icense. The fee for the license
shall be $10 for each dealer, firm, or corporation, and $2.50 for each
salesman, the fees to be, respectively, $5 and $1 after the first year.
Licenses shall expire each year. The board shall have power to revoke at
any time any license where the holder thereof is guilty of gross
misrepresentation in making sales, etc., or of any other conduct which, in
the opinion of the board, is opposed to good business morals. The board
shall investigate all complaints; it shall have power to subpoena
witnesses. Any person violating the act shall be fined not less than the
compensation or profit received or agreed to, and not more than four times
that amount, or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.

The Legislative Committee of the Interstate Realty Association of the
Pacific Northwest has proposed a real-estate license law for the state
of Washington, the main provisions of which are similar to the others
already quoted.

Although there has been no successful state-wide provision, in Portland,
Oregon, an ordinance licensing real-estate brokers was approved in 1912,
including the salient features of the proposed state laws. Application
is made to the city auditors, with proof of the applicant's good
standing and square dealing. The Council Committee on licenses has power
to revoke or withhold, and penalties are provided for.

As an example of the occupational tax law applying to the real-estate
business, the law of the District of Columbia may be mentioned. The
District of Columbia (1914) has a law imposing a license tax of $50 per
annum on real-estate brokers or agents. The assessor of the District
said that the fee was not large enough to restrict character of trade,
and that the payment of the fee was the only qualification for a license.

A PUBLIC LAND EXCHANGE

In addition to the need for honest dealing there is everywhere felt the
need of bringing farm sellers and buyers together through a public
agency. Certain states, in co-operation with the Federal Department of
Agriculture, have made provision for doing this. For this purpose an
office is created similar to a public employment office. It aims to
provide the farm sellers and buyers with more or less reliable
information without cost to either side.

In the state of Maryland the Extension Service of the state college, in
co-operation with the Federal Department of Agriculture, has worked out
a farm-description blank for f