The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-01-09
SINGLE TAX.
u Lady Correspondent Continues the
DiscussiOn.

SINGLE TAX.
u Lady Correspondent Continues the
Discussion.
no the Editor:
Many are rejoicing that the Representa-
tive will give a free field for fair discu-
sion of the single tax. I think that much
of the prevalent misunderstanding results
from the false name under which this
great movement for equal rights is now
presented. 1t Is not a tax at ALL in the us
uai sense Of that word-not a burden i'm
posed for the support of government, but
means OF abolishing all real taxation by
using instead the income from our COM
mon inheritance, the land. our great store
house Cor the supply of our material wants.
Whoever uses any portion of this common
inheritance, to the exclusion of his CO.
inheritors should pay the value of that
privilege of exclusion into the common
fund. or public treasury. This revenue
would make it unnecessary to tax every
thing we eat, drink, wear, make or pos
sess-a taxation which results in constant
discomfort and legislation.
To take economic rent for public
revenue is to take that which results from
social growth for social uses. Created by
the community it does not justly belong to
individuals: yet they grow immensely rich
upon it. An Aston living in England draws
an income amounting to SIG per minute
from New York rents; not all ground rent,
to be sure, but if the same houses were
scattered over western prairies it would
make quite difference in his income
City lots valuable through the rise
of economic rent under the pressure of in
creasing population and business activity
that the value of farming lands is very
small in proportion.
The eleventh census returns show that
all the farming lands in this country
valued at only 10 per cent of vle total land
values. Then, under the proposed single
tax, all the farmers together would pay
only 10 per cent of the total tax. Now the
farmers pay so per cent of all the taxes!
Does the farmer fear the single tax? Is
he not gOuged most numerically under our
present system? Let him work for the
single tax.
The collection of economic rent from all
lands having such rent because in demand
for use by increasing popula tom, without
regard to the improvements upon them,
would make it Improbable to hold vacant
lots or unused land. AS the rent COR ''sngle
tax'o was gradually raised, the owners would
u
would try to sell them. Building would be
encoura ged for the tax would not be in
creased, no matter how fine the improve
ment. In the same way every manufac-
turer or other industries would be released
from the taxation now imposed upon indus
try and enterprise. Much good farming
land would be entirely free from taxation,
spectators found their holdings unprof
liable. thus affordng the poorest some
chance to work for himself
Rut Ia rich ha q
your efforts to tax back to the people his
ill-gOtten gains. He is not needed. 1--WE,
the people," not only have a right to the
use of that fund economic renD which
our social growth and enterprise has pro-
duced. but we have right to issue and
control our own medium of exchange. or
trade. For justice and safety we should
not only natonalze rent, but we should
also nationaliZe our money, our railroads,
telegraph and every public utility which
fattens upon us in the shape of a trust.
To talk of taxing these monsters is like the
planning of mice to put bell on the cat
And the French revolution AS [
read French history find no trace of the
single tax, except as the name of Luegot
suggests it. He was one Of the rltysiocrats
who believed in the import unique Tor one
tax alone), and he was the first minister
of finance under the king whom the great
revolution knocked out He 4 noble
man, but his plans were never tried Dean
Kitchen says:
He at once proposed his remedies for
the evils of the time-the only true RENE
dies, economy and the abolition of privi-
lege. The state should spend less and
should draw it's supplies from al orders Of
men alike. To the court and ntb les this
seemed revolution ana ruin; even the king
was startled. Instead of supporting his
minister manfully, he recalled the banshed
parliaments and thought to shelter himself
behind the law. The lawyers, however,
special lovers of and privilege, felt
instinctively that Turgot was their foe;
from that moment his fate was sealed A
great league was formed against him; the
powerful help of the scandalous pacte de
famine, the grain ring which had been
established under Louis XIV, was enlisted
in behalf of the privileged orders; fam
inc ensued in 1775 and lasted three years.
Louis XVI. was frightened; all seemed to
be against him, and at last, in 1875 he
dismissed his one great minister. q
So things went on, from bad to worse,
but France never came so near to having
the single tax when Turgot was placed
at the head of her finances; and that was
her last chance of escape from the i'm
pending revolution.
Swinton, in his Outlines of History"
speaking of the causes of the French rev.
Olution, says:
Democratic doctrines from America
found their way into the .lull head of the
French peasant, who could not help real
1Zing the injustice that save two-thirds of
the soil to the nobility (who numbered
only about 10000 souls) ana to the priests
both of which orders were EXEMPT from
taxes, while he and his IS 900,00O of brother
serfs, owning but one-third of the land
had to bear all the brudens of the state"
f. f. r.