526 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 617. 



allowed without publication a month in ad- 

 vance. Charges should be only for services 

 rendered, so that in case of concerns owning 

 their own sidings and doing their own 

 switching, terminal charges would be elimi- 

 nated for that terminal, but not at the other 

 unless the freight received such treatment 

 at both ends. Similarly no charges should 

 be made for rolling stock against firms pro- 

 viding their own cars, except that where 

 they are returned empty a suitable pub- 

 lished rate should be made for this. These 

 are the legitimate advantages of wealth, but 

 no illegitimate advantages such as exclusive 

 contracts should be tolerated. Those 

 already existing are probably ultra vires 

 for common carriers and therefore void. 



Freight classification should be left to 

 periodical conventions of general freight 

 agents. It is too complicated for any other 

 treatment. 



Finally, the railroads should be liable for 

 demurrage for unreasonable delays, on a 

 basis similar to that on which they charge 

 demurrage for delay in unloading. Some 

 allowance should be made for extraordinary 

 demands ; but favoritism should be drastic- 

 ally punishable, and the president or direc- 

 tors of a railroad should be personally 

 responsible for the shortcomings of subor- 

 dinates, without exonerating these. More- 

 over, those finally responsible should be 

 under heavy bonds and not at liberty to 

 avoid suit by taking refuge abroad. Our 

 laws should be altered, to allow an action 

 in rem instead of in personam in the case of 

 any fugitive from justice who does not re- 

 turn on publication of a summons. There 

 are few greater scandals than those of 

 wealthy men abroad defying our laws while 

 they depend on them for the enjoyment of 

 the income of their property. 



The Problem of Railroad Taxation: Her- 

 bert N. Edwards, Yale University. 

 The modern industrial corporation has 



found its chief field of operation in trans- 

 portation which is the life of industrial 

 development. In the United States methods 

 of assessment and collection of taxes on 

 these properties are so varied as to be eon- 

 fusing. But in principle there is more uni- 

 formity. Forty-seven out of fifty states 

 and territories tax their railroads on the 

 basis of physical valuation. The general 

 property tax still obtains nearly every- 

 where, but by methods differing from that 

 used in taxing individual property. The 

 method in most common use is the state 

 board of assessment and collection. The 

 average value per mile is the valuation 

 basis to which any given rate is applied. 

 But valuation is in some cases not that of 

 use and personal property but of the stocks 

 and bonds (Delaware, Pennsylvania, Massa- 

 chusetts, New York) supplemented by gross 

 receipts tax. 



Railway taxes are now the chief source 

 of state revenue in many cases, leaving the 

 general property tax to local divisions. In 

 Michigan the basis is the sum of values of 

 the tangible and intangible property. Plehn 

 advocates the value of their securities as the 

 best basis and Seligman the taxation of net 

 receipts. The states now derive $60,000,- 

 000 revenue from this source. Their 

 methods are, however, inadequate and some 

 form of federal control is needed for the 

 sake of more harmonious methods. 



What may Accounting teach Economics: 

 Frederick A. Cleveland, New York. 

 To the economic dogmatist and abstract 

 reasoner who conceives economics as com- 

 posed of a set of specific doctrines as ex- 

 pounded by the physiocrats, the Malthu- 

 sians or the Marxians, or as embraced in a 

 congeries of concepts known as the ab- 

 stinence theory of capital, the marginal 

 theory of rent, the residual theory of labor, 

 the quantity theory of money and the utility 



