Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/650

6i4 HARVARD LAW REVIEW securities were deposited in a state as a guarantee for the per- formance of a contract there; it was held, nevertheless, that the securities had no such permanent location there that they could be said to have a situs.^'^ So a bank deposit by a local agency, not to be drawn on for the expenses of the agency, but to be trans- mitted by check to the home oflSce, has no permanent local situs.^^* It would seem to make no difference whether the business is done through an agent or by the nonresident owner in person. It has, however, been intimated in one case that if the owner him- self carries on business the capital cannot be taxed at its business situs.^^*^ And it is clear that if the lender himself receives apphca- tions and loans money outside the state, though all the borrowers are within the state, the capital cannot be taxed.^^^ The actual capital of a going concern may be much greater than the sum of its tangible assets. The gathering together of property into "organic unity," by which each piece of tangible property "is part of a system, and has its actual uses only in connection with other parts of the system," creates a new element of value, as a result of the added usefulness of each part. "The sleepers and rails of a railroad, or the posts and wires of a telegraph company, are worth more than the prepared wood and the bars of steel or coils of wire, from their organic connection with other rails or wires and the rest of the apparatus of a working whole." "^ Not only this new element of value exists in such a case; the employment of the entire property in business results, or may result, in another access of value, due to the goodwill of the business thus carried on. The business capital, therefore, includes these items of in- corporeal but none the less actual wealth. In the case of business 70 N. E. 310 (1904); Channel v. Capen, 46 111. App. 234 (1891); Commonwealth r. Northwestern M. L. Ins. Co., 32 Ky. L. Rep. 796, 107 S. W. 233 (1908). Contra, Hall V. Miller, 102 Tex. 289, 115 S. W. 1168 (1909). "6 Louisville & N. R. R. v. Wright, 236 Fed. 148 (1916). "^ Board of Assessors v. New York L. I. Co., 216 U. S. 517 (1910); Howell v. Gordon, 127 Mich. 517, 86 N. W. 1042 (1901); Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Newark, 62 N. J. L. 74, 40 Atl. 573 (1898); Myers v. Seaberger, 45 Ohio St. 232, 12 N. E. 796 (1887). 1" Theobald v. Clapp, 43 Ind. App. 191, 87 N. E. 100 (1909). 138 Provident S. L. A. Soc. v. Kentucky, 239 U. S. 103 (1915); State V. Packard (N. D.), 168 N. W. 673 (1918). "9 The quotations are from the opinion of Mr. Justice Holmes in Fargo v. Hart, 193 U. S. 490, 499 (1904).