Attention may now be directed to some of the financial needs of the state. The growing importance of government is shown in Texas in the growth of state expenditures. Though there is complaint about public expenditures, Texas is not doing as much as some other states in proportion to her ability. The following table, compiled from the United States Census, shows the relative standing of some selected states in 1913, and the amounts given are the combined expenditures of the state, counties, towns and other local subdivisions per $1,000 of taxable wealth at its full or true value.

Complaints as to expenditures are in some cases unintelligent and are mouthed about for political effect, but in the majority of instances the complaints do not so much represent antipathy to the purposes of the expenditures as they do dissatisfaction with the revenue system and public officials. By reason of the breakdown of the general property tax, the weight of taxation falls increasingly on the owners of real property, until in the cities the description of taxes as burdens is not inappropriate. Real property owners feel that there is injustice in this, and consequently oppose proposals which will mean additional taxation whose benefits are not obvious, immediate, and personal. Public officials are too frequently looked upon as mere " office-holders," and there is lack of confidence in their ability to get for the public the most out of the money raised for public use. The two greatest financial problems which Texas has are to secure an equitable system of taxation and an efficient body of administrators. These are the problems of government in all of the American states and cities, but Texas has been more indifferent toward them than have many other states.

The present state constitution is becoming a patchwork, and an entirely new one should be framed. The constitutional provisions relating to taxation, the public debt, and the selection and compensation of public officials were laid down in 1875. At that time intangible personal property was relatively less important than it is now, the corporation was not as great a factor as at present, the urban element in the population was much smaller than now, and the conditions generally for the successful operation of the general property tax were, while bad enough, more favorable than they now are. In that year also, owing to the effects of the Civil War, the Reconstruction, and the panic of 1873, economy of the narrowest kind, in both public and private affairs, was a grinding necessity, and this was reflected in the binding restrictions upon the taxing and debt creating powers of the state government. In continuing to adhere to the general property tax, with its uniform rate upon all classes of property and with its decentralized system of administration, Texas is in the rearguard of the American states as respects methods of taxation. It is almost incomprehensible that in this year of the twentieth century there should be a state in which the complicated properties of railroads are assessed for the most part in piecemeal by local assessors, and in which there is no state supervision of these assessors in their assessment of the property of either individuals or corporations.

Various proposals have been made in and out of the legislature to cure the evils complained of. As a remedy for the varying proportions of assessed to true values among the counties separation of state and local revenues has been more advocated in Texas than has any other remedy. Only the complete withdrawal of the state from the taxation of real estate would make this remedy effective against the particular defect of the tax system to which it is applicable, but in view of state support of the public free schools, and the desirability of the continuance and extension of such support, abandonment of the real estate tax by the state does not seem likely. Separation of sources of revenue is not a reform measure which is employed to any great extent by other states, and the tendency seems to be away from it rather than towards it. Even if it were a desirable reform measure for Texas, it would not be possible without a constitutional amendment.

If the property tax is retained as a state tax, some system of state control over assessments should be adopted. Decentralization of administration has failed in taxation in Texas as it failed in the administration of the public lands. Centralization should succeed decentralization, and the state board or commission should have the power to supervise assessments of property for state taxation, should have authority over assessors and collectors, and should assess the property of corporations which, like railroads, express companies, telegraph and telephone com-vpanies, do a state-wide business. The present state tax board is deficient in power and is wrongly constituted.

A central tax board or commission will not remedy the evil of the escape of personal property, especially of intangible personalty, from taxation. The weakness of the system which employs property as an index of ability to pay taxes is nowhere better exhibited than in connection with the taxation of personal property. Some of it should not be subject to taxation at all, for there results therefrom a vicious variety of double taxation. The taxation of vendor's lien notes and of the property which secures them, for example, is double taxation of an indefensible kind. Texas avoids similar double taxation in other cases; thus the shares of stock of domestic corporations are not liable to assessment when the property of the corporation is subject to assessment in the state, and there is no double taxation of bank stock and bank property. The Texas laws do not carry out the principle of exemption to its logical conclusion, for there is no valid reason for treating differently stocks on the one hand, and bonds and credits, such as vendor's lien notes, on the other. An interesting situation will exist as a result of the provision in the Federal Farm Loan Act which exempts from Federal, state and other taxation any mortgage executed to a Federal land bank. If this exemption provision stands, some farm mortgages will be taxable while others will be exempt.