Massachusetts single
tax league.
17 Banquet
WILS
336.211
M38

THE LIBRARY OF
T
THE UNIVERSITY
COMMUNE. VINCULUM
OMNIBUS, ARTIBUS
OF MINNESOTA.
ACCESSION. CLASS 336.221
BOOK M38
Price 5 cents each or $3 per hundred, without covers.
With covers, $5 per hundred.
Address, 68 Essex St., Boston.
No. 17.
SEVENTEENTH BANQUET
OF THE
MASSACHUSETTS SINGLE TAX LEAGUE,
HOTEL VENDOME, MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 13, 1903,
ΤΟ
SOME OF THE LANDLORDS OF BOSTON.
ADDRESS OF
C. B. FILLEBROWN, PRESIDENT OF THE LEAGUE,
UPON THE SUBJECT of
GROUND RENT.
I. WHAT IS THE NATURE OF GROUND RENT?
II.
WHAT IS THE OPERATION OF GROUND RENT?
III. WHAT IS THE office OF GROUND RENT?
IV. WHAT CAUSES GROUND RENT?
V. WHAT MAINTAINS GROUND RENT?
VI.' HOW MUCH IS THERE OF IT IN BOSTON? (Tabulations.)
VII.
J
ALSO
"
THE TAXATION OF REAL ESTATE ONLY.
VIII.
D
THE TAX WHICH TIME IMPOSES.
IX.
O
CORRESPONDING EXEMPTIONS.
X. THE EXEMPTION OF ASSESSED VALues.
XI.
THE SINGLE TAX AS AN INCOME TAX.
WITH
1
NEWSPAPER EDITORIALS.
[TWELFTH THOUSAND,]
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY MASSACHUSETTS SINGLE TAX LEAGUE.
1903.
INTRODUCTION.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :
The Massachusetts Single Tax League has long looked forward to a time when
it might have something especial to say to the landlords of Boston, and worthy,
perhaps, of their attention. For this reason it takes pride in extending a cordial
welcome to those guests who, by their acceptance of our invitation, have lent
countenance to the study of a great problem.
The present occasion is one of importance to the League as the seventeenth
and closing number in a progressive series of dinners and after dinner discussions
outlined seven years ago, occasions which have been made memorable by the dis-
tinguished guests who, from the standpoint of benevolent observation, have from
first to last honored these events by their presence.
Upon the recent occasion of a dinner given by the League to profes-
sional economists, eight able papers were presented which discussed the
question of GROUND RENT what is its nature, operation, and office, what causes
it, what maintains it, how much is there of it? These papers, together with
editorial comments upon them, have since been printed in full and sent to the two
hundred and ninety-five professors of political economy in all Unttori:States colleges
and universities, to two hundred presidents of colleges which do not have such a
department, and to four thousand other. friendly and intelligent. people. This able
and impartial treatment by eminent professors, whirisholt be said, has put
upon the League a perpetual bonded indebtedness, was given largely from the
theoretical standpoint of the schools of political science.:
In the hope of a further elucidation of the theory of rent thus already set forth,
it has been thought opportune to put in evidence, from an every-day business point
of view, some agencies and conditions existing to-day in our own city and State, as
indeed all over the world, as facts upon which we base our appeal to the judgment
of an intelligent public.
Let it be kindly noted that the treatment of facts and figures which here follows
has in view two specific main objects, viz. :
I.
What is the source or cause of ground rent?
2. What is the volume of ground rent?
What is said about the taking in taxation of enough of the ground rent to meet
all public needs is single tax, the remainder is intended to be sound political
economy according to the schools.
By your kind indulgence we submit a number of facts, questions, and reflec-
tions, grouped under each of the six somewhat arbitrary sub-divisions of the subject
as originally presented.
M
2.2.1
GROUND RENT.
I. What is the Nature of Ground Rent?
As defined by Mr. Shearman, GROUND RENT is, in its nature, “a tribute which
natural laws levy upon every occupant of land as the market price of all the social as
well as natural advantages appertaining to that land, including necessarily his just
share of the cost of government." It is found operative in every civilized
country, automatically collecting "from every citizen an amount almost exactly pro-
portionate to the fair and full market value of the benefits which he derives from the
government under which he lives and the society which surrounds him." It is a
tribute, “a tax, just, equal, full, fair, paid for full value received." “It is not merely
a tax which justice allows; it is one which justice demands. It is not merely one
which ought to be collected; it is one which infallibly will be and is collected. It is not
merely one which the State ought to see collected; it is one which, in the long run,
the State cannot prevent from being collected.”
"Seldom has there been
a more beautiful illustration of the wise yet relentless working of natural law than in
the proved impossibility of justly collecting any tax other than upon ground rent. It
shows that Nature makes it impossible to execute justly a statute which is in its
nature unjust." This definition of Mr. Shearman is offered as one difficult to be
improved or condensed.
Such, it may be added, is the nature of rent ground rent- that all the public
and private improvements of a community to-day are reflected in the land values of
that community. Not only this, but the value of all those ideal public improvements
conceived of as being possible under Utopian conditions would be similarly absorbed,
as it were, in the ground, would be reflected in its site value. For illustration:
Suppose you stand before a big mirror, you see your image perfectly reflected
before you. If you are a rhan scantily, shabbily clad, so is the image in the glass.
The addition of rich and costly, attire, is imaged in the glass. Load yourself with
jewels and fill your hands with gold in the mirror, true to nature, is the image and
likeness of them all. Not more perfectly, nor more literally, is your image reflected
in the mirror, than are public improvements reflected in the value of the land.
•
One peculiarity in the nature of ground rent to which we urge your attention
is the subtle relation existing between this natural income and the artificial outgo
of the public taxes — a relation not unlike that of cause and effect, by which the wise
expenditure of the tax finds its resultant expression in ground rent.
Simple illustrations may help to open the mind to a judicial consideration of
whatever may seem novel or strange in the re-statement of a familiar truth. For
instance: The cook turns the crank of her coffee mill; the whole coffee that was in
the hopper comes out ground coffee, but it is coffee just the same. The Minneap-
olis miller lets on the water that turns the crank of his flour mill; the wheat that
goes into the hopper comes out flour, wheat in a more subtle form. The people
turn the crank of a great tax mill; the taxes that go into the hopper come out
ground rent, no tax quality lost, no rent ingredient added.
Or again: The myriad springs and rivulets of the great
ally delivering themselves in one great river to the sea.
you should read in the weather bulletin that nature had
Mississippi are continu-
Suppose that some day
decided to suspend the
75437
4
NATURE AND OPERATION OF GROUND RENT.
regular return of these waters in clouds and rain and dew to their point of departure,
how long would it be before the Mississippi Valley would be as parched and dry as
the Desert of Sahara, or the North End of the city of Boston, or the East Side of
the city of New York?
Or more pertinent still, because more vital: The constant round of taxes and
ground rent is the blood circulation of the body politic. When the heart throws
out the life blood through the arteries, if that blood does not return through the
veins, the patient dies not of heart failure, but from loss of blood. When this
public heart charges the arteries of the land with ground rent, if that ground rent
does not return, the body politic is prostrated or enervated by loss of blood. The
Boston body politic to-day is like a man with a ravenous appetite, cleaning his
plate of all the seventeen or eighteen million a year that he can earn, and mortgag-
ing the future for nearly as much more, always eating, yet always hungry, and
simply because the best part of his forty million dollars' worth of arterial life blood
instead of coming back to the public heart ebbs rapidly away through severed blood
vessels in the private appropriation of ground rent.
These illustrations of the miscarriage of a beneficent provision seem to us to
hint strongly at the true nature of ground rent, as waiting to be naturally developed
under a natural law, and as a natural SOCIAL PRODUCT.
II. What is the Operation of Ground Rent?
Your critical consideration is invited to Mr. Shearman's statement that the
operation of ground rent is to exact from every user of land the natural tribute
which he ought to pay in return for the perpetual public and social advantages
secured to him by his location, a part of which natural tribute now goes to the State
in the form of a tax, and the remainder to the landlord in the form of rent. Objec-
tion to monopolies and special privileges is that they participate in the private
appropriation of an undue share of this natural tribute, and while recognizing that in
the end all quasi-public, as well as all public service, should be at the least practica-
ble cost to the people, it is held that meantime whatever monopoly is enjoyed should
be obliged through taxation to repay to the public a full and fair equivalent for the
privilege conceded to it.
:
с
The monopolies and special privileges which it, is here. thought should properly
share with land values the burden of taxation,. may be partially enumerated as
follows, viz. the private appropriation of natural resources such as gold, silver,
copper, iron and coal mines, oil fields, and water powers; all franchises of steam
and electric railways; all other public franchises, granted to one or several persons
incorporated, and from which all other people are excluded, and which include
all "rights, authority, or permission to construct, maintain, or operate in, under,
above, upon, or through any streets, highways, or public places any mains, pipes,
tanks, conduits, or wires, with their appurtenances for conducting water, steam, heat,
light, power, gas, oil, or other substance, or electricity for telegraphic, telephonic, or
other purposes."
The reforms contemplated by the single tax would leave the State and the
individual to deal together exactly as individuals deal with one another in ordinary
business. Parties desiring special privileges would rent them from the State or the
municipality, just as they now rent them from individuals and corporations, and on
similar terms fixed from year to year. When paid for in this way, the special privi- '
lege feature would be eliminated. Then there really would be no special privileges,
and there would be need of no other taxation. Hence, we say, the least the public
can do is to tax and collect upon these special privileges, including ground rent, a
sum sufficient to defray all public expenses.
The value of these special privileges is held to be ground rent, which in turn is
held to be very largely, if not entirely, a SOCIAL PRODUCT.
WHAT IS THE OFFICE OF GROUND RENT?
5
III. What is the Office of Ground Rent?
The true office of ground rent is that of a Board of Equalization -equalization
of taxation, of distribution, and of opportunity. The tendency of an increase in the
tax upon ground rent is not only to equalize taxation and distribution, but to equa-
lize the opportunity of access to what is erroneously called the land, which of itself,
even in a city, would be of little or no use if it had a perpetual fifty-foot tight board
fence around it. In this clear distinction between land and land value, which cannot
be too critically noted, may there not be found an explosion of the notion that a man
has a right to the private appropriation of ground rent, because his father bought and
paid for the land fifty or one hundred years ago? The question is: When he bought the
land fifty or one hundred years ago did he buy and pay for the land value of to-day?
