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In my last, I endeavoured to show that "Taxing
Personal Property" is corruptive and costly, and promotive of land monopoly,
pauperism, and crime. I will now consider a few more of its evils.
7th. Taxing personal
property promotes the monopoly of capital (as well as land), because whenever
labour can be bought for a small portion of its produce, the larger portion
(or the unpaid labour) is owned by the capitalist in the name of profit,
with which he can starve the landless workers into worse terms, as long
as they continue landless, in proportion to their numbers and necessities.
8th. Taxing personal
property, by preventing production and promoting the monopoly of land and
its products, makes the means of living the most precarious, especially for
the landless, because there is less produced in proportion to the wants of
the community; and as the land is high and labour low (from the taxes on
industry and competition of the landless), it is proportionally beyond the
means of the cheaply-paid labourer to purchase the land, or even to rent it;
and when the means of living are the most precarious, the greatest anxiety
is suffered by the landless, and the continuance of that anxiety causes nervousness,
sleeplessness, misery, and insanity, which is transmitted to the offspring
with increased force, and thus is insanity made hereditary.
9th. Taxing personal
property promotes intemperance by making labour so cheap that the labourer
must toil excessively for a living, thus causing bodily exhaustion as well
as mental anxiety to the landless workers, and indolence also on the part
of those who live on the labour of others. Those whose bodies are exhausted
by excessive toil, and whose minds are suffering from mental anxiety, crave
stimulants to recruit the body and make the mind forget its care; while those
who live in idleness on others' toil, crave stimulants to quicken the circulation
which should be sustained by honest, temperate toil, carrying with it the
moral satisfaction, that for all they enjoy no one suffers. Then, and not
till then, will the good be transmitted to the offspring, instead of the
evil, as now.
Do we not find
the most intemperance and insanity among those whose means of living are
the most precarious? Look to the gold regions among miners; when they are
fortunate, many will drink for joy, and when unfortunate, many will drink
to drown their disappointment.
I was told recently
that California has a beautiful climate, but that it produced much insanity.
I asked if the insanity was not caused by the uncertainty of the means of
living instead of the climate; for there is much gambling there also, and
among gamblers the means of living are still more precarious, and the moral
perception and sympathy still lower; and there we find more intemperance,
insanity, and suicide, and these qualities being transmitted, must bear
fruit accordingly.
10th. Taxing
personal property by making land dear and labour cheap, promotes prostitution
and disease to a fearful extent. Is not woman more sensitive and weaker
physically than man, and when she can get no just reward for her labour, and
frequently no right to labour, need we wonder that she sells herself legally
or illegally for the means of living? Are not the high price of land, and
the low price of labour, or the no right of land and consequently no right
of labour, the main cause? Is not the right of land denied to man and woman
and given to money and its owners, as though money had more right to land
than man or woman? And thus is woman driven by injustice, poverty, and misery,
into temptation, and prayed out occasionally in revivals.
Pray folks out of temptation, while driving
them in,
Is the usual way to atone for the sin;
To fight the effect, while feeding the cause,
You will find the foundation of most of our
laws.
11th. Taxing
personal property is the main cause of rent, interest, and usury; for rent
of land is but interest on the price, so that when the land is high the
rent will be in proportion, and all the wages of the landless are required
for their support; they cannot buy land or build houses, or have capital
for business, but must pay rent or interest for all. Usury is but interest
or rent of money, more than the law allows, which is sustained by the extremes
of rich and poor, caused by land monopoly and its causes.
Let us not flatter
ourselves that we are innocent of the effects, while we are sustaining the
cause by our votes, advocacy, and laws. Do we really want permanent prosperity,
and the interest of all to be honest and live on their own labour instead
of speculating on the unpaid labour of others? Do we desire purity and
truth instead of corruption and perjury to prevail? Then repeal all taxes
on industry, and let the monopolists of land, the source of our living
and the rightful inheritance of all, pay taxes in proportion to the value
of what they monopolise, then poverty, prostitution, and intemperance, will
soon be among the things that were.
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