Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-09-22
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
THE SINGLE TAX.
It's Adoption Would Solve tho La
Problem.

It's Adoption Would Solve the Labor
Problem.
The single tax is tax on land values,
Irrespective of improvements, to the ex-
clusion of all other taxes The value of
land is caused by the increased competi-
ton for its use, and is due to the growth
of population and public improve
ments.
If in force in this country
It would raise wages.
It would lower rent.
1t would encourage industries,
It would equalize opportunities.
1t would benefit all Except land spec
nlators, as such).
Land is now held idle because it is
not assessed at its full value. The
present system discriminates against
the land user and in favor of the land
Epeculator. In some localities it is a
greater crime to build hen-house than
TO steal hens The latter is punished
by the payment of one fine. but the
former offense involves payment of a
penalty annually. The levying of
taxes on land values cheapens land.
With such tax it will not pay to keep
land idle, therefore the owner will
either seek labor and capital to make
it productive, sell it at a low price, or
abandon it to others Natural oppor-
tunities will then be opened to labor.
Workmen who can not make fair bar
gains with employers will then be able
to employ themselves, not that every
body will take to farming, but that
with agricultural, mining and building
L. IL - o.
them to use, there would be no lack of
employment, and wages in all industries
would rise to their natural level-the
full earnings of labor. The labor prob
lem is-how shall all men willing to
work always find opportunity to work
and thus increase wealth? The single
tax, by opening to labor all the forms
of natural opportunities embraced UNI
der the general term land, solves the
labor problem.
By the erection of dwelling houses
upon vacant lots, house rents would be
reduced by the competition between
house-owners for tenants.
As result of taxing the coal lands of
Pennsylvania as agricultural land, the
coal barons are enabled to hold out of
use whole counties of coal land. They
curtail the output and raise the price of
coal at will If the coal land was taxed
at it's full value, the coal barons would
only pay tax ON the land which they
We're using. Labor and capital would
then have free access to the unused
coal land, and the competition between
mine operators for customers would
make coal cheaper than it could be fur
nished by such charity scheme as the
nationalistic fad of municipal coal
yards. When a coal mine is closed, the
world is deprived of the wealth which
labor would have extracted from it had
it been kept open. When city lot is
kept vacant, the community is deprived
of the building which labor would have
erected had it been put to use; and in
each case laborers are deprived of the
wages they would have earned.
As lack of employment is the cause
of poverty, the adoption of the reform
offered would abolish unnecessary pow
erty, and the greed, intemperance and
vice that spring from poverty and the
fear of poverty.
Single takers advocate the abolition
of every form of restriction that in any
of all to sustain life by having free ac-
cess to all common bounties of nature,
without the use of which life can not
be sustained. Those natural bounties
are air, water, sunshine and land. As
the first three elements are now free to
all, we propose to take by taxation the
rental value of land, in order that the
equal right of all to the use of the earth
may be established
And if equal rights to all are to be
secured. it is not only just but becomes
necessary that ground rent should go
into the public treasury, in order that
no one shall derive any advantage over
his fellows by the possession of natural
advantage. Ground rent is sufficient to
defray all the expenses of government,
and it is not necessary to have multi
plicity of taxes.
The necessity for government and the
value of land are both the result of
population, and the revenue of ground
rent from the one should be made to
pay the expenses of the other.-W. L.
CroSsman, in ST. Louis Courier