furnished to the committee a carefully prepared inventory and statement of all the other property of the State connected with these springs, consisting of salt wells, pumps, pump-houses, machinery, reservoirs, aqueducts, &c., the whole of which he has valued or estimated at $311,710. The original cost of these works, erections and fixtures does not precisely appear, and perhaps cannot be shown. But it is entirely safe to assume that such cost does not exceed the valuation just mentioned. The total investment made by the State then in the springs and salt reservation and in all works and erections connected there with is the original purchase money, about $11,000 added to this sum of $311,710, making in all $322,710.

We are next to look at the other side of the account in this common enterprise, and we have the data before us furnished by the Superintendent. There are upon the salt reservation or upon other lands contiguous to the springs, 316 salt blocks erected and owned by private parties, valued in the aggregate at $2,205,500. There are 44,083 solar salt vats and covers owned by individuals and companies, valued in the aggregate at $2,381,517, and there are salt mills owned in like manner valued at $138,000. All these valuations amount to $4,725,017. From the evidence before the committee we consider this a high valuation and very considerably in excess of the original cost. It will not at all affect the present question if we deduct over $2,000,000 and call the original cost of these works $2,700,000, or even $2,500,000. We reach then the following result: The original investment of the State in the springs, lands and property used in the production of salt is $322,710. The original investment of private individuals and companies is at least $2,500,000, or between seven and eight times greater than that of the State. It can be said with truth that this private property is worthless without the salt springs. And so with equal truth it may be said that the springs would be of little value without the immense development they have reached through private capital and enterprise. The true mode of determining the equities between the parties is to com. pare the capital sums invested by each and then to ascertain what has been drawn by each from the common concern.

And it remains, therefore, in order to have a complete view of the subject, to ascertain if possible the profits derived from the produc tion of salt and the distribution of those profits. In the first place

it will be found on examination that the expenditures of the State already referred incurred from time to time in erections and fixtures have in all or most cases been reimbursed to the State during the year in which they were incurred out of the annual tax or duty upon salt so that the capital sum invested by the State as above mentioned almost wholly or entirely disappears from the account. But it is next to be stated that over and above the sums thus expended and reimbursed, the State has received by and through the duties it has demanded a net revenue of between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000. From 1825 to 1846, under the constitutional duty imposed for the purpose of paying the canal debt, the net revenue received by the State over all expenditures was $2,900,616.50. In the year last mentioned the duties were reduced to one cent per bushel which has yielded to the present time $421,582.55. These sums amounting in the aggregate to $3,322,199.05 are to be considerably increased by the net revenue received prior to 1825, which cannot be exactly ascertained.

Such, then, is the financial relation of the State to these springs and to the business of producing salt therefrom. But that business has been attended by no such results to the manufacturers. They have had times and seasons of prosperity and of adversity. It is the opinion of those who have had the longest acquaintance with the business, that it has not yielded to the manufacturer a profit in the aggregate equal to the annual interest upon the capital they have invested. The evidence before the Committee leads to this conclusion. It appears, therefore, that while the State has been reimbursed its expenditure and has demanded and received a reve nue equal to ten times the capital invested by it, the profit to the manufacturers has returned no part of their capital, and has in fact been less than that yielded in most other branches of industry.

This exhibit of the financial relations of the State and the manu. facturer to each other and to the subject, is made because and only because a higher rate of duty upon salt has been urged on the ground of a supposed equity between the parties. It is manifest that no such equity exists. On the contrary, according to this mode of treating the subject, some equality in the distribution of profit should be reached before the State can claim anything beyond the

expenses incidental to its care and management of the springs. This principle would postpone the claims of the State for a long period of time.

revenue.

Plainly, therefore, some other principle must be invoked to justify the proposed imposition of a tax or duty for the purpose of public And the only other principle which can be invoked is that of taxation upon the product of a particular branch of industry. And on this subject we beg leave to call attention to some other considerations. If it could be shown that salt will bear a special and peculiar rate of taxation without serious and lasting injury to the industrial interest engaged in its production, and if that ability to bear the burden is made the ground for imposing it, the same rule of action would require us to examine into all other industrial pursuits and trades carried on this State, and to tax them all at specific but varying rates according to capacity of each to endure the imposition.

