It is important to note that in the United States the basis of taxation is entirely different from what it is in this country. Here rental, minus a certain deduction, is adopted as the unit from which to make up the rateable value of a town. In the United States the value of all property is taken, instead of mere rental, as the unit from which the rateable value is built up. If a house in England is worth £420, and rents at £36, it would be assessed at about £30, and the library rate would be levied upon the £30, producing 2s. 6d. In the United States the same house, plus contents, would pay rates on the £420, being the value of the property, but on a smaller poundage. One mill on the dollar is the thousandth part of 4s. 2d., or about one-twentieth of 1d. If, therefore, the library rate in an American town is 1 mill, or the twentieth of 1d., on the dollar, property valued at £420, or $2100, would pay a total library rate of about 8s. 6d. Other classes of property, such as live stock, crops, etc., are also taxed, so that in America the produce of even a comparatively small library rate is much greater than in a town the same size in England, and this fact should always be kept in mind when comparisons are being made between the library systems of the two countries. There is one other point which should be mentioned as illustrative of the difference of the methods of the United Kingdom and the United States in regard to the adoption of the library laws by municipalities. In those States of America where a poll of the citizens is required before the libraries can be established, no special vote is taken, but instead, at the annual election of councillors, the voting papers bear the question: Are you in favour of a library being established at a tax of ---- mills on the dollar? Thus at one election the municipal council is returned to office, and their library policy dictated to them by the ratepayers. The liberal library laws of the United States have produced a great number of very large and magnificently equipped public libraries, which are administered by well-educated officers, who are paid adequate salaries for the work they accomplish. No other country in the world can show such a scheme of libraries closely in touch with all the other educational bodies and recognized by the State as part of the national system of education.