Adams, J.
Tbe plaintiffs allege tbat tbe tax complained, of was levied under Public-Local Laws 1927, cb. 249, and upon tbis allegation tbey base tbe contention tbat in determining tbe controversy we are restricted to a consideration of tbis act — a contention, however, in wbicb we do not concur. Tbey assail tbe whole chapter as unconstitutional, but allege tbat if it is valid tbey are not within its purview. Their allegations in effect make tbe act a part of tbe complaint and call for an examination of all its relevant provisions.
Tbe first and second sections authorize, ratify, approve, and confirm all tbe proceedings taken by tbe board of commissioners of Buncombe County creating tbe Swannanoa Sanitary Sewer District under chapter 341, Public-Local Laws 1923, declare tbe district.to be a municipal corporation with perpetual existence, and change its name to tbat of tbe ■ “Swannanoa Water and Sewer District.” If tbe board of county commissioners derived its power from tbe act of 1923, we must refer to tbis act to ascertain whether tbe board transgressed its delegated powers and whether tbe proceedings wbicb tbe act of 1927' purports to have ratified were effective or invalid. Tbe two acts were enacted for a common purpose and are essentially interrelated.
Before going to tbe demurrer we advert to-the grounds on wbicb tbe plaintiffs criticize tbe act of 1927. Pursuant to a rule of practice in tbis Court (R. 27%) tbe appellants in their brief submit tbe following as tbe questions involved in tbe appeal: (1) "Whether tbe provisos in section 11 of tbe act of 1927 exclude tbe plaintiffs from tbe operation of tbe act until tbey consent to become a part of tbe sanitary district; (2) whether tbe act of 1927 is in conflict with tbe Constitution, Article II, section 29, or (3) with Article VII, section 7; (4) whether it violates tbe seventeenth section of tbe Declaration of Rights or tbe due jn’ocess clause of tbe Fourteenth Amendment to tbe Federal Constitution. If these questions, wbicb are tbe only ones proposed, are resolved against tbe appellants, tbe specific grounds of tbe demurrer will demand only brief consideration.
In view of some recent decisions by tbis Court it may be expedient first to dispose of tbe second and third questions. Tbe act of 1923 authorized tbe county commissioners to create sanitary districts in Buncombe County and to’ appoint for each district three trustees who were to exercise certain legislative powers: to build a system of sewerage and sewer pipes, to purchase or condemn land, and to issue negotiable coupon bonds of tbe district. Upon its creation each sanitary district was made a municipal corporation, and tbe county commissioners were authorized annually to levy a special tax upon all tbe taxable property within tbe district sufficient to pay tbe interest as it accrues and to create a sinking fund for tbe payment of tbe principal at maturity.
Section 10 of the a,ct of 1927 authorizes the commissioners annually to levy a special tax of “sufficient rate and amount to pay the principal and interest of any bonds authorized by this act as the same become due, the tax to be levied against all the taxable property within said district”; also to levy a special tax sufficient in rate and amount for the proper maintenance, extension, supervision, and control of the authorized improvements. It may be seen that in their salient features the two acts are strikingly similar — the chief divergence of the latter being a description of the district by metes and bounds which could not be set forth in the former, the provision for taking over any other water or sewerage system with the provisos which the appellants invoke, and a direction that on completion of the work the trustees surrender to the county all property belonging to the district.
The following sections are the basis of the second and third questions: “No county, city, town or other municipal corporation shall contract any debt, pledge its faith or loan its credit, nor shall any tax be levied or collected by an officer of the same except for the necessary expenses thereof unless by a vote of the majority of the qualified voters therein.” Constitution, Art. VII, sec. 7.
“The General Assembly shall not pass any local, private, or special act or resolution . . . relating to health, sanitation, and the abatement of nuisances.” Constitution, Art. II, sec. 29.
In
Reed v. Engineering Co.,
188 N. C., 39, it was. held that the act of 1893 is not antagonistic to either of these constitutional inhibitions; that a water and sewerage system involves a necessary expense and that the act is not a local, private, or special act relating to health or sanitation. As already indicated the two legislative acts are correlative; they were enacted to achieve a single result; and the divergence between them is so slight that we see no convincing reason for holding that
Reed’s case
is not equally applicable to the later act. See
Kornegay v. Goldsboro,
180 N. C., 441;
Coble v. Comrs.,
184 N. C., 342;
Harrington v. Comrs.,
189 N. C., 572, 576. Compare
Armstrong v. Comrs.,
185 N. C., 405;
Day v. Comrs.,
191 N. C., 780;
Sanitary District v. Prudden,
195 N. C., 722.
We turn now to the fourth question. “No person ought to be . . . disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges ... or in any manner deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the law of the land.” Constitution, Art. I, sec. 17. “Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Constitution of United States, Art. XIV, sec. 1.
