Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1891-05-29
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
GLADSTONE ON TAXATION.

/
Some very brief and obscure tele-
graphic dispatches, a couple of weeks
ago, mention the fact that Mr.. Provand.
liberal, had introduced in the house
OF commons n motion to increase the
tax on land, in order to relieve industry
from its present burdens, and that a
lively impromptu debate had taken
place, in which Mr.. Gladstone had taken
part Nothing definite, however, could
be learned from these dispatches as to
what course the debate took. From
British exchanges it appears that Mr..
Provand opened the debate with a
speech in which he showed that out of
the fl25, 100000 raised by taxation in
Great Britain only a5, 900, 900 was raised
from land. The rest fell on the mass
of the people, the landless, in various
ways. On food there was tax of e5,-
300, 900, and local taxation, which is
borne mostly by the renters and occu-
piers of houses, amounted to ESQ, O00,-
O0O
DIR. Clark, another liberal, or radical
member, pointed out that the great
problem was how to get taxation shift
ed from industry, where it was placed
by landlord parliaments for their own
relief, back to its proper place, on land
values. Those values, he said, are due
to the natural expansion of the commu-
nifty. and should be taxed to relieve
those who have to pay taxes out of hard
earned income.
The whole question was brought up;
Of 10 -.
ton and the encouragement of land
speculation and its evil effects, the man
ner in which land values increased in
consequence of the public improve
ments to which the landlords did not
contribute.
Mr.. Gladstone's speech was drawn out
by statement of the Troy minister of
agriculture, Mr.. Chaplin who claimed
that rural landlords were already over
burdened with taxes. In the course of
his speech Mr.. Gladstone said:
1t appears to me, beyond all doubt,
that under our present system ground
rents enjoy undue exemption. The
owner of property has long enjoyed, at
the expense of the ratepayers, privi-
leges which are really unjust.
He also denounced Mr.. Goschens plan
of devoting part of the imperial rev.
enues raised by indirect taxation, such
as customs taxes, to relieving various
localities from their local rates, as ''in
the long run sheer, unmixed, undi-
luted gift to the landlords. OF course,
Mr.. Gladstone did not go to the extent
of declaring for any radical policy of
land taxation, for he himself is as near
ly conservative on the land question
as it is possible for him to be; but his
remarks are the more significant on
that account, for he had to show that
the Tory party was the landlord party,
and, by implication, that the liberals
were opposed to landlord legislation.
One report stated that Mr.. Gladstone
took occasion to distinctively repudiate
the ideas of Henry George in his speech
on this occasion; but, notwithstanding
this and the fact that he has practical
ly announced that the Liberal party's
platform this year will be confined to
advocating home rule, lone man, one
vote" the abolition of death duties, and
the equalization of taxation-a very in
definite proposition-this debate shows
that the Liberal party is being forced
by its more radical members into adj
vocating the taxation of land values.