NOVEMBER, 1921

Bureau and railroad agencies, there is a large two-story office structure. There also are a restaurant and a welfare building, the latter equipped with hot and cold water, shower baths and a lounging

room.

For vegetable oil and molasses storage there is capacity for 1,092,000 gallons. The equipment includes two 60-ton Fairbanks tank scales, dumping, pumping and barreling facilities with steam and compressed air for tank-car and ship-tank cleaning, and facilities for pumping oil from deep tanks of vessels directly into storage-tanks or tank-cars. Ten tank-cars may be filled simultaneously.

Towage service is operated by the Port of Portland Commission between the sea and Portland or way points, and in the harbors of Portland and Astoria.

The Port owns and operates a sectional floating dry-dock capable of handling vessels of 10,000 tons dead-weight, and has almost finished and ready for operation a second dry-dock capable of handling vessels of 15,000 tons dead-weight. The general appearance of this new dry-dock may be seen in the picture on page 372. The dock is built in sections, each section complete in itself, and the length of dock required is made up by the combining of sections.

The wall-like parts of the dock to right and left house a mass of piping used in operating the sections. Pumps of great capacity deliver the water where it is needed for raising or lowering the dock, this feature being under the control of operators on the top of the sides where handwheels communicate with the scores of

Another Valve-Control Station

375

Kendall Heating Company, of Portland. Crane valves and fittings (furnished by the Portland Branch of Crane Co.) are used throughout not only in the dry dock but in the various piping features of the ter

minal. In this part of the equipment there were used, approximately, 300 Crane valves ranging in size from half-inch globe valves to 20 inch gate valves; 2,300 feet of 21⁄2 inch galvanized pipe; and more than 1,000 Crane fittings. The work of installation is a tribute to good material and good craftsmanship.

For other piping features of the terminal Crane Co. furnished about five and a half miles of pipe of various sizes from half inch to eight inch, 1,264 valves ranging

from half inch to 20 inch, and about 1,000 miscellaneous fittings.

These latter supplies enter largely into the construction of the vegetable oil lines and tank connections, and some of our illustrations show how the material has been installed and how the valves are nested here and there for the efficient operation of the lines.

Storage Tank Control Valves

While the Port of Portland has made great strides toward adequate equipment in the last few years, the work really has just begun. An extensive harbor development, entailing an additional expenditure of $10,000,000 is now being projected by the Port of Portland district. This will create 1,530 acres of publicly owned industrial sites, in the center of the harbor district and complete with all facilities for deep sea and rail traffic. The entire development will require several years including the planned construction of docking facilities sufficient to accommodate one hundred and five 500-foot vessels and furnishing railroad yardage of 5,700 cars capacity. The project provides an anchorage and turning area approximately 2,400 feet wide in the heart of the Port, also a still-water basin 700 feet wide by 5,000 feet long, separated from the main harbor by a mole 1,087 feet wide.

In addition to rail and water connections the closeness of these industrial sites and wharfage facilities to the center of population of the city will ensure the best of fire and police protection, telephone, electric power, light, gas, and water service, and will be especially advantageous from the standpoint of convenient labor supply.

Basis of Anglo-American Amity

The best-informed American opinion has been constantly in sympathy with the best element of the British Empire-that element which seeks justice for Ireland,

complete indeper dence of action by the Dominions in regulating their immigration affairs, the early liberalization of conditions in backward regions under the British flag, and a cordial understanding with the United States. With that other element which seeks the contrary of these aims, Americans as a rule have no sympathy and no patience.

On both sides of the Atlantic English speaking jingoes and selfappointed spokesmen utter nonsense and exasperating speech. Fortunately, the sturdy common sense of Americans and Englishmen discounts these utterances as fast as they are made.

Those extremists at either side of the road-those who urge an alliance and those who would spread suspicion and hatredare both waved aside by the vast majority of Americans and Britishers. The two peoples do not love each other, nor do they hate each other. There is no occasion for love or hate. The considerations which control their sentiments and conduct are wholesome, normal, practical matters into which it would be absurd to inject such impulses as love or hate.

It is the calmness of American-British relations that assures perpetual friendship. The lack of ecstasy and the absence of deep-rooted racial or other aversions speak for a continuance of the steady companionship of the two peoples. They can misunderstand each other in trifles without danger; and when the time of stress comes, they can understand each other exactly and can join hands to the bitter end, as the late war just witnessed.-Washington Post.

Compression Gauge Cocks with stuffing boxes are the most satisfactory and will not scald the operator.

