GENERAL GRANT ON EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE AND TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXXII, Issue 5708, 8 January 1876, Page 3

GENERAL GRANT ON EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE AND TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY.

Tun following extracts are from the message of General Uraut to the Congress of the States : — NECESSITY OF THE KDUt'ATIOX OP THE MASSES. We are a republic where one man is as good as another before the law. Under such a form of Government it is of the greatest importance that all should be possessed of education and intelligence enough to cast a vote with a right understanding of its meaning. A large association of ignorant men cannot, frr any considerable period, oppose successful resistance to tyranny and oppression from the educated few, but will inevitably sink into aequiesence to the will of intelligence, whether directed by the demagogue or the priest-craft. Hence the education of the masses becomes of the first necessity for the preservation of our institutions. They are worth preserving, because they have secured the greatest good to the greatest proportion of the population of any form of government yet devised. All other forms of government approach it just in proportion to the general diffusion of education and independence of thought and action. As the primary step, therefore, to our advancement in all that has marked our progress in the past century, I suggest, for your earnest consideration ana most earnestly recommend it, that a constitutional amendment be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification, making it the duty of each of the several States to establish and forever maintain free public schools adequate to the education of all the children in the rudimentary branches, within their respective limits, irrespective of sex, colour, birth-place or creed ; and forbiddingtlieuse in said schools ©f irreligious, atheistic, or pagan text books, and prohibiting the granting of any school funds or school taxes, or any part thereof, either by legislative, municipal or other bodies for the benefit of any other object, of any nature or kind whatever.

UNTAXRD CHUltCH PROPHRTY. In connection with this important question, I would also call your attention to the importance of correcting an evil which, if permitted to continue, will probably lead to great trouble in our land before the close of the nineteenth century. It is the accumulation of vast amounts of untaxed Church, property. In 1850, I believe the Church property of the United States which paid no tax, municipal or state, amounted to about S3,000,000dol. In 1860 the amount had doubled, and in 1875 it was about 1,000,000,000. By 1900, without check, it is safe to say that this property will reach a sum exceeding 3,000,000,000dol. So vast a sum receiving all the pi'otection and benefits of Government without bearing its proportion of the burdens and expenses of the same, will not be looked upon acquiescently by those who have paid taxes. In a growing country, where real estate enhances so rapidly with time, as in the United States, there is scarcely a limit to wealth that may be acquired by corporations, religious or otherwise, if allowed to retain real estate without taxation. The contemplation, also, of so vast a property as is here alluded to, ■r ithout taxation, may lead to sequestration without constitutional authority and through blood. I would suggest the taxation of all property equally, whether church or corporation, exempting only the last restingplace of the dead, and possibly, with proper restrictions, church edifices.