The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-11

One part of Mr. Buchanans interrogarory asked
how q title in a house and lot would be secured.
BY the ssms laws ~0f He absolute IS
session as long as he paid the taxes levied upon
it. do not suppose he would lose his house by
unjust taxation. 1 do not suppose unjust taxa.
ton. / think taxation under my system would
be infinitely more just than under the present
system, which is really unjust.
Governor Porter-How are you to determine
how much land any one man shall use2 Here's
a man with 500, coo invested in machinery, how
are you to place the limit on the land he shall
occupyl
Mr. George do not propose the state shall
determine its limit. propose it shall be deter
mined by individual interests, as it is to-day,
whether a man wants no land at all, or a million
acres. We could offer to let him have what he
wants to use. 1t makes no difference II the
revenue arising from land was divided equally
among the whole community, or was taken
for public purpose; under this system it would
make difference how much any individual
had. This system puts taxation upon land ire
spective of improve ments, and according to its
value. No one could hold land idle 1t would
be valuable only to the user, and the result
would be that people would cease to take land
for mere speculation, and would only take it as
they would want to use it. On the outskirts of
settlements land would have value. On the
outskirts of our towns any one could
90 and take it. There would be no
object in anybody holding it. AS it
value increased, the person holding would pay
according to value Let me repeat would in
no wise change the present conditions, otherwise
than to change the incident Of taxation. Let
the man who has million acres hold his acres,
but by simply putting tax on the value of
land alone unless he was making good use of it
he would not want to hold it. He would be
ready to sell it. If he could not sell it and
could not pay the taxes he would be ready to
give 1t up abandon It,
Governor Porter-Who is to determine what
this land is worth9 What the tax shall be2 The
best judgment now cannot determine what
tract of land is worth. 1t seems to me your
plan at first would offer great injustice. Let us
take Indiana and New York city. The
great fortunes in New York city are not in land
but personal property. Perhaps of the millions
that Vanderbilt has, only two millions is in real
estate. His great wealth is in personal prop
erty. In Indiana, where there are more farm
ing people than perhaps any State In the Union,
except Nebraska and Kansas, the proceeds of the
labor of the people of Indiana have gone
into land. You say you will tax land and land
only, and you would therefore exempt Wander
bllt from paying taxes and put the taxes on the
farmers of Indiana.
Mr.. George-No. The fact is that it would be
the very reverse of that Under the present
system it is Vanderbilt who escapes and the
farmers of Indiana suffer. [Applause You say
very truly that Vanderbilt has proportionately
little real estate. His possessions mostly
railway stocks and property of that kind
You cannot tax capitalist on his capital. Where
you tax man on capital he is using to carry on
any enterprise he simply adds the tax you put on
him to the prices that people must pay. You
cannot get at the capitalist in that way. He
simply shifts the tax upon the masses of the
community. The principle is the same as taxing
mortgages. 1t is not the man who is loaning
who pays the tax but the borrower.
In our present system the farmer is
the who, perhaps, is taxed most He
has nobody on whom to shift his taxes.
Upon the value given to land by draining it, by
tlling it or in any other way improving it, no
taxes under this system would be levied. The
farmer would have the full benefit of all his i'm
provement, whereas under the present system
he is taxed for them. The man who had not
tiled his land, had not cleared or improved it,
would have to pay as much tax on his land as
the man who had done al! these things. The
man who would lose under this system would be
the man who is holding for speculation and not
for use."
The meeting held until halfpast 10 o'clock
and was an exceedingly interesting one Mr.
George will go from here to Cincinnati