Show The Growth of Land These assessments enable us to ascertain the colossal growth in urban land The land values of New York City amounted to in Two years later the valuation increased to By the value had increased again to while in it had still further grown to In four years' land values alone had increased by or nearly a The total ordinary expenditures of the city during these years were about all of could have been met from the speculative increase leaving nearly two hundred millions for the The land underlying the metropolis was originally bought from the Indians for Today it is worth times its original Everywhere land increases in value same Nowhere is' the rise in value due to the enterprise or thrift of the Land values are a social an that is created by society and contributed to the owner of the The Fels Fund Commission contends that land-values belong to those who produce The land values of New York City carry an annual ground-rent roll of nearly to their few thousand The ground-rent roll of all America is not far from This exceeds by two thousand million dollars all of the revenues of the federal government as well as of the counties and The progress of civilization has produced an annual fund far in excess of the present or prospective expenditures of The taxes now levied discourage They tax They obstruct They check Taxes on land on the other encourage enterprise and they stimulate employ- ment and reduce the cost of They are a natural form of Taxation of Land Values Will put an end to idle land It will destroy It will make it impossible to hold land out of As the British Chancellor of the Exchequer will make the dog in the manger pay for his The owner will have to use his and use it in the most productive in order to pay the That increasing land-value taxes cheek speculation and stimulate use is a commonplace of cheapen Many owners will sell their unused land in order to be relieved of the burden The taxation of rent will lessen the value of for economists agree that the selling value of land is its untaxed For taxes levied on land values reduce They faU on the landlord and cannot be Economic rent is what is left after the payment of the competition of sellers and the reduction of rent will cheapen land and throw upon the market idle holdings that will be available for agriculture and solve the housing The housing question is a land not a house It exists only where values are If wc cheapen land we open it up to use if we tax it heavily enough we compel it to be built Idle land holding is only possible where the tax rate is Increase the rate and the land is put to productive Moreover the removal of taxes on improvements will encourage improvements just as the present taxation of improvements discourages Under the land-value tax he who built would be while he who refused to do so would be The house tax is like the old French window which caused the peasant to close his cottage to the The taxation of land values would cut like a surgeon's knife at the root of city land Shacks and tenements would be while new structures would increase the housing capacity of the The tenement and the slum would No longer would thrift be penalized and the idle speculator be Rents would fall in consequence of the increased supply of Building materials in transition from the the forest and the factory would be free from as would office machinery and All of these forces together would solve the housing question in a few years' They would solve it by the law of destroy all monopolies bottomed on The United States Steel corporation has capitalized its iron ore and eoal fields at Twenty-five years ago they were farming lands of little The anthracite coal combination is capitalized at hundreds of millions by virtue of its ownership of all the anthracite coal in the The Standard Oil company is a monopoly because of its railway and land Direct land-value taxes upon these resources could not be They would be deducted from monopoly More than idle mineral resources would be forced into while labor be given new opportunities for With the tax sufficiently the would regain the splendid resources that have been in large measure filched from it by stealth and illegal The which now goes to would be converted in taxes to the improve the condition of capital and What would labor gain in the new cheap land means high The history of all new countries proves Andl if the suburban and agricultural landowners were taxed on the opportunities held out of they would use their land or sell A demand for labor would a demand for miners and agricultural for carpenters and All other industries would be awakened into life in the All business would be In a short time a very short time there would be more jobs than men seeking the entire continent is yet it peoples but twenty-three persons to the square America could home ten times its present population vere the natural resources opened to This the taxation of land values would It would increase as did the discovery of the continent four hundred years effect a just distribution of Even a slight increase in land-value taxes would stimulate the use of A doubling of the present rate would usher in an era of industrial Were the tax increased to the full rental there would be but two claimants to the wealth Capital and The landlord would disappear and labor and capital would each get the full value of its There would be plenty of alternatives for employment in this Wages would rise to the full product of men's The opening up of new opportunities all about and the increase in would awaken other It would flood mines and railways with business for the wants of mankind know no Industry would reflect the changed For prosperity means increased demands for all those goods which labor and capital Were the incomes of the professional and working classes doubled tomorrow there would arise an era of prosperity the like of which the world has never For the purchasing power of America would be doubled in con- And in the last prosperity depends not on the cheapness of labor but on the amount of money which the consuming classes have to Industrial prosperity depends on the well-being of the great mass of the people rather than of the Through the same influences child labor would vagrancy would be reduced to a minimum and crime would be checked at its For child vagrancy and crime are not to be found among those who are They are the costs of reduce the cost of living despite increased The federal amounting to a are collected from They increase the cost of It has been estimated by Professor Wil- G. Sumner of Yale and John A. Hobson of that the indirect cost of the due to the prices it makes is approximately a Whon and a half dollars a This is equivalent to a The abolition of indirect taxes alone ld reduce the cost of living to that while e abolition of the taxes now levied on machinery and all other labor reduce it still |