If any branch of human industry is found to be in a prosperous condition, it must be reduced to the horizontal level of other branches by a special and compulsory contribution to the treasury of the State. This principle of taxation has never been adopted in this State. Taxation in this State is imposed at fixed and uniform rates upon all real and personal estate according to valuations entered upon the assessment rolls, and except the article of salt, we have in our State laws and policy no example of specific duties upon property or production. And yet this article, the only one taxed or proposed to be taxed specifically, has, probably, higher claims than any other to total exemption from all taxation. According to the soundest and most approved maxims of statesmanship, articles of universal use and absolute necessity ought to be free from burdens imposed for public revenue, and among these, salt, more than any other product of human industry, is to be ranked. It is as necessary to life and comfort as the air we breathe. As a prime necessity of life in all ranks of society, taxation upon it was once eloquently denounced by a distinguished statesman in the Senate of the United States. He declared it to be a tax upon the entire economy of nature and art, a tax upon man and beast, upon life and health, upon comfort and luxury, upon want and superfluity. He called it a heartless and tyrant tax which no economy could avoid, no poverty could stem, [CON. No. 158.]

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no privation escape, no cunning elude, no force resist, no dexterity avert, no curse repulse, no prayers could deprecate, a tax which invaded the entire domain of human operations.

A rate of duty upon this article higher than the present one existed prior to 1846. When the Erie canal was projected and undertaken, it was very justly considered that the development of the salt springs, the production of salt, the extension of the markets and economy in price, would be immensely promoted by the completion of that work. For that special purpose and that alone, a duty of twelve and a half cents per bushel was imposed. This was a duty which under an enlightened sense of what their true interests demanded, was self-sought and self-imposed by that portion of the people of the State who were producers and consumers of Onondaga salt. The Constitution of 1821, required this duty to be maintained until the debt contracted in the construction of the Erie car.al should be paid. That object having been accomplished, the duty had been reduced to a low standard by constitutional amendment and legislative drawbacks before the year 1846, when the whole subject underwent the careful consideration of the Legislature. In the Senate, it was referred to a select committee, consisting of three gentlemen of eminent ability, Joshua A. Spencer of Oneida, Augustus C. Hand of Essex and John Porter of Cayuga. That committee, upon the most elaborate examination, came to a unanimous conclusion which may be stated in their own language; they said, "To continue the present tax could only be justified upon the principle that salt is a proper article on which to raise revenue. This is inadmissible as well upon the ground that it is taxing one of the most indispensible articles of consumption and general use, to meet the expenses of government, as that it would be levying a tax upon a portion of the citizens of the State for the benefit of the whole State.” They accordinly recommended a reduction of duty to a rate which as they thought would simply cover the expense of the State in its supervision of the Springs.

These views of the future policy of the State were accepted with great unanimity by the Legislature of 1846, and the duty was accordingly reduced to one cent per bushel, which was the rate fixed upon, not for any purpose of deriving revenue from this source, but with the avowed object of protecting the State from loss in the care

and superintendence of the salt springs and reservation. From 1846 to the present time neither the salt duty nor the policy of the State in this respect has undergone any change.

The report of the Senate Committee just referred to condemned the salt duty as a tax upon one portion of the people of the State for the benefit of the whole. This argument deserves a moment's consideration. If sound and accurate, it ought to dispose of the question forever. Its soundness cannot well be impeached, but it will have a truer expression to say that such a tax is upon one portion of the people for the benefit not of the whole, but of another portion. Ordinarily the Onondaga salt is consumed by about one half the population of the State, residing in the central, northern and western divisions. In the mere southern portions upon the seaboard and tide waters, foreign salt has been hitherto mainly used. Now whatever tax is imposed upon salt it is an addition of just so much to the cost, and by an inexorable law of production and trade, this addition must be paid at last by the consumer. Nothing further can or need to be said to prove that what is gained by one portion of our people in the taxation of this article for revenue— that portion which does not consume the salt-is lost by that portion which does consume the article, and pay the tax upon it. This is a condition of the question which must endure, and it seems to establish the permanent injustice and impolicy of the tax. There is a still broader aspect of the question. Suppose it were true that the Onondaga salt is now used, and will hereafter be used by all the people of this State. This fact would relieve taxation upon it from the injustice of burdening one part of the inhabitants for the benefit of another, but the question would remain, whether there would be wisdom or policy in this mode of raising revenue. This question in the opinion of the undersigned is not difficult to solve. In the first place nothing would be gained, because whatever revenue is thus raised for the benefit of the whole people, is paid by the whole people in the increased cost of production and price of the article. This proposition is one of mathematical precision, unless it can be shown that you may levy an internal tax on an article produced by labor and capital without adding to its cost. This surely, no one will pretend. If you tax the article you do not thereby diminish the capital or cost of labor required in its production. The cost of transportation to the consumer remains the same. You must add the