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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (May 14, 1903)
o V I' V 20 THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT MAT 14, 1903. Ethics cf the Single Tax (Written for Henry George Edition of The Independent) By "ethics"' we mean that which is universally right between all classes and conditions of men. This has a divine insistence in that basic principle, "What ye would that others should do unto you, do ye also unto them," and with this our dis senters must have their disputation with God. Long before Henry George gave to the world his perfected philosophy of the single tax, many other social in vestigators had recognized that In time the "joining of acre unto acre" would bear fruitage in the most seri ous consequsrces. lhai their suspic ions were well-founded is evidenced in the fact that when Henry George came to review this premise, he was, with all his well-known modesty of speech and carefulness in conclusions constrained to characterize it as a "most henious crime." "Neither shall ye sell the land any more, for behold I have given it unto my people for an everlasting Inheritance," is as old as Leviticus, where we read it. The physiocrats of France more than a hundred years ago saw what Mr. Herbert Spencer so logically declared upon in the 9th chapter of his "So cial Statics," the truth of whiclj (i. e., that all men born upon the earth were, by the law of nature, endowed with an equal right to the .free use of the earth in such measure as was necessary for the "supply of all human needs) has never been gainsaid by any one whoso self-respect encouraged its negation over their own proper name, for the public print Man came and lives upon the earth under the same natural law as do the i beasts in the field, the fowl of the air or, the fishes in the sea and it is mis nomer to say that, under any circum stances, can he be in possession of land for he is so corporally possessed by the land that he cannot get off it if he would nor can he live without it To fully comprehend this it should be observed that "land," in the broad sense of. which all economists of any note use the term, Includes the air, water, heat of the sun and all those fructifying influences that are necessary to the maintenance of ani mal and vegetable life. Title, as we call it, by deed, is no more necessary to the full enjoyment of the blessings of mother earth than in case of beast, fowl or fish, it adds nothing to" its productiveness nor does it afford as secure occupancy of any particular site or location as would obtain under the single tax system of tenure. In stance the thousands of foreclosures and evictions of homesteaders, not only in this state, but wherever land deeds are known. The ethical side of the single tax Is its strong side, its benefits are multiple; it forces the settlement of other vexing social questions without purpose precedent while most im portant of all it equalizes the distri bution of wealth by freeing natural opportunity to produce without stint and while increasing all wages, will give equitable return for the use of capital which now, like wages, is ab sorbed by rent, while unearned tri bute will be shorn of its power to ex act from the brow of toil. It will furnish a natural mode of revenue for all purposes that will automatically increase as the growth of society makes increased revenues necessary while this burden of taxation, as we now have it, borne as it now is chiefly by industry, the working people, will take upon itself a new name, become the handmaid of government in so cial progress, leaving the few who are "getting something for nothing" to congratulate themselves, perhaps, that so vicious a system of land ten ure and taxation had served their greed so long. The expressions, "unearned incre 'ment," "economic rent," "speculation value," as used by Henry George in bis philosophy, mean the value of , land in its natural state, caused by the presence or prospective presence of the people upon or who may come upon it Fifty years ago the present population of Nebraska was only pros pective, the actual presence of people was but a mere handful, land values were from $2 to $5 per acre. The then presence of the people caused this value. - The presence of one man, without prospect of others coming, could create no land value whatever; so also, if all the present population should , emigrate and an embargo be r iinnniii ju HEADACHE ism5 J J SSSV At U drug tores. 25 Dates 25c placed upon other occupants , taking their places, land values would as surely go back to zero, i. e., become nil. Hence, we single taxers assert that land, in itself, has no value, in which all economists concur. If, with the presence of ten thousand people, ten thousand dollars in land values were -'created, the proportionate con tribution of each to that value would be $1, yet no one individual would be entitled rightfully to appropriate to his own use this $1 of land value be cause he alone could not have caused it There must be a competitor for the use of land before value can arise. Therefore each dollar of such land value is rightfully a communal fund and all such values, to whatever point ihey may arise by increase of population, must of right belong to the community as a whole, while with much greater force can it be said that one living in a foreign state or coun try, who never was upon Nebraska land, cannot be entitled to take it, and if statute law enables him so to do, it is by force of legalized error which has always put a knot in the end of Its own lash. With the coming of the people to Nebraska as elsewhere and always, there came also the need of govern ment for the protection of society and the establishment of civic institutions and for all of the various internal im provements in which all of the people had, or should have a