Does the act of 1927 violate these provisions? The appellants say that they had no notice of the proposed boundaries before the district was formed and that they have not been benefited in any way by its creation.
It may first be noted that this act does not levy special taxes or assessments upon abutting property for special benefits conferred by a public improvement. “Assessments as distinguished from other kinds of taxation are those special and local impositions upon the property in the immediate vicinity of municipal improvements which are necessary to pay for the improvement, and are laid with reference to the special benefit which the property is supposed to have derived therefrom. Provisions relating to taxation generally are uniformly held not applicable to local assessments or special taxation for improvements.” McQuillin on Municipal Corporations (2 ed.), sec. 2565.
Not without significance is the omission from the act of 1927 of a provision in the act of 1923 permitting an election by the trustees between constructing the sewer system at the expense of the district and constructing it by an assessment against the property abutting the system or within a radius of the benefits arising from the improvement, leaving only the first named method operative. Both acts provide for the condemnation of land, but the law authorizing assessments against abutting property for the payment of public improvements has no relation to the exercise of the power of eminent domain. McQuillin,
supra.
The district in question is a special taxing district.
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Adams, J.
Tbe plaintiffs allege tbat tbe tax complained, of was levied under Public-Local Laws 1927, cb. 249, and upon tbis allegation tbey base tbe contention tbat in determining tbe controversy we are restricted to a consideration of tbis act — a contention, however, in wbicb we do not concur. Tbey assail tbe whole chapter as unconstitutional, but allege tbat if it is valid tbey are not within its purview. Their allegations in effect make tbe act a part of tbe complaint and call for an examination of all its relevant provisions.
Tbe first and second sections authorize, ratify, approve, and confirm all tbe proceedings taken by tbe board of commissioners of Buncombe County creating tbe Swannanoa Sanitary Sewer District under chapter 341, Public-Local Laws 1923, declare tbe district.to be a municipal corporation with perpetual existence, and change its name to tbat of tbe ■ “Swannanoa Water and Sewer District.” If tbe board of county commissioners derived its power from tbe act of 1923, we must refer to tbis act to ascertain whether tbe board transgressed its delegated powers and whether tbe proceedings wbicb tbe act of 1927' purports to have ratified were effective or invalid. Tbe two acts were enacted for a common purpose and are essentially interrelated.
Before going to tbe demurrer we advert to-the grounds on wbicb tbe plaintiffs criticize tbe act of 1927. Pursuant to a rule of practice in tbis Court (R. 27%) tbe appellants in their brief submit tbe following as tbe questions involved in tbe appeal: (1) "Whether tbe provisos in section 11 of tbe act of 1927 exclude tbe plaintiffs from tbe operation of tbe act until tbey consent to become a part of tbe sanitary district; (2) whether tbe act of 1927 is in conflict with tbe Constitution, Article II, section 29, or (3) with Article VII, section 7; (4) whether it violates tbe seventeenth section of tbe Declaration of Rights or tbe due jn’ocess clause of tbe Fourteenth Amendment to tbe Federal Constitution. If these questions, wbicb are tbe only ones proposed, are resolved against tbe appellants, tbe specific grounds of tbe demurrer will demand only brief consideration.
In view of some recent decisions by tbis Court it may be expedient first to dispose of tbe second and third questions. Tbe act of 1923 authorized tbe county commissioners to create sanitary districts in Buncombe County and to’ appoint for each district three trustees who were to exercise certain legislative powers: to build a system of sewerage and sewer pipes, to purchase or condemn land, and to issue negotiable coupon bonds of tbe district. Upon its creation each sanitary district was made a municipal corporation, and tbe county commissioners were authorized annually to levy a special tax upon all tbe taxable property within tbe district sufficient to pay tbe interest as it accrues and to create a sinking fund for tbe payment of tbe principal at maturity.
Section 10 of the a,ct of 1927 authorizes the commissioners annually to levy a special tax of “sufficient rate and amount to pay the principal and interest of any bonds authorized by this act as the same become due, the tax to be levied against all the taxable property within said district”; also to levy a special tax sufficient in rate and amount for the proper maintenance, extension, supervision, and control of the authorized improvements. It may be seen that in their salient features the two acts are strikingly similar — the chief divergence of the latter being a description of the district by metes and bounds which could not be set forth in the former, the provision for taking over any other water or sewerage system with the provisos which the appellants invoke, and a direction that on completion of the work the trustees surrender to the county all property belonging to the district.
