TAXES AND THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXI, Issue 1032, 29 January 1889, Page 3

TAXES AND THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.

Speaking in Glasgow lately Mr Henry George said : All taxes which were in restraint of the production of wealth were, not merely stupid but morally wrong. They were not deniers of the rights of property ; they were sticklers for the rights of" property. They held that there was a sacred right of property which derived its sanction from a higher lav -a right of property on which civilisation was founded.— (A Voice : " What was the right of property ?") It was this : That that which a man produced was his as against all the world. That was the foundation of the right of property. A house, a coat —whatever was the product of human labor.—to that there was a clear title of ownership, beginning with the producer and capable of being passed from hand to hand. They said that it was wrong, that it was immoral, for the community to impair that right of property; that the natural reward of labor was that it should enjoy its products—that when a farmer ploughed a field and sowed it he should be entitled to the crop, and to all the crop—that when a man got brick and lumber together and built a house, that house was his, and all the house; and that it was wrong for the community to step in and claim a certain percentage on its value, or take it from him altogether. It was simply legalised highway robbery. So with everything else. They had no quarrel with any man because he was rich. If he could only get rich honestly, let him go on and get rich. They held that all those taxes which were imposed at present were stupid, wrong and immoral. How then did they propose to raise their revenues? Public revenues were necessary. They proposed to raise the public revenues from their natural source. There was a value that, unlike all the values created by labor, did not belong to the individual, but clearly belonged to the whole people—there was a value that could be taken without lessening production, without hampering enterprise, without taking from energy and industry and thrift their natural rewards, without fostering monopoly, nay, a value which must be taken by the community for the use of the community if we would break up the worst and most fundamental of all monopolies-—that was, the value of land. The value which attached to bare land by reason, not of ,what the owner had .done, but by reason of the growth and improvement of a community, was clearly Created by the community, and belonged to the tax on land values; no " political economist would deny, Was the most < perfect of all taxes. It was a tax that could be collected with the least temptation to corruption and with the fewest officials,: that imposed no impediment to produeJionV that ■ could be assessed in the fairest nian her, and that could be collected with the least difficulty arid the least loss. Therefore the mere economic: advantages of the substitution of that tax for all our, demora- - Using and injurious t ■ 're very great. Then,, by takiug : ;this.. value; that: attached to J land by reason of the growth and; improvement of a community for the use of'the community they would destroy the incentive to ."peculation. They would choke off the-dog in the• manger [ who held land that he could not use himself, ; and ,■ ; which he would not allow anyone else to use. New York was-crowded;'together in some parts more closely than in Glasgow, for the houses -were higher, iu the American city, and the people were without room, air, and light enough, and in conditions under whi hj - - life was impossible. Was there land i .... Why, half of New York consisted of vacant j lots.i and half of the men in the : building trade' I were unoccupied; There- was capital enough.- ; The;.reasan was that if- you" wished iOrbuild- a' I house you would find some owner to say : ''You me thousands or tens:of' thous—ands of dollars.--' Mr Burroughes,.: a ; great manufacturing chemist of London, wished to , establish a factory in New York. They ought to !>;ivo welcomed him. They did not. He j wanted a site near the 'Hudson and the railroad. ~;j , There"was a rotten" peninsula jutting into, the, •Hiudspnj and'nothing on it, being in a state of Nature.-' It ; was r to the; ad vantage of.the people; pf New York he should use that land. But it j had;an owner who wan ted-the. modest sum of; I 150,000d0l for it. Mr Burroughes ilum went to _

the East River to a place for the grazing of cows, and the owner asked 120,000d01. , These two men were simply holding the land as blackmailers. That was why they were crowded in New York, and why people were crowded in Glasgow. " Let Glasgow flourish by tlie/preaohing of the word." What word did they''preach in the city where 40,000 families were living in single rooms ? If it were the Christian Word it must be the word that called upon every .man who had a heart in his breast to-fightl to'abolish that state of things. A single; taxv'would. easily do it—a tax that fell upon the v 'value of the land irrespective of improvement. -That seemed to be the easy road '.on which they ought to move, getting behind the-Liberal party and making it a Radical party. Every step they gained was an advance, and every step like buying out the landlords was a retrogression. Just think how much cheaper they would get the land if they meanwhile tax the landlords. In the city of London the ground values amounted to £400,000,000, which-bore a taxation of £500,000. The value of-the houses'and other improvements amounted to oveT "£200;000,000, and they bore a tax of Was it.any wonder that What would be the effect if the seven millions of taxes were taken off the houses and put on the ground values ! We would then take off the seven millions of a penalty for the building of houses and make seven millions of a penalty for holding ground without using it. Thus building lots would be cheaper, and houses would go up, and men in the building trade would find a brisker demand for their services. The Liberal leaders wanted to tax ground rents a little. Go with them and they Would soon agree to tax them more. There was nothing new fangled, nor was it a Yankee idea. It was goiug back to a good old custom. But there were other monopolies than the monoply of land. There was the monoply of capital. :But men existed before capital, but no men existed -before land. Out of the monoply of land grew all' other monopolies ; most of our social evils would melt away when that primary wrong had been removed.