Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-06-16
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
The Unconscious Drift.

| is creating drift into which men fal
| and float along, all unconscious of the
| pool toward which they are speeding
| An illustration of this is the democratic
| platform of Minnesota, in its demand
| for legislation which shall make conr
| merce and industries free" Another is
| the report OF subcommittee of the
ways and means committee of the Iowa
! house of representatives, which had
| drafted and recommended the passage
| OF law requiring all taxable property
| to be assessed at its full cash value.
| This originated in 4 single tax agita-
| ton there against an abuse which pre-
| walls all over the union, that of assess
| ing vacant land far below its value and
| letting land monopolizers off easily,
while correspondingly burdening the
| industrious by higher assessments on
1mpro 7ements. And from New England
| comes the report of an unsuccessful
! attempt of land owners to fence in the
| seashore. The undulating line of sea-
shore extending north from Boston TO
| Portsmouth presents a diversity OF
headland ano beach and wooded land
| scape scarcely equaled elsewhere on the
coast, and l., these sequestrated re-
treats repose IN quiet and elegant leis-
ure throughout the summer the wealth
and aristocracy of our cities. Among
these places none is more conspicuous
than the town of Swampscott, lying
just north of Lynn. It's natural advant-
ages are a broad ocean exposure and a
magnificent beach sweeping in an al
most unbroIen circle from headland to
headland for many miles The place
has taken on the air and exclusiycness
OF a Newport, and the spirit of AFRO
gance and monopoly is becoming more
and more aggressive. Heretofore the
privilege of the beach has been recO~-
nized as a universal right, and all
classes have enjoyed its attractions.
But now, it seems, the public use OF the
beach has become distasteful to the
AUDITORS, who have abridged public
rights by projecting barbed wire fences
out to low water. A petition against
the fences was placed before the har-
Dor and land commissioners. who gave
a hearing upon it. Mr.. Ben jamin Pot
ter, one of the petitioners although
proba bly, little conscious of the logical
Importance of his remarks. made fair
~ good single tax speech in opposition
to the claim of the landowners, and
the commissioners have just refused to
allow the fence to remain.
ADOPTING THE SINGLE TAX IN BRITISH
COLUMBIA.
Nor is the movement limited to the
United States. In British Column bra,
according to the Vancouver Daily News
Advertiser. the principles of single tax
We're regarded as cranks, have adher-
ents among all classes of the communi-
ty. and the tendency now in Vancouver
in Westminster, and in Victoria is to
reduce the assessment of improvements
and increase the assessment of land,
which is directly in line with the single
tax idea. The single tax question, says
the News-Advertiser, is really before
the people at the present time, and, 1T
would seem that the councils and the
people of the principal cities of British
Columbia are setting the matter in
practical way and with an absence of
friction Or violent methods that would
have appeared impossible only three
years ago.
SPREADING TO JAPAN.
The agitation has reached even to
Japan, and in most promising form.
Charles E. Garst, lately missionary to
Japan, writes US of book. copy of
which has just reached him, published
In Tokyo last year by japanese
scholar. Sentaro 10, and which is the
first book on the single tax ever pub
lished in the Orient. Mr.. Garst says
that when it first came out he wrote to
the author asking him where he learned
such doctrines. The author replied,
from Herbert Spencer's works and also
from Henry Georges books. The rea-
soning. entirely his own, is perfectly
adapted to the Japanese. and Mr.. Garst
believes the new economic doctrine will
soon take definite shape and policy in
that empire.
THE PRINCIPLE ADVANCING IN ENGLAND.
But it is in England that most pro-
gress is now making, and. perhaps, the
most potent visible factor, after the
London Council elections. has been the
great coal strike The London Daily
News has had a correspondent at the
mines, from whose reports it appears
distinctly that the miners have been
striking in the interest of their employ
ers as well as of themselves. In coal
mining there the three factors of pro-
duction are represented by three sepa-
rate sets of men. Landlords own the coal
in it's natural condition in the ground,
and receive royalties for allowing It to
be taken out: miners do the mining la
Dor, receiving wages from the employ
ing capitalists, who superintend the
work, handle the product in the mar
ket. and take the risks of trade, for
which they receive what is left after
paving wages to their men and royal |
ties to landlords. The miners noticed |
that the operators were losing money |
in low prices, and, fearing that this !
loss would soon react upon them in a
reduction of wages. they struck for the
purpose of diminishing the supply and
thereby raising the price of coal. But |
as the strike went on their attention |
was called with greater emphasis |
than ever before to the upearned |
share of their product which the |
landlords were talking: and with one |
voice, says the News correspondent, the
Federation has denounced what the cor
respondent bluntly calls Landlord |
Matchmaking. Speaking of a typi- |
cal colliery the correspondent says that |
the miner ''gets less than a shilling a |
ton, while the do-nothing, the lord of
the soil and all that is beneath it, ex-
tracts the full shilling" He adds: |
This means that by a species of rob- |
berry, which landlord parliaments in an
era of rudimentary national develop
ment made legal and respectable, this
no ~ ioriar landlord extracts as much |