Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/216

 shall be the same as the commissioner districts of the several counties. It was over the territory of the different counties not embraced in any organized civil township that the jurisdiction of the county assessor extended. It swept over all such territory within the county. But under § 30 of the revenue law the same territory is subdivided and placed under the jurisdiction of several assessors, each officer having a separate district, whose boundaries coincide with those of a particular commissioner district. It is therefore obvious that the two offices cannot co-exist. There cannot be two officers each having authority to assess the same property as the basis of the same tax. One officer might be authorized to assess for one tax, and another for a different tax. But the assessment of the county assessor, and the assessment of the district assessor are each the basis of all taxes, and therefore of the same taxes. In cases of difference as to values, and there would be many such cases, which assessment would control? Which would be the valid assessment? Would each be valid in part, and, if so, what part?

These inquiries show into what inextricable confusion the collection of the public revenue would be thrown should it be decided that’ these two necessarily inconsistent offices could coexist. The office of district assessor, created by the revenue law, displaces the office of county assessor, because the two cannot stand together. But it is said that this portion of the revenue law was not to take effect until after the expiration of the term of office of the county assessors in office when the state was admitted into the Union. By an emergency clause, the act went into operation upon its approval. There is nothing in the language of the act to indicate that the provision relating to the office of district assessor should be held in abeyance until the expiration of the term of office of the county assessors. The act in its full scope became a law upon its approval. It was true that, a new office having been created, no district assessor could have been placed in the office to exercise its functions until after the fall election, had not the statute in express terms provided that boards of county commissioners might by appointment fill any vacancy in the office. Weare here met by the ar-