54 
Transactions Texas Academy of Science. — 1906. 
tax of ^f&fen* Cents on each $100 of the taxable property of the State would be 
required. Such a tax on the assessment for the year 1857, which is as early as 
the system could be commenced, would produce * * * $268,000 this would pay 
an interest of six per cent, on four and one-quarter million dollars. The same 
tax, allowing the increase in the value of our taxable property to be one-fourth 
less each year than it has been since the year 1846 (and it would without doubt 
be much greater), would produce in 1860 the sum of $337,000, which would pay 
an interest of six per cent, on six and one-quarter million dollars. This will 
enable us to use the credit of the State to the amount six' and one-quarter 
million dollars before the close of the year 1860, without taking into account 
the annual earnings of the public works as they progress, which would be at 
least three per cent, on their cost, equal to one-half of the interest we would 
be paying on the debt. By that time we would be in receipt of a considerable 
amount - each year from the sale of the public domain, increased in value by 
the improvements already made, and our works could proceed much more rapidly 
to completion. In this way we might expend from twenty-five to thirty million 
dollars upon a general system of internal improvements within the next eighteen 
years and at the end of that time the whole will have been paid by the pro- 
ceeds of the Sale of our public domain and the internal improvement tax. The 
State would be the owner of the works constructed and could reduce the price 
for transportation and travel to such rate as would keep them in repair and 
pay the expense of operating them, or to such rates, as in addition to the 
cost of keeping them in repair and operating them, would produce an annual 
income of three per cent, upon the cost. This income amounting to over $750,000 
might be applied to the expenses of the government, or to extend the system 
until every neighborhood in the State would be furnished with ample rail- 
road facilities. All this may be accomplished and the wealth of our citizens 
increased hundreds of millions, simply by a prudent use of our public domain 
and an annual tax of fifteen cents on each $100 of the taxable property of the 
State for the next fifteen years. The system of works should consist of rail- 
roads, improvements upon our navigable rivers and canals connecting the dif- 
ferent bays and streams along our coast. 
“Sixteen hundred miles of railroad can be so located as to accommodate every 
section of the State that is now inhabited, and so that no neighborhood (except 
the northwest corner of the State) that is not within a convenient distance 
of a navagible course or a canal shall be more than twenty-five miles from a 
railway. 
“The average cost of building and equipping railroads in this State will not 
exceed $10,000 a mile if paid for with money when the work is done; at this 
rate sixteen hundred miles would cost $25,600,000. This amount deducted from 
thirty-one and a half million, the estimated sum to be derived from our public 
domain in the next fifteen years would leave $5,900,000, which could be applied 
to the improvement of our navigable rivers, cutting canals to connect all the 
bays and water courses along our coast from the Sabine and Bio Grande, and 
to any other object of public utility. 
“This system to be successful must be made the permanent policy of the 
State and incorporated into our Constitution so as to be placed beyond reach 
of change by Legislation. 
“The routes over which railroads are to be constructed, the rivers wdiose navi- 
gation is to be improved, and the canals which are to be cut, must be specified 
— the lands must be set apart as an internal improvement fund — the time and 
manner of their survey and sale must be fixed — the internal improvement tax 
must be levied — provision must be made that the credit of the State shall never 
be used to an amount beyond what the internal improvement tax and the net 
earnings of the public works will pay the interest of — and that the works 
specified shall all be carried on simultaneously until their final completion — 
all this must be done by constitutional provision — otherwise it is possible that 
future Legislatures may undertake other works before those designated shall 
have been completed, or may become impatient with the progress of the works 
and endeavor to hasten their completion by an increase of taxation, so as to 
make it oppressive, or by the use of the State credit beyond the means provided 
for sustaining it, and thereby defeat the whole system. 
“Under this system, the improvements will progress towards completion simul- 
taneously. with the increase of population and the wealth of the State. Each 
