The task that we have set ourselves to, is to devise some general plan. You cannot devise a plan that will suit every State, because of the different conditions. The same tax law that will answer for Wisconsin will not answer in Virginia, although we down there try just as hard as you do to get up a good tax law. It has got to be modified by the environment. The great principle which should underlie our actions is the principle of equity. You cannot force people to carry out an unjust law, and you cannot demand and acquire for your State that respect which its laws ought to have unless you enact laws which are founded in justice and in right. You have got to be fair to the people and honest with the people, and then ask them to be as fair with you and as honest with you as you have been with them.

A State is never greater than its laws. A State is never as great as its laws, because the law is the crystallization of the best public sentiment in the State. We ought to be careful how we make laws. We ought to make laws just like the law we have spoken of with reference to taxation founded in justice and in right, founded upon the will of the people, and then look back to the people for the strength and power with which to carry them out, and they will give it to you. I have great faith in the American people.

I thank the president of this association for the honor that he has conferred upon me and the State from which I come, by asking me to be one of the speakers to respond to the gracious words of welcome which have been uttered by the Governor of the great State of Wisconsin. I trust that this assemblage, working together as one man, may do something to advance the interests of the great American commonwealths that go to make the great American Union - this great country of ours whose flag we all love, and whose flag we all honor, though the time has been when we shot at it a little.

MAYOR SEIDEL: It gives me pleasure to introduce Hon. Lawson Purdy, President of the Department of Taxes and Assessments of the City of New York.

MR. LAWSON PURDY: I am announced to say a few words, especially on the part of the International Tax Association. If

the Association has done a service in providing a platform for the discussion of taxation during the past three years, the essence of that service is this: That there have gathered together those who administer tax laws, those who construct tax laws, those who interpret tax laws, and those who contest them, bringing here on a neutral platform men who often meet only at enmity, and enmity never clears counsel.

Where men are chiefly concerned to press only one side of a question, the result very often is unsatisfactory. The tendency of those who administer tax laws is frequently to feel that every one who comes before them, to object, is hiding the truth, or deliberately saying that which is not true. The tendency of those who feel that an injustice has been perpetrated, that they are claiming only that which is just for themselves or their clients, is to regard the administrator of the law as an executioner, as one who is to be deceived and hoodwinked and browbeaten, or their rights cannot be obtained. I have had some experience on both sides of the bar. I know the tendency, and have seen it many times.

Here in the last three Conferences we have seen the attorney for the taxed discussing amicably with the administrator, the attorney of the taxer. It is hard from one side of the bar to see all the difficulties that appear on the other side, and especially hard unless we have a neutral ground where each, without heat, can express that which is in his mind.

There are hardships on both sides. I know in the State of New York how hard it is that one man should be obliged to represent a corporation where he has to meet, theoretically, with six hundred boards of assessors on the same day of the same week. That is one case. It is a hard thing to be obliged to obtain and pay thirty-three hundred tax bills for one taxpayer, all over the State of New York. On the other hand, it is a mighty hard job for these assessors who are called upon to value that with which they have had no experience, under a law which oftentimes they have never read.

It is the work before this Association to bring out all these difficulties, not on one side only, but on both; to help to construct laws that are practical, not merely framed to carry out some theory which sounds well in general expression, but which

can be easily and equitably enforced. And we should work also so that we shall have the most effective assessment, suitably devised for every class of property that is subject to taxation.

We can reach these good results by the combined knowledge that we have gathered on these platforms in the last three years, and that is brought here to-day.

The Governor of Virginia told of the man who could not pass the examination because "those fools asked him about things that happened before he was born." I have talked many a time with legislators who were struggling to accomplish something, when, if they had only had a little knowledge of what had happened before they were born, they could have saved their time.

We have with us the professors from the colleges who have made it their business to know what happened before we were born. We have with us the students who bring to us the experience of the world, so that we shall be saved from the mistakes of the past. Then we have with us the men of affairs who pay the taxes and who know the difficulties that confront them in obtaining a just assessment, and we have administrators who know a practical tax law when they see one. That is part of the aim of this Association, to bring these men here.

