The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1893-04-15

"Who Pays Your Taxes?" is thought
full and highly instructive work on the
subject indicated. The-frontispiece of
the book was suggested by an argu-
| mentative illustration made in the Troy
Press year or more ago, and the work
itself was reviewed in these columns
sometime since The Christian Union,
however, takes issue with the points so
earnestly commended for by this paper
| and the book in question. of which it
says:
This volume is issued by authority
of the Tax Reform association, and con-
tains a number of able essays The
Tax Reform association is composed of
men more or less in sympathy with
Henry Georges proposition to impose
all taxes on land values. The work be-
fore us demands the repeal of all taxes
upon personal property. Its funda-
mental error is brought out by the pic
trre which serves as its frontispiece. A
farmer and his boys are getting the
sap from tree whose trunk is marked
real estate and whose branches are
marked manufactures business cap
ital,' personal property incomes
wages, etc. The. boys are boring at
the branches; the old farmer gets his
sap from the trunk of the tree. The
moral is stated thus: when the trunk
is tapped. each branch is drawn upon
for its due proportion of sap This is
very clever, but utterly false. The
farmers in this country have only one
fourth of the wealth, but they have
one-half of the real estate. The tap
ping of the trunk would take as much
sap from their quarter Of the wealth as
from the three-quarters belonging to
the people in the towns"
The Christian Union is greatly in err
ror in saying that the association in
question is composed of men favorable to
the Henry George theory. Such is not
the case. Mr.. George would destroy
land ownership, a proposition hostile to
the views of almost all the members of
the tax reform movement The en-
forcement Georges notions would revo-
iutionize society as organized, while tax
reform would simply wipe out an odious
and in .quitable avenue of taxation
that it is impossible to enforce, and
place the burden where it would be less
burdensome to society at large, and |
more equally distributed, than in any
other way.
The contention that farmers have
one-half the real estate is misleading. |
They have in area, it is true, but not in |
value; and real estate is taxed accord |
ing to its value, not area The truth is,
the farmers have not one-fourth of the |
real estate of the country in value, and
under the system recommended would |
have to pay less than one-quarter of the
taxes. The Christian Union makes a
bad break in intimating that an exclu-
sive tax on realty would throw the
major share of taxes upon agriculture
1t should apologize to its readers.
The frontispiece, if not an invincible
of the principle of diversi-
fed taxes, has yet to be refuted. The
maple sugar producer taps
the trunk of the tree, from which every
branch thereof gathers sustenance. In
like manner the sagacious tax system
gathers its revenues from realty,eupon
which every branch of human society
This simple economic truth divests
AVIATION of its confusing perplexities |
ind Internal inequities i
The moro that the ways of taxing the
people are multiplied. the more scan-
.als and ssealings OF tho capitols. The
legislators who ore 40 zealous in re.
isving the farmers" hy cooking up new
chcmes OF taxation are Ia reality only I
Ifter Fat plckings for themselves AZ
Cleveland indicated Ia his message, an
'verAowing treasury breeds squander.
.rs and thieves.
The Christian Unions orthodoxy has {
been attacked; but whether or not
be sound on Scripture. its review Of ,
he really admirable work named shows