OCR Text |
Show BUGABOO LANDLORD IN NIL In Pictorial Review for May, Mabel Potter Daggett tells about many ways in which Germany takes care of its peo-' peo-' pie. We quote one particular phase as follows: The government ha3 even regulated the landlord and tamed the janitor for her. This is how it has been done: there is a very excellent system of political economy which, by the way, was formulated formu-lated by an American. Only of course we can't have it here in this land of Private Inierrtd. Bui Germany has taken Henry George's ground rent theory, and sixn that it w oo.l. The Reichstag in 1911 iased the unearned increment tax law im- t,ic iiiiipire. It is the tax that prevents the holder of a vacant lot from putting into his private pocket the increment or increasing value that accrues to that lot because of surrounding improvements in other lots. It is a value that he p.-rsonally has done nothing to earn. And this "unearned increment" the government will therefore take to itself. It is done by raising the taxes on the vacant, unimproved lot. And the owner promptly finds that it doesn't pay to hold his vacant lot for real estate speculation. specu-lation. He must get it immediately into in-to action, in order to meet those rising taxes. Why, the man with a large I apartment-house on the lot next door is j paying no more taxes than he! So the I vacant lot, too, gees an apartment-house j just about as quickly as the owner can build it. In some of the suburbs, as in I Steglitz, the tax rate for "improved" property with buildings on it, is three ' dollars per one thousand dollars and for unimproved property, the vacant lot, it is actually twice as much, six dollars per one thousand dollars. The result is of the most immediate 'interest to the housewife. So many I owners of vacant lots have rushed into ! building operations, that last year in ; Berlin there were ten thousand vacant 1 apartments for which the landlords were humbly suing for tenants. Rents ! have dropped, and the landlord will do almost anything to oblige, if you will only move in. You can have your rent j for nothing for months, if you will bring your family and set your furniture in I and hang up your curtains and start your piano going in a new apartment house. The landlord calls you his "dry-rentir, "dry-rentir, " but he's very glad to have you there. Your presence proclaims to th ; passerby who may be looking for a flat, "Why this is a very nice place. Other people live hire, we might too." If they decide to, they can have any little thing they like put into the lease, even ro the number of degrees of heat for thtir apartment. |