2 _________' Olj A___ debt, not including trust-funds, is only $500,000. A tax of $1.60 upon each person will pay the public debt and meet the current expenses for a year. (Testimony, page 8.) Attorney-General Harris makes the following statement in regard to taxation for the period of twenty-six years. He says : “ Take, for example, twenty years of democratic rule in Mississippi,and see what amount of money their own records show were e pended, and they held uninterrupted sway, as we can best ascertain from the reports of the auditor and treasurer, made to biennial sessions of their Legislature. Take the twenty years from It50 to 1870 and compare it wit h six years of republican rule, from 1870 to 1875, inclusive, the following is shown: Expenditures: 1850............ $295,933 48 18G0 .... $663,536 55 1851............ 226,407 41 3851............ 1,824,161 75 1852............ 802,679 76 1862............ 6,819,894 54 1853............ 229,288 45 1863............ 2,110,794 23 1854............ 584,296 84 1834 .... 5,446,732 06 1855............ 311,578 19 1865............ 1,410,250 13 1856 ............ 784,896 79 1866............ 1,860,819 88 1857............ 1,057,086 57 38> 7............ 625,817 29 1858............ 614,659 00 1868............ 525,678 80 1859............ 707,015 00 1869............ 463.219 71 5,623,741 49 , 20,218,894 95 5,613,741 49 Total expenditures for twenty years, 25,832,646 44 Now, take the republican administration for six years. Expenditures for— 1870 . . . . $1,061,249 90 1873. . . . $953,030 00 1871 . . 1872. . . . 1,319,626 19 . . 1,098,031 69 1874. . 1875 . . . . 908,330 00 . . 618,259 00 3,478,906 78 2,479,619 00 3,478,9 6 78 5,957,525 78 “ Total expenditures for six years, $5,957,525.78. “The twenty years of democratic administration show an annual average of $1,291,632.32. The six years of republican administration show an annual average of $992,920.96. “This may be claimed to be unfair, as it embraces four years of the war; but, for the sake of fairness, let us strike out the four years of the war, or the amount expended during those four years, 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1864, and add in lieu thereof the amount expended in 1860, $663,536.55, and we have an expenditure of $12,184,619.06, or an annual average of $699,200 95, a s against $992,920.96. From this it would appear that the republican administration has been more expensive than the democratic administration ; but there are several reasons for this : Before the war the taxes were paid in gold and silver, and everything much cheaper than since the war ; and in January, 1870, when the republicans came into power, the State warrants were worth about sixty or sixty-five cents on the dollar ; the capitoland mansion were dilapidated; the penitentary and lunatic asylum were too small, and had to be extended and repaired, and all the improvements cost nearly two prices, because payments were made in warrants at their reduced value. And the judiciary system was rendered more expensive to the State by dispensing, with the probate court, the expenses of which had been formerly paid by the counties ; this jurisdiction was given to the chancery court, and th - number of citizens had more than doubled, and all departments of State government rendered necessarily more expensive. And, again, the school system1 has been carried on at an expense very large, a thing that had never existed before the war. The expenditures for school purposes in the six years I have been about $320,000 per annum. Let us add I a few items which have been necessary since the war, and for which no expenditures were ever made by the democracy, by way of annual averages, and it will be seen at a glance why it is that the expenditures have been larger than formerly: I For school purposes, (as above).................. $320,000 Probate court business by the chancery court, (probate salaries by the counties,) Code, 1857, (p. 4-3)......................... 36,700 Average annual improvements on public buildings, about.................................... 160,000 County record, &c., furnished, (destroyed during the war, and exhausted, &c.). .. 12,500 Making an average per annum of. ... . 469,200 “ Ta king this from the average, $992,920.96, leaves $523,720.96. These were necessary expenses, never incurred by a democratic administration. The only common-school system in the State before the war seemed to be a well-organized system to squander the school fund of the State as rapily as the same was donated to the State by the Government, as the history of the fund will show. Take these items from the annual expenditures of the six years of republican administration, and the average is reduced per year to $523,720.96; thus showing the average annual e - pense of the republican administration to be, on the old basis of State expenses, actually $75,480 less than the average expenses under the democratic rule of twenty years, with less than one-half of the citizens to be governed, and at a time when expenditures everywhere were largely in advance of former years. Many other items of extraordinary expenses have been incurred since January, 1870, not included in these statements. “ This, I think, shows a fair statement of the expenditures for the last twenty-six years, twenty years of democratic rule and six years of republican rule. “ The taxes have been increased and decreased for the various State purposes, for the six years • alluded to, as follows: 1870,5 mills onthe dollar; in 1871 it was4mills; in 1872, 8%mills; in 1873, it was 12% mills ; in 1874, it was 14 mills ; in 1875, it was 9% mills. In the last three years there was a school tax as follows : 1873 and 1874 a school tax of 4 mills, and for lt75, 2 mills. This is included in the above estimate, and the counties were restricted in their levies for county purposes as follows: By act of 1872 the counties were prohibited from levying a tax which, with the State and school tax added, shall not exceed 25 mills on the dollar, and in 1875 they were restricted to 20 mills on the dollar, “ It seems that the real complaint of the people of the State, as to the burden of taxation, grows out of the fact that the taxable property of the State is, in the main, unproductive ; and to evade the tax the tax-payers, in giving their property to the assessor, place it far helow its actual value, and continue year after year to reduce the taxable values of the property.” The statements made by Hon. G. E. Harris, attorney-general, Captain H. T. Fisher, and Mr. E. Barksdale are referred to as presenting both sides of the case, and furnishing the best means at the command of the committee for a just judgment. The testimony taken tends to show that those who participated in the means by which the election of 1875 was carried by the democratic party rely, for justification, upon the facts of maladministration, as set forth in the testimony submitted with.this report. In the opinion of the committee, those errors and wrongs, if admitted to the extent claimed, furnish no justification whatever for the outrages and crimes established by the testimony.
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