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Show COUSTY BONDING. . The result of the recent vote in Salt Lake county on the proposition to bond for nearly four hundred thoueand dollars to pay past indebtedness and to provide some needed improvements, cannot be anything but beneficial. A9 an example to the other counties of the territory its worth is far greater than to Salt Lake. It is a mistaken idea altogether, al-together, this thin of shifting onto the ehoulders of posterity, the consequences conse-quences of our own waste.extrayaeance or mistakes. We may well be guided by the experience of other states in a matter of this kind. Soon after the war. In the state of Texas, we were fiercely attacked by this same Eplrit of "progress," falsely so called. The bonding scheme was entered into while the substantial tax-paying citizens were disfranchised in the troubulous days of reconstruction, and when the negroes and carpetbaggers held high revel in the leeislative balls in the southern states. The consequence was that the taxes became so burdensome that to collect them was equivalent to confiscation- Time passed on and then came the re-enfranchisement of the people. One of the first things done by the firet legislature after reconstruction, recon-struction, was tu pass a law making it impossible for the counties to bond for any save bridges, courthouses, and school buildings. The good effects ot this law were at once observeable. In less than ten years the rate of taxation was so reduced that there was but one state in the union Michigan where the rate was lower then in Texas. Now, in consequence conse-quence of the counties haying sold their allotments of school lands, nearly every countv, instead of borrowing money, is loaning it. The bonded indebtedness in-debtedness established by the negroes and carpet-baggers has long since been wiped out and only remains as one of the bitter memories incident to the times which tried men's souls in a veiy fierce way. We do sincerely hope that our new constitution will contain a section dealing with this subject in some emphatic em-phatic way. It Ib all very well to have palatial courthouses and glittering and luxurious fittings and furnishings if there were no pay day, but the first installment falJinc Hn -ja another "uiu. But ir you want to see real agony let the first payment of the principal prin-cipal and accumulated interest come due. Then you will have cursings and revilements, and these generally come from those who have worked and staiyed to accumulate something for a i rainy day, or for the days when they can no longer work. The best men we have. Ask one of these how he likes that sort of progress and what be thinkB of the policy of placing these burdens upon the shoulders of future generations. His reply may not be classic in its elegance, but it will be emphatic and easily understood. There is no more dangerous principle connected con-nected with public policy than this eame bonding privilege. It should be guarded and hedged round with the utmost care. There are times when such things are absolutely abso-lutely necessary, but wait for that day. Certainly the prevailing hard times is not the occasion when we can bond the countieB with propriety, thus increasing increas-ing our tax-rate when ve have lesa with which to pay. It is a strong plea, we admit, to sav that by inaugurating public works we thereby furnish employment em-ployment to laborers and that they will spend the money here, but if we can do without the improvements for which we bond, then surely the policy of bonding juBt to furnish woikforthe poor Is a most wretched one. The argument ar-gument is untenable. Let us guard this matter of bonding as jealously as we do the matter of subsidy. They differ only in degree.anyhow. |