A company having five shares and five stockholders bought in 1686 a lot of land in
Philadelphia for $5. The same company, with its five shares and five stockholders,
has just sold the value of the same land for $1,000,000. Does it sound reasonable
to say that for one pound sterling in 1686 these five men bought and paid for the
$1,000,000 land value of 1900, with its ground rent of $40,000 a year? Would not
such a sale in 1686 of goods to be delivered two hundred and sixteen years later be
dealing in futures with a vengeance? True it is that the land sold to-day is the same
land bought in 1686. It is also true that its value to-day is not the value of land
itself, but is the value of the rights and privileges pertaining thereto, and exterior to
the land itself. The demand which enhances land value is not for land, but for the
command of these same rights and privileges.
Land value, being a social creation, and its rent a social maintenance, equal
access to the rights and privileges pertaining to the land can be promoted by the
taxation of ground rent alone, and by this means alone. Ground rent, the natural tax
feeder, extracts from the user of land the exact measure of his advantage over other
men in his exclusive enjoyment of rights and privileges pertaining to his own location,
and the whole tendency of the taxation of ground rent is to equalize participation in
these common rights and privileges, by commuting into dollars and cents, which can
be divided, those indivisible advantages of location, which can only be enjoyed in-
dividually. Whatever of rent goes into the public treasury tends to a fairer distri-
bution of produce in wages earned. Whatever of taxation is transferred from other
wealth to ground rent leaves so much more wealth to be distributed in wages.
t
cur-
Again, it is submitted, that the true office of ground rent is to offer a com-
munal shoulder suited to bear all the burden of common needs, leaving produce
rent wealth to be distributed, as fast as produced, in wages and interest, the
total volume of which will always be increased by the amount of rent appro-
priated through the taxation of whatever of economic rent there is in special
privilege.
Ground rent being a SOCIAL PRODUCT, is not its private appropriation a special
privilege ?
IV. What Causes Ground Rent?
The dimension, as well as the continuous character, of the contribution made
by the people to the growth and volume of ground rent is seldom measured, -by
many persons it is hardly suspected. Almost anything else, except land, which
he owns a man may appropriate, destroy, tear down, burn down, remove, con-
sume, change in form, wear out. To the land itself he cannot do any of these
things. The value of its use is ground rent, an annual value, which is all that the
owner of land can consume each year. The land value itself survives, and usually
intact. People speak of owning land, because they or their fathers have bought and
paid for it. A simple illustration may not unfairly indicate how a disproportionate
6
WHAT CAUSES GROUND RENT?
reliance may be placed upon this argument, considered in the light of all the causes
contributing to the value of land. Suppose, for instance, that a vacant lot was
bought fifty years ago for $1,000 and to-day is worth $10,000. When the purchaser
paid his original $1,000, the chances are that the people, in one capacity or another,
paid for the same year $50 to maintain that purchase value, and for forty-nine years
thereafter the people have paid in annual arithmetical progression up to $500 for the
present year. The purchaser paid $1,000 in one payment. The people have
paid during the fifty years an average of $250 a year to maintain this value. On the
part of the people it has been not unlike a continuous purchase in the proportion of
$250 a year of the people's tax money to $50 a year of the purchaser's interest
money.
In addition to whatever income the purchaser has received, he possesses to-day
$10,000 worth of land, and the people possess nothing except an outgo of five per
cent. in maintenance to an income of one and one-half per cent. in tax.
Such an
inheritance would usually be counted worse than nothing. Is it not reasonable that
the community should derive profit from its part in this transaction, by appropriating
to its own use the one-half of that ground rent which is manifestly created by the
simple expenditure of its taxes? Why should not taxes, all of which are spent upon
the land, be taken from the land?
In particularizing its sources, let it be said that ground rent must be the direct
effect of at least three distinct causes: 1. PUBLIC EXPENDITURE ; 2. QUASI-PUBLIC
EXPENDITURE; 3. PRIVATE EXPENDITURE.
First: Public Expenditure.
All wise public expenditures are the direct feeders of ground rent. The streets,
lights, water, sewerage, fire and police systems of Boston, her schools, libraries,
museums, parks, and playgrounds, one and all, contribute directly to the appreciation
in the value of her land, a corresponding depreciation in which would instantly follow
the abolition of any of these systems.
Second: Quasi-Public Expenditure
It is scarcely less clear that steam and electric railways gas and electric lights,
telegraph and telephone companies, subways. and, feries are contributors to the
value of land. This fact is not altered by.the other fact that the people who pay
for the use of those things get, in return, full. value received. No one would deny
that the Subway has added all the millions that it cost to the value of Boston land.
Third: Private Expenditure.
If the contribution from this source is not so self evident as are those from
public and quasi-public expenditures, will it not appear upon a little closer analysis.
that churches, private schools, colleges, and universities surely stand to ground rent
in the relation of cause and effect, that all private and public buildings, well ap-
pointed apartment houses, stores and office buildings unquestionably add to the
value of the land?
This question of what are the causes of ground rent is the hinge upon which
the single tax must turn. The endeavor has been to omit no contributor from the
enumeration. Population is the cause often first named, but a passive population
gives little value to land. The activities of such population are what create the
value, and it is the listing of these which is here attempted, and the help of our
guests is besought in making good any omissions.
Thus, while it is now generally conceded that, as a matter of fact, ground
rent is what land is worth for use, as a matter of economics it is of far greater im-
portance to understand clearly what is the source of ground rent, and especially to
what extent it may be regarded as a SOCIAL PRODUCT.
WHAT MAINTAINS GROUND rent.
7
V.
What Maintains Ground Rent?
So far as the cost of streets, lights, water, sewerage, fire, police, schools,
libraries, museums, parks, playgrounds, steam and electric railways, gas and electric.
lights, telegraph and telephone companies, subways, ferries, churches, private schools,
colleges, universities, public buildings, well appointed houses, stores and office.
buildings is what constitutes the cost value of the land, just so far the maintenance
of all this public or social service, if not in a literal sense, is in an all-sufficient
common sense, the maintenance of ground rent.
A simple illustration may help to an appreciation of the absurd absence of a
true economy in Boston's family tax affairs to-day :
A landlord owns a factory which requires steam power, and which is useless and
worthless without it. Another party owns a steam plant, and furnishes steam to
factories at so much per horse power. The man who hires and uses the factory
pays factory rent to his landlord, who furnishes the factory, and steam rent to the
party that furnishes the steam, and would smile if you should talk to him about pay-
ing his steam rent to the landlord who does not furnish it.
In vivid contrast with this sensible performance, another landlord owns a store
which requires public service and convenience, and which is useless without it.
The municipality owns and runs a public service plant, and furnishes public service
at a cost of so much per thousand dollars' worth. The man who hires and uses the
store pays store rent to his landlord, who furnishes the store, but, by some perverse
obliquity, he pays his public service rent to the same landlord. Our inquiry is,
Should he not pay his public service rent to the public that furnishes it?
Inasmuch as all these contributions to its maintenance, so far as enumerated,
are from the treasuries of the people, what can ground rent possibly be, if it is not
a SOCIAL PRODUCT?
VI. How much is there of Ground Rent in Boston?
A dense skepticism and, indeed, a denser ignorance seem to obtain even in
regard to the simple fact that there is such a thing as ground rent, and yet much
more in regard to what is the VOLUME of ground rent. It has been questioned
whether the ground rent of Boston, under the single tax with the accompanying
shrinkage in speculative values, would exceed to-day five per cent. on the assessed
valuation of land or $28,000,000. Indications are that the net rent of land itself
might not, but our investigations are directed to ascertaining not the net but the
gross ground rent, which is net rent plus the taxes.
One Hundred and Twenty Sales.
In a systematic attempt to dispel these clouds of ignorance and skepticism, now
to be found in surprisingly high places, and to demonstrate beyond a reasonable
doubt about how much gross ground rent there is in the city of Boston, actual sales
and actual rentals have been consulted and collected, and are herewith submitted. One
hundred and twenty pieces of real estate in various sections of the city are shown to
have been sold at prices averaging one-fifth higher than their assessed valuation,
indicating that at least in these one hundred and twenty cases the valuations were
less than five-sixths of the selling price. The following exhibit is offered of these
specimen cases in detail.
8
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SALES.
Number of
Estate.
I
2
Assessed
Valuation
of Land.
$67,200
43,500
Assessed
Valuation
of Building.
$75,000
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
$142,200
Price
Indicated
by Revenue
Stamps
on Deeds.
$165,000
Percentage
of Selling
Price repre-
sented by
Valuation.
86
15,000
58,500
345O
245,000
85,000
330,000
75,000
625,000
78
52
65,000
10,500
75,500
75,500
ΙΟΟ
77,600
22,400
100,000
120,000
83
6
89,500
17,500
107,000
130,000
82
78
196,000
60,000
256,000
280,000
9 1
8
42,000
I 1,000
53,000
75,000
70
9
10,800
4,000
14,800
20,000
74
IO
101,500
24,500
126,000
175,000
72
I I
17,000
3,000
20,000
28,000 71
I 2
33,700
2,300
36,000
45,000
80
13
6,000
2,700
8,700
8,500
102
14
21,200
15,000
36,200
42,000
86
15
115,500
59,500
175,000
290,000
60
16
21,500
10,500
32,000
35,500
92
17
18.
22,400
8,000
30,400
46,000
66
135,700
75,000
210,700
210,000 100
19
492,000
232,400
724,400
925,000
75
20
10,800
5,100
15,900
30,000
53
2 I
49,500
9,000
58,500
46,500
125
22
90,000
17,000
107,000
136,000
78
23
14,300
2,700
17,000
21,000
80
24
48,000
7,000
55,000
85,000
64
25
68,800
10,000
78,800
94,000
83
26
164,600
I20,400
285,000
425,000
67
27
1,800
2,100
3,900.
