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Show Mine Tax Case To Be Argued Keen interest has been displayed by officials and mining attorneys of several states in the case of the Southern Sou-thern Utah Mines & Smelters against Beaver county, which will be argued before the supreme court of the United States in Washington, D. C, this week. The case brings before the highest tribunal in the land for decision de-cision the question of the validity of the taxation of metalliferous mines on a multiple of submultiple of the net annual proceeds of such mines. Inasmuch as by amendment to the Utah constitution passed at the general gen-eral elections of 1918 such a method cf taxation of mines was written into in-to the Utah constitution, the supreme court is asked to decide whether the Utah constitution is constitutional, when considered in the light of the federal constitution. These are some other issues in the case, but they are, in the main subservient sub-servient to this particular question, at least in the interest the case has with other interests than the litigants liti-gants in the present case. The case was brought in the United Unit-ed States district court at Salt Lake and was heard before Judge Page Morris of Duluth, sitting at the time for Judge Tilman D. Johnson. From his decision appear was taken by the mines and smelters company direct to the supreme court of the United States on constitutional grounds. The company operates at Newhouse Prior to 1914 the tailings of the mine had grown to a volume of 900,000 tons, containing some values which it was not at that time profitable to attempt to recover. During the high prices for such metal content, however, how-ever, in 1918, a leasing company operated op-erated the tailings, and the net annual an-nual proceeds for the year were $120 5 47. Following the law based on the constitutional amendment, which prescribes the method of valuing al! mineral content, the state board of equalisation valued these contents for that year at three times the net annual proceeds, or $361,641. The company paid the taxes on this valuation val-uation to Beaver county under protest pro-test and proceeded to recover the amount of taxes so paid, running into in-to several thousands of dollars. Inasmuch as the validlity of the state constitution, and the amount of taxes collected from every mine in the state were brought into question ques-tion by the suit, the county asked and obtained assistance of the state in defending the action. The case was assigned by Harvey H. Cluff, attorney at-torney general, to Assistant Attorney Attor-ney General William A. Hilton, and he will arrive in. Washington today to plead the cause of Beaver county before the supreme court. Technical questions of procedure are . also involved, and the county, through Mr. Hilton, has filed) a demurrer, de-murrer, which will be argued this week, and at the same time the merits mer-its of the issue involved will also, by order of the court, be presented. The case is in accord with supreme court custom, called for argument during the present week. Should the court decide the case on the demurrer, the constitutionality of the Utah constitution consti-tution will still be somewhat in question. ques-tion. But should the supreme court take up the issues themselves, the decision de-cision is expectedi to be of vast interest inter-est not only to Beaver county, but to the entire state, and also to several other states with constitutions similar sim-ilar to that of Utah which have extensive ex-tensive mining interests. The Utah constitution in one section sec-tion provides that all property shall pay its just and equal proportion of taxes, and in the next section makes special provision for the assessment of milling property. It is contended that this section relating to mines violates the provisions of the preceding pre-ceding section, and also the fourteenth fourteen-th amendment to the federal constitution, consti-tution, whic hprovides that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty lib-erty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person with-j with-j in its jurisdiction the equal protec- tion of the laws. |