TAXLESS PROSPERITY

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LVI, Issue 80, 22 October 1935, Page 3

TAXLESS PROSPERITY

AN INSTRUCTIVE EXAMPLE,

TRUE TO HISTORICAL PARALLELS.

(Written for the Guardian by

SIMPLE SIMON)

Analysed, collected, collated and summed up, the various efforts made so far by governments to deal with economic conditions simply amount to a more or less complicated jugglery with taxation. Nowhere in any major country has a government performed the very first economic duty of a government, namely, collected economic rent, the community's rightful revenue, as reflected in the rental values of bare land, and royalties on natural products like coal for public revenue, thus abolishing rates and taxes, and leaving the individual with the full proceeds of his labour, his full purchasing power.

PROGRESS AND POVERTY. Readers of the Guardian will recall the excellent articles on soil survey, from the pen of Dr. I. W. Weston, which were published in these columns some time ago. As Dr. Weston also devoted two articles to the general economic side of things, I took the liberty of seeking his assistance in a certain direction. I asked a question, as to whether Dr. Weston could give me a single instance, in the whole of the world, in the history of any or all races, from the beginning of recorded time, wherein there was poverty amidst plenty in the absence of land monopoly; that is, what we call private "ownership" of land, in which state Smith must pay Jones for permission to use an area of land (one of God's gifts to man) even though Jones himself does not want, or is unable to use the land himself. It may be recalled that Dr. Weston could find no instance of poverty under the conditions I named which included the absence of military or other domination; that is, a condition of equal freedom for all men. He gave an instance to show that under such conditions there was no poverty, but there was, in the case he mentioned (among the na- j tives of Fiji) an absence of progress, j However, I was not concerned with progress in the question I stated, for I knew well enough beforehand why there was no progress. A necessary condition of progress in any human society is that the individual must be allowed to retain the fruits and advantages of his labour, so that inventiveness and superiority generally will be encouraged and rewarded, which condition does not obtain with primitive peoples. Social values should be socially appropriated, and individual values individually secured. There should not be either private appropriation of communitycreated values, nor public appropriation (taxation) of individual earnings.

LAND RESTORATION OPERATING. The little controversy which my question evoked at the time has been recalled to my mind by the reading of a very informative new book, "The Growth and Distribution of Population," by Dr. S. Vere Pearson, M.A., M.D., M.R.C.P., which work has been extensively reviewed in the "London Times" Literary Supplement, in "Land and Liberty," and other journals of Empire-wide and world repute. The book comprises an admirably lucid world survey of popu(lation problems, and the economic factors governing the growth and distribution of peoples over the surface of the globe. The work is of especial interest to me, in several respects, one of which is that Dr. Pearson completely endorses the views on economics I have been propagating in the Guardian and elsewhere, and often the language used and the illustrations given are very similar. The author's chapter on Nigeria affords us proof of the soundness of natural law economics, as distinct from that which is often passed off as teaching of economics.

In a very fine survey of African land tenures, Dr. Pearson explains that in Northern Nigeria there is simply no such thing as private "ownership" as distinct from private "possession" of land. The whole of the land of Northern Nigeria is presumed to belong to the whole of the people of Northern Nigeria, and anyone who wants private and exclusive possession of land may have it, he he black, white, or any other shade of skin, so long as he pays to the Governor-General, on behalf of the whole of the people, an annual rental on the unimproved value, of the land —improvements are not taxed. Security of tenure is thus secured, for it is really a tenure in perpetuity, what I would call, for the sake of a modern way of illustration, 'a teleI phone tenure: The land, like the tele-

phone, is. Crown property by rights, and you may have the use of the one or the other, or both together, so long as you, or your heirs and assigns, pay the annual rental to the Crown, as representing all the people.

TRANQUILITY AND PROSPERITY The land is revalued not less than every seven years, and here are the results of this natural law economics in practice:— "The tranquility and prosperity of Northern Nigeria's many millions under these ordinances have been amazing. . . . The culture of the natives in Northern Nigeria is rising steadily from chattel slavery and wage serfdom. They possess a big city with a population of about 100,000 inhabitants, the city of Kano. Including the suburban area, there may be round about 1,000,000 inhabitants. Kano has a great trade and many factories, but no slum area to compare in misery with any large town in Europe, or places such as Bombay or Singapore. The chief exports from Nigeria are palm kernels, palm oil, cocoa and tin. They average over £17,000,000 in worth, and imports about £12,000,000."

Now read of what happens in Southern Nigeria, under private ownership of land, and bear in mind that the monetary system is exactly the same in both examples, proving conclusively that the common denominator for the solution of our economic problems is not the monetary system, however much that may need revising, but the land system: "Unfortunately for the Southern Provinces the system, introduced from Lagos and the Gold Coast and other coastal towns, of raising revenue on the English plan, namely, by taxation on houses and persons, is leading to dire results very different from the prosperity and increase in population, and in the production of commodities in Northern Nigeria."

THE SAME OLD STORY. This wonderful mine of information goes on to state that, under j private ownership of land, great! sums are wasted in litigation over land, and military patrols have to be multiplied; tribal groups become bankrupt. "In the Southern Provinces the treasuries are not easily filled, and there occurs profitless waste of public money in gross overcharges for land needed for public purposes, as at Port Harcourt and Aba. The public shortage of funds in consequence of the surrender of nearly all the southern land rents to monopolising- and speculating private interests has led to the imposition of vicious export and import duties." Is it not all of a piece with our own experience? Of course it is, and the private appropriation of land rental values, and the royalties on natural products, called "economic rent." if? the mother, as taxation is the father of all national debts!

