There would also seem to be much virtue in the plan for the reduction of the tax rate advocated by the Ohio State Board of Commerce.[64] Given a community with a high general tax rate it may be the case, for example, that only about fifty per cent of true value is being returned. Everybody knows it; everybody is sneakingly ashamed of it. Still fundamental honesty is supposed to exist in the man who does not cut the percentage below say, forty; the really mean taxpayer is he who risks twenty-five per cent on what he feels obliged to return and conceals whatever he can into the bargain. Under such circumstances it is proposed to take the heroic step of reducing the tax rate to one-half its existing figure or even less.[65] If this can be done it is hoped that taxpayers can be induced to return their property at full value, and that much personal property will come out of the concealment into which it has fled under the menace of a high general property tax rate. In support of this argument cases are cited where a reduction of the personal property tax rate alone has brought in much larger returns and converted into a source of revenue a form of taxation which everywhere under high rates shows a tendency to dwindle to practically nothing. As against the plan it may be said that taxpayers are habitually suspicious and extremely likely to regard any change whatever as certain to increase their burdens. Many of them would see nothing in the proposition beyond a tricky device to screw up their valuations under the pretext of low rates with the intention of falling upon them later with rates as high or higher than before. Unless the reform were fully understood and then backed up by the most vigorous administration there would be grave danger that revenues would materially suffer. Given these conditions essential to success, however, the plan would seem decidedly worth trying. A community willing to take the plunge, it is pointed out, would enjoy large advantages over its less enterprising competitors in the advertising value of a low tax rate, particularly as a means of inducing new industries to locate in its midst. The reform would probably not increase revenue, indeed it does not aim to do so, but it would yield a moral return of immense value. Self respect would be restored to many otherwise thoroughly good citizens, and public opinion, to the tone of which the taxpaying class contributes largely, would be lifted to higher planes. Under the present vicious system there must be a considerable number who realise secretly and more or less vaguely the inherent kinship between their conduct and that of the corrupt political organisation under which they live, and who in consequence remain inactive and ashamed when movements for better things in city, state, or nation, are on foot. * * * * *