The following sections are the basis of the second and third questions: “No county, city, town or other municipal corporation shall contract any debt, pledge its faith or loan its credit, nor shall any tax be levied or collected by an officer of the same except for the necessary expenses thereof unless by a vote of the majority of the qualified voters therein.” Constitution, Art. VII, sec. 7.
“The General Assembly shall not pass any local, private, or special act or resolution . . . relating to health, sanitation, and the abatement of nuisances.” Constitution, Art. II, sec. 29.
In
Reed v. Engineering Co.,
188 N. C., 39, it was. held that the act of 1893 is not antagonistic to either of these constitutional inhibitions; that a water and sewerage system involves a necessary expense and that the act is not a local, private, or special act relating to health or sanitation. As already indicated the two legislative acts are correlative; they were enacted to achieve a single result; and the divergence between them is so slight that we see no convincing reason for holding that
Reed’s case
is not equally applicable to the later act. See
Kornegay v. Goldsboro,
180 N. C., 441;
Coble v. Comrs.,
184 N. C., 342;
Harrington v. Comrs.,
189 N. C., 572, 576. Compare
Armstrong v. Comrs.,
185 N. C., 405;
Day v. Comrs.,
191 N. C., 780;
Sanitary District v. Prudden,
195 N. C., 722.
We turn now to the fourth question. “No person ought to be . . . disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges ... or in any manner deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the law of the land.” Constitution, Art. I, sec. 17. “Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Constitution of United States, Art. XIV, sec. 1.
Does the act of 1927 violate these provisions? The appellants say that they had no notice of the proposed boundaries before the district was formed and that they have not been benefited in any way by its creation.
It may first be noted that this act does not levy special taxes or assessments upon abutting property for special benefits conferred by a public improvement. “Assessments as distinguished from other kinds of taxation are those special and local impositions upon the property in the immediate vicinity of municipal improvements which are necessary to pay for the improvement, and are laid with reference to the special benefit which the property is supposed to have derived therefrom. Provisions relating to taxation generally are uniformly held not applicable to local assessments or special taxation for improvements.” McQuillin on Municipal Corporations (2 ed.), sec. 2565.
Not without significance is the omission from the act of 1927 of a provision in the act of 1923 permitting an election by the trustees between constructing the sewer system at the expense of the district and constructing it by an assessment against the property abutting the system or within a radius of the benefits arising from the improvement, leaving only the first named method operative. Both acts provide for the condemnation of land, but the law authorizing assessments against abutting property for the payment of public improvements has no relation to the exercise of the power of eminent domain. McQuillin,
supra.
The district in question is a special taxing district. The power of the Legislature to form such districts is fully recognized and is practically unlimited.
Kelly v. Pittsburgh,
104 U. S., 54, 26 L. Ed., 658;
Myles Salt Co. v. Bd. of Comrs.,
239 U. S., 478, 60 L. Ed., 392. “Sometimes it is deemed wise to create a tax district for special purposes, generally for public improvements, such as for highway taxes, bridge taxes, drainage taxes, or the like, and to fix the boundaries of such district as including two or more counties or towns or even making the district wholly independent of such political boundaries.” . . . “Taxing districts may be as numerous as the purposes for which taxes are levied. Equality and uniformity of taxation does not preclude the power of the state to create separate taxing districts, provided the taxes are equal and uniform within each taxing district.” Cooley on Taxation, secs. 319, 321. The same writer says: “It is not essential that the political subdivisions of the state shall be the same as the taxing districts, but special districts may be established for special purposes, wholly ignoring the lines of the political subdivisions of the state. It is compulsory that the boundaries of the political divisions of the state shall be regarded in taxation only where the tax itself is for a purpose specially pertaining to one of them in its political capacity, so that the nature of the tax will determine the district. A school district may be created out of territory taken from two or more townships or counties, and the benefits of a highway, a levee, or a drain may be so peculiar that justice would require the cost to be levied either upon part of a township or county, or upon parts
of several such subdivisions of the state.”
Ibid.,
sec. 325. And more specifically as to due process' of law: “Property taken in the lawful exercise of the taxing power is not taken without due process of law. In the exercise of the taxing power, due process does not require that property subject to the tax or the amount of tax to be raised should be determined by judicial inquiry, and a notice and hearing as to the amount of the tax and the manner in which it shall be apportioned are generally not necessary to due process of law. A tax does not violate the due process clause because it operates unjustly nor because it constitutes double taxation; and the motives or purpose of the taxing power cannot be inquired into, to invalidate a tax as a violation of the due process clause. If a tax is within the power of the Legislature, there is no violation of the due process clause because of the results which may or will arise from the tax. It seems that a tax does not violate the due process clause, as applied to a particular taxpayer, although the purpose of the tax will result in an injury rather than a benefit to such taxpayer.”
