x REPORT OF THE

If this be done, no complications need arise in the case of
home companies and foreign companies working under char-
ters from other States.

In the case of home companies, organized under the laws
of this State, if the lines are taxed as real property, the as-
sessment in each county, and in the City of Baltimore, can be
deducted from the aggregate value of the shares of stock, as
in case of other corporations; whereas, if taxed as personal
property, the whole must be merged in the general value of
the shares of stock, and the localities through which the
lines pass, may thus be deprived of the benefit of the assess-
ment for local taxation. These companies enjoy an easement
resembling in most respects the easements enjoyed by gas
companies and street railway companies, which are now
taxed as real property. This is the mode of taxation in
other States, and I think its adoption here by express pro-
vision of law, would prevent any difficulties from arising in
regard to the proper distribution of the benefits of the assess-
ment among the localities interested. In the case of home
companies, the assessment of the personal property would be
useful in ascertaining the true value of the shares of stock,
and in the case of foreign companies, the assessment of both.
real and personal property would be the measure of taxation
in each locality where it exists.

EQUALITY OF TAXATION.

The people of Maryland, after establishing their sov-
ereignty by the overthrow of the dominion of the King of
Great Britain, in their first effort to construct a government
of their own, prescribed as the fundamental rule upon the
subject of taxation, "that every person in the State, or hold-
ing property therein, ought to contribute his proportion of
public taxes for the support of the government, according to
his actual worth in real and personal property. " This rule
established by the people, through their representatives, in
the exercise of their highest sovereign power, was, no doubt,
intended by our unsophisticated ancestors, as establishing an
invariable principle which it would be beyond the power of
the General Assembly to alter or abridge in any way. A
refined judicature, however, was not long in giving a dif-