3,500
III
28
167,000
100,000
267,000
333,000
80
29
14,200
7,000
21,200
23,500
90
30
39,300
II,500
50,800
60,000
84
31
4,200
3,100
7,300
9,500
76
32
105,000
25,000
130,000
160,000
81
33
29,000
6,000
35,000
35,000 100
34
34,100
7,000
41,100
55,000
74
35
79,300
7,000
86,300
122,000
70
36
10,000
3,000
13,000
12,500
104
37
79,300
20,000
99,300
135,000
73
38
54,000
8,000
62,000
69,500
89
39
25,900
12,000
37,900
57,000
66
40
131,000
28,000
159,000
200,000
79
41
14,000
23,500
37,500
39,000 96
42
7,700
14,900
22,600
29,000
77
43
8,600
8,400
17,000
16,500 103
44
2,000
7,500
9,500
10,000
95
45
27,500
26,500
54,000
65,000
83
46
9,200
11,800
21,000
22,000
95
47
14,000
20,000
34,000
47,500
71
48
I 1,000
9,000
20,000
21,000
49
9,200
10,300
19,500
22,000
8∞
95
88
сосл
50
5 I
52
II,500
56,000
67,500
75,000
90
6,000
1 7,000
23,000
33,000 69
4,400
6,100
10,500
10,000
105
53
•
14,300
22,700
37,000
42,000
88
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SALES.
9
Number of
Estate.
54
Assessed
Valuation
of Land.
Assessed
Valuation
of Building.
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Price
Indicated
by Revenue
Stamps
on Deeds.
Percentage
of Selling
Price repre-
sented by
Valuation.
$26,000
$5,000
$31,000
$38,000
81
55
5,900
12,100
18,000
23,500
76
56
3,200
6,500
9,700
9,500
102
57
17,000
27,000
44,000
47,000
93
58
16,200
10,800
27,000
25,000 108
59
13,300
14,000
27,300
27,000
ΙΟΙ
60
3,600
5,200
8,800
9,000
97
61
9,200
11,800
21,000
22,000
95
62
8,300
29,200
37,500
42,000
89
63
4,000
6,700
10,700
9,500
II 2
64
18,000
18,000
36,000
32,000
II 2
65
7,600
20,900
28,500
35,000
81
66
13,300
20,700
34,000
33,000
103
67
3,600
4,200
7,800
9,000
86
68
30,000
31,000
61,000
80,000
76
69
65,000
20,000
85,000
91,000
93
70
18,000
13,000
31,000
38,000
81
7 I
7,800
I 7,000
24,800
28,000 88
72
4,800
16,000
20,800
25,000
83
73
18,000
I 1,500
29,500
27,000
109
74
6,300
10,700
17,000
15,500 109
75
8,800
8,200
17,000
22,000
77
76
14,700
12,300
27,000
25,000
108
~77∞ ∞ ∞ ∞o
77
6,200
15,000
21,200
25,500
83
78
18,800
II,200
30,000
29,000
103
79
10,800
I0,200
21,000
25,000
84
80
6,400
I1,600
18,000
18,000
100
81
82
83
84
85
86
3,700
6,800
10,500
10,500
100
3,600
4,500
8,100
10,000
81
4,500
1,200
5,700
6,500
87
•
1,300
2,500
3,800
4,000
95
4,800
8,200
13,000
15,500
83
1,000
3,500
4,500
5,000
90
87
4,200
10,000
14,200
17,000
83
88
2,900
3,600
6,500
8,500 76
89
2,800
5,000
7,800
7,800
100
90
1,600
2,600
4,200
4,500
93
91
12,500
64,000
76,500
70,000
109
92
1,600
3,600
5,200
5,800
89
93
4,000
6,500
10,500
12,000
87
94
3,500
4,800
8,300
7,000
118
95
8,400
25,000
33,400
25,000 133
96
1,000
1,500
2,500
2,300
108
97
2,400
2,900
5,300
4,000
132
98
5,800
7,200
13,000
15,000
86
99
3,200
5,200
8,400
9,300
90
100
3,100
6,000
9,100
8,000
113
ΙΟΙ
6,000
5,200
II, 200
12,000
93
102
3,600
5,500
9,100
10,000
gr
103
2,700
6,000
8,700
10,000 87
104
30,000
14,500
44,500
45,000 98
105
15,700
8,000
23,700
20,000 118
гоб
6,300
7,700
14,000
12,000 116
10
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SALES.
$4,300
5,400
3,000
Number of
Estate.
107
108
· 109
Assessed
Valuation
of Land.
Assessed
Valuation
of Building.
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Price
Indicated
by Revenue
Percentage
of Selling
Price repre-
sented by
Valuation.
Stamps
on Deeds.
$7,700
$12,000
$13,000
92
5,000
10,400
I 1,000
94
4,000
7,000
8,000
87
ΙΙΟ
•
25,200
2,500
27,700
29,000
95
III
II 2
3,900
9,000
12,900
15,000
86
6,200
9,800
16,000
16,000 100
113
8,000
16,000
24,000
27,000
88
114
5,600
9,500
15,100
12,000
125
115
4,000
5,000
9,000
10,000
90
116
4,800
6,000
10,800
10,000
108
117
1,600
5,400
7,000
5,500
127
118
2,000
1,600
3,600
3,675
97
119
9,000
I 3,000
22,000
27,000
81
I 20
8,000
6,000
14,000
14,000
100
Totals
•
$3,758,600 $2,079,700
80.
$5,838,300 $7,291,375
Landlords and real estate men are the best judges of what allowances should be
made on account of the fact that the prices given in these tables are those indicated
by the revenue stamps on deeds, and that it is assumed in the following estimate
that the buildings sold for one-third more than their assessed valuation :
Deducting from the total of prices indicated by the footing of the
above table
Four-thirds of assessed valuation of buildings
$7,291,375
2,772,933
Would give perhaps a fair estimate of what the land sold for
$4,518,442
P
To this it is necessary to add the capitalized tax upon the land for
1900, $3,758,600 X $14.70 X 20=
1,105,028
In order to get the gross capitalized ground rental value of the land
Of which the assessed valuations were only two-thirds.
$5,623,470
Seven Hundred and Fifty-One Rentals.
Seven hundred and fifty-one net rentals of estates, together with their
assessed valuations, averaging $47,680 each, have been obtained from reliable
sources, and to a large extent in confidence, the record of which is also put in
evidence. In each of these cases there is deducted from the net rental (column
D) ten per cent. for the interest, depreciation, insurance, and repairs of the build-
ing (column C), leaving a balance of income (column F) to be credited to the
land. The valuation of the land (column B) multiplied by Boston's tax rate
($14.80) plus the net rent (column D) gives what the user pays for the use of
the land (net rent plus taxes, column H). This gross ground rent which the user
pays (column H) multiplied by twenty, i.e., capitalized at five per cent., gives the
gross capitalized ground rental value of the land (column I).
It will be noticed that what the user pays for use of the land (column H) is
12510 per cent. of the assessed valuation of the land (column B). Comparison of
column I with column B indicates that in these seven hundred and fifty-one instances
the average assessed valuation corresponds very closely to the actual net value of
the land, the total net income upon the land being 40 per cent. of the assessed valu-
ation, and averages four-fifths of the gross land value.
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
11

Numbers.
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
of
I
23456 78
$914,000
8,000
3,600
4,400
902,
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
Io per ct.
H.
What the
User pays
I.
on Build.
ings for
interest,
Net
insurance,
Rental repairs,
after pay- and depre.
Land. Building. ing Taxes. ciation.
$339,000 $575,000 $75,000 $57,500 $17,500
Income
on
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
the Net
Ground
Valuation Rent plus
of Land.
the User's
Rent
Capitalized
at 5 per cent.
Per cent.
of Net
Gross
Value
of Land,
Net
Income
Assessed
from
Land.
the Tax.
5.I
$22,517
$450,340
440
462
12.8
515
10,300
13,500
6,500
7,000 1,600
700
900
13.8
996
19,920
28,600
6,600
22,000
3,177
2,200
977
14.8
1,075
21,500
133,000
I 12,000
21,000
10,000
2,100
7,900
7.I
9,557
191,140
6.
185,200
149,200
36,000
10,000
3,600
6,400
4.3
8,608
172,160
13,400
7,400
6,000
802
600
2021
2.7
311
6,220
77,300
54,300
23,000
3,100
2,300
800
1.4
1,604
32,080
9
IO
ao
66,800
47,800
19,000
4,500
1,900
2,600
21,800
20,300
1,500
1,177
150
1,027
II
5,900
2,900
3,000
260
300
-40
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
234 no N∞
4,000
3,200
800
289
80
209
ம்ம் ம்
5.4
3,307
66,140
5.
1,327
26,540
3
60
6.5
256
5,120
19,300
18,100
I,200
1,814
I 20
1,694
9.3
1,962
39,240
10,300
7,300
3,000
568
300
268
3.7
57,000
17,300
39,700
7,356
3,970
3,386
19.5
14,700
7,600
7,100
1,182
710
472
6.2
89,000
70,600
18,400
5,683
1,840
3,843
5.4
210,000
179,800
30, 200
11,392
3,020
8,372
4.6
752 46
376
7,520
3,642
72,840
584
11,680
4,888
11,033
97,760
220,660
19
72,900
45,900
27,000
8,921
2,700
6,221
13.5
6,900
138,000
2 2
20
21,000
8,600
12,400
2,339
1,240
1,099
12.7
1,226
24,520
21
22
80,500
69,500
I 1,000
6,000
I, 100
4,900
7.
5,928
118,560
32,200
25,200
7,000
1,800
700
I, 100
4.3
I,473
29,460
2 2
23
20,000
6,600
13,400 1,744 I,340
404
6. I
501
10,020
24
200,000
170,000
30,000; 9,640
3,000
6,640
3.9
9,156
183,120
25
64,500
24,500
40,000 6,845 4,000
2,845
11.6
3,207
64,140
2 2 2
78
26
58,000 13,500
44,500! 8,412
4,450
3,962
29.3
4,162
83,240
27
20,000
15,000
5,000
704
500
204! 1.3
28
26,000
I1,000
15,000
2,365
1,500
865
7.8
29
27,000
10,000
17,000
2,350
1,700
650 6.5
30
124,000
113,000
11,000
6,000
I, 100
4,900
4.3
31
3,000
1,600
1,400
342
140
202
12.6
300 i 3O
426
8,520
1,028
20,560
798
15,960
6,572
131,440
225
4,500
32
18,500
7,200
11,300
1,826
1,130
696
9.7
802
16,040
33
82,500
49,000
33,500 6,279
3,350
2,929
8.9
3.654
73,080
34
80,000
17,500
62,500 7,816
6,250
1,566
9.
1,825
36,500
35
114,000
46,800
67,200 7,973
6,720
1,253
2.6
I,945
38,900
36
33,500
24,000
9,500
1,964
950
1,014
4.2
1,369|
27,380
37
18,500
7,200
I 1,300
1,826
I, 130
696
9.6
802
16,040
38
150,700
118,700
32,000
8,500
3,200
5,300
4.4
7,056
141,120
39
155,000
123,000
32,000 7,000 3,200 3,800
3.
