Statement of the Receipts and Expenditures of the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad, from January first, to the thirty-first day of December, 1846, inclusive:

State of Michigan, Lenawee County, ss.

I, Henry Demmon, book keeper for the Erie and Kalamazoo Rail Road Company, being duly sworn, doth depose and say, that the above statement of the receipts and expenditures, of the Erie and Kalamazoo Rail Road Company, during the year eighteen hundred and forty-six is correct, according to the best of my knowledge and belief.

And deponent further says that he has been such book keeper during the past year, and has more particular knowledge of the receipts and expenditures of the said company, than any officer of the company as he verily believes..

HENRY DEMMON.

Subscribed and sworn before me January 14, 1847.

A. L. MILLERD,
Notary Public.

f

No. 12.

1847.

Report of Committee on State Affairs.

The committee on state affairs have had referred to them the demand or petition of C. S. Dunbar and twenty-one others, for a constitutional amendment, in the following language, to wit:

"The undersigned, residents of Berrien county in said State, respectfully demand of your honorable body such amendments to our constitution as will provide that the per diem allowance of the members of the Legislature shall not exceed three dollars a day for the first thirty days of each session, and one dollar and fifty cents for each and every day thereafter; also an amendment providing for biennial sessions of the Legislature.

"We deem it unnecessary to detail the many reasons for making the above demand, as they are doubtless obvious to you all, and are probably truly set forth in memorials from other parts of the State. Suffice it to say that our State indebtedness should prompt us to curtail expenses, and the fact that we are not as flush of money as in the days of '36, compels us to act toward our legislators no more liberal than we deal with our agricultural and mechanical citizens. New Buffalo, January, 1847."

Though the language of the foregoing is that of a direct requisition upon the legislature, yet the committee are disposed to treat it as a petition asking for the correction of what the petitioners believe to be a great evil, to wit: the excessive pay of members of the legislature.

The committee are not aware that any other petition than the above has been presented to the legislature on this subject, yet all know that it has been a matter of newspaper discussion, and the committee are induced to believe that a false public opinion has

been thereby formed of its effect upon the taxation of the peopie. and this consideration induces them to submit a few facts for consideration.

1st. The aggregate assessments of the State are about $30,000,000 2d. The aggregate taxation for all purposes except

school houses, is about

3d. The State tax, about

600,000

75,000

4th. County taxes, including poor taxes, about

150,000

5th. Township taxes, including road and school tax

es,

about

375,000

6th. The pay of members and officers of the legisla

ture for a session of 60 days, is nearly

18,000

Hence it will be seen that more than six-tenths of all our taxation is expended in the townships, and almost nine-tenths in the townships and counties; and that the entire State government, including the executive, legislative and judicial departments, with the printing, binding, and other incidental expenses attending the same, is paid for with but little more than one-tenth part of the taxes of the State; and that the pay of the members and officers of the legislature, with a sixty days' session, is less than one thirty-third part of the tax that the citizen pays.

With a tax of three dollars, the citizen pays nine cents a year to the legislature; with a tax of five dollars, he pays fifteen cents; with a tax of eight dollars, he pays twenty-four cents; and very few of our richest farmers in the country pay more than fifty cents to the legislature, whilst a great majority of taxable inhabitants pay less than one shilling a year towards the pay of members; and wild lots of non-resident land paying a tax of two dollars, only pay the legislature six cents. Hence it will be seen at once, that if all the reform asked for was made in the pay of members, it would only diminish the tax of the mass of citizens three cents each; and in the aggregate would only save to the treasury four thousand five hundred dollars a year, and would not reduce taxation a one hundred and thirty-second part of the whole.

It is therefore regaided self evident in view of these facts that, in order to reduce taxation essentially, there must be a remoddling and new formation of the local governments of townships and coun