Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-05-12
A Plea for Single Land Tax.

J. is said that a certain ruler of Egypt
imposed tax upon date trees for the
purpose of raising n revenue To meet his
large household expenses. and. incident
ally, few expenses of state. This wise
man reasoned that since dates were
profitable crop in the valley of the Nile
he could calculate upon date trees As Il
permanent source of revenue. BESIDES,
his mir:ons could go about and count
the producers trees and easily fix their
tax rates. anj easily collect them. too.
for no light penalty was to be visited
upon the delinquent.
Shortly after harvest. however. wheI
the worthy ruler set his governmental
machinery to work to grind the taxes
out of his date growers he learned with
dismay that they were cutting down
their date trees and unless he counter
inanded his orders quickly there would
be few date trees left in Egypt. SO tho
good man countermanded his orders,
but too late. however to turn off the
heavy blow that fell upon his country.
1t seems to me that our system OF tax
alton is not very much unlike the
Egytian rulers. though not so notice
ably disastrous His was a positive
check on personal enterprise in regard
to date tree culture: ours is d preventive
check on personal enterprise in regard
to improvements of nearly every kind.
Now, there is one commodity only
that community can tax without ham
pering production. and that commodity
is land. Taxation on land will never
make any less land. but taxation on i'm
prOvements tends to curtail them.
The taxation of land only would be
both just and economical Just be-
cause incomparably more than in any
thing else does society create value in
land. One need only to look about him
to see piece of land originally unim-
proved meadow. where the owners
have acquired great wealth through no
efforts of their own, but simply by the
value which a growing community has
given to it. Society, therefore, has
right to tax this value it creates: but it
manifestly has not an equal right 10
tax improvements. which are the pro-
duets of individual efforts only.
A single tax on land would also be
economical, for the concentration of
taxes on land would discourage the
holding of it in idleness. as at present.
for speculative or other selfish purposes.
When the concentration became com
plete men could not afford to monopo-
lie several times so much land as they
would be able or willing to utilize thus
opening upa chance for the disinherited
millions to secure sites for future homes.
And as improvements would not be
taxed, as at present, capitalists would
be encouraged to vie with one another
in the beauty and grandeur of the
structures they would erect. 1t would
then become possible for the industrious
ones among the tenants in the large
cities to secure homes in the country or
in the suburbs. thus relieving our cities
of that congestion so destructive to our
peoples health and morals.
Those who work the land. while be-
ing discouraged from holding more
land than they could prOfitably man.
age. would be encouraged in cultivating
and improving that which they could
utilize. BY reason of the great and
permanent stimulus that would be
given to production the industriously
inclined among the unemployed could
easily find employment or they could
become landed proprietors themselves.
And. as this easy access to land not in
use by others would serve as "a safety
valve in relieving the severe pressure
of competition for employment among
wage earners, the question of hours of
abor and of wages would happily adj
just themselves.
In short. instead of a nation of land
lords. spectators and sharpers. with
their victims-tenantsa and trampS-yy'
should become a nation of horIes where
the greatest possible incentive would
be given to the production O. wealth o:
every kind; where che foot and raj
ment of one man Ensd not druend Oh
the nod of another: whprc the l'4vd of
honest labor might fai! apo.s sol, Mat
would not produce the Isse~ of w'ge
slavery of poverty. of hotGj essnes: to
spring up and choke IT'D J. Hayes in
Boston Globe.