5,620
112,400
40
117,000
26,500
4I 98,500
76,500
42
43
141,000
34,800
III,000
22,000
30,000 11,013
90,500 20,268 9,050
6,442
11,218 42.3
2,200 4,242
I1,610
232,200
5.5
5.374
107,480
3,000 8,013
7.2
9,656
193,120
30,600
4,200 I,945
44 56.800
51,800
5,000 3,000
420 1,525
500
2,500
45
57,300
45,300
12,000 4,000
I, 200
2,800
in to
5.
1,978
39,560
4.8
6.2
46
127,700
104,200
23,500
4.970
2,350
2,620
2.5
47
6,500
4,300
2,200
792
220
572
133
48
6,000
3,300
2,700
595
270
325
9.8
COW UT N CO
3,266
65,320
3,470
69,400
4,162
83,240
635 12,700
374
7,480
49
7,500
4,300
3,200
707
320
387
9.
450
9,000
51
52
53
54
55
10 10 10 LO LO LOLOLOL
2 34 in No
50
5,800
3,800
2,000
446
· 200
246
6.4
302
6,040
5,400
2,800
2,600
555
260
295
10.5
336
6,720
12,500
6,500
6,000
775
600
175 2.7
271
5,420
5,900
3,700
2,200
537
220
317 8.6
371
7,420
5,500
3,700
1,800
519
180
339 9.2
393
7,860
13,200
10,200
3,000
1,489
56 20,000
3༠༠
1,189
II.7
1,340
26,800
10, 100
9,900
2,404
990
1,414
14.
1,563
31,260
571
58
15,500
8,600
6,900
1,115
690
425
4.9
552
I1,040
9,900l
5,900
4,000
754
400
354
6.
441
8,820
12
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
Io per ct.
H.
What the
User pays
1.
on Build.
Numbers.
ings for
interest,
Per cent.
of Net
Income
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
Gross
Value
of Land,
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
Net
Rental
insurance,
Net
on
the Net
the User's
repairs,
Income
Assessed
Ground
Rent
of
after pay- and depre.
from
Land.
Building. ing Taxes.
ciation.
Land.
Valuation Rent plus Capitalized
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
59
$27,000
$13,800
$13,200 $2,600 $1,320
$1,280
9.2
$1,484
$29,680
601
103,300
So,300
23,000
8,471
2,300
6,171
7.6
7,359
147,180
61
5,800
2,800
3,000
635
300
335
12.
376
7,520
62
67,000
27,000
40 000
5,608
4,000
1,608
6.
2,007
40,140
63
31,500
30,000
1,500
574
150
424
1.4
868
17,360
64
54,400
35,400
19,000
3,595
1,900
1,695
4.8
2,219
44,380
65
6,700
4,200
2,500
400
250
150
3.6
212
4,240
66
32,500
13,800
18,700
2,099
1,870
229
1.6
433
8,660
67
128,000
I 12,000
16,000
9,505
1,600
7,905
7.
9,562
191,240
68
48,800
38,800
10,000
4,278
1,000
3,278
8.5
3,852
77,040
69
20,900
15,400
5,500
804
550
2541
1.6
482
9,640
70
12,500
6,900
5,600
715
560
155
2.2
257
5,140
71
9,800
7,000
2,800
695
280
415
5.9
518
10,360
72
15,900
12,400
3,500
765
350
415
3.4
598
11,960
73
13,000
7,000
6,000
1,008
700
308
4.4
4II
8,220
74
124,000!
113,800
10,200
6,000
1,020
4,980
4.4
6,664
133,280
75
12,500
7,100
5,400
775
540
235
3.3
340
6,800
7x a o
~~~7∞∞∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
23456 78
76
100,000
46,000
54,000
6,834
5,400
1,434
3. I
2,115
42,300
77
78
79
80
81
20,500
317,000
58,000
6,900
13,600
1,977
1,360
617
8.8
719
14,380
269,600
47,400
15,000
4,740
10,260
3.8
14,250
285,000
13,500
44,500 9,141
4,450
4,691
34.7
4,891
97,820
57,000
34,000
23,000 4,214
2,300
1,914 5.6
2,417
48,340
61,500
55,500
6,000
2,300
600 1,700 3.
2,521
50,420
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
220,000
200,000
170,000
30,000
9,940
3,000
6,940
4.I
9.456
189,120
199,500
20,500
8,744
2,050
6,694 3.4
9,646
192,920
56,400
47,900
8,500
2,365
850
1,515
3.2
2,224
44,480
2,000
1,300
700
210
70
140
1.08
159
3,180
36,300
22,000
14,300
1,963
2,200
237
88
1,760
77,500
70,500
7,000 3,000
700
2,300
3.3
3,343
66,860
28,000
12,900
15,100
1,983
1,510
473
3.7
664
13,280
41,900
23,900
18,000
4,780
1,800
2,980
12.5
3,333
66,660
90
22,200
8,200
14,000
2,311 1,400
911
II. I
1,032
20,640
91
35,000
28,000
7,000 2,095
700
1,395
5.
1,809
36,180
92
24,200
19,200
5,000
2,142
500
1,642 8.6
1,926
38,520
93
17,500
14,000
3,500
1,173
350
823
5.9
1,030
20,600
94
27,900
26,400
1,500
587
150
437
1.7
827
16,540
95
13,500
10,500
3,000
640
300
340
3.2
495
9,900
96
4,000
2,100
I,900
420
190
230
II.
261
5,220
97
4,500
2,500
2,000
353
200
153
6. I
190
3,800
98
4,900
3,200
1,700
570
170
400
12.5
447
8,940
99
9,300
6,300
3,000
512
300
212
3.4
305
6,100
100
6,000
3,700
2,300
331
230
ΙΟΙ
2.7
155
3,100
ΙΟΙ
6,300
4,000
2,300
327
230
97
2.4
156
3,120
102
24,600
20,700
3,900 2361
390
154
152
3,040
103
9,100
7,100
2,000
345
200
145
104
7,200
6,000
I,200
243
I 20
123
તંત
2.
250
5,000
212
4,240
105
8,300
6,000
2,300
417
230
187
3.I
276
5,520
106
8,300
6,000
2,300
417
230
187
3.I
276
5,520
107
7,900
5,600
2,300
363
230
133 2.3
216
4,320
108
6,900
4,300
2,600
378
230
148
3.4
211
4,220
109
7,600
5,300
2,300
368
230
138 2.6
216
4,320
110
7,500
4,700
2,800
369
280
III
7,000
4,700
2,300
316
230
∞∞
89 1.9
86 1.8
112
6,300
3,500
2,800 567
280
287
8.2
9∞ 2
158
3,160
155
3,100
339
6,780
113
4,700
2,400
2,300
350
230
I 20
5.
155
3,100
114
4,700
2,400
2,300
350
230
120
5.
155
3,100
115
7,300
4,700
2,600
372
260
112
2.4
181
3,620
116
5, 100!
3,300
1,800
285
180
105
3.2
154
3,080
SEVEN HUNDRED
13
Hundred anD FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
Io per ct.
on Build-
H.
What the
User pays
1.
Numbers.
ings for
interest,
Per cent.
of Net
Income
Assessed Assessed
Net
insurance,
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Valuation
of
Land.
Valuation
Rental
of
after pay
repairs,
and depre.
Net
Income
Assessed
from
Building. ing Taxes.
ing Taxes.
ciation.
Land.
of Land.
the Tax.
on
for the
use of thei
Land, i.e.,
the Net
Ground
Valuation Rent plus
the User's
Rent
Capitalized
at 5 per cent.
Gross
Value
of Land,
117
$5,200 $3,400
$1,800
$283
$180
$103
لب
$153
$3,060
118
2,800
1,600
1,200
199
I 20
79:
4.9
102
2,040
119
3,200
1,500
1,700
311
170
141
9.2
163
3,260
I 20
9,900
5,900
4,000
754
400
354
6.
441
8,820
121
64,000
29,000
35,000
7,963
3.500
4,463:
15.4
4,892
97,840
I22
12,000
5,500
6,500
822
650
172
3.I
253
5,060
123
40,500
31,500
9,000
2,800
900
1,900
6.
2,366
47.320
124
7,600
3,600
4,000
1,303
400
903
25.
956
19,120
125
3,500
1,500
2,000
298
200
98
61/2
I 20
126
631,300
331,300
300,000
50,000
30,000
20,000
6.
24,903
2,400
498.060
127
8,300
3,300
5,000
777
500
277
84
325
128
33,000
9,000
24,000
5,012
2,400
2,612
29.
2,745
6,500
54,900
129
7,700
2,500
5,200
486
520
-34
60
130
23,000
10,000
13,000
1,810
1,300
510
5. I
658
13,160
131
25,800
16,600
9,200
1,500
920
580
3/2
825
16,500
132
11,800
5,800
6,000
1,325
600
725
122
810
16,200
133
17,500
7,500
10,000
I,I21
1,000
121
1.6
232
4.640
134
8,800
4,800
4,000
670
400
270
5.6
341
6,820
135
6,600
2,600
4,000
502
400
102
4.
140
2,800
136
II, 200
5,000
6,200
938
620
318
6.3
392
7,840
137
8,300
2,400
5,900
597
590
7
42
840
138
4,600
2,900
1,700
674
170
504
17.3
547
10,940
139
6,700
3,000
3,700
789
370
419
14.
463
9,260
140
11,500
3,900
7,600
1,030
390
640
16.4
697
13.940
141
11,500
3,900
7,600
1,030
390
640
16.4
697

I 3,940
142
II,500
3,900
7,600
1,030
390
640
16.4
697
13 940
143
16,000
8,000
8,000
1,363
800
563
7.
681
13.620
144
32,500
27,300
5,200 1,119
520
599
2.2
1,003
20,060
945
8,300
3,300
5,000
767
500
267
8.
