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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

STATE OF CONNECTICUT,

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF BUREAU OF

LABOR STATISTICS.

HARTFORD, December 1, 1896.

To His Excellency, O. VINCENT Coffin,

Governor of Connecticut.

SIR: I have the honor to hand you herewith the Twelfth Annual Report of this Bureau.

Respectfully yours,

WILLIAM W. IVES, Clerk.

SAMUEL B. HORNE, Commissioner.

INTRODUCTION.

The Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau is devoted largely to the subject of the system of assessments for purposes of taxation, as it prevails in Connecticut, covering a large field of inquiry and exhaustively treating the matter of inequalities, as found to exist, through the many channels and sources of information by means of which the data found in the subjoined tables was secured.

One of the distinctive features of the trend of public opinion. for years past, has been the revival of interest in matters pertaining to the always existing inequality in assessments of real and personal property for purposes of taxation. It is true that from some of the more advanced thinkers and political economists, there has been the most earnest and vehement protests against the system as now in use in Connecticut, with what effect is a matter of public knowledge. With the more flagrant and glaring of these inequalities this report has to do.

It might, in this connection, be pertinently asked; What has a Bureau of Labor Statistics, established and conducted by the State government, to do with the subject of taxation? The answer is equally pertinent, and sufficiently clear and convincing, that the purpose for which the Bureau was organized,* gives it unlimited scope as regards the investigations to be made by it, when the investigation is one made in the interests of "laboring men and women," and for the purpose of "promoting their material, social, intellectual and moral prosperity." And equally as pertinent is the assertion that the question of the inequalities in the assessment of property, as this report will clearly show, obtain in the State, most certainly is of such vital interest to the toiling masses whom it most concerns, as to warrant the expenditure of the work necessary for its compilation. Moreover it has been the contention that working men have been unjustly treated in many ways. Among them is the matter of unfair and excessive assessments on his property, were he sufficiently fortunate as to be possessed of any, and for the purpose of ascertaining the truth.

[Extract from Statutes.]

SECTION 2947:-"The Commissioner shall collect information upon the subject of labor, its relation to capital, the hours of labor, and the earnings of laboring men and Women, and the means of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and moral prosperity; but for this purpose persons shall not be required to leave the vicinity of their residences or places of business."

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