Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/210

196 not represent more than twenty-five per cent of such aggregate. In the United States the increase in recent years of personal property has been so remarkable as to entitle it to be regarded as phenomenal; and it can not be doubted that in highly civilized and densely populated States, like New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, etc., the aggregate of property classed as "personal" is greater in actual value than the aggregate of "real" property. In the great American cities the value of personal property probably closely approximates the English proportion. A recent report of the Boston Business Association expresses an opinion that the value of the personal property of that city is three or four fold that of its realty! And yet the amount of personal property made available for tax assessments shows everywhere a remarkable decrease; and this, notwithstanding a great concurrent increase in population and in the assessed value of real estate. It may also be regarded almost an economic axiom, that universally the market value of the aggregate of land and that of the aggregate of other productive capital are equal; and for the reason that the market value of land is merely the reflection of the value of the productive capital placed upon it and its immediate vicinity. It would therefore seem to be certain that the decline in the valuations of personal property, above noted, is not real, but simply represents the failure and utter inefficiency of the existing laws which have been enacted with a view of assessing and collecting taxes upon such property.

The following are some of the most striking illustrations of the decline of tax valuations of personal property in recent years in the United States: Thus, in 1866, the valuation of the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, for purposes of taxation was, realty $66,454,602, personalty $67,218,101. In 1892—twenty-six years after—the tax valuation of the real estate of the city was $144,708,810, while its personal property had decreased to $44,735,670; or, in other words, while the personal property of Cincinnati returned for taxation in 1866 was greater than the returned amount of real estate, the amount returned in 1892 was only about a quarter as much as the real estate; and yet during this quarter of a century the city of Cincinnati nearly doubled its population, and undoubtedly increased its wealth in a far greater proportion. In the city of Boston the value of the realty returned for taxation in 1868 was $287,635,800, and of personalty $205,937,300. In 1890 the corresponding figures were, realty $619,990,275, personalty $202,051,525, a disproportionate gain of realty of $417,938,750.

In the State of Massachusetts in 1862 personalty was assessed at $309,000,000 to $552,000,000 of real estate, or in the ratio of fifty-six per cent of the latter. In 1891 the personalty was