Ibid.,
sec. 143.
When land is to be taken and devoted to the public service the owner must be given an opportunity to be heard with respect to the necessity of the taking, and the compensation to be paid; but the creation by the Legislature of a special taxing district is not a taking of property in this sense and does not violate the due process clause, even where no notice is given. Cooley, sec. 143,
supra.; Carson v. Sewer Comrs.,
182 U. S., 398, 45 L. Ed., 1151;
Mount St. Mary’s Cemetery Asso. v. Mullins,
248 U. S., 501, 63 L. Ed., 383;
Valley Farms Co. v. Westchester,
261 U. S., 155, 67 L. Ed., 585. Nor were the appellants entitled to notice that the tax would be levied; the due process clause does not require that persons taxed by the law of a state shall have an opportunity to be present or to be heard when the tax is assessed against them.
McMillen v. Anderson,
95 U. S., 37, 24 L. Ed., 335.
It is argued here that as the town of Kenilworth has a sewer and drainage system of its own, the appellants will derive no benefit from the creation of the system which they assail. It has been held that property which cannot be directly or indirectly benefited by a drainage district may not be included therein merely for the purpose of assessing it for the benefit of other lands in the district.
Myles Salt Co. v. Board Comrs., supra.
In that case the area “included” was an island of high land which could not be a receptacle for stagnant water, and for this reason its inclusion was “palpably arbitrary and a plain abuse of power.”
Valley Farms v. Westchester, supra.
But in
Miller & Lux v. Sacramento & S. J. Drainage District,
256 U. S., 129, 65 L. Ed., 859 it was said: “Since
Houck v. Little River Drainage District,
239 U. S., 254, 60 L. Ed., 266, the doctrine has been definitely settled that, in the
absence of flagrant abuse or purely arbitrary action, a state may establish drainage districts and tax lands therein for local improvements, and that none of such lands may escape liability solely because they will not receive direct benefits.” Moreover,
Carson v. Sewer Comrs., supra,
may- be considered, under the facts in the case before us, as authority for the position that the appellants are benefited in being permitted to discharge their sewers into the more serviceable public sewers of the district.
The plaintiffs lay stress on their first proposition — that is, that they are excepted from the act of 1927 by the provisos in the eleventh section. This section authorizes the trustees, upon terms which are just and mutually satisfactory, to take over any sewer or water systems, or any part thereof, and requires them when they take it over by mutual agreement to pay a reasonable compensation. There is one proviso “that no person, firm or corporation owning any water system or sewerage system shall be compelled by the trustees to become a part of such sanitary district as is herein created unless the same is satisfactory to such person, firm, corporation or municipality owning any water system or sewerage system within the boundary of such created sanitary district,” and another proviso that such systems may not be taken over or forced by the trustees to become a part of the sanitary district unless' satisfactory to the owners. When taken over by mutual consent such system or systems shall be under the control of the trustees.
If the word “district” in the provisos be construed as synonymous with the boundary lines of the district these clauses would imply that the town of Kenilworth is not within the boundaries because it has not consented to become a part of the district. This construction would result in a contradiction of the third section, which, with no exception, describes the district by metes and bounds, it being admitted in the brief of the appellants that the town is within this area. If “district” signifies all the land within the prescribed boundaries, the town is obviously a part of the district by virtue of the third section, though its water system is not connected with that of the district. The provisos in our opinion, were not intended to empower the trustees to change or modify the defined area. Construing the act in its entirety and observing its manifest purpose we reach the conclusion, as contended by the defendant, that the word “district” as used in the provisos moans “district system.” By this construction the several sections of the act become operative, and effect is given to all. The town of Kenilworth is a part of the district, but it shall not be compelled by the trustees to become a part of the sanitary district system or to be taken over by them for this purpose without its consent. It is insisted that this construction burdens the appellants with double taxation; but the
property of the plaintiffs is not twice taxed for the benefit of the taxing district. Tbe county commissioners levy only one tax for the district and this is uniform and equal. Furthermore, neither the State nor the Federal Constitution affords protection against double taxation by the State.
Baker v. Druesdow,
263 U. S., 137, 68 L. Ed., 212;
Person v. Watts,
184 N. C., 499, 508.
In view of the questions proposed we see no reason why the demurrer should not be sustained and the judgment affirmed. Tbe property of the appellants is within the taxing district and there is no allegation in the complaint that the tax was levied for any purpose not authorized by the public-local act, or that the levy exceeds the authorized rate and amount. We omit reference to the bonded indebtedness of the district and to the area embraced in the watérshed of the Swannanoa River, and reach our conclusion upon the defendant’s, demurrer to the allegations in the complaint. Judgment Affirmed.