I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you at our previous Conferences, and I know how much you professors and you administrators have done for us, and I know how much you men have done and can do whose business it is to protect the rights of clients before taxing bodies. All of us are needed. We all have our work to do, and through the coöperation of knowledge brought together here in peaceful arbitration shall we work out gradually a better and better solution of this vast and fundamental problem we have come here to discuss.

MAYOR SEIDEL: It affords me great pleasure to introduce to you Mr. E. H. Bowers, Chief Inspector of Stamps and Taxes of the Inland Revenue Department of England, a brother from across the ocean.

MR. E. H. BOWERS: It gives me very great pleasure to be able, on this occasion, to thank the Governor of Wisconsin, who, in the name of the Association and of the State, has welcomed

us Britishers to this platform. You have no idea of the extent to which we appreciate that kindness of the Association in inviting us to attend here.

We are delegates sent by the British government, not to attend this Conference, for we did not then know of it, but we were sent over here to inquire into and report on the system of local taxation which prevails in the different cities and counties of the several States of America. We have come here as humble students of a subject of which I am afraid we knew very little when we started out. We have come here to learn and not to criticise. We have only been here in the States a little over a week, and during that time we have managed to pick up some information. We have yet a lot to learn, and we have been given a magnificent opportunity of learning much of what we were sent over to try to learn, thanks to your kind invitation to us to attend this Conference and to meet and mingle and commune with the various representatives of the local governments and the professors of the universities who have studied these questions, and with the various administrative authorities assembled here. We feel that we shall go back well primed on at least the elements of that vast subject which we have been sent over here to explore.

We propose, before we return to England, to visit some of the States and some of the municipalities where we may get the most desirable information. We shall not have time to visit all, but we ask for your assistance in advising us which States we should go to. That will help us immensely, and we shall probably be able to fulfill our mission to the satisfaction of those who sent us. We want to see something of the inner workings of the administration of the various systems.

I now thank you, not only in my own name, but in the name of the British government, for the kind reception you have given us in our travels.

MAYOR SEIDEL: It affords me pleasure to introduce another Britisher from across the ocean, Mr. R. G. Hawtrey of London.

MR. R. G. HAWTREY: Mr. Bowers has explained how we came to be here, so I need not take your time. We had not been here in this country very long before we learned that by coming

to Milwaukee this week we should meet specialists in every branch of our inquiry, people who were anxious and ready to discuss the subject; and I will leave you to imagine how extremely grateful we are for the opportunity of sitting at the feet of the Conference and hearing nearly all we want to know, thus enabling us to return to England primed with information which will be of real value. We have already had the opportunity of conversing with several members of the Association, and it was surprisingly interesting to meet with them; but one and all said that we could find very little to learn here, that the American system of taxation was full of flaws. Now we have not been here long, but we have been here long enough to learn that there is an enormous amount for us to look into. Of course the Association and the members are interested in what is wrong, so that they may improve their present systems. We are learners, and we are interested in what is right. Several members of the Association seem to think that we live under an ideal financial system in England, but probably there is a great deal more for us to learn from you than there is for you to learn from us; though I will not deny at least, modesty does not require me to deny that there is a great deal that you may copy from our system. Of course all nations experiment more or less, but some of the nations' experiments are successful. I join Mr. Bowers in thanking the Association for extending to us the privileges that you have given.

MAYOR SEIDEL: Before introducing the permanent chairman, I wish to thank you for your kind attention and coöperation in making the work that I had to perform here easy. The Hon. J. O. Davidson, Governor of the State of Wisconsin, will now act as permanent chairman of the Conference.

GOVERNOR DAVIDSON: I thank you for this additional honor, for I consider it a great honor to have the privilege of presiding over this important Conference. There are a great many questions that you will have to discuss here, and I think one of the greatest questions for you to settle is to find some means by which you can induce every taxpayer to give in the value of his property to the assessors. If you can do that, the rest will be easy. It undoubtedly will be a hard task to devise some