315
6.300
146
7,000
3,700
3,300
556
330
226
6.1
280
5,600
147
12,200
7,800
4,400
714
440
274
3/2
389
7,780
148
28,800
21,800
7,000
1,774
700
1,074
4.9
1,396
27,920
149
6,900
5,100
1,800
448
180
268
5.3
343
6,860
150
11,500
8,500
3,000
670
300
370
4.3
495
9,900
151
I 1,000
5,000
6,000
1,037
600
437
8.7
511
10,220
152
19,000
10,800
8, 200
1,559
820
739
6.8
898
17,960
153
II, 100
3,900
7,200
736
720
16
.4
73
1,460
154
8,200
5,200
3,000
479
300
179
3.4
256
5,120
155
156
8,200
10, 200
5,200
3,000
599
300
299
5.7
376
7,520
5,200
5 000
849
500
349
6.7
426
8.520
157
158
78
14,400
21,000
6,900
7,500
1,287
750
537 7.7
639
12,780
16,000
5,000
1,639
500
1,139
7.1
1.375
27,500
159
5,600
2,800
2,800
542
280
262
9.3
303
6,060
160
25,500
II, 200
14,300
2,523
1,430
1,093 9.7
161 16,500
9,500
7,000
936
700
236
216
162
14,000
9,400
4,600
1,293
460
833
8.8
163
17,400
14,400
3,000 1,422
300
I, 122
165
164 13,000
77
737
1,258
25,160
376
7,520
972
19,440
1,335
26,700
6,000
7,000 2,208
700
1,508
25.
1,596
31.920
39,000
20,000
19,000 2,423 1,900
523
2.6
819
166
39,500
21,000
18,500 2,415 1,850
16, 380
565
2.7
875
17,500
167
29,500
21,600
7,900 2,643
790
1,853
8.5
2,172
43,440
168
84,000
29,500
54,500
10,557 5,450 5,107
17.3
5,543
110,800
169
23,500
I 1,000
12,500
3,452
1,250
2,202
20.
2,364
47,280
170
4,500
2,200
2,300
353
230
123
5.6
155
3,100
171
6,500
3.300
3,200
786
320
466
14. I
514
10,280
172
17,000
6,300 10,700
1,602
1,070
532
8.4
625
12,500
173
6,300
3,100
3,200
447
320
127
4. I
172
3,440
174
6,500
4,000
2,500
504
250
254
6.3
313
6,260
14
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
H.
I.
10 per ct.
on Build-
What the
User pays
Numbers.
ings for
interest,
Per cent.
of Net
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
of
Land.
Net
Rental
insurance,
repairs,
Net
Income
Assessed
Building. ing
after pay- and depre.
ing Taxes. ciation,
from
Land.
of Land.
Income
on
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
the Net
Ground
Valuation Rent plus Capitalized
the Tax. at 5 per cent.
Gross
Value
of Land,
the User's
Rent

175
176
177
178
77
5678
$5,500
$4,000
$1,500
$519
$150
$369
9.2
$428
$8,560
6,400
4,000
2,400
505
240
265
6.6
324
6,480
21,700
14,700
7,000
3,179
700
2,479
16.8
2,696
53,920
34,000
25,300
8,700
I,997
870
1,127
4.4
1,501
30,020
179
42,900
27,900
I 5,000
12,115
1,500
10,615
38.
11,028
220,560
180
39,800
37,300
2,500
1,661
250
1,4II 3.8
1,963
39,260
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
181
80,000
25,000
55,000
6,816
5,500
1,316
5.3
1,686
33,720
182
32 000
21,000
I 1,000
1,926
1,100
826 3.9
1,137
22,740
183
31,300
22,300
9,000
2,537
900
1,637
7.3
1,967
39,340
184
30,100
21,600
8,500 1,955
850
1,105
5.I
1,424
28,480
185 44,000
21,700
22,300 I,949
2,230
- 281
40
800
186
23,500
5,500
18,000 1,800
1,800
81
1,620
187
25,800
17,800
8,000 1,618
800
818
4.6
1,081
21,620
188
52,000
39,000
13,000 3,150
1,300
1,850
4.7
2,427
43,540
189
104,800
86,800
18,000 10,449
1,800
8,649
IO.
9.934
198,680
190
44,000
37,000
7,000 2,400
700
1,700
4.6
2,247
44,940
191
45,200
37,200
8,000 2,300
800
1,500
4.
2,050
41,000
192
140,000
64,000
76,000 8,750 7,600
1,150
1.8
2,097
41,940
193
91,000
77,700
13,300
6,403
1,330
5,073
6.5
6,223
124.460
194
99,000 84,400
14,600
5,135
1,460
3,675
4.3
4,924
98,480
195
23,800
15,800
8,000
748
800
52
182
3,640
196
19,300
15,800
3,500
614
350
264
1.7
197
9,900
6,400
3,500
700
350
350
5.5
75
498
9,960
445
8,900
198
9,900
6,400
3,500
600
350
250
4.
345
6,900
199
15,000
7,600
7,400
978
740
238
3.I
350
7,000
200
II,200
9, 200
2,000
814
200
614
5.6
750
15,000
201
74,200
66,700
7,500
4,500
202 85,600
750
3,750
5.6
4,737
94,740
63,600
22,000
5,000
2,200
2,800
4.4
3,741
74,820
203
45,800
37,800
8,000
1,722
800
922
2.4
1,481
29,620
204
50,000
45,000
5,000
2,600
500
2,100
4.7
2,766
55.320
205
22,000
12,000
10,000
1,360
1,000
360
3.
537
10,740
206
102,300
58,300
44,000
7,536
4,400
3,136
207
8,000!
5,000
3,000
602
300
302 6.
208
107,000
102,000
5,000 4,916
500
4,416
209
40,900
30,900
10,000 2,755
1,000
I,755
மம் சம்
5.4
3,999
79,980
376
7,520
4.3
5.7
210
60,000
40,000
20,000 2,612
2,000
612
1.5
211
42,000
36,000
6,000 1,378
600
778
212
25,800
21,300
213
46,900
28,900
4,500
· 18,000
1,618
450
1,168
3,43I
1,800
1,631
214
157,000 123,500
33,500
8,476 3,350
5,126
& in in &
2.I
5.5
5.6
4.2
375T SO 2
5,925
118,500
2,212
44,240
1,204
24,080
1,311
26,220
1,483
29,660
2,059
41,180
6,954
139,080
215
J17,500
57,500
60,000
3,761
6,000
- 2239
1,388
27,760
216
49,000
33,900
15,100
3,000
1,510
I,490
4.4
1,992
39,840
217
22,000
17,000
5,000
1,500
500
1,000
6.
1,252
25,040
218
21,000
17,000
4,000
1,000
400
600
3.5
219
56,800 51,800
5,000 3,000
500
2,500
4.8
500
851
17,020
3,267
65,340
220
25,200
19,200
6,000 1,500
600
900 4.7
1,184
23,680
221
32,500
19,500
13,000
1,969
1,300
669 3.4
957
19, 140
222
75,000
55,000
20,000
4,390
2,000
2,390
4.3
3,204
2231
134,700
99,700
35,000
10,406
3,500
6,906| 7.
8,381
224
36,300
23,300
13,000
2,163
300
1,863 8.
2,208
64 080
167,620
44,160
225
97,500
69,900 27,600
5,557
2,760
2,797 4.
3,831
76,620
226
20,000
I 1,000
9,000
1,904
900
1,004
9. I
1,166
23,320
227 238,000
229,500
8,500
10,000
850
9,150
4.
228
12,800
9,800
3,000
1,211
300
911
9.3
229
84,900
64,900
20,000
6,943
2,000
4,943
7.6
230 141,900
116,900
25,000
7,000
2,500
4,500
3.8
231
127,700 104, 200
23,500 4,970
2,350
2,620 2.5
232
59,400
34,400
25,000 3,5001
2,500
1,000 2.8
36∞ 1000
12,546
1,056
250,920
21,120
5,903
118,060
6,230
4,162 83,240
30,180
1,509
124,600
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
15
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
H.
1.
What the
Io per ct.
User pays
on Build.
Numbers.
ings for
interest,
Per cent.
of Net
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
of
Net
Rental
insurance,
Net
Income
on
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
Gross
Value
of Land,
repairs,
Income
Assessed
the Net
Ground
the User's
Rent
after pay- and depre
from
Land.
Building. ing Taxes.
ing Taxes.
ciation.
Land.
Valuation Rent plus Capitalized
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
233
$54,900
$40,900
$14,000
$4,750
$1,400
$3,350
8.2
234
54,600
50,400
4,200
I, 192
420
772
1.5
235
98,500
76,500
22,000
6,442
2,200
4,242 5.5
236
141,000
II1,000
30,000
1,013
3,000
8,013
7.2
237
163,200
I 30, 200
33,000
7,000
3,300
3,700
2.8
238
149,000
136,000
13,000
I 1,000
1,300
9,700 7.1
239
305,000
146,500
158,500
24,000
15,850
8,150
5.5
240
269,000
189,000
80,000
20,000
8,000
12,000
6.3
255200 - LOM
$3,955
$79,100
1,518
30,360
5,374
107,480
9,656
193,126
5,627
112,540
11,713
234,260
10,318
206,360
14,797
295,940
24I
11,800
9,300
2,500
305
250
55
.6
193
3,860
242
13,300
10,600
2,700
223
270
47
IIO
2,200
243
25,700
25,200
500
1,370
20
1,350
5.4
1,723
34,460
244
14,100
I1,300
2,800
271
280
9
158
3,160
245
13,300
I1,300
2,000
803
200
603
5.3
770
15,400
246
15,600
12,600
3,000
249
300
- 51
135
2,700
247
13,000
11,700
1,300
288
130
158
1.3
331
6,620
248
18,000
8,500
9,500
1,338
950
388
4.6
514
10,280
249
9,300
6,300
3,000
402
300
102
1.6
195
3,900
250
9,300
6,300
3,000
402
300
102
1.6
195
3,900
251
7,800
3,400
4,400
485
440
45
1.3
95
1,900
252
9,300
6,300
3,000
402
300
102
1.6
195
3,900
253
10,500
7,500
3,000 1,345
300
1,045
14.
1,156
23,120
254
184,000
104,000
80,000
6,000
8,000
2,000
255
140,000
134,000
6,000 7,000
600
6,400
4.8
256
3,500
1,300
2,200
100
220
I 20
257
124,500
91,500
33,000
10,000
33,000
6,700
7.3
258
5.600
3,900
1,700
277
170
107
2.7
- 461
8,383
· ΙΟΙ
8,054
165
- 9,220
- 2,020
161,080
3,300
167,660
259
8,000
5,500
2,500
142
250
108
27
260
9,000
3,500
5,500
707
550
157
4.5
209
540
4, 180
261
7,800
5,000
2,800
269
280
I I
63
I,260
262
10,300
7,300
3,000
304
300
4
II2
2,240
263 10,300
7,300
3,000
328
300
264
10,300
7,300
3,000
328
300
265
10,300
7,300
3,000
352
300
266
10,300
7,300
3,000
352
300
267
10,300
7,300
3,000
352
300
268
10,300
7,300
3,000
328
300
2 2 10 40 40 2
28
.4
136
2,720
28
.4
136
2,790
52
.7
160
3,200
52
.7
160
3,200
52
.7
160
3,200
28
•4.
