FEWER AND BETTER LAWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 453, 13 April 1909, Page 3

FEWER AND BETTER LAWS.

A TEXAS MOVEMENT. They are doing an interesting thing in Texas, on the back swing of the pendulum. A movement was begun some time ago by a group of business men to reform the laws and the lawmakers, and it is carried forward with volume and earnestness by correspondence, by circulars, by speeches, by the newspapers. It is the fashion, when Texas business men meet one another, to talk about the reform of the laws. The excessive restriction and regulation of the last decade have naturally gone so far as to provoke revolt. Along with this agitation a real reform in the administration of this State is going on. The State Government determined to find out all the wasteful leaks in the State and municipal treasuries, and to stop them. A corps of business experts went to work, and made a systematic and unbiassed audit or investigation of State affairs—not by politicians, not even by voters in Texas.

This is the new Texas idea, to run a State, a county, a municipality, on a business basis. The searching investigation revealed no graft. The State has a clean bill of health so far as the most malignant of our disease is concerned. But extravagance, wastefulness, unscientific lavishness have run riot. These growths are not malignant. They will be cut out, and Texas will recover. Then, on the top of this, comes the waking of business commonsense in the people at large, finding its most eloquent expression in this big movement for “ Fewer laws and better laws.” In an address delivered before the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Mr Frank Trumbull, himself one of the modern builders of Texas, referred to this movement as one of the most hopeful signs of the times. He referred more specifically to the Stock and Bond Taw of the State, which has been in force for thirteen years, and which has resulted iu ma.king it practically impossible for any Texas railroad to build its own lines of road without some help from outside corporations. The law makes it necessary first to build the road, and then get permisson to bond it. Such a method, it goes without saying, is prohibitory of building in most new communities. This provision, like many others that have resulted in restrictions upon commerce, and is now under review, not so much iu the legislative halls as in the press, in conversation wherever business men meet, and iu formal resolutions adopted by trades bodies throughout the State.—World’s Work.