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t position * f a w&re the railway lands are assess avc$r5 an acre and the farm h&?on' either.side $30. . The taxes of rail-- Iway are $6 a mile, and their bonuses : amount to $43,000. _ He claimed that. to charge the railways a fair share of taxation would help to keep the young men on the {arm. Mr. MeéEwing of West Wellington declared that in ~the three town-- ships of West Wellington there were g7o miles of railway that had been nused to the amount of $131,000, and their taxes last year were $180.00. or ?0 cents an acre. | Mr. Slater of North Waterloo point--. ed out that the railways on their own showing were earning over and above. cxpenses $1--212 a mile, or $150 an acre on their land, and stated that the net ecarnings of farm land was not over $1.50 an acre. | Mr. Hyatt of Prince Edward said the people of that riding would not sup-- port a Government that took ten years to right the present unjust conditions. The question of taxing franchises was then taken up. G. Lynch Staunton.l 'K.C., of Hamilton spoke for the tele-- [phone company and contended that af '{franchise was personalty, the taxation . |of which it was one object of the bill to abolish. He further claimed that whcn" 'a company had been taxed on its realty it had been taxed on its franchise, be-- Icausc realty was assessed at what it (was worth to its owners; that was, at its. |earning power. Mr. Hugh Baker,man-- 1agcr of the telephone company for On-- 1tari0. pointed out that the company was assessed now for the municipalities |and for the Province and that the Jsharcholdcra' dividends were taxed, and said this would be a fourth tax. , Mr. A. C. Thompson spoke for the single taxers and pointed out that every | holder of a valuable corner lot was j taxed for the franchise he enjoyed in its possession. He thought company franchises should be taxed. Mr. Henry O'Brien, K.C., spoke for the Toronto Electric Light Co., and contended that the planting of poles in the highway was a legitimate use of it, just the same as driving a ccal cart over it. He held that overtaxa-- tion would drive capital away {from necessary enterprises. Solicitor Mac-- Kelcan, for Hamilton, and Solicitor Caswell, for Toronto, urged that the | cities should be allowed to make thcirl | own assessments of franchised com panies. They held it would not be just to divide up among the muni-- cipalities of the Province the revenues | of those cities. Mr. D. E. Thomson appeared for the Toronto Board of Trade in support of the taxation of franchises. He held that when a fran--| chise was valuable it should be taxed like other property. _ The committee a¥journed till Friday morning. znmmmemmmmmmmmemmemaan + OSGCODE HALL NEWS,