The Oakes times. [volume] (Oakes, N.D.) 1906-current, 1918-10-17

lney WOulQ tnen De Tree from all Otner
taxes. and in addition the great guam
titles of land brought onto the mar
ket would materially cheaper the
rental Of all land. For as taxes on
land are increased the price of the
land diminishes. If the tax amounted
to or per cent on the selling value
land would have very little value. For
such tax would make speculation
impossible and the holding of land
idle so costly to the owner that he
would give it up.
Free Men az Well
"And the taxation of all land values
up to the full amount of the rental
value Is the aim of those who believe
in the single-tax philosophy. They
would tax land heavily as means
not only of freeing the land but of
freeing men as well. This would end
tenancy; it would end all land specu-
lation; it would end land monopoly
forever. For then men would hold no
more land than they actually used, and
as land would exist in abundance for
all it would be impossible for owners
to hold men either as tenants or as
agricultural workers. Men would own
their own farms and work for them
selves. And that is the ideal of a
democratic agriculture. Moreover,
the untaxing of all kinds of farm i'm
provements would encourage men to
build, to make their places more at
tractive. Just as many cities seek to
encourage factories in their midst by
exempting them from taxation, so the
exemption of all kinds of farm i'm
provements will lead to better farms,
This is one way to improve the farm
and very easy way. For it is auto
matte in it's operation.
N. p. League Held as Sample
Influenced partly by the experience
of Canada the Farmers Non. Partisan
League of North Dakota inserted in
Its platform in 1916 declaration for
the exemption of farm improvements
from taxation. They, too, desired to
end the alien speculative ownership
Of land which was retarding the
growth of the state. And one of the
measures passed by the farmers ma
jority at the session of 1917 was an
act materially reducing the taxes on
improvements and with it permis-
sive measure permitting cities to do
as they pleased in the matter of az.
emptions. -
Farms Very Small
when the war is over 1t seems
probable that all Of the warning coun-
tries in Europe, as we'll as Canada
and Australia, will be forces by nee
essity to resort to the taxation of
land, not only as fiscal measure but
as means of rehabilitating the state
and of finding homes for the return
ing soldiers. Not only will the taxa
tion of land values end speculation
and break up land monopoly, it will
automatically determine the size Of
farms. In some localities where truck
farming is the rule farms will be
small. They may be of not more than
10 or 20 acres. In other sections there
will be farms of from 40 to so acres
that can be cultivated by a single
man. while in the grazing states of
the West the land will be divided in
to cattle-ranges much as it is today.
For men will take only such land as
they can profitably use. The taxes
will not be adjusted to the amount of
the land. They will be adjusted to
the value Of the land. Taxes will be
low on land of little value. They will
be high on land about the city or OF
high fertility. The basis of the tax ia
the value, not the amount, of the land.
And the value of land is always de-
termined by its location, it's fertility,
its value to society.
Labor Production to Be Free
"Under the proposal men would
only pay for what society gives them.
They will pay for advantages enjoyed
in location, in the inherent value OF
the land. in the vaules, in fact, which
society itself has created. On the
other hand. everything that labor pro-
duced would be free. 1t would be un-
taxed by the city or the state.
From Country to City and Vice Versa
"The freeing of the land from spec
ulation will also bring about that con-
dition of fuidity of labor referred to
earlier in this chapter. Men will be
able to leave the city who are weary,
of city life with something of the ease
with which they now leave the farm.
The man with few hundred dollars
can have fling at farming with but
little risk. And with cheap land work
Ing In cooperation with cheap credit
supplied by the farm-loan boards the
chief obstacles to the tenant, the agri-
cultural worker and city dweller will
be removed and men will be able to
pass to the land almost as easily az
the country-bred boy now passes to
the mill or the factory. Then society