The Colfax chronicle., 1891-10-03
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
SINGLE TAX THESES.

ton. other things being equal. raises
rent and lowers wages, besides lessen
ing production.
2 Holding valuable land out of use
lowers the margin of production, other
things being equal.
Land speculation involves the hold
Ing Of valuable land ont of use.
4 Land speculation is unavoidable so
long Us land owners receive the in.
crease in value created by the commu-
nifty.
5. The single tax would make the
holding out of use of valuable land un-
profitable. and would thus throw open
for use that which is now so held,
either from speculative motives or from
no motive.
6. The single tax would thus raise
wages, thereby being q help to labor
ers. 1t would also help capitalists. by
relieving capital from taxation. 1t
would hurt no one but landowners, and
them only in so far as they were neither
laborers nor capitalists
z. The landowner. as such, is of no
use to the community.
s. All men have originally an equal
natural right to land.
o. There exists theoretically no way
in which this right can possibly be
alienated.
10. A landowner can require another
to pay him any price he asks; If this
other must use his land.
IL. Every man must use some land.
IL. Therefore (l0 and ~, where all
= - <~< <loxx
can force the landless to give up GER
ain amount of property to them. tAnd
they do it,
Is. There is no sufficient reason for
giving the increase in value created by
the community to the landowner. 1t
belongs To the community, and no one
suffers hardship when the community
takes it
IA Movable or producible property
tends to go from place where it is
heavily taxed to . place where it is
lightly taxed, or is permitted to escape
taxation. Thercfors the abolition of
taxes on such property in any nation.
state or town would be a means of at
tracing such property, while the strict
and impartial enforcement of laws for
its taxation is q means of driving it
away.
15 Income and succession taxes like
wise tend TO drive away the rich.
16. A tax on property which is the re-
suit of labor, or which has been saved
by thrift, lessons the inducement to
such labor and thrift
IT, A tax which increases the cost of
owning or using any implement or car
rying ON any process. of production or
trade, hinders such production or trade;
except that sometimes such tax con-
centra.ss the business in the form of q
monopoly, whose power may be a
superior advantage.
IS. Such tax always tends to mo-
nopoly and to the crushing out of small
producers by increasing the amount of
capital necessary for carrying ON ,
given amount of business
10. Such tax, entering into the cost
of the goods is paid by the consumer in
his purchase. and falls on consumers in
proportion to their purchases But in
general, the larger a mans income is
the smaller is the proportion of it which
he spends for his own consumption.
Therefore, among those who pay any
such tax it falls heaviest on the poorest
20. Such tax takes from the con-
sumer an unnecessary amount beyond
what it gives to the government. be-
cause the tax enters into the cost of the
goods, and thus the trader must charge
a profit on the tax as well as on the
other cost in order to get the usual
profit on his whole capital The effect
of the tax in encouraging monopolies
may make production cheaper. and thus
neutralize this, but the monopoly il
more likely to involve an additional tax
on the consumer.
81. Such tax, by its interference
with private business, give private
parties a direct pecuniary interest in
having it laid or removed, not necessari-
ly coinciding with the interest they
have in the well-being OF the communi-
ty as whole, and thus increases the
inducement to corruption in govern
mcnt This is especially true where it
falls on one particular industry, as with
each of the multitudinous special taxes
which make up our tariff.
%. The increase in the price of land,
occasioned by lind speculation (see
Nos. 1-5). is in effect such a tax on the
holding and use of land, and as such is
especially obnoxious to the objections
of Nos lS-19.
2s. A tax laid on land by the State
would not increase the cost of holding
cruising land unless the .ax were great
er than the present rent OF the land, be-
cause whatever is added - the tax is
subtracted from the rent or purchase
price.
"a The advantage given to an Amer
ican manufacturer by tariff on his
product enabling him to sell it at q
higher price, is in the nature of a boun-
ty paid by an indirect tax (see Nos. IT.
2i) collected by the private manufac-
turer from the consumer. Granting,
for the sake of argument, that pro-
S~ Go Sol