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SEPTEMBER 9, 1910
The Commoner.
13
Wtfflwxi&fliiiigyHi''''' -"w""rjp!r-.-- .jv;
jne 0 Landlordism in England
By Joseph Fels
"Justice In men's mouths' says
Henry George, "is cringingly humble
when Eho first begins a protest
against a time-honored wrong."
The truth of this observation re
ceives fresh confirmation, if any were
needed, in the light of recent events
in English political affairs.
For centuries England has been
taxing beads, houses, income?, in
heritances, clothing, food and drink
taxing every value, in short, ex
cept land values. These have been
practically exempted from taxation,
for tho land tax, such as it is, is
based on a valuation which has not
been increased since 1696. What
momentous consequences flow from
this method (or lack of method) for
raising government revenues will be
apparent to anyone who will trace
them, and in doing so, he will realize,
as perhaps ho never has before, the
tremendous power for good or evil
which lies in taxation and will not
wonder why a' cry of dismay has been
raised by tho lords over the budget,
which proposes to do away with the
time-honored wrong of exemption, by
levying a small tax on present land
values.
At the risk of appearing to demon
strate tho trite and expound the com
monplace, I want to point out to" the
readers of the stupidity, folly and in
iquity of taxing things that men make
while; at the samo time, we refrain
from taxing land values.
To tax things that men make,
things liko houses, clothing, food,
etc., is very plainly to discour
age their production and make it
more difficult for people to get them.
Yet these are all good things
"wealth which everyone desires and
to some extent must have in order
to live. Life is hard enough at best
and wo but add another burden to
men's backs whenever we tax them.
To punish men for working and pro
ducing wealth; to fine them for be
ing industrious, as we do when we
take in taxes a part of their product;
to mulct the thrifty and exempt the
idler, this is either a confession that
wo are ignorant of any better way of
raising government revenues, or
knowing a better way, refuse to
adopt it. Licenses, tariffs, poll taxes,
internal revenue taxes, taxes on per
sonal property, income and inherit
ance taxes, all have tho same vicious
effect. They are shifted to the con
sumer, their cost of collection often
exceeds the whole amount of the tax
and they compel the poor to pay
more than they should and tho rich
less than they should. They are
wholly indefensible either on the
ground of necessity or morality. In
fact, their effects on the morals of
& community are even more deplor
ahle than their exactions. They pro
mote and encourage evasion, lying,
bribery and blackmail, both in their
collection and disbursement. They
require vast machinery of administra
tion including spies, informers, detec
tives, la-wyers, judges; courts and
jails. They are everywhere the main
spring of mal-administratlon, the
fountain head and source of political
conniption. They contaminate and
demoralize whole nations, provoke
resentment, anger, jealousy, hate and
all Ignoble national traits. They
turn life into an Ishmaelitish war
fare in which every man's hand Is
raised against his brother. They aro
a stench in the nostrils of all honest
men! Their name is Anathema!
Away with them!
A tax on land values, on the other
hand, has none of these characteris
tics or effects. Merely as a tax, it
stays where It Is put; It can not he
ihifted to the consumer; it compels
each individual to pay towards gov
ernment expenses in proper propor
tion to tho benefits he receives from
government; it is tho cheapest to
collect; it can not be evaded; it does
not lessen the production of wealth,
but increases it; it does not act as a
penalty on Industry, but encourages
it; it does not take from any man
anything that is justly his; it does not
reduce wages nor the earnings of
capital. It is the only tax that can
be justified both on tho grounds of
expediency and morality. Its effect
on individual and social life is so
far-reaching and so beneficial that a
famous Frenchman has declared its
discovery to be, in his opinion, second
only in utility co the invention of
writing or the substitution of the use
of money for barter. When adopted
it will bring about an equitable dis
tribution of wealth, abolish poverty
and the fear of poverty and do away
with a system that" produces a few
multi-millionaires at one extreme of
society and thousands of tramps at
tho other extreme. It will elevate
taste, morals, manners and intelli
gence, and this, re-acting on our civic
and national life, will purify our poli
tics and thus bring about a' higher
and better and grander civilization
than this old world has ever seen.
