissioners do 
not say this, nor is there anything in their reports that justifies 
such an assertion. The State ordered the Commissioners to tax 
the grounds one per cent. on their valuation. They valued the 
grounds according to the best information they could get, and 
they laid the tax without regard to its ultimate amount. But the 
highest tax yet levied by them was only about ELEVEN cents an 
acre. ‘That was the average rate the past year on all the grounds 
in the State! But it has nothing to do with the annual expense 
of the Commission. ‘The two items are separate and independent 
of each other, and they are thus coupled together in order to 
force a point against the Commission. It is obvious to all that, 
no matter what the tax is, it is entirely foreign to the question of 
the extent and value of the services of this Commission, or the 
amount of their compensation. It served its purpose, however. 
By such sophistry the oystermen were led to sign this petition: 
“Do the oyster growers want to pay $13,884.06 per year for the 
‘‘Commission? No, of course not. Then let them sign this 
“petition.” That is the way it was done, and hence this long ar- 
ray of names,—names of honest men, most of them—and yet not 
one in a hundred of them could tell what work the Commission- 
ers were doing. They probably did not care. What they looked 
at was being taxed, and, as was told them, “doubly taxed,” to 
support these Commissioners. If they could get rid of them 
they could get rid of taxes. But they failed to delude all. There 
are many of the most respectable and influential oyster growers 
of the State that oppose this petition and law, and fully approve 
the Commissioners’ acts. But, we repeat, this tax is one thing— 
