New-York tribune., 1870-01-03
LAND rENuREs. PROGRESSIVE TAxA7IoN.

JlND TENURES: PROGRESSIVE TAXATION.
The points commonly mentioned as the bases
of the Land Reform seem to an American
mind. utterly insufficient for the purpose,
even 80 far as Ireland is concerned. Here in
the United States where ownership OF the SOIL
is considered indispensable for agricultural
welfare, and where any man can own good
sized tract of Government land by settling on
il free of expense, it seems wonderful that,
amid all their wrongs and excitements, the lrlsh
peasantry now ask from their oppressors moth
ing more than "Fixity of Tenure" whereby
tenants may be secured against arbitrary eJec-
ton from their places, with allowance for thelr
improvements" and ga right TO sell their
"leasesn-little or nothing being sad and that
only in few isolated cases, about measures tOr
aiding cutivators to become oCnerS of farms
Indeed, a remarkable feature of the current
discussions is the fact that, so far as is shown
in the popular meetings with which Ireland is
onvulsed-meetings assembled under the rous-
ing CRY of Cup for the Land !'-these, and these
only, are the demands made by the lons-suler-
ing Irish millions. The simple fact that even
such slight concessions would be deemed great
benefits in Ireland, is an emphatic commentary
on existing evils.
In view of all the difficulties of the case
supposing those difficulties to be as great as the
English Conservatives" imagine we again
ask, would it not simplify matters to tar tdnd-
oi0aers in an ascending scale, so that the hold
ers of overgrown estates. be they lords or COM
moners, would find it their interest, as 1t
would be the public interest to sell large
portions of those estates, and thus enable men
of moderate means to secure some share OF
ownership in the soil they now cultivate al
most like serfsP What reason is there for
doubling that such system of taxation, oper-
ating Oh lands generally, would soon quietly
correct abuses too enormous for effective re-
form by any plan yet proposed in Great Britain
and Ireland2
With the impressions here indicated, we
repeat q suggestion made by The TRIBUNE
last June, in the article on "Land Tenures in
Great Britain and Ireland "a suggestion
which has been carefully considered and warm
ly approved by some of the best minds among
us, especially among some of our adopted fel-
low-citizens of British and Irish birth-men
whose hearts and thoughts have ever turned
kindly and hopefully toward the lands of their
that, after exemIting ten acres as homestead
for the laborer and family, something like the
following scale of taxation might be adopted
On tracts between 10 and 90 acres, per cent;
between 20 and 80 acres 1 ! per cent; between
80 and 100 acres, per cent; between 100 and
500 acres, per cent; between 800 and 1,OoO
acres. per cent; between 1000 and 5000 acres,
9 per cent; between 5000 and 10000 acres 10
per cent; between 10000 and 10000 acres, 10
per cent; and all over $4,000 acres, 20 per cent.
This system of taxation on land, resembling
the graduated tax on incomes, would be free
from the charge of interfering between
Landlord and tenant" - the great bu&bear in
this case-and need not interfere with plans
for Fixity of Tenure with allowance for
improvements" and Fright of tenants to
" sell their leases Though the power of acquir-
ing ownership, through subdivision of large es-
tates occasoned by the proposed taxation,
would soon enable multitudes of tenants to be
independent of such leasehOld privileges
With some such taxation on lands it would
matter little whether the Law of PrimOgeniture,
under which great estates are accumulated and
entaied, was repealed or not-for the heirs OF
such estates would quickly find it their in
terest to sell part of their domains in tracts
that would enable farmers and laborers to be-
come owners of portions of the soil, on which
their ancestors labored for centuries on starva-
ton wages, as they themselves are now labor
ing. Without some sort of taxation like this,
the abolition of the Law of Entails or Primo
geniture would be comparatively abortive, as
we said on a former occasion; for vast estates
might be continued in families for ages, as
some American mlliOnares are trying to ac-
complish, by willing their property in trustee
ship for their youngest living grandchildren,
who are expected to transmit the estates with
accumuations down to their grandchildren in
q similar way.
The principle of progressive taxation on
landed estates is worthy of application as a
general rule in oil other countries, as well as
in those under British sway. In what other
way can successful resistance be offered to the
rapidly increasing tendency to accumulate and
perpetuate vast landed estates See the effect
already produced in England, where Monopoly
has so largely absorbed the land, that, not
withstanding the greatly increased farming
population, the number of owners has actually
been diminished to less than one-tenth of its
extent only seventy years ago. 1t may quicken
the sensibities of Conservatives" in Great
Britain and elsewhere to learn that the doc
trine which we now repeat substantially as we
suggested it in June last is now being dis
cussed in the Brazilian Empire; late accounts
from Rio Janeiro showing that bill was ac-
tualy before the Legislature for imposing a
progressive taxi on immense landed estates,
including those held by converts and monas-
tariaa- which lattar noint il nortcularly notable
from the fact that Brazil is Catholic empire.
In what other way can overgrowh estates be
so readily and Justly subdivided among many