"BLIND TO INJUSTICE." How pregnant with truth is the following: "So many Europeans are so accustomed to the heightened rents which an increase in numbers and skill give to the ground, flowing into the pockets of private individuals, that they are blind to its injustice. They fail to realise what benefits accrue if such enhanced ground values inure to the public to be used as the fund which the community itself should decide how to spend." Locally we have men, such, for | example, as Mr W. B. Bray and Mr L. G. Eade, who are obviously ani- | mated by a passion for social justice, and the fact that they raise neither voice nor pen against the private "ownership" of God's gift to mankind, the Earth, can only be because they are "blind to its injustice." Readers may recall that in a recent very fine article in respect of its composition and intent, Mr Bray told us that we did not have to pay for God's gifts such as the rain, the-sun-shine and the wind. When you come to examine the matter closely, you find that we have to pay for all three. The slum dweller of the cities can only get wind and sunshine in the public parks, and on the streets, where the land is publicly owned and it may cost him something to get to the parks. Further, all our municipal water services have their supply origin in rain, and millions of pounds are paid annually to landlords for water catchment areas. As Henry George pointed out in "Progress and Poverty," when the people of Dundee prayed for rain, and the good Lord answered their prayers, the monetary beneficiary was tbe Laird of Airlie, whom the people had to pay £25,000 per annum ror the right to secure water from a lake on the said laird's estate. Humorously, but very pertinently, Henry George asked, in "Scotland and Scotsmen." of what use it would have been to the Children of.the Captivity if, when Moses struck the rock and water gushed forth, there had been a Laird of Airlie there to demand £25.000 before the famishing multitudes were

allowed to drink! It is indeed true, and tragically so, that well-meaning social welfare advocates are still "blind to the injustice of it.'-'

PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS. I have read with some interest the report of an address by Mr L. G. Eade, at Southbridge, and intended to comment extensively, but space does not now permit. However, I agree with him that it is wrong 'to look for a change in human nature before applying the proper economic remedies. Human nature changes in response to changes in environment, so if we want better human nature we must work for economic conditions in harmony with the natural law economics, otherwise we will continue to have the jungle type of human nature, purely predatory. Christianity can give us the right I attitude to all our social problems, j that is, an attitude of justice for all men, but it cannot of itself solve those problems: they are economic, and can be solved by economic means alone, just as any other* technical problem, such as the building of a railway, can only be accomplished by technical means.

I agree, also, with Mr Eade that the true purpose of an economic system is the production of the largest quantity of goods with the least expenditure of energy, but as to distribution, we want more than that the distribution must be equitable: that is, the goods must be distributed to each in proportion to the' earnings of each. The lazy louts and the criminals must not share equally in goods with the industrious and the socially upright; further, the whole of the people must share equally in that which is properly social, as measured by the "economic rent" factor, and the only practicable wav to do this is to spend such revenues on public or social services.

MALDISTRIBUTION—NOT SHORTAGE.

The trouble is maldistribution, and this disease begins right at the inception of production, in the land rentals. Before anyone can produce anything at all, land must be made available, and this applies no matter hoW far that form of production may be removed from primary industry. Here, then, we have maldistribution right away. Improve the monetary system, and the result can only be what it has always been, through monetary reform, technical progress, the introduction, of stable' government, or any other reform, the receivers of land rent will absorb all the added gain, leaving the masses as before, experiencing poverty amid abundance. This has been so right throughout the history of the world. HISTORIC. PARALLELS.

Solon of Greece (638-558 8.C.) reformed the monetary system, thus liquidating debts to a large extent, but as he did nothing with the land system, it was not long before landlordism nullified the whole of the gains, and there was widespread distress throughout the land. Rienzi (last of the Roman Tribunes) did a similar thing, and gave the people certain benefits for a time, but landlordism killed him too in the finish. The Gracchi brothers, particularly Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, reformed the land system and this gave the people freedom and prosperity, without changing the monetary system, and lasted until the landlords managed to murder Sempronius, the saviour of his country.

Japan's "Golden Age" was during the Great Restoration, when, led by Prince Naka-Ohye, the land was restored to the people. In England, both poverty and national debt were the product of land monopoly in the first place. Always- and everywhere the investigator finds the basic facts the same. I have given above a modern example in reference to Northern and Southern Nigeria, and in conclusion I commend to all social reformers a thorough study of the subject of land restoration. Two primary and fundamental economic definitions may help, as follows: (1) Man seeks to satisfy his de- | sires with the least exertion. This is the recognised first principle of economics, and it has been stated in another way by Mr Eade in his definition of the purpose of an economic system. It is so true that it applies right throughout nature, to animals and plants as well as to human beings. (2) Land is the mother and labour is the father of all wealth. So you see that the very first thing- to do is to get the relationship of the man to the land right, which can only be done by giving every man, woman and child equal access to this most essential of God's gifts, which is the sole source of all things material. The technical way to do this has already been explained. Comments or questions cordiailv incited—one at a time or all together!