The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-12-13
EFFECTUAL ME- HOD
 OF REDUCING THE
 HIGH COST OF LIVING


 The cultivated areas in 1911 yield ed $15.72 per acre. exclusive of farm animals and their products.
 Calculated on a basis of their po- tential earning power the uncu1tivat- ed acreage should yield splendid total of $1S,362, 100000 additional, not including animals and their pro- ducts, which the Agricultural Report ! of 1910 placed at $2.913, 100000.
 Now here is a mine, compared ' with which the fabled Golconda was a bauble. The marvellous Magic Lamp in the Arabian Nights story is alone comparable with 1t. 1 The earth is patiently waiting for someone to tickle it with a hoe, that it may laugh a harvest. But how are those someone's to tickle? Whar l prevents them at present from en1ov- ing this pleasant and lucrative di- version?
 Among all the hungry horde of 1 reasons, two stick out like two sore thumbs, horribly obvious and intru- sive, primarily, the high price of 1and-due to huge areas being held out of use by land spectators: and secondly - prohibitive transportation rates.
 | The first evil can be readily over come by taxing the land on a basis where it will be no longer possible for spectators to hold it out of use. The Single Tax to Regulate Present Unfair Taxation. l The single tax idea is being em- ployed in various parts of the world l to this end, and while 1t is not a panacea for all our economic ills, it 1 bids fair to put the burden of taxa ton upon shoulders best able to sup port it.
 Does it not seem the very acme of folly and feeble-mindedness for us l to pena1ize-as we now do-every attempt at improvernen ent? So to ad- l just our tax rates that the moment man makes a house and woodshed grow where none grew before, we | fine him for 1t, by drastically in creasing his taxes
 The adoption of the Single Tax sys- tenn would do away with this unjust method of extorting money, and relieve our impoverished rich from the necessity of perenntally perjuring themselves by swearing off' taxes. | And. in addition, 1t would give 9 1 tremendous impetus to building ope- rations, put immense sums of money into> circulation, and bring about an era of general prosperity. | It would help materially to develop our acreage, PROVIDED that the av- aricious railroads didn't continue to l inhibit agrarian activities by extor- | tionate charges, and skim ali the cream from the venture.
 Public Must Acquire Ownership of Railroads.
 Under the present benificent sys- tenn of exploitat1on-when dividends upon s9,0oO, 100000 worth of pure. translucent water must be dug out of l the sapient public-the railroad ba- rons have oligarchic power. This | they employ levying heavy tribute | upon the farmer, not only in products l transported from the farm, but in goods delivered to the farm. | We are now attempting to regulate these charges, with perhaps, some slight degree of success. But it is an extremely difficult thing to regulate | another mans business without be- ing tyrannical or conf1scatory in the operation. And further, it can be shown by a judicious system of bookkeeping, that the charges are barely sufficient to pay the interest | on the investment"
 And further, if a corporation can not capitalize the earning power of it's business, it is, in effect, prevented arbitrarily from enjoying what justly l belongs to it.
 So that the problem, from an ethi- cal, moral and legal standpoint, is an extremely complex one.
 However, it is only a question of a few years until the railroads must become Government enterprises, as they are in almost every other civil | ized country in the world.
 Then, with charges properly ad- justed on basis of interest on the PHYSICAL VALUATION, freight and passenger rates can be cut in half. And, strange to say, no one will suf- fer from this surgery, excepting a greedy horde of railroad owners g who toll not, neither do they spin. l we palaces on the Rois de Cologne. Un- der Government manag cement the transportation service will be better than it ever has been.
 | This is the universal experience of countries where it has been in force. And one thing we'll have--which is now denied us-an adequate mum Der of men and cars wherewith to han dIe our freight and passenger busi- ness. This is absolutely certain. So here we have our equation.
 To reduce the cost of living. our acreage must be increased. To in- | crease our acreage. land must be | cheapened, and to cheapen land, we must force it's surrender by specula- ! tors, ard so adjust taxes that they /; decrease in direct proportion and ra- 1 tio to improvement.
 1 Then to make the proposition of 1 farming an attractive one, the huge donations which we now so generous ly hand over to our idle exploiters l shall remain in the hands of the con sumner in the shape of decreased rail road charges.
 There are several dozen other val uable and effective measures which ] will materially assist in reducing the cost of living, but these will do for a start.
 DIR. EDWIN F. BOWERS.
 ns uANNER Ts GI1TTry