The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1917-03-09


fellows under circumstances ad-
vantageous to both sides is diminish
ed.
So IL furnish my house find
the State and county at every stage
in the production of the furniture
would buy have levied their toll
upon production and interfered by
licenses and personal taxes with the
freedom of the producer in selling
and my freedom in purchasing.
If I am possessed of tract of
land and pillow and fertilize it: if /
fruit trees and develop an orchard;
if I furnish my farm with live stock
the better to enable human beings
to live; if build silos; If beautify
my place by setting out roses and
lilacs and shade trees, in every in
stance my liberty to do these things
is restrained by taxation, and finally
for every increased dollar of valu-
alton that comes from such exercise
of my industry, the state and county
take one or two cents per year and
keep on taking it so long as I main.
tain these improvements. Mean
while, the tract of land adjoining
me, whose prudent owner has made
no improvements, is taxed less and
less accordingly as my improved
land is taxed more and more. The
holder Of idle land quietly waits to
receive a profit from the incidental
results of the industry Of myself and
of other men of like disposition and
waits also until the pressure of
population shall give the land a
value his own efforts have not con-
tributed to call into being.
In the brief space Of letter it is
not possible to more than indicate
the loss of freedom to which we are
subjected by laundering in our
treatment of the matter of taxation.
We should know, however, that a
state, city or country may Cypress
it's citizens by improper use of the
taxing power quite as much as any
people were ever oppressed by prince
or potentate. The oppression lies in
the fact of interference with freedom
to do good things, not in the form
of the oppressor.
The working men of Maryland
have realized this wrong-doing and
have denounced it in the meetings
of their state federation. At the
last session Of the State Grange,
subordinate oranges were urged to
study taxation from this point of
view. In SO doing farmers OF the
grange were following at a distance
the farmers of several states of the
Union. .-
The farmers who have just taken
control of North Dakota, casting 80
per cent of the votes of the State,
demand that land should be taxed
according to it's value irrespective of
improvements. The State Grange,
the farmers organizations and the
labor unions of the State of Wash
ington are unitedly demanding
exactly the same change in methods
in that State. Farmers Of North
Dakota and Washington were alike
powerfully Influenced by the action
of the farmers in Alberta, Sas-
katchewan and British Columbia,
where no farmer finds his taxes in
creased because he puts his land to
use and improves it in any appro-
pirate manner. Similarly the Cana
dams followed the lead of the farm
ers of New Zealand and Australia.
Great blows for. liberty are being
struck in this country in the Far
West and their echoes are heard
even along the banks of the Chesa-
peake and Potomac.
In such work the farmers organi-
cation of Maryland and other States
find ample justification and support
in the final report of the recent Com
mission on Industrial Relations.
Only last year the Manly Report,
prepared for this Commission, dis
cussing direct methods of dealing
with respect to the land question.
after suggesting prosecutions to-
cancel land and water rights obtain
ed by fraud and recommending a
revision of the land laws, declares
in favor of the principle of 1.-The
forcing of all unused land into use
by making the tax on non-productiVe
land the same as on productive land
of the same kind and exempting all
improvements" To this our coun-
ties as we'll as Baltimore City must
come for the reasons here suggested
and for other reasons hereafter to
be advanced, if we would advance
our civilization.
Hyattsville, Md,
March 8, 1917.
One great cause of failure is laZi-
ness 1t creates a dead-line where