860 LAWS OF MARYLAND. [Ch. 588]

CHAPTER 588.

AN ACT to appropriate a sum of money to pay James M. Mun-
roe for legal services rendered to the State of Maryland upon
the employment of the Honorable Gordon T. Atkinson, Comp-
troller of the Treasury, in the case of the State of Maryland
against The Union Trust Company of Maryland.

WHEREAS, The Honorable Gordon T. Atkinson, then Comp-
troller of the Treasury of Maryland, in accordance with the
provisions of Article 19 of the Code of Public General Laws
placed in the hands of James M. Munroe, attorney-at-law,
for collection, the claim of the State of Maryland for taxes
due upon the capital stock of The Union Trust Company of
the par value of one million dollars, payment of which claim
was resisted by said company on the ground that it was only
taxable on five hundred thousand dollars of stock, and upon
the further ground that the levy of said tax by the State Tax
Commissioner was null and void, which contention, if sus-
tained by the Courts would have deprived the State of many
thousands of dollars due from corporations on their capital
stock; and,

WHEREAS, In order to test the validity of said tax the Comp-
troller of the State Treasury directed the said James M.
Munroe to bring suit against the said Union Trust Company
for said taxes in the name of the State, and the said Munroe,
in obedience to said direction brought suit in the Superior
Court of Baltimore City against said Union Trust Company
in March, 1908, and which said suit was vigorously resisted
by said Trust Company in the Superior Court of Baltimore
City and on appeal from the said Court by said Trust Com-
pany in the Court of Appeals; and,

WHEREAS, Said suit was prosecuted by said Munroe in behalf
of the State of Maryland successfully both in said Superior
Court and in the Court of Appeals, with the result that all
questions touching the right of the State Tax Commissioner
to levy said taxes on capital stock of corporations have been
set at rest, as well as the method to be pursued in making
such levies has been settled, and the time as of which said
taxes are to be levied has been put beyond further dispute,