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Show 430 PREFACE to Mu Galloway': Spree/3. and inhuman it was to endeavour, by a repeal of the aét, to [hike the money dead in thole hands at one blow, and reduce it all to wade paper 5 to the utter confufion of all trade and dealings, and the ruin of multitudes, merely to avoid paying their owu jufl: tax l-Words may be wanting to exprefs,--but minds will eafily conceive,-‘-and never without abhorrence! . The ficond amendment propofed by .their Lordfhips was, ‘ That the located uncultivated ‘ lands belonging to the proprietaries {hall not be ‘ aHeHed higher than the [owe/l rate, at which any ‘ located uncultivated lands belonging to the m- ‘ habitants {hall be aileffed.'-Had there been any provifion in the act, that the proprietaries lands, and thofe of the people, of the famevalue, {hould be taxed diEerently, the one. high, and, the other low 5 the aét might well have been called in this particular fundamentally wrong and [P. P.] Proprzlemrz'gr Objections to a Law. 431 a claim would ever be made by men who had the leaft pret ence to the characters of honourable and honelt. The third particular was, ' That all lands not ' granted by the proprietaries with" damage: and ‘ tore/m; be deemed located uncultivated lands , ‘ and rated accordingly; and not as lots.' The claufe in the aét that this relates to is, ‘ And ‘ whereas many valuable lots of ground With in ‘ the city of Philadelphia, and the feveral bo‘ roughs and towns within this province, rema in ‘ unimproved; Be it enacted, &c. That allf uch f unimproved lots of ground within the city and ‘ boroughs aforefaid {hall be rated and alTefl'ed ‘ according to their fituation and value, for and " towards railing the money hereby granted.'-- The reader will obferve, that the word is, all un- improved lots; and that all comprehends the lots unjuft. But as there is no fuch claufe, this cannot be one of the particulars on which the charge belonging to the people, as well as thofe of the proprietary. There were many of the former; and a number belonging even to members of the is founded; but, like the full, is merely a requifition to make the aét clear ; by exprefs directions therein, that the proprietaries eftate {hould not be, tax mull: be proportionably as grievous to them, as they pretended to believe it would be, taxed higher in proportion to its value than the ef'tates of others.--As to their prefent claim, founded on. that article, ‘ that the heft and molt valuable of ‘ their lands, fhould be taxed no. higher than " the worfl: and. lcafi valuable of the peoples, 'it was not than thought of; they made no luch demand; nor did any one dream that f0 iniquitous a claim then Afleriibly; and confidering the value, the as the proprietary's to him.----Is there among us a tingle man, even a proprietary relation, officer, or dependant, {o infenfible of the differences of right and wrong, and fo confufed in his notions ofjuft and unjuft; as to think and lay, that the act in this particular was fundamentally wrong and unjuf‘t? I believe not one.--VVhat then could ‘theirLordlhips mean by the px‘opoled amendment? Their meaning is eafily explained. The proprietaries |