hearing as if the law had provided for none. Where there is no legal right to be heard under the law there is a conclusive presumption that the assessment is unjust. The law stigmatizes as arbitrary every such proceeding. But not only is this presumption not conclusive where the proper tribunal denies a hearing, but there is no such presumption at all. On the contrary, the pendulum has swung almost as far to the other side. The presumption is now in favor of the justice of this arbitrary assessment. Why, no one can explain, or even discover. The language of Judge Cooley in his great treatise on Taxation is very applicable in view of this claim that the taxpayer must litigate the question of the justice of the assessment in a tribunal different from the one which the law has constituted for that express purpose: “All these provisions being of vital importance to the taxpayer, must be regarded as compulsory, and a compliance with them as conditions precedent to any further step to charge him with a tax. When they fix a certain time for the meeting of a board of review and the board fails to meet, or a certain time for the return and filing of the assessment for inspection before the meeting of the board, and it is not filed, whereby opportunity for inspection is lost, the tax proceedings must be regarded as having failed to become effectual, because of the failure of the officers properly to follow there up, as required dy law. No argument can be admissible, in such a case, which proposes the acceptance of something else as a substitute for the securities the statute has provided. To substitute anything would require Jegislation, and even legislation for that purpose would be of doubtful validity if it failed to provide what would fully accomplish the same purpose. Such regulations for the protection of individual rights are reasonable and they are demanded by justice and general convenience. On general principle they must be regarded as mandatory and a strict observance of their provisions held to be essential.” Cooley, Tax’n, p. 267.
The language of the court in the Railroad Tax Cases, 13 Fed. Rep. 722-750, is very pertinent, and it is also a complete answer to the possible suggestion that the fact the taxpayer is required to furnish the assessor a list of his property consti-