communal inter est, such as schools, courts, highways, both of iron, dirt, macadam, asphalt or mud. Vast sums of money must be continually expended in the main tenance of government for there are no interregnums In its need nor has a hiatus been known in its increase, which, with all honesty in executive detail, the increase f such cost is naturally,, with automatic precision, in keeping with the ratio of increase of population and with this same au tomatic precision do land values arise because of increased competition for the use of land. Hence we assert the single tax upon land values to be a "natural revenue." Since it is the presence of the. peo ple, as a whole, that gives rise to land values and in fullness of all govern ment needs, equity demands that gov ernment, I. e., the state, take over to its use and exhaust this fund in the maintenance of all public institu tions from the executive chamber down to dog pounds, pay also out of it its due proportion to the general government, maintain its schools, courts, hospitals (there would soon be no need for poor houses or prisons), highways, both of iron and dirt, etc., and all municipal easements, water service, lights, parks, baths, tram ways, etc., before drawing, under the name of taxation, upon the wages of the workman, clerk or teacher; nor from the interest upon capital, nor yet from the proceeds of all those hydra-headed scorpions with which our present vicious, discriminating system of taxation and of land tenure has so infested the cosmic lair of crime. To any careful thinker, this fund is all sufficient for both present needs and those to accrue, with a standing reserve for internal improvement without first voting bonds with which to burden coming generations as well being a source of vexation and re proach upon ourselves. Witness the profligacy of the recent congress and our retiring legislature that there is no danger of such fund becoming too large. Under our present system, millions upon millions of this fund which, un der the most liberal interpretation of ethics, can only belong to the com munity in which such value arose, go abroad, to alien land holders in the form of rent anu interest upon money capitalized in land, while there are those among us who, claiming super ior intelligence to those of other na tions, boast that our exports exceed our imports by from three to five hundred million per year, and it is cniefly from this source that the le galized robbery is continued, though the sum total of which the home peo ple are drefrauded has never been half told. Instance, if you please, those values held in foreign brokerage offices located in the United States and those which have not yet become the subject of remittance abroad, yet are resident in the paper title. It has been carefully computed by those pos sessing a knowledge of such things that the amount thus appropriated by our foreign cousin3 from the incre ment of land properly belonging to the people at home, together with interest paid and due on stocks -and bonds that in part go to make up the wealth of .this country, is sufficient to buy up all the railroads in the United States and operate them free of cost ta the people. To appropriate this fund to the use of home government as the sin gle taxers propose, at once obviates the need of any other tax, In fact, the word "tax" might then be strick en from our vocabulary for it is not a tax upon the people, individually or collectively, when collective society merely takes that which is clearly its own product Where this fund is so taken and expended for the mainte nance of public institutions and all cosmic needs, it comes back to the people resident where such value arose in benefits to all alike, for which, otherwise, they must pay for out of wages, etc., due to service rendered- and from the interest that be longs to capital and, to our everlasting shame be it said, from the proceeds of crime. We are paying to the wrong party when we buy land. In so doing we buy the right to exclude all men, but pay only cne ,and that the wrong Cue, like the pcioociigcr WuO paid hio fare on the train to a brass-buttoned porter and when the conductor, came around was obliged to pay it over again or get off. So, the state mulcts us in taxes (roundly in some cases) after we "become the owner (a legal paradox). This is why wages are so generally abnormally low, interest low, and fo inability to give proper security, is denied to those who most need to bor row while rent is from 50 per cent to two-fifths of the crop, risks Included. . As a partial showing as to the cause of this anomally, here is a list of alien holdings of land in quantities not less than 10,000 acres: English syndicate No. 3 in Texas, 3,000,000; Holland company in New Mexico, 4, 500,000; Sir Edward Reid syndicate' in Florida, 2,000,000; English syndicate in Mississippi, 1,800,000; Marquis of Tweedale, 1,700,000; Phillips Marshall & Co., London, 1,300,000; American German syndicate, 750,000; Bryan sc Evans, London, 700,000; Duke of Sun derland, 425,000; Bri'.ish Land Co. in Kansas, 320,000; Wm. Wharley, M. P., England, 310,000; Missouri Land Co., Scotland, 247,000; Robert Tennent, London, 230,000; Dundee Land Co., Scotland, 247,000; Lord Dunmore, 120, 000; B enj. Neugas, Liverpool, 100.000; Lord Houghton, Florida, 60,000; Lord Dunraven, Col., 60,000; English Land Co., Florida, 50,000; English Land Co. in Arkansas, 50,000; Albert Bell. 10, 000; Sir J. L. Kay, 15,000; Alex Grant in Kansas, 35,000; English syndicate ' in Wisconsin, 110,000; Mr. Ellerhauser of Halifax in West Virginia, 600,000; Scotch syndicate in Florida, 500,000; A. . Boyson, Danish consul, in . Mich igan, 50,000; Missouri Land Co. of Edinburgh, 165,000. Beside 650,000 acres held by foreign corporations with headquarters in ; the United States. Most of this land is held out of use or but partially used