136
2,700
269
249,000
179,000
70,000
15,000
7,000
8,000
4.5
10,649
212,980
270
13,300
10,500
2,800
403
280
123
1.2
278
5,560
271
7,000
4,500
2,500
234
250
16
50
1,000
272
5,200
3,200
2,000
403
200
203
6.3
250
5,000
273
5,400
2,000
3,400
460
340
120
6.
150
3,000
274
6,600
1,600
5,000
502
500
275
6,600
1,600
5,000
502
500
2 2
2
.I
26
520
.I
26
520
2 2 2
276
5,400
1,600
3,800
520
380
140
277
6,600
2,300
4,300
622
430
172
278
8,900
3,400
5,500
668
550
118 3.5
279
12,500
5,400
7,100
915
710
205
ळंळं लंलं
8.8
о
164
3,280
8.4
226
4,520
3.8
5∞
168
3,360
285
5,700
280
16,500
6,200
10,300
956
1,030
-74
17!
340
281
10,300
5,300
5,000
748
500
248
4.7
326
6,520
282
13,000
4,800
8,200
808
820
12
59
1,180
283
5,200
3,200
2,000
403
200
203
6.3
250
5,000
284
5,200
3,200
2,000
403
200
203
6.3
250
5,000
285
108,000
72,000
36,000
4,500
3,600
900
1.3
1,965
39,300
286
7,600
4,900
2,700
368
270
98
2.
170
3,400
287
7,500
5,000
2,500
369
250
119
2.4
193
3,860
288
7,400
4,900
2,500
370
250
I 20
2.4
192
3,840
289
7,800
5,300
2,500
365
250
115
2.2
193
3,860
290
7,300
4,800
2,500
336
250
86'
1.8
157
3,140
16
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
Io per ct.
H.
What the
User pays
I.
on Build.
Per cent.
Numbers.
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
of
Land.
Net
Rental
ings for
interest,
insurance,
of Net
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
Net
the Net
repairs,
Income
after pay- and depre.
from
Building. ing Taxes.
ciation.
Land.
Income
on
Assessed Ground
Valuation Rent plus Capitalized
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
Gross
Value
of Land,
the User's
Rent
291
$6,300
$4,100
$2,200
$363
$220
$143
3.I
292
117,900
97,900
20,000
7,255
2,000
5,255
5.4
293
54,800
39,300
15,500
1,589
1,550
39
. I
44
$203
6,704
$4,060
134,080
620
294
352,000
288,000
64,000
18,000
6,400
11,600
4.
15,862
12,400
317,240
295
159,000
147,200
11,800
10,300
1,180
9, 120
6.2
11,298
225,960
2 2 2
296
4,700
1,700
3,000
452
300
152
9.
177
3,540
297
8,400
6,400
2,000
I, 200
200
1,000
15.6
1,095
21,900
298
320,000
285,600
34,400
15,264
3,440
11,824
4.I
16.051
321,620
299
7,800
2,300
5,500,
569
550
19
.9
53
1,060
300
27,300
15,800
11.500
1,780
1,150
630
4.
864
17,280
301
36,500
24,400
12,100
1,560
1,210
350
I.4
711
14,220
302
45,500
40,000
5,500
1,127
550
577
1.4
1,169
23,380
303
14,500
10,900
3,600
1,345
360
985
9.
1,146
22,920
304
14,900
8,400
6,500
979
650
329
4.
453
9,060
305
400,000
299,000
IO1,000
19,080
10, 100
8,980
3.
13,405
268,100
306
94,000
78,800
15,200
3,109
1,520
1,589
2.
2,755
55,100
307
54,100
45,100
9,000
I,999
900
1,099
2.4
1,766
35,320
308
9,500
9,000
500
699
50
649
7.2
782
15,640
309
4,400
2,400
2,000
300
200
100
4.2
135
2,700
310
51,000
43,000
8,000
2,321
800
1,521
3.5
2,157
43,140
311
176,800
146,800
30,000
14,383
3,000
11,383
7.7
312
64,500
34,400
30, 100
3,245
3,010
235
.7
313
23,500
II,400
12,100
1,652
1,210
442
314
150,300
120,300
30,000
7,196
3,000
4, 196
315
32,500
28,200
4,300
1,919
430
1,489
316
30,200
15,200
15,000
3,153
1,500
1,653
mming
3.8
3.5
5.3
10.8
773 3300
13,555
271,100
744
14,880
610
12,200
5,976
119,520
1,906
38,120
1,878
37,560
317
II,900
9,400
2,500
924
250
674
7.I
813
16,260
318
39,100
31,100
8,000
3,021
800
2,221
7.I
2,681
53,620
319
9,000
3,900
5,100
1,067
510
557
14.3
615
320
7,100
3,600
3,500
675
350
325
9.
378
321
80,000
49,700
30,300
6,000
3,030
2,970
6.
3,705
ы сосы
12,300
7,560
74,100
322
44,500
15,800
28,700 5,141
2,870
2,271
14.4
2,505
50,100
323
68,000
60,000
8,000
2,160
800
1,360 2.3
2,248
44,960
324
74,200
66,700
7,500
2,902
750
2,152
3.2
3,139
62,780
325
100,000
65,400 34,600
4,670
3,460
1,210 1.8
2,178
43,560
326
72,000
60,000
12,000
2,434
I, 200
1,234 2.
2,122
42,440
327
98,000
82,400
15,600
4,916
1,560
3,356
4.
4,575
91,500
328
119,000
100,000
19,000
9,309
1,900
7,409
7.4
8,889
177,780
329
138,000
73,000
65,000
11,458
6,500
4,958
6.8
6,038
120,760
330
86,500
83,000
3,500
4,720
350
4.370 5.3
5,598
111,960
331
40,400
24,400
16,000
3,402
1,600
1,802
7.4
2,163
43,260
332
116,000
51,000
65,000
10,283
6,500
3,783
7.4
4,537
90,740
333
8,500
3,300
5,200
594
520
74
2.2
123
2,460
334
7,800
2,000
5,800
785
580
205
10.2
234
4,680
335
8,000
3,100
4,900
602
490
112
3.6
158
3,160
336
9,000
4,800
4,200
587
420
167
3.5
238
4,760
337
10,000
3,300
6,700
692
670
22
.7
71
I,420
338
12,000
6,900!
5,100
822
510
312
4.5
414
8,280
339
30,500
23,900
6,600
1,849
660
1,189
5.
1,543
30,860
340
6,800
5,400
I,400
379
140
239
4.4
319
6,380
341
10,000
7,500
2,500
332
250
82
I. I
193
3,860
342
14,800
12,800
2,000
381
200
181
I.4
370
7,400
343
12,300
5,700
6,600
1,300
660
640
II.
724
14.480
344
16,600
12,000
4,600
754
460
294
2.4
47I
9,420
345
18,100
10,100
8,000
1,600
800
800
8.
949
18,980
346
19,600
7,100
12,500 1,660
1,250
410
6.
515
10,300
347
20,000
15,500
4,500 I,504
450
1,054
6.8
1,283
348
36,500l
7,800
25,660
28,700
2,580 2,870
290
175
- 3,500
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENT ALS.
17
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
Io per ct.
H.
What the
User pays
1.
on Build.
Per cent.
Numbers.
ings for
interest,
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
Land.
Net
insurance,
Rental
repairs,
Net
Income
the Net
of
after pay- and depre-
from
Valuation Rent plus
Building. ing Taxes.
ing Taxes.
ciation.
Land.
of Net
Income
on
Assessed Ground
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
Gross
Value
of Land,
the User's
Rent
Capitalized
349
$33,500 $9,900
$23,600
$3,590
$3,590
$2,360
$1,230
12.4
$1,376
$27.520
350
34,000
18,000
16,000
2,797
1,600
1,197
6.6
1,463
29,260
351
34,500
25,700
8,800
1,689
880
809 3.I
1,189
23,780
352
37,000
31,000
6,000
2,202
600
1,602 5.I
2,061
41,220
353
42,500
16,500
26,000
5,321
2,600
2,721
16.2
2,965
59,300
354
50,000
13,000
37,000
3,580
3,700
I 20
72
I,440
355
45,500
11,600
33.900
5,127
3,390
1,737
15.
1,908
38,160
356
57,000
34,000
23,000
3,956
2,300
1,656
4.9
2,159
43.180
357
54,400
35,400
19,000 4,895
I,900
2,995
8.4
3,519
70,380
3333
358
20,000
15,000
5,000
704
500
204
1.4
426
8,520
359
22,500
19,300
3,200
723
320
403
2.
688
13,760
360
15,600
12,600
3,000
369
300
69
·5
255
5,100
361
7,000
4,700
2,300
376
230
146
3.I
216
4,320
362
I 1,500
6,300
5,200
1,126
520
606
9.6
699
13,980
363
22,000
7,800
14, 200
1,614
1,420
194
2.5
309
6,180
364
7,700
5,200
2,500
426
250
176
3.4
253
5,060
365
7,700
5,200
2,500
426
250
176
3.4
253
5,060
366
9,200
4,600
4,600
664
460
204
4.4
272
5,440
367
19,000
8,000
I 1,000
1,800
I, 100
700
8.7
818
16,360
368
42,200
35,700
6,500
2,447
650
1,797
5.
