bonds in such domestic corporation owned by its citizens. For instance, there has just recently been handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States the cast of Fort Smith Lumber Company v. the State of Arkansas, reported in 64th Law Ed., 532, upholding a law of the State of Arkansas, taxing stock owned by Arkansas corporations in other Arkansas corporations, which exempted such stock when owned by individual citizens. It must be conceded that Georgia's law is more liberal than such laws as these.

How to solve the problems of the method to be prusued, in the taxation of this kind of property, as well as the other problems which confront our tax officials, is a most vital question to the State.

If I were permitted to make a suggestion, it would be to inaugurate some system whereby our tax officials could be more fully instructed in their official duties.

John Stuart Mill in one of his essays said: "A government cannot have too much of the kind of activity which does not impede, but aids and stimulates, individual exertion -The mischief begins when, instead of calling for the activity and powers of individuals and bodies, it substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, instead of informing, advising, and upon occasion denouncing, it makes them work in fetters."

The criticism expressed in the lines quoted, it occurs to me, is not inapplicable to Georgia's attitude towards her tax officials. While she has enacted an "elaborate scheme for the assessment and the collection of any tax lawfully levied," she has failed to see to it that her tax officials, and especially her tax receivers, are made to realize, that it is only through an honest and fearless administration of their official duties, that that equality of the burden of taxation so much desired can ever be attained.

In this day of progress, men are wont to meet in convention and discuss the problems which confront them. If there were inaugurated a convention of the tax officials of the State, at some centrally located place within the State, where they could meet in convention and discuss among them

selves the problems which confront them in the performance of their official duties; and where they could be addressed by men learned in tax laws, a step in the right direction would have been taken; and if reform in legislation should be found necessary, they could initiate the proper kind of legislation, which would accomplish the desired end-even to the extent of an amendment to the Constitution. Such a convention would not only make our tax officials more efficient, but it would tend to arouse in the people a clearer conception of their obligation toward the State in tax matters and make them more inclined to co-operate with the tax officials.

Of course, we would all like to be relieved from the payment of taxes, but not until man-made governments shall cease to be, and we shall have our abode in a realm, where the only tribute which will be demanded of us will be a tribute of love, will the payment of taxes cease to be our portion. It therefore behooves us, one and all, to meet this obligation like men and see that others do likewise and then make such burden as light as possible for everyone.

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES.

ARE WE GOING FORWARD

OR BACKWARD?

ADDRESS BY

RUBEN R. ARNOLD,

OF ATLANTA.

In the mass of utterances that fill the press, the platform, the pulpit, and the very air, it is hard to say anything either interesting or instructive.

To say anything new is almost impossible. To put an old idea in a new form, is nearly as hard. The truth is, about the most novel thing one can do, in this babel of advanced thought, is to present something old.

Many things are called new, but we feel the weight of the aphorism that there is nothing new under the sun. An ocean of stuff has been washed up, in the wake of the great war, which occupies the attention of the world. The field of wisdom, mediocrity, and folly, seems to have been covered.

The age of experimentation in government, in science, in art, and in the social life of the people, seems to be up

on us.

In purely scientific, and material, and mechanical matters, we have made vast improvements, and are doing so every day. But, in things political, governmental, and social, the real advancement has not been in proportion to the noise made. In some directions we have progressed, and in others gone backward.

WE NEED A REST.

Human beings need periods of rest, and so do nations. More than anything else, the world needs a rest right now in new things. Every radical thought or movement is instantly organized, incorporated, capitalized. Everything must have a try-out, and the public must be called on to read about it, to contribute to it, and earnestly urged to adopt it. We are surfeited with novelties.

We should realize that the world is here for a long time to come, that we have plenty of time to work out, in an orderly way, all needful changes, and that we should not try to do everything at once. We cannot over-haul the situation in a day. We should not scrap the whole edifice of civilization until we can furnish a better structure.

It is time for the world to slow down a bit. We have been kicking up a great dust, even if we have attained very little real speed. No one seems content with the commonplace things of life, and, yet we all know that healthy existence is made up in the main of commonplace things. Too many of us want excitement all of the time. Not enough people are willing to do real work. Country life is too slow. Multitudes must move to the cities. This restless spirit results in crime, divorce, suicides, strikes, changes in occupations, embezzlements, extravagance, business failures, and disaster generally. All these things, in the end, by causing so many failures in life, breed blind dissatisfaction with existing institutions, because the man who fails in life, blames everything but himself.

MERE CHANGE IS NOT PROGRESS.

We seem to have lost our perspective. The time has arrived for some old-fashioned common sense. After a while, when these new views (however wrong) are thrust

upon us long enough, and are advertised widely enough, our deadened senses may finally begin to accept them, and we will acquiesce in anything. The most worthless patent medicine can be advertised, and boosted before the public until many will use it and believe it to be a cure-all.

I feel sometimes that, if any wild notion is insisted on long enough, and loudly enough, by a determined handful of people, the nation will finally accept it. Whether it agrees like the woman accepting an insistent suitor, merely to get rid of him, I do not know. But, certain it is, that many measures have been finally acquiesced in by the public, which the public was never strongly in favor of. We must be prepared to fight mere insistence, and persistence, on the part of those who would have things their own way when we know they are wrong.

We are losing the capacity to be surprised at anything. So many astonishing things have been accomplished, and so many untried experiments are being put to the test, that we seem to have lost our resisting power.

Surely, even in this remarkable age, there must be some limit to change, and there is a difference between real improvement and mere feverish restlessness.

I am aware that, in nature, there is no stability,-no static condition, no absolute rest. But, nature's changes are slow, and usually a matter of growth. The changes which are wrought by storm, tempest, and earthquake, are exceptional, and against the usual order of nature. Human society seems today to be in this condition of storm and tempest. The old proposition, "whatever is, is right," seems to be reversed, and "whatever is, is wrong," substituted.

Men of science tell us that the human race has been on the earth for hundreds of thousands of years. The only