All this, and more, a tax on land
values, if accompanied by the aboli
tion of all other taxes, would accom
plish and it is tho effort which has
been made and is now being made in
England to secure this tax that has
made tho budget such an object of
world-wide- interest. For the ..policy
of the English government in refus
ing heretofore to tax land values has
had the effect of encouraging land
grabbing and monopolization, has
offered a premium for men to with
hold land from use, has hastened thj
concentration of land in the hands
of a few and its conversion into great
estates and game preserves. This it
is that has forced the people off the
land, closed opportunities to them
for self-employment, driven them to
tramp the highways and fill the
"workhouse," or seek the towns and
cities where they merely swell the
ranks of the unemployed already
there. The poverty and pauperism
which exists in Engfand is appalling
and tho condition of tho masses of
people there could be traced so di
rectly to landlordism that some solu
tion of the land question had to be
undertaken by the government. The
English people had begun to see a'
direct relation between Idle hands
and idle lands, also that a tax on
land values does not make land more
difficult to get, but easier to get,
since it makes it unprofitable to hold
land out of use, hence, when tho
time was ripe the land tax and val
uation clauses appeared in a budget
which exploded a bomb in the house
of lords.
It is difficult for me to find lan
guage In which to express the rage
which has possessed the landed inter
ests of Great Britain since the intro
duction of this budget. I can only
compare it to the attitude which the
southern Blave owners held sixty
years ago in this country towards the
abolition movement. Words and arg
uments have failed the lords utterly.
"What! Tax my land!" exclaimed
one of them over and over again
an exclamation which was used on a
liberal cartoon with great effect dur
ing tho election. In striking con
trast to the poverty of the lords for
election arguments was the wealth of
the liberal party in this respect. Their
literature revealed iniquities in taxa
tion that must have made many a
British voter ashamed of his country
that it had so long tolerated a houso
of lords and realize, as maybe ho
never had before, what monumontal
hypocrites tho landed aristocracy of
tlp United Kingdom really aro. Cal
ling themselves and being called tho
nobility, poBlng as tho taxpayers, and
by their attitudo and manner, if not
their words, thanking God daily that
they did not have to work for a liv
ing, they have, while hiding behind
tho mask of respectability and pa
triotism, succeeded for centuries In
evading the taxes that wero ralsod
and spent chiefly for their bonoflt and
protection, and in doing this havo
laid tax burdens on tho poor that
havo Utorally ground millions of them
to death.
Wendell Phillips onco said that
slavery was tho sum of all villlanios.
So it is, but I really think that if
the record of English landlordism is
over made up tho record of American
slave-owners will show whlto by com
parison. I speak from personnl
knowledge, and not from hearsay, for
I lived in tho south "beforo tho war"
and havo lived In London much of
tho tlmo tho past nine years.
Caught with their hands deep in
tho peoplo's pockets the landlords re
sorted to tho old cry, "Stop thief!"
To divert attention from themselves
they pointed to Germany and assert
ed that (ho Germans were only wait
ing for tho English people to pass the
budget when German warships would
immediately land a German army In
England, and if the German soldiers
should fall to come, why, then Ger
many would dump hor cheap manu
factured goods into England, tho
English markets would bo flooded
with goods mado in Germany and
English workingmen would then bo
thrown out of employment. Tho only
way to prevent such a catastrophe,
tho tories argued, was to impose a
tariff like the United States has, on
all foreign goods, and in support of
this contention they brought to bear
all tho mean and contemptiblo lies
that have so long been used to do
fend protection in tho United States
and which havo so effectively bam
boozled and deceived American work
ingmen.
Hero again I speak from personal
knowledge and experience. I am a
"protected" American manufacturer.
given "protection" on tho false plea
that I may be ablo to pay "my"
workmen high wages, and I assort
that the only effect a tariff has on
wages is to reduce them and not to
increase them. I am not desirous of
hiding tho fact that I am hero on
earth and intend to stay hero as long
as I can. To stay here, I have got
to play the game of business either
as master or servant, and I havo
chosen to be a master. But I don't
like the rules of tho game. I pro
test against them. The dice aro load
ed and the man who has only his
labor to sell is cheated and robbed.
He is not given an equal chance.
Privileges all sorts of legal clubs
aTe used against him and one of these
weapons is the tariff. A part of my
own profits aro due to the tariff. I
speak of these profits always as my
"ill-gotten gains" and for a number
of years I have been, and I am now,
using these "ill-gotten gains" in at
tempts to overthrow the system which
produces them.
But though the protection cry di
vided the liberal "attack on landlord
ism it did not succeed in overthrow
ing the liberal party. Enough lib
erals and radicals were returned to
parliament to Insure, in my opinion,
the passage of tho budget and with
it, what is Infinitely of greater im
portance, the entrance of the thin
end of a wedge that will split land
lordism wide open.
Tho tax on land values and the
re-valuation clauses have sounded the
death-knell of private property In
land. This result would not havo
been possible except for tho prelim-
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