The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-02-13
THE SINGLE TAX.

Denver, Jan. %


To the Editor:
In your last issue Mr.. Harvey asks how
Montana and other Western states could
been in operation? The answer is easy:
Just the same as they were settled, only
far easier for the settlers.
Before any people went into the states
to settle the land was there with all it's
fertility and all it's abundance of minerals.
The land was there waiting for people to
come and use it, but it had no salable val
ne, for the reason that no people were
there.
AS soon as the people went there and
settled, of course they needed revenue to
pay the cost of building roads, bridges
school houses, etc, and to provide for the
administration of justice At the same
time the incoming of people caused some of
the most desirable land to have a value
People would be glad to pay something for
certain locations rather than take other
locations for nothing.
Thus you see that the need for revenue
and the land value to supply the revenue
both appear with the advent of the people.
All the people had to do was to take the
land value to pay for the public works
and other public expenses and justice would
be done. 1t the building of these
school houses, roads, bridges, etc. that
| caused the land values to be there The
land values having been produced by the
whole people, therefore belonged to the
whole people.
eve have been through Montana and
there are millions of acres that no man
would take a free gift. The only agri-
cultural lands worth anything are those
that human industry has turned the water
upon and irrigated, and their value is de-
termined not by the density of population
but capacity to produce things useful for
man. Some of the richest valleys are in
the midst of vast wildernesses of rocks
and mountains The thing that is valuable
in Montana is water not land; and popula-
ton gives value to water and therefore,
according to the George theory, no man
owns the brook that trickles through his
meadow ~
How did they settle Montana? They let
a few sharp spectators have the land val
ue that the public had created, and then
taxed themselves to raise revenue
Does Mr.. Harvey think they couldn't have
got along and settled up that country if
it had not been for these spectators that
have become millionaires out of the land
values that the whole people of Montana
have created? Wouldn't they have been
Well, l will let them think of it while
(Mr Buell. would have a lively time set
tlng up new country if he gave notice
in advance that man could obtain a
home unless he agreed that the wealth of
the country mills. factories, shops. stores
banks. railroads and all other forms of
property. should go free except the land
which should bear everything. Would Mr.
Buell. take farm on such conditions to-
morrow in Wyoming or Utah? 1. d.
Mr. I. c. Hodgson writes a far more
candid and intelligent criticism of the single
tax theory than most of the critics.
He says, in substance: The value of
everything else as well of land depends
on population" "All the necessaries, all the
luXuries of life have value for precisely the
reason that land has value
think not. The value of land is due
solely to the presence of the community to
the owner no more than to any other of
them, and, in case of absentee owners land
value is due to the owner not at ALL
The value of labor products is due to the
labor expended on them, of course, with the
understanding that the labor has been intel