Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-05-04

cost of production and increase prices,
and are thus shifted by first payers to
the shoulders of ultimate consumers, it
Is assumed without inquiry as to the
reason of this that it is true of all taxes.
The earlier files of the Standard show
a constant recurrence of this objection.
But thanks to the thorough explana-
lions that have from time to time been
made, and to the diffusion of economic
knowledge which our agitation has pro-
duced, it is now seldom met with where
there has been any single tax discus
sion.
But in another form the same old
fallacy occasionally crops out even
among single tax men. For instance, I
have letter from a gentleman in Ohio,
who begins by saying: lam believer
In and teacher of your doctrines
And then he goes on to express surprise
that in my letter to the pope 1 should
say anything to imply that taxes on
land values would not be shifted
through the medium of prices upon all
consumers of goods, with which admis-
sion he thinks our position would be
stronger and nearer the truth
"a still more striking instance of the
same confusion is given by the Detroit
Evening News, journal that has been
active in propagating the single tax
idea. In an editorial article entitled
The Question of Taxation, in its issue
OF November 13, in which it urges the
adoption of the single tax, occurs the
following:
If all taxes were placed on land only,
every pound of pork, every bushel of
wheat, every horse and COW, every form
OF personal property would be taxed
The user of the land would simply add
the tax to all these things, and every
person who uses them would pay his
just proportion
Whereupon correspondent writes
to the News asking whether this con-
struction of the News is in harmony
with the single tax as outlined by Henry
George
Printing this inquiry the News re-
plies:
Perfectly; otherwise the single tax
scheme would be of little value; indeed
less than of no value at all. Unless the
tiller of the soil, if compelled to pay di-
rectly the whole cost of government.
could add the taxes to the prices of the
things he produces, he could not till the
soil with any profit to himself, and agri-
culture, upon which the human race de-
pends for existence, would be ruined
Here is an instance of the single tax
being advocated on a ground that is not
merely untenable in itself, but that ut
terly denies a fundamental principle of
fhcac CIV 10 TO-
ever written on the subject of taxation
is based on the proposition that a tax
on land values cannot fall on produc-
ton and increase prices, and since there
is no error that have been at so much
pains to correct as that the tax we pro-
pose would fall on land users and
through them on consumers, it is hardly
necessary for me to deny that my views
are correctly represented by the News
But it may be worth while to point out
she error into which at least more than
one of the professed advocates of the
single tax have fallen. Nothing is to
be gained by having the single tax ad-
vocated for wrong reasons. Men brought
over by erroneous arguments can never
be relied on in a cause that must rest
on truth. The unsound supporter is, in
fact, more dangerous than an opponent
"Unless he sees that taxes on land
values, or economic rent, which is what
we mean by the single tax, must be
borne by the owners of the valuable
land from which it is collected, and
that it cannot fall on the users of land
as users, and cannot add to the cost of
production or increase prices, no one
can possibly appreciate either the moral
side of our argument or the full weight
of its fiscal side.
''And the fundamental reason WHY
taxes on land values cannot fall on
users or add to prices will always be
clear to anyone who will remember that
taxes on land values or economic rent
are not taxes on land. They are taxes,
not on land or on the use of land, but on
the possession of special privilege, the
holding of specially valuable land, the
possession of which gives to the owner.
not to the user, the power of appropri-
ating surplus over and above the
ordinary earnings of capital and re-
wards of labor. While this NAV at
times be taken by a person who is at
once both an owner and a user of land.
it always goes to him as owner and
never as user, and can be separated bv
selling or renting the land. What
tax on land values takes is, in short.
what the user of land must pay to the
owner of land in rent or purchase price
for the privilege of using valuable land.
1t can thus never fall on the user of
land, never increases the cost of pro-
duction, and never add to prices"
To me this seems nothing but a play
of words, a tumble, a senseless jargon.
Perhaps, however, Mr.. George under
stands it. To my mind, nothing palmer
than that under the operation of the
single tax, there would be no land own
ers, although some or many may hold
the possession of valuable land by virtue
of the ownership of the buildings there
on, paying more for such location than
any other man would care to bid. But.
beyond any possibility of doubt. the
rent (tax) not only of the building, but
of the land also, would be included in
the profits pertaining to the business
carried on upon the land.
The tax (rent) paid by the farmer for
the land he occupied would of course be
included in the price of all his products.
but could not be added, because, unlike
the merchant and manufacturer, the
farmer has no voice in so pricing his