Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/834

 of bank stock, but only in respect to the method of arriving at its value for tax purposes. Obviously the moneys and credits tax is an ad valorem tax, and it is as important to arrive at the value for purposes of levying the 3-mill tax as for subjecting the property to a tax levied according to the local rate, So there is no inconsistency between chap. 61 and the Money and Credits Act.

Chap. 59 of the laws of the same session, which was also approved on the same day, provides a classification scheme by virtue of which bank stock falls in the class subjected to the highest valuation. Class 1 reads in part:

“All land, town and city lots, railroads, bank stock, express and tele- graph property, shall constitute class one,” etc.

And in providing for class 3 we find this language:

“All household goods, and house equipment and wearing apparel, structures and improvements upon farm land, stocks other than banks, bonds, money and credits, provided that such stocks, bonds, money and credits are not otherwise assessed under a mill or flat rate law, shall constitute class three,” etc.

Clearly the Legislature was impressed with’ the desirability of distinguishing between bank stock and other stocks for purposes of classifying property for taxation, and, to make the distinction effective, it spoke of bank stock alone in one place and of “stocks other than banks” in another. Similarly the distinction has always been made in the listing law, previously quoted in this opinion, showing that, where bonds and stocks generally were listed, bank stock would be included were it not for the expression “bonds and stocks, other than bank stock.” {J 21, $ 2103, C. L. 1913. Not only throughout the history of tax legislation have appropriate words been used to exclude bank stock from bonds and stocks generally where that term has been employed, but indeed in the very session of the legislature which passed the Money and Credits Act the same distinction was made for classification purposes—only to be ignored, however, in levying the mill tax. While it may be true that this section discloses an intention to tax bank stock according to a higher rate of valuation than other stocks, it affords conclusive proof that the legislature was familiar with the terminology employed in the Money and Credits Act, and we cannot with propriety speculate as to why it failed to make the exception as it had always done before. From the fact that the exception was not made it must be inferred that it was