The Louisiana Democrat., 1891-05-20
SINGLE T Ak DEPARTMENT.
GLADsTe IN E ON TAXATION.

Some very brief and obscure tele-
graphic dlsp stches, a couple of weeks
ago, mentlo the fact that Mr.. PraXapel
a liberal, h nl introduced in the house
OF common "a motion To increase the
tax on lam !, i'm ,order'to relieve industty
from its p ssssnt burd ems, and ths a
lively ir ProMptu debate sthaH haH taken
place, in ahsoh Mr.. Glad sfAEs aa9lEs had taken
part. n othsng des6ahits, however, could
be learn ed fronas astassse dispatches as to
what &C urse the debate took. From
British exchanges it appears that MIR.
Provan spe ned the debate with a
speech in.xf .ich he showed that out of
the I'll .s.nF 1000 raised by taxation in
Great Int ain only IS, 1000, 600 was raised
from lan'l. The rest fell on the mass
OF they ,eople, the landless, in various
ways On food there was IA tax of G5,-
5oo'op 0, and local taxation, which is
borr e mostly by the renters and occu-
pie RS of houses, amounted to ESQ, 00O,-
OQ o.
I DR.. 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;
the exemption of idle lands from taxa
ton and the encouragement of land
speculation ana its evil effects, the man.
ner in which land values increased IA
consequence of the public improve
ments to which the landlords did not
/ contribute.
| Mr.. Gladstone's speech was drawn out
4 by a statement of the Troy minister of
4 agriculture, Mr.. Chaplin who claimed
| that rural landlords werc 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 expen,e of the ratepayers, privi-
| leges wb'. '.ch are really unjust.
He also denounced Mr.. Goschen's plan
'of ste'1oting part of the imperial rev.
'en0s.s raised by indirect taxation, such
\ sas customs taxes, to relieving various
localities from their local rates, as sin
the long run a 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 a 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 tn e fact that he has practical
ly announced that the Liberal party's
platform this year will be confined to
advocating home rule, ''one man, one
vote, the abolition of death duties, and
the eo .nalization of taxation-a very in
defin he proposition this debate shows
that. the Liberal party is being forced
by its more radical members into adj
VIcating the taxation of land values.