The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-11-26
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
THE SINGLE TAX.


Problem.
The single tax is n tax on land values,
irrespective of improvements, to the ex-
ciusion of all other taxes. The value of
land is caused by the increased COMPETE
ton for its use, and is due to the growth
of population and public improve.
ments.
If in force in this country
1t would raise wages.
1t would lower rent.
1t would encourage industries,
It would eqralize opportunities.
1t would benefit al ;except land spec
nlators, as such).
Land is now held idle because it is
not assessed at its full value. The
present system discriminatcs against
the land user and in favor of the land
Spectator. In some localities it is
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
= lands accessible to those willing to put
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 un-
der the general term land, solves the
| labor problem.
BY the erection of dwelling houses
J 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 its full value, the coal barons would
only pay tax On the land which they
were 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 a 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 Aeen kept open. When a 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
! crty, and the greed, intemperancc and
vice that spring from poverty and the
fear of poverty.
| Single takers advocate the abolition
/ of every form of restriction that in any
way abridges the free and equal rights
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 a 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.