The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-03-23

the average human being, lC must De
expected that ingenuity and EFFORT
without stint will be exhibited by
many in the endeavor TO relieve them
selves from their proper burden, even
! if it be accomplished only by trans
| ferring the load TO others who have
their owe burden TO bear.
Moreover, care should be taken that
DO ones burden should be made
| weightier by a sense OF injustice, be-
| cause OF some legislation that opens
! the door t. shifts aud evasIonS, ana
shuts it against all attempts at I'M
| provements or reform
Cardinal Principle Of Taxation.
| One of the cardinal principles in
/ Lowing taxes il that it shall be done
/ in such ways as TO make it possible
! for every Intelligent citizen to know
/ how much his neighOOrs are contrib
uting as their assigned share, "a well
as how much money is raised, aad
] how il is spent, so as 10 guard against
! extOFsiOn, or extravaganza, under
| forms Of law 1t is with this object
| in view that the motto nas become
! popular cry, mo taxation without
! Representations
| Every citizen should have voice
not directly, but representatively, in
deciding how money shall be raised
and how it shall be spent. It is evil
dent, however, that we cannot make
the total population the numerical
basis of taxation, and divide the eX-
pense of the government per capita,
as an arithmeticai quOta-so much
expenditure, so many people, so much
per head. There would be no
I fairness in that. Nor can we take
property only as the basis, as if the
! possession of ten times the property
another man has, increases in a ten
fold ratio the obligation to contribute
| TO the common welfare. That Is not
fair measure, either. We might as
reasonably apportion the taxes &C
| cOrding 70 the different pounds avOir-
dupois of different individuals as to
the number of dollars at which they
may be rated.
The day has gone by when the
street cleaning of city can be man
aged by making each householder
clean up in front of his own premises.
No money standard can measure the
worth of any citizens services. What
amount of money could have bought
the services so freely randered during
| the insurrectiOnary attempt of Janu-
airy, 1895, or during the cholera plague
| in October?
Yet it is money that is needed to
meet the ordinary annual expenses OF
government, and only the annual
gains from property can furnish this
money. But property has two forms
| Familiarity known as real and personal
| In the Hawaiian tax law of 1898,
real property in this country is de-
! fined to mean land with all the i'm
/ prOvements on IT.. There is a long
definition of personal property in
substance, as being goods and chattels,
things owned, aud such certificates Of
| ownership, AS patent rights, fran
chises, stocks aud bonds. 1t is very
difficult to ascertain the exact owner
ship of personal property, and some
would, therefore, abandon it alto
gether as source of revenue and lay
single tax on the value of land alone,
excluding the value of any improve
ments thereon. To tax such improve
ments, it is argued, would be like i'm
| posing a fine on enterprise and thrift.
But all must live off the land, it is
further argued, and therefore tax on
the value of land will be met Indirectly
| from the whole community.
There are only $4,000 taxpayers out
of a population of 1000, 900 in New
York City, and 1000 of them pay one
| half the total amount of taxes. Yet,
really, every resident of the city pays
in the form of rent proportionate
amount of the whole tax. Under the
common law no man is an absolute
owner of land-he has only an estate
in it. Eminent domain is claimed as
sovereign right of the State, and
land Is taken for public use or quasi
public purposes, by process of law,
without asking the consent of the
owner. To tax lands is simply to
satisfy the States claim to part of the
usufruct, as being silent partner in
| all DriVata land HOLDINGS
But consideration must be had in
levying taxes, not only in regard to
its effects directly, as taking for pub
lie use part of the value of some
property, but also it's indirect effects
on other values. In ElizabethtOwn
n. J., public improvements were
undertaken, in advance of any press
ing necessity for them, involving
such increased taxation, that people
who could get away, fOrsOok the place
to escape the OnerOus burdens of tax
alton. To tax the value of land alone
to meet all expenses according to the
changing needs of the public treas
uTy and the changing values of the
land. would be to introduce such a
variant into the prices of real estate
as to put the transaction of business
| on so f1uctuating basis, that it would
be abandoned as practically worth
less.
However plausible the argum ants
advanced in support of Henry
Georges plan of a single tax on land,
there seems at present no such con-
fidence in the plan as to warrant it's
adoption in the face of the many prac-
ticaI objections to it.
| Taxing Corporations.
The practice is growing more COM
/
| public revenue that must be raised
| from personal property by taxation,
on certain forms of it, such as bank
ing institutions, insurance compa-
MES, railroad and manufacturing cor
porations. Pennsylvania has led the
way in devising such methods of in
direct taxation, laying tax of per