140 CONSTITUTION OF MARYLAND [Arts. 12-13]

shall hear and determine such matters as affect the Public Works of. the
State, and as the General Assembly may confer upon them the power to
decide.
See art. 78A of the An. Code.

Sec. 2: They shall exercise a diligent and faithful supervision of all
Public Works in which the State may be interested as Stockholder or
Creditor, and shall represent and vote the stock of the State of Maryland
in all meetings of the stockholders of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; and
shall appoint the Directors in every Railroad and Canal Company in which
the State has the legal power to appoint Directors, which said Directors
shall represent the State in all meetings of the Stockholders of the respec-
tive Companies for which they are appointed or elected. And the President
and Directors of the said Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company shall so
regulate the tolls of said Company from time to time as to produce the
largest amount of revenue, and to avoid the injurious effect to said Com-
pany of rival competition by other Internal Improvement Companies.
They shall require the Directors of all said Public Works to guard the
public interest and present the establishment of tolls which shall discrimi-
nate against the interest of the citizens or products of this, State, and from
time to time, and as often as there shall be any change in the rates of toll
on any of the said Works, to furnish the said Board of Public Works a
schedule of such modified rates of toll, and so adjust them as to promote
the agricultural interests of the State; they shall report to the General
Assembly at each regular session, and recommend such legislation as they
may deem necessary and requisite to promote or protect the interests of
the State in the said Public Works; they shall perform such other duties
as may be hereafter prescribed by Law, and a majority of them shall be com-
petent to act. The Governor, Comptroller and Treasurer shall receive no
additional salary for services rendered by them as members of the Board
of Public Works. The provisions of the Act of the General Assembly of
Maryland of the year 1867, chapter 359, are hereby declared null and void.
Sec. 3. The Board of Public Works is hereby authorized, subject to such
regulations and. conditions as the General Assembly may from time to
time prescribe, to sell the State's interest in all works of internal improve-
ment, whether as a Stockholder or a Creditor, and also the State's interest
in any banking corporation, receiving, in payment the bonds and registered
debt now owing by the State, equal in amount to the price obtained for
the State's said interest. ¹

This section does hot limit the power of the legislature. The board of public works;
in the absence of legislative authority, has no power to waive or surrender a state's
lien or to make a contract for a deferred lien on the property of any of the internal
improvement companies of the state; such power rests with the legislature alone. The
act of 1878, ch. 58, and the mortgage made under it so far as they pledge the tolls and
revenues of the company, held valid. Design of this section. Brown v. C. & O. Canal
Co., 73 Md. 579 and 603.

This section referred to in construing art. 3, sec. 34—see notes thereto. Bonsai v.
Yellott, 100 Md. 505.

ARTICLE XIII.

NEW COUNTIES.

Section 1. The General Assembly may provide, by Law, for organizing
new Counties, locating and removing county seats, and changing county

¹Thus amended by act of 1890, ch. 362, ratified Novembers, 1891.