J. MILLARD TAWES, Governor                     2235

considered relevant to the opinion to be expressed below are as
follows:

(a)   The County Commissioners of Calvert County are author-
ized to levy and collect an annual license tax on any tourist camp
or trailer park and upon any trailer, mobile home, bus, street car.
or truck designed or modified for human habitation, and commonly
known as a house trailer.

(b)   The County Commissioners of Calvert County are author-
ized to prescribe rules and regulations for the administration of
the provisions of this section.

The constitutional standards by which this language and its in-
tended end are to be judged may be found in Article 15 of the Dec-
laration of Rights of the Constitution of Maryland. This article
requires that all taxes "levied by the State for the support of the
general State Government, and by the Counties and by the City of
Baltimore for their respective purposes, shall be uniform ..... within
the class or sub-class of improvements on land and personal prop-
erty which the respective taxing powers may have directed to be
subjected to the tax levy ....."

The purport of Article 15 of the Declaration of Rights long ago
was set forth in clear and precise language by Judge Robinson,
speaking in Tyson v. State, 28 Md. 577, 578 (1868): "Arbitrary
taxes on property without regard to value, are expressly prohibited,
and all measures for the imposition and collection of taxes upon
property, must conform to the general principle of equality."

The initial inquiry, then, is whether the "license tax" for which
House Bill No. 1075 makes provision is, on the one hand, a tax
imposed by a revenue-producing measure or, on the other hand,
merely a license required by an enactment under the legislative police
power. If it be the latter, Article 15 would not be applicable.

It is apparent, we think, that this legislation is essentially a
revenue-producing measure and subject to the limitations of Article
15. First, while Section 308 A (b) of the Act authorizes the Cal-
vert County Commissioners to prescribe rules and regulations with
respect to the license tax imposed by Section 308 A (a) of the Act,
Subsection (a) itself provides only for levy and collection of this
tax. No provision is made for assessment, so that the tax imposed
upon house trailers shall be imposed irrespective of the value of
such trailers. Second, the Act does not provide for, nor does it auth-
orize the County Commissioners to provide for, any health or similar
standards to be applied in the issuance of licenses. The Act clearly
contemplates that by merely paying the tax, one becomes entitled to
receive a license. The two factors are the very same ones which led
the Court of Appeals, in Anne Arundel County v. English, 182 Md.
514 (1943), to conclude that the trailer licensing statute there before
the Court was a revenue measure and, therefore, not constitutionally
sustainable as enacted under the police power. The decision in the
English case also makes it clear that the tax under consideration is a
property tax, and not a use tax.

Thus, the second question to be considered, is whether, as an act
imposing a property tax, House Bill No. 1075 meets the constitu-
tional requirements of uniformity and equality established by Article