2,325
46,500
369
66,500
56,500
I0,000 3,100
1,000
2,100
3.7
2,936
58,720
370
37,700
23,700
14,000 3,042
1,400
1,642
6.9
1,992
39,840
371
140,000
I 34,000
6,000 8,500
600
7,900 5.9
9,883
197,660
372
95,000
373
17,000
77,000
I 1,000
18,000 4,850
1,800
3,050 3.9
4,189
83,780
6,000 1,468
600
868
7.9
1,031
20,620
374
21,000
375
196,000
376
29,400
17,000
86, 200
14, 100
4,000 1,279
400
879
5.2
1,130
22,600
109,800 9,000
10,980
- 1,980
704
14,080
15,300 1,800
1,530
270
1.9
478
377
98,000
79,600
18,400 5,600
9,560
1,840
3,760
4.7
4,938
98,760
378
64,500
44,400
20,100 2,845
2,010
835
I.2
1,492
29,840
379
25,000
19,000
6,000 1,790
600
I, 190
6.2
1,471
29,420
380
52,500
42,500
10,000 4,500
1,000
3,500
8.2
4,129
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ a
333♡♡♡♡♡♡♡
381
382
383
384
386
387
388
389
390
391
82,580
125,900
65,900
60,000
9,600
6,000
3,600
5.4
4:575
71,600
91,500
41,600
30,000
5,540
3,000
2,540
6. I
3,155
63,100
425,000
317,000
108,000 16,000
10,800
5,200
1.6
9,891
197,820
73,000
65,000
385
49,000 38,500
8,000
10,500 4,000
3,900
800
3,100
4.7
4,062
81,240
1,050
2,950
7.6
3,520
70,400
13,000
11,700
I,300
288
52,000
260,000
27,400
24,600 3,030
130
2,460
158
1.3
331
6,620
570
2.
975
19,500
156,000
104,000
15,000
10,400 4,600
2.9
6,909
138,180
9,000
5,000
4,000
467
400
67
1.3
141
2,820
8,600
6,100
2.500
293
250
43
.7
133
185,500
125,500
60,000 11,580
6,000
5,580
4.4
392
39,300
34,300
5,000 3,418
500
2,918
8.5
45
7,437
3,425
2,660
148,740
68,500
393
7,000
1,900
5,100
396
510
114
86
1,720
394
9,000
3,000
6,000
623
600
23
395
13,000
5,700
7,300
1,168
730
438
300
.7
67
1,340
7.7
522
10,440
396
32,500
25,900
6,600 1,619
660
959 3.7
1,342
397
169,400
150,000
19,400 6,750
26,840
I,940 4,810
3.2
398
65,500
39,500
399
31,000
23,800
26,000 3,531
7,200 I,541
2,600
931 2.3
400
370,000
337,500
32,500 20,000
401
84,000
67,800
16,200
402
243,000
224,000
19,000
403
103,600
83,600
20,000
404
218,000
191,500
26,500
405
77,000
60,000
17,000
406
180,000
133,000
47,000
720
3,250
7,500 1,620 5,880
9,454 1,900 7,554
3,300 2,000 1,300
13,000 2,650 10,350
7,000 1,700 5,300 8.8
12,000 4,700 7,300
821
16,750
دب به دب
3.4
234
7,030
140,600
1,515
30,300
1,173
23,460
5.
21,737
434,740
8.7
6,883
137,660
3.3
10,869
217,380
1.5
2,537
50,740
inos in
5.4
5.5
40 5
13,184 263,680
6,188
123,760
9,268
185,360
18
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-one reNTALS.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
Io per ct.
on Build.
H.
What the
User pays
I.
ings for
Numbers.
interest,
Per cent.
of Net
Income
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
of
Net
Rental
after pay-
insurance,
repairs,
Net
Income
and depre.
from
Land. Building. ing Taxes.
ciation.
Land.
on
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
the Net
Assessed Ground
Valuation Rent plus
of Land. the Tax.
Rent
Capitalized
at 5 per cent.
Gross
Value
of Land,
the User's
407
$19,000 $15,000 $4,000
$619
$400
$219
I.4
$441
$8,820
408
227,000
197,000
30,000
10,000
3,000
7,000
3.5
9,915
198,300
409
32,000
12,400
19,600
2,026
1,960
66
.5
410
105,400
90,400
15,000
4,000
1,500
2,500
2.7
249
3,838
4,980
76,760
411
286,000
263,600
22,400
9,500
2,240
7,260
2.7
II,
11,161
223,220
412
1,760,000
I,460,000
300,000 100,000
30,000
70,000
4.7
91,608
1,832,160
413
205,000
118,000
87,000 14,772
8,700
6,072
5. I
7,818
156,360
414
131,500
81,500
50,000 8,054
€5,000
3,054
3.7
4,263
85,260
415
6,500
6,500
vacant
480
480
7.4
416
576
11,520
9,30c
6,300
3,000
282
300
18
75
I,500
417
9,300
6,300
3,000
402
300
102
1.6
195
3,900
418
9,800
6,300
3,500
395
350
45
.7
138
2,760
419
13,500
5,800
7,700
1,000
770
230
4.
316
6,320
420
20,200
11,700
8,500
1,700
850
850
7.3
1,023
20,460
421
16,200
6,200
10,000
560
1,000
440
348
- 6,960
422
9,800
3,300
6,500
655
650
5
.2
54
1,080
423
27,000
22,500
14,500
1,600
1,450
150
.7
483
9,660
424
28,000
II, 200
16,800
1,586
1,680
94
72
I,440
425
28,000
17,100
10,900
1,586
I,090
496
2.9
749
14,980
426
23,500
10,000
13,500
1,652 1,350
302
3.
450
9,000
427
20,000
I 1,000
19,000
1,904 1,900
4
167
3,340
428
34,500
16,500
18,000 1,989
1,800
189
I. I
433
8,660
429
20,000
7,000
13,000
1,504 1,300
204
2.9
307
6,140
430
15,500
6,500
9,000
1,271
900
371
431
15,000
7,000
8,000
1,178
800
378
432
18,000
8,300
9,700
1,534
970
564
556
5.7
5.4
6.8
74∞
467
9,340
482
9,640
687
13,740
433
43,000
17,000
26,000
2,364
2,600
236
16
320
434
.9,000
3,900
5,100
867
510
357
9.2
415
8,300
435
7,200
3,300
3,900
613
390
223
6.7
372
7,440
436
18,400
14,900
3,500
808
350
458
3.I
678
13,560
437
9,100
7,100
2,000
665
200
465
6.5
570
II,400
438
10,500
4,700
5,800
1,245
580
665
14. I
735
14,700
439
7,500
3,300
4,200
689
420
269
8.2
318
6,360
440
22,500
13,900
8,600
2,167
860
1,307
9.4
1,512
30,240
44I
8,300
2,900
5,400
777
540
237
8.2
280
5,600
442
9,200
6,200
3,000
464
300
164 2.6
256
5,120
443
46,900
26,900
20,000
I,106
2,000
894
496
- 9,920
444
35,000
14,600
20,400
1,982
2,040
58
158
3,160
445
25,000
10,000
15,000
1,630
1,500
130
1.3
446
48,000
32,500
15,500 1,790
1,550
240
.7
447
26,000
12,300
13,700 1,815
1,370
445 3.6
448
34,000
19,000
15,000 2,497
1,500
997
5.2
449
22,000
11,700
10,300
1,874
1,030
844
7.2
3262 2
278
721
5,560
14,420
627
12,540
1,278
25,560
1,017
450
47,000
22,500
24,500
1,804
2,450
-646
313
20, 340
6,260
45I
22,000
II, 200
10,800
1,174
1,080
94
.8
260
5,200
452
27,500
17,100
10,400
I,393
1,040
353
2. I
606
12,120
453
26,500
12,600
13,900
1,708 1,390
318 2.5
504
10,080
454
31,000
14,000
17,000 I,241
1,700
459
252
5,040
455
25,000
10,000
15,000 1,830
1,500
330
3.3
478
9,560
456
13,300
457
23,500
6,300
10,000
7,000
703
700
3
96
1,920
13,500 1,152
1,350
198
50
1,000
458
20,000
I 1,000
9,000 2,004
900
I, 104
10.
1,267
25,340
459
26,000
15,100
10,900
1,315
1,090
225
1.5
448
8,960
460
22,200
12,100
10,100 1,371
Ι,ΟΙΟ
361
3.
540
10,800
461
19,000
10,300
8,700
1,219
870
349
3.4
501
10,020
462
40,000
19,300
20,700
1,608
464
463 24,000
2,070
462
176
· 3,520
8,000
16,000
1,845
1,600
245
3.I
363
7,260
20,500
15,800
4,700 2,041
470
1,571
9.9
1,805
36,100
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
19
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
Numbers.
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
Land.
Net
Rental
Io per ct.
on Build.
ings for
interest,
insurance,
H.
What the
User pays
L.
Per cent,
of Net
for the
use of the
Income
Land, i.e.,
Gross
Value
of Land,
of
after pay-
repairs,
and depre-
Net
Income
the Net
from
Building. ing Taxes.
ciation.
Land.
on
Assessed Ground
Valuation Rent plus Capitalized
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
the User's
Rent
465
$7,500
$4,100
$3,400
$689
$340
$349
8.5
$410
$8,200
466
7,700
2 700
5,000
686
500
186
6.9
226
4,520
467
17,000
10,000
7,000
948
700
248
2.5
396
7,920
468
18,500
12,300
6,200
926
620
306
2.5
488
9.760
469
43,000
14,000
29,000
5,364
2,900
2,464 17.6
2,671
53.420
470
16,000
8,800
7,200
763
720
43
471
14,000
4,800
9,200
993
920
73 1.5
472
13,800
5,300
8,500
996
850
146 2.7
557
173
3,460
144
2,880
224
4,480
473
15.500
8,000
7,500 1,171
750
421 5.3
539
10,780
474
7,000
2,700
4,300
696
430
266
9.8
306
6,120
475
8,300
3,300
5,000
729
500
229
69
278
5,560
476
13,300
6,300
7,000
803
700
103
1.6
196
3,920
477
12,700
9,100
3,600
1,012
360
652;
7.2
787
15,740
478
9,500
3,000
6,500
699
650.
49
1.6
93
1,860
479
9,400
4,400
5,000
761
500
261
6.
326
6,520
480
8,300
3,300
5,000
617
500
117
3.5
166
3,320
481
5,200
2,600
2,600
648
260
388
15.
426
8,520
482
30,600
12,500
18,100
1,147
1,810
663
478
- 9,560
483
5,500
3,000
2,500
399
250
149
484
6,200
1,300
4,900
508
490
18
485
5,400
I, 200
4,200
460
420
40
486
4,800
2,000
2,800
409
280
129
பூட்றம்
5.
193
3,860
1.5
37
740
3.3
58
1,160
6.4
159
487
124,000
106,000
18,000
9,165
1,800
7,365
6.9
8,934
3,180
178,680
488
3,400
1,500
1,900
382
190
192
12.8
214
4,280
489
15,000
8,900
6,100
778
610
168
1.9
300
6,000
490
9,000
3,900
5,100
867
510
357
491
9,500
3,900
5,600
759
560
199 5.