T

HE statement has been made in a number of our most influential newspapers that the problem of taxation stands at present substantially thus: 1. The business interests of the Country are practically unanimously in favor of some form of vin-over tax, or Tax on Sales.

2. The practical politicians of the Country are as unanimously opposed to a Tax on Sales and prefer something on the order of our existing hodge-podge methods of taxation.

3. The general public, that must decide the question eventually at the ballot box, knows very little about it.

4. A wide and persistent campaign of education is needed to prepare the voting public to render its verdict fairly and intelligently.

THE VALVE WORLD is persuaded that the foregoing statements are correct, and that the fourth statement is the most important; for, until the people generally understand the basic principles of taxation, they will not know how to bring the business interests and the practical politicians to view the problem from the same angle and to persuade all three interests-business, politics, and the public-to work together for an equitable and satisfactory solution.

Therefore, THE VALVE WORLD proposes now to do what it can to get right down to bed-rock facts on this question and to cooperate with its readers in building upon those facts a structure of public opinion that will find the best solution for all the interests concerned.

What Is Taxation?

Taxation is Public Consumption. Consumption is the destruction of values. It either destroys one value to create a greater value, or it destroys all the values that have gone into the product consumed. It is beneficial when it returns a value equal to or greater than the value destroyed. It is wasteful and harmful when it returns any thing of less value than the value destroyed. The principle of taxation under our democratic form of government, is this: By the will of a majority of the people—which is the essence of democratic government

all the people agree to give a certain part of the fruits of their labor toward meeting the expense of government. The main purpose of this allotment of the nation's production is to secure every individual in the Nation in his constitutional right of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; to protect him in his person and in his property.

As this security and this protection are for all, all should pay for it, and, in order to make it thoroughly democratic, every one should know just what he pays for it, how he pays it and what is done with what he pays. As a matter of fact, every one does pay taxes under the present system, but very few know how much they pay, how they pay or when they pay, and fewer still take the trouble to find out whether the amount paid brings the desired benefits.

The Consumer Pays the Taxes

That the consumer-that is, the ultimate consumer pays all of the taxes collected does not seem to be longer open to debate. It may be assumed as a settled proposition that no matter under what form taxes are levied, whether they are direct or indirect, they are paid finally by the person who destroys all the values that have been put into the products ultimately consumed. The present "super-taxes," "excess profits taxes," and substantially all other sorts of taxes, especially in the transaction of the Country's business, are considered as part of the cost of production and they are added to the prices at which products pass from hand to hand, eventually coming to the ultimate consumer in the last price paid for the products before their values are destroyed.

The man who buys a loaf of bread pays all of the taxes that have been assessed against that particular product. The man who buys a pair of shoes pays all of the taxes that have been assessed against that particular product. So all along the line. Wherever possible the tax is added to the cost, is embraced in the selling price and is paid by the buyer.

As long as human nature remains as it is, the consumer will pay the tax. To us this

is the most important point to be made clear in this discussion; for once the consumer grasps the fact that he is the ultimate taxpayer, is it not reasonable to assume that he will take a more personal interest in taxation and demand to be shown just what he pays, when he pays, and what is done with what he pays?

The Evils of "Double-Taxation"

The most serious objection to our present methods of taxation-aside from their glaring inequalities-is that they admit of double, treble, and even quadruple taxation. Take an individual instance: "A" pays a real property tax. He pays a personal property tax. He pays an income tax, and he may pay a super-tax and an excess profits tax. When he goes into the market as a consumer he pays, in the price of what he buys, practically all of the same sort of taxes that have been assessed against the persons who have had anything to do with the manufacture or sale of what he buys. His direct taxes he may figure out somewhat accurately, but how is he to reach the amount of his indirect, double, treble, or quadruple taxes?

The ideal system of taxation would require the taxpayer to pay all of his taxes,

Annual Picnic of the Crane Club of

for any purpose whatsoever, under one system, in one amount, at one time, and in one place. But as we never are likely to attain the ideal in taxation, all we may do is to strive to come as near to it as is practical. We always are likely to have National, State, Municipal, etc., taxes and these will have to be paid at varying times, and places. It is also likely that the practical politician -the man who seeks public office because he likes that sort of thing-will continue to have charge of the machinery for the levying and collecting and spending of the taxes paid by the people.

Some Practical Suggestions

Accepting, then, the foregoing as things that it would be a waste of time trying to change, let us see what we may do in bringing this matter of taxation more effectually under the control of the taxpayers.

Shall we accept the following as facts no longer subject to debate?

1. The consumer pays practically all of the taxes.

2. As a unit of the Government of the United States every consumer is a taxpayer and ought to know what taxes he pays when he pays them and what he gets for what he pays.