The independent., 1903-05-14

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nil. Hence, we single takers assert
that land, in itself, has no value, in
which all economists concur. II, with
| the presence of ten thousand people,
| ten thousand dollars in land values
were created, the proportionate con-
| tribution of each to that value would
| be 81, yet no Cne individual would be
entitled rightfully to appropriate 70
his own use this 81 of land value be-
cause he alone could not have caused
it. There must be competitor for
| the use of land before value can arise.
| Therefore each dollar of such land
/ value is rightfully a communal fund
/ and all such values, to whatever
point they may arise uy increase of
| population, must of right belong to
| the community as whole, while with
much greater force can it be said that
one living in foreign state or coun-
| try, who never was upon Nebraska
| land, cannot be entitled to take it,,
| and IL statute law enables him so to
do, it is by force of legalized error
which has always put knot in the
end of it's own lash.
Nebraska as elsewhere and always,
there came also the need of govern
ment for the protection of society and
the establishment of civic institutions
and for all of the various internal i'm
provements in which all of the people
had, or should have a communal inter-
est, such as schools, courts, highways,
both of iron, dirt, macadam, asphal.
or mud. Vast sums of money must
be continually expended in the main
tenance of government for there are
no interregnums in its need nor has
a hiatus been known in it's increase,
which, with all honesty in executive
detail, the increase of such cost is
naturally, with automatic precision,
in keeping with the ratio OF increase
of population and with this same au-
tomato precision do land values arise
because Of increased competition for
the use of land. Hence we assert the
single tax upon land values to be a
natural revenue"
Since it is the presence of the peo-
pie, as whole, that gives rise to land
values and in fullness of all govern
ernment, l. e., the state, take over
| to it's use and exhaust this fund in
the maintenance of all public institu-
tions from the executive chamber
! down to dog pounds, pay also out OF
| it it's due proportion to the general
government, maintain it's schools,
courts, hospitals (there would soon be
| no need for poor houses or prisons),
| highways, both of iron and dirt, etc.,
and all municipal easements, water
service, lights, parks, baths, tram
ways, ETC., before drawing, under the
name of taxation, upon the wages OF
the workman, clerk or teacher; nor
from the interest upon capital, nor
yet from the proceeds OF all those
hydra-headed scorpions with which
our present vicious, discriminating
system of taxation and of land tenure
has so infested the cosmic lair of
crime.
To any careful thinker, this fund
| is all sufficient for both present needs
and those to accrue, with standing
reserve for internal improvement
without first voting bonds with which
| W Jul ucu Willing SO1iCA 1Iioho wv VIVA
being a source of vexation and re-
proach upon ourselves.
Witness the profigacy of the recent
congress and our retiring legislature
that there is no danger of such fund
becoming too large.
Under our present system, millions
| upon millions of this fund which, un-
| der the most liberal Interpretation of
ethics, can only belong to the COM
munity in which such value arose,
go abroad, to alien land holders in the
form of rent an. interest upon money
capitalized in land, while there are
those among us who, claiming super
| ior intelligence to those of other ma
tions, boast that our exports exceed
our imports by from three to five
hundred million per year, and it is
cniefy from this source that the le-
galized robbery is continued, though
the sum total of which the home peo-
pie are drefrauded has never been
half told. Instance, If you please,
those values held in foreign brokerage
offices located in the United States
and those which have not yet become
the subject of remittance abroad, yet
are resident in the paper title. 1t has
| ham oarnf,1llu cop1 nv thncp p0c-