Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 1).pdf/417

 according to law,” and such list “shall be full and sufficient authority for the collection by the treasurer of all taxes therein contained.” When this list is delived to the treasurer, he is charged with the full amount thereof, and in his settlement with the commissioners he can be credited only “with the amounts collected thereon and the delinquent list;” and the delinquent list, as thus used, refers to such taxes as cannot, by the use of any means provided by the law, be collected; and, if the treasurer fails to thus account for the full amount with which he is charged, he and his bondsmen are liable on his official bond. From this view of the statute it would seem that the office of treasurer was purely ministerial. His duties are assigned, their performance demanded, and punishment prescribed for failure. There is no room for discretion, He is as powerless to question the decision of the assessor as is a sheriff with a special execution to question the correctness of a judgment of a court with acknowledged jurisdiction.

But respondent claims that judicial powers are given to the treasurer under § 1621, already quoted, where he is directed to sell all lands “which shall be liable for taxes of any description.” The contention is that the order to sell lands that are liable for taxes is equivalent to an order to sell no lands that are not so liable, and that by said section the duty is thrown upon the treasurer to decide in each instance whether or not the property is so liable. This construction, if correct, largely supersedes the office of assessor. If the treasurer is to disregard his warrant, and sell no property not liable for taxes, even though the same appears on his list, it is at least equally true that he must sell all lands that are liable for taxes, although the same do not appear on his list. To perform that duty, the treasurer must at once recanvass the county, and decide for himself what property is, and what property is not, subject to taxation. We do not believe such was the legislative purpose. The language is no broader in § 1621 than in § 1593, where the clerk is directed to prepare a list which shall contain “a list of all taxable lands in the county.” The mandate to the clerk is as positive as the mandate to the treasurer, but the clerk is to make “a list of all taxable lands in the county, * * * with the names