The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-05-25
Mr.. rates rries his Hand Again.
4 sFoRrLANp, Or, MAY %, 1891.

In m1nQ W0aC GlcSe VaIueS are anu now
they are created The solitary settler in
wilderness might improve $50 acres to
high degree; but to one who came
along. and offered to buy him out, his
land apart from the Improvements could
have no possible value while along side
of him was to be had equally good land
for the taking up. But if other settlers
come in and surround the first one, and
commence to improve, then the land
begins to acquire value that is not due
to the exertions of any Individual, but
to the join labors and accumulations of
the whole community. And should the
situation of the place be such that a
postoffice, a store, school house and a
church be built thereon and the place
becomes trading center, the added
value acquired by the land would be
more due to the effects of human associ-
alton. Should the state charter rail-
road to tap this point; should individ-
ual enterprise erect mammoth factories,
machine shops, etc., and the day of
street railways, electric lights and costly
water works arrive, our first settler-the
owner of the town site-though he toiled
not, neither spun, might eventually find
himself millionaire, under present
conditions, through the operation of
the great law of human pro-
gress which finds its prime factors
in association. Yet twenty miles away
may be an individual far more energetic
and industrious than the first-named,
who has toiled early and late to improve
his farm, yet its value has come up very
slowly, because population is scanty
there and land still isn't worth very
much more than the improvements cost.
There is of course natural rent, due to
the superior fertility, the presence of
minerals, etc, but the greatest increase
of land values is due to population and
the wealth its presence accumulates.
The presence of millionaires, their stocks
and bonds, to which the CHRONICLE re-
fers, all inure to the benefit of the land
holders. ALI men know that the bring
ing of capital into country means rise
in land values. In 1886, the New York
San estimated that $25, ,OoO, 600 were
brought into Kansas by the immigration
Of that year. The consequence was that
lands, which, when the writer was there
two years before, you couldn't give away,
at once jumped up to astonishing figures,
and men who sold out town property be-
came rich through the 'unearned incre-
;ment.'', Now the money has all left
that non productive country, and popu-
lation with it, lands have dropped again
to nominal figures ~ q -
The lands of, let us say, any county,
win be found on the average to have an
equal value with the improvements. and
personal property accumulated thereon.
The reason being that they get their
value from the presenceof these products
of human industry and the accompany
personal property much less in value
than the land, itonly proves the impossi-
bility of fair and just assessment of
personal property-that some of it has
escaped, taxation. Now as it is this very
personal property and these improve
ments that give value to land, what, can
be more fair than to tax these land val
ues with the burdens of societary gov
cTuucuI. Inc values cannot escape Ine
assessor. No man can say of the COM
munity value of the land he holds F''I
made this" That value is the Joint
production of all; let us tax it for the
joint benefit of all. WALLACE YATES.
] Saturday last at 5 80 p. m. as an east
bound freight train neared bridge No.
rs which is little this side of Viento the
engineer, Mr.. Powers, discovered when
within two or three cars length that the
bridge was on fire. The moment the
engineer saw the fire he reversed his
engine but the next moment perceiving
that the train would certainly stop on
the bridge he threw back the lever and
made q dash to clear It The u;olanca of