because the hold ers are let- do so by our system of land tenure and taxation which puts but a nominal tax upon it while in many cases it is not assessed at all, the state preferring to put the tax or fine on improvement upon those who work or improve their farms or other hold ings. To the above list may be added such holdings as those of Lord Scul ly in Illinois, 40,000 acres, and "King ' of Texas, who can ride all day in a passenger coach at usual rate of speed without getting off his (?) land. In stance also the mining lands, coal, etc. Some of the coal lands are taxed as high as $13,000 per acre; these are being used, though thousands of other acres that could produce equal value in coal are held, idle under a tax vary ing from 50c to $3 per acre; hence the coal strike and that investigating j commission. Were these idle coal lands taxed at a rate which their operation would justify, as under the single tax they would be, the so-called owner "dog in the manger" would either eat tne hay himself or let the horses eat it, and the idle or half-paid coal miners could have employed themselves and the late coal famine avoided. The effect of the application of the single tax would be to liberate un used land from speculative price, mak ing it accessible., to those who would use it in production and on equal terms, i. e., such as competitive need would demand. The terms of land tenure thus equalized would be tanta mount to it3 being free and when men can employ themselves upon free land, no one would work for another for much le38 than he could earn by employing himself, sharing the re turns of his toll with no one. This would increase all wages in all voca tions in due proportion to their num bers in the various vocations of life so that the farmer, carrier, clerk, tradesman, teacher and those of the professions would be materially ben efited directly and indirectly through the bettered conditions of all those about them who are now ostracised from patronage by poverty. Increased production would give a fresh im petus to all business, import and other taxes, with monopoly embargo, would be removed from staple articles and luxuries and from all building mater ial and a healthy boom in home build ing by those now homeless woulJ bring all the trades la demand result- ing of course in advanced wages; nor would store goods go out of style oi the shelves. . Povertyand its con comitant, "crime," would largely dis appear. i- The farmer would pay what we now call "taxes" upon the land apart from its improvements according to its val ue in production; house, furniture, cattle, machjjiery, with all improve ments of whatever nature, would be free of tax while much land, either of poor quality or that which lies beyond the competitive point, would not be assessed at all, the production from which being put upon the mar ket would make "corners" impossi ble. City and town people would be assessed upon the site value of their t i 1 . . i mm I eta oui . iiicikuauui nuuiu paj bu the value of their business sites, build ing and stock would be exempt; bank ers also would pay on the site value of the lot, the structure, vaults and moneys being untaxed, though stocks and securities held by them whose value is predicated upon land, would be reached by the assessor wherever located in the state." ; Railroads would pay on the ground value of their rights of way and ter minals. Their franchises, wherein their greatest -value rests, like land values, their value is caused by the presence of the people. Without pop ulation there would be no railroads and franchises would go unsought; hence, these values would be taket by the state while their road beds, rolling stock, buildings, etc., would be untaxed. But as to railroads and all like natural monopolies, Henry George deemed government ownership and operation most expedient becausa of interstate commerce. But I have not intended to exhaust the ethical side of the single tax; the theme is too large to ask space for that and we are content to quit here, leaving the leader to see for himself benefits in th single tax regime that are only vaguely hinted at in thU article. E. C. CLARK. Syracuse, Neb. Smoke Your Meat With a Brush am - "kv 1 -a . . uew metnoct or smoking s meat has come to stay. It has already come and staid so long j in many parts of the country J that there is no longer any t more thought of going back to J t the old method than of return- t ing to the old-fashioned ox cart. & When you smoke your meat S with our Modern Meat Smoker, t 5 you accomplish all that could J possibly be done by the old 6 method, and something that & the old way does not accom- j plish. The meat is better pro tected ' against decay and S against the attacks of germs 5 and insects. It tastes better, it j looks better, and it will bring more money. The old method of smoking dries out the meat 6 and reduces the weight. The & J shrinkage is often one-fifth, and at this runs into money when you dt consider the amount of meat the average farmer usually s J smokes. Our Modern Meat & Smoker is practically condensed t S liquid smoke which can be ap plied in a minute with a brush & or a sponge, and that ends the t process. You run no danger of 2 losing by fire or theft, and save & both time and money. Our Modern Meat Smoker is put up S in quart bottles only. One hot- tie will cover 250' to 300 lbs. of meat Regular price, 75c; cut price, 59c. S J WE CUT EVERYTHING IN S THE DRUG LINE. RIGGS The Drug Cutter Location 1321 0 St. J Lincoln - Nebraska ESS SEE Send an order to the Farmers' Gro cery Co. for one of their combination orders of groceries. Hundreds of our readers have found their combination bargains exactly as represented and entirely satisfactory. Mention The Independent You furnish the list of names wsf furnish and mail the Henry George Edition for $1 per hundred. Five months trial trip, 253