The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-04-06

with land Owners and privileged
classes it is just the other way.
They do get something for nothing
by taking a value which the COM
munity creates, for themselves,
rendering no equivalent whatever.
Which would you in justice tax
the man that accumulates $4,000
by giving something for something,
or the man that accumulateS $1,000,
who gives nothing in any way
whatever Tax both. The latter
on rent, the former on Income
Ed. If the $4,000 man has rem
dered to the community an honestly
earned equivalent the government
has no right to tax him one cent,
and in the $1,000 ease, if the man
has not rendered an equivalent the
government has the right to take
every cent and compel him to work.
Since production forms the true
basis or right of property, the man
that honestly produces $4,000
TWho shall determine he got it
honestly? He has it, that's
enough.-ED. is entitled to every
cent of it, and on the other hand,
that man that receives even a cent
in which he has no productive
right, is wrong against thrift,
enterprise and labor.
All taxes can be shifted with the
exception of a single tax on land
values exclusive of Improvements.
Therefore if you tax incomes they
will be simply shifted onto the
consumer. This is evidently i'm
possible. There is no one to shift
an income tax onto. Income stops
with the possessor.-ED.
AS Henry George says: "The
tax upon land values is therefore
the most just and equal of all taxes.
1t falls only upon those who re-
ceive from society peculiar and
valuable benefit, and upon them in
proportion to the benefit they re-
ceive. 1t is the taking by the com
munity, for the use of the commu-
nifty, of that value which is the
creation of the community. 1t is
the application of the common
property to common uses. When
all rent is taken by taxation for the
needs of the community, then will
the equality ordained by nature be
attained. No citizen will have an
advantage over any other citizen,
save as is given by his industry,
skill and intelligence, and each will
obtain what he fairly earns. Then,
but not till then, will labor get it's
full reward, and capital it's natural
return" What is meant by cap
itafs natural return?-ED1
Yours for equity,
CHAs. I'll. GENTsCH.
The argument in the last para
graph applies with equal force to
interest which is rent on money,
The mortgage on the land, or ON a
man if you please, is drawing rent
GnteresD from labor without the
mortgage exerting himself at all !.
He might as well hold fee simple
title to the land and collect rent as
to place his money IN a mortgage,
There is little difference between a
deed and mortgage. The rent of
money, which is called interest,
and the rent of land are as closely
related as the right hand and the
left. And the argument which
applies to one includes the other.
Neither the land owner or money
owner add to the wealth of the
world by their industry. They
both sit down and complacently see,
the one his rentor the other his
debtor, toll.
This, however, is not in dispute
at present. The question is framed
by existing conditions and not
under single tax dispensation. We
are at present under system OF
personal property taxation-=admit-
ting that the single tax system were
the better system-and under such
conditions, every consideration die
| tates that surplus incomes should
be taxed.
Numerous letters are received
from our single tax friends all adj
vancing elementary principles of
the single tax. They complain that
we refuse to publish them. We
have not space to spare for so many
repetitioHs. Some of these letters are
we'll expressed; others are not And any
one we'll written communication embraces
all the rest The MIn AMI IOTrpNAr l, &c