CHAPTER V.

CAUSES OF BUSINESS DEPRESSION.

Driving away wealth.—Real estate derives its value from personalty.—Cause of panics.—Law of fluctuation of real estate values.—Realestate the chute through which the stream of taxes runs.—Good policyfor owners.—Obscure causes appear by their effects.—Illustration. —Adog to drive away custom.—The damage he does.—Why we keep him.—A serious joke on proposed amendments.—A case in Tennessee.—William Penn’s committee and later procedures.

George H. Andrews, long Commissioner of Taxes inNew York , in a series of letters dealing with the futureof New York at a time when business was muchdepressed, discussed the subject of taxing personal prop-erty. He said in letter seven of the series:

“ It must be conceded that the relations between realand personal property are of the most intimate, andshould be of the most amicable, character ; and that realestate is dependent for its prosperity upon the presenceof personal property, and not its mere presence, but thatits conditions shall be such as to make it active, product-ive, and profitable to its owners. The present depressionin the value of real estate generally is not from anyinherent cause—that is, any cause originating in andpeculiar to itself. There is no greater area of real estate