The labor world., 1921-10-15
take TAX FROM !,
PRODUCTION ! ! And !
PUTT 0N=LAND
Manufacturers and Merchants
Taxation League Tells Hoover
About Unemployment. i

Unemployed is social disease and
must be treated as the physician
would a human ailment, reasoning
from its cause. The fundamental
causes of unemployment are from exc.
orbitant charges on labor and capital
for the use of land and raw materials,
and taxation upon production.
The above declaration is made in &
statement filed this week with Her
bert Hoover, chairman Of the Com
ference of Unemployment at WASH
ington, by the Manufacturers and
Merchants Taxation League of New.
ark, N. j.. and signed by CharlesIH.
Ingersoll, the noted watch manufac-
turer, president.
"The cause of unemployment was
once laid to overproduction," says
Mr.. Ingersoll's letter, "but it is now
recognized that the cause is UNDER
consumption! Human wants are un.
limited and the inability of some
people to buy goods is the immediate
cause of unemployment for others.
= Labor and capital both depend
wholly upon land, including materials
produced from or on land for their
opportunity to produce commodities
to meet human wants. continues the
letter, "and any restriction upon their
access to land inevitably increases
buying power Of the people, and tends
to unemployment. -.~'.. =.
Burden Industry. 49,
Land values are a dead load upon
labor and. capital The economic
rent of these vast land values. instead
Of going into the public treasury for
the benefit OF the people who have
created the land values, has been and
is being diverted to the individual
profit of a relatively small number
place Of this natural public revenue.
to meet the cost t-of government, taxa
ton is imposed on labor and capital
This increases the cost of production
and thereby .curtails consumption, de-
creases production and causes un-
employment. !. $50. -. - =. 5=.3
"This diversion of land value from
public: to private benefit has made
land the shining objective for thu
greatest speculative movement in
dom, the full force of which is con-
centrated on holding usable land out
of use. thus producing monopoly
prices in land, the prime factor upon.
which labor~a capital both must
depend for continuous profitable EN-.
ployment. =.
But Shallow Thinking.
There will be multiplicity of
suggestions at your Conference, look
ing to special phases of unemp1oy-
ment and proposing surface treat
ment; but very few will go deeper
and if the present is like some prev
ious experience with similar subjects,
the discussion will ramble through a
maze OF confusion and bring little
clear and positive result unless some
new viewpoint is adopted.
"The fundamental causes of unem.
plOyment are: (D the price which IL
imposed upon labor and capital for
the privilege of using land and OBJ
tanning the raw materials of industry
therefrom; and (2) the imposing Of
taxation upon production.
"The Keller bill Oh. r. 6773) now
in Congress offers an approach to-
ward the removal of these funda.
mental causes of unemployment.
There is no other dependable remedy.
Until these causes are removed tlero
will be ever-recurring periods Of un-s
employment just as until the Federal.
reserve banking system was estah-
lished there were ever-recurring fl.
nancial panics. s-..5 l..
III your committee earnestly
studies the roots of the problem aud
fearless1y recommends the obvious
remedy your service to this Nation
will outrank any other achievement
In recent history"