492
9,500
2,900
5,600
759
560!
199
493
22,500
19,500
3,000
867
300
567
3.
ain in m
9.
415
8,300
257
5,140
5.
257
5,140
856
17, 120
494
7,000
2,000
5,000
546
500
46
2.3
76
1,520
495
6,000
2,300
3,700
416
370
126
5.5
160
3,200
496
13,500
5,800
7,700
1,300
770
530 9.
616
12,320
497
8,200
3,600
4,600
479
460
19
.5
498
II, 200
7,000
4, 200
674
420
254
3.6
499
11,800
6,800
5,000
725
500
225
3.3
500
12,400
6,700
5,700
656
570
86 1.3
501
13,100
7,600
5,500
910
550
360
4.7
502
12,000
5,800
6,200
722
620
102
752 ∞ ∞
72
1,440
358
7,160
326
6,520
185
3,700
472
9,440
1.7
188
3 760
5031
22,000
5,400
16,600
I,440
1,660
220
I 40
- 2,800
504
19,600
13,600
6,000
1,330
600i
730
5.4
931
18,620
505
13,400
8,600
4,800
1,802
480
1,329
15.4
I,449
28.980
506
9,500
3,900
5,600
759
560
192
5.I
257
5,140
507
7,500
3,200
4,300
489
430,
59
1.9
106
2,120
508
8,000
3,300
4,700
562
470
92
2.8
141
2,820
509
21,000
4,000
17,000
1,601
1,700
· 99
40
- Soo
510
9,000
3,300
5,700
917
570
347
10.5
396
7,920
511
9,000
3,400
5,600
917
560
357
10.5
407
8,140
512
9,000
3,000
6,000
827
600
227 7.6
271
5,420
513
3,700
1,900
1,800
365
180
185
IO.
213
4.260
514
8,700
2,700
6,000
591
600
9
31
515
516
517
518
519
5678 6
II,700
5,700
6,000
I,740
600
1,140
20.
I,224
620
24,480
9,000
4,800
4,200
643
420
223
4.7
8,200
4,000
4, 200
1,079
420
659
16.5
294
718
5,880
14,360
I1,500
7,500
4,000
886
400
486
6.5
597!
11,940
6,000
1,800
4,200
471
420
51
3.
77
1,540
520
10,000
3,000
7,000
1,052
700
352
11.7
396
7,920
521
19,500
10,500
9,000
1,311
900
4II
4.
566
11,320
522
9,000
5,300
3,7001
737
370
3671
6.9
445
8,900
20
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
Numbers.
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
of
Land.
Building. ing Taxes.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
H.
What the
1.
10 per ct.
on Build-
User pays
ings for
interest,
Per cent.
of Net
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
Gross
Net
Rental
after pay- and depre.
insurance,
repairs,
ciation.
Net
Income
from
Valuation Rent plus
Land.
Income
on
the Net
Assessed Ground
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
Value
of Land,
the User's
Rent
Capitalized
523
$6,300
$4,300
$2,000
$1,407
$200
$1,207
29.
$1,271
524
50,000
21,900
28,100
4,560
2,810
1,750
8.
2,074
$25,420
41,480
525
52,700
36,200
16,500
4,320
1,650
2,670
7.4
3,206
526
27,400
10,900
16,500
1,594
1,650
56
105
527
68,500
41,400
27,100
6,986
2,710
4,276
10.3
4,889
64, 120
2,100
97,780
528
19,900
9,600
10,300
2,305
1,030
1,275
13.3
1,417
28,340
529
3,100
1,600
1,500
410
150
260
16.3
284
5,680
530
8,000
6,400
1,600
492
160
332
5.2
531
11,500
4,900
6,600
930
660
270
5.5
532
11,500
4,900
6,600
1,030
660
370
7.6
533
15,400
10,900
4,500
1,043
450
593
5.4
534
194,500
168,500
26,000
5,321
2,600
2,721
1.6
535
9,500
7,000
2,500
859
250
609
8.7
2 56 TO7
427
8,540
342
6,840
442
8,840
754
15,080
5,215
104,300
713
14,260
536
9,000
5,500
3,500
371
350
21
.4
102
537
9,500
5,400
4,100
859
410
449
8.3
529
2,040
10,580
538 13,000
5,900
7,100
808
710
98
1.7
185
3,700
539
580,000
516,000
64,000
42,000
6,400
35,600
6.9
43,237
864,740
540
454,000
437,300
16,700
18,000
1,670 16,330
3.7
22,802
456,040
541
216,000
192,000
24,000 11,803
2,400
9,403 4.9
12,245
244,900
542
150,700
118,700
32,000 8,500
3,200
5.300 4.5
7,057
141, 140
543
106,500
81,500
25,000 8,299
2,500
5,799 7.I
7,005
140, 100
544
325,000
315,000
10,000 6,000
1,000
5,000 1.6
9,662
545
425,000
317,000
108,000 32,000
10,800
21,200
6.6
25,892
546
61,500
20,800
40,700
5,090
4,070
1,020
4.9
1,328
193,240
517,840
26,560
547
22,000
5,400
16,600
I,574 1,660
- 86
6
I 20
548
13,600
8,200
5,4CO
819
540
279
3.4
549
I 1,000
4,600
6,400
787
640
147
3.2
550
9,900
3,900
6,000
1,200
600
600 15.4
551
44,300
16,300
28,000
4,244
2,800
1,444
8.8
552
12,400
10,600
1,800
900
180
720 6.8
553
7,500
6,500
1,000
370
100
270
4.2
554
9,100
7,100
2,000
865
200
665
9.3
555
12,600
9,600
3,000
1,314
300
1,014
10.6
556
9,800
9,000
800
855
80
557
46,600
28,600
18,000
3,510
1,800
775
1,710
8.6
42 4∞ ∞ ~ 3OO
400
8,000
215
4,300
658
13,160
1,685
33,700
877
17,540
366
7,320
770
15,400
1,156
23,120
908
18,160
6.
2,133
42,660
558
13,400
8,600
4,800
1,521
480
1,041 12.I
1,168
23,360
559
44,500
25,500
19,000
5,000
1,900
3,100
12.2
3,477
69,540
560
16,300
II, 100
5,200
869
520
289 2.6
453
9,060
561
21,300
18,300
.3,000
765
300
465
2.5
736
14,720
562
14,800
12,800
2 000
321
200
121
.9
310
6,200
563
8,100
564
208,000
6,900
188,000
565
10,800
566
20,000
567
98,000
568
302,500
9,500
I 1,000
82,400
246,400
I, 200
20,000
1,300
150
I 20
30
.4
132
2,640
10,000
2,000
8,000
4·3
10,782
215,640
1,220
130
1,090
11.5
1,231
24,620
9,000
15,600
784
900
- 116]
4,200 1,560
2,640
3.2
56,100 20,000
5,610
14,390
5.8
2∞
47
3,860
18,037
569
36,000
31,000
2,000 2,267
200
2,067
6. I
2,570
940
77,200
360,740
51,400
570
21,600
14,600
7,000 1,080
700
380 2.6
596
571
141,000
572 200,000 170,000
122,500
18,500
5,663
1,850
3,813
3.I
5,626
11,920
112,520
30,000
6,540
3,000
3,540
2.I
573 137,000
112,300
24,700
6,572
2,470
4, 102
3.6
6,056
5,764
574
28,000
24,000
4,000 1,486
400
1,086
4.5
1,441
121, 120
115,280
28,820
575
10,000
8,000
2,000
692
200
492
576
555 5
577
578
78
78,300
249,800
54,300
24,000
4,341
2,400
1,941
234,800
15,000
I 1,000
1,500
9,500
+wa.
6.2
3.6
26
610
12,200
2,745
54,900
4.
12,975
259,500
9,000
5,200
3,800
943
380
563
10.8
640
12,800
579
6,300
1,8co
4,500
687
450
237 13.2
264
580
5,280
6.400
1,900
4,500
685
450'
235
12.4
263'
5,260
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
21

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
Io per ct.
on Build-
Numbers.
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
Land.
Net
Rental
ings for
interest,
insurance,
Per cent.
of Net
H.
What the
User pays
for the
use of the
I.
Land, i.e.,
Net
repairs,
Income
the Net
Ground
of
after pay- and depre.
Building. ing Taxes.
ciation.
from
Land.
Income
on
Assessed
Valuation Rent_plus Capitalized
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
Gross
Value
of Land,
the User's
Rent
∞∞
555
581
582
$250,000
$88,100
$161,900 $26,300 $16,190
$10,110
II.
11.5
27,500
22,500
5,000
2,593
500
2,093
583
103,300
80,300
23,000
10,000
2,300
7,700
584
63,000
50,800
12,200
3,488
I, 220
2,268
766
9.3
9.6
4.5
585
64,500
24,500
40,000
6,848
4,000
2,848
11.6
586 106,500
81,500
25,000
7,800
2,500!
5,300
6.5
587
255,000
226,300
28,700
II, 126
2,870
8,256
588
570,000
396,000
174,000
21,564
17,400
4,164
536 Do in
3-
$11,414
$228,280
2,426
48,520
8,888
177,760
3,020
60,400
3.6
3,211
6,506
11,605
64,220
130, 120
232,100
I. I
10,025
200, 500
589
3,900
900
3,000
342
300
42
4.7
55
I, 100
590
3,900
900
3,000
342
300
42
4.7
55
I, 100
591
4,000
I, 200
2,800
494
280
214
17.8
232
4,640
592
2,900
900
2,000
308
200
108
12.
121
2,420
593
2,900
900
2,000
308
200
108
I2.
121
2,420
594
3,000
1,000
2,000
299
200
99!
9.9
114
2,280
595
1,900
400
1,500
193
150
43
10.7
49
980
596
I,900
400
1,500
193
150
43!
10.7
49
980
597
1,900
400
1,500
284
150
134
33.5
140
2,800
598
55,000
10,900
44,100
4,582
4,410
172
1.6
333
6,660
599
12,100
2,100
10,000
1,621
1,000
621
29.6
652
13,040
600
6,000
1,900
4.100
391
410
- 19:
9
180
601
7,800
1,800
6,000
869
600
269
14.9
296
5,920
602
7,600
1,600
6,000
848
600
248
15.5
272
5.440
603
21,700
3,700
18,000
1,359
1,800
441
386
7,720
604
5,800
1,800
4,000
514
400
114
6.3
141
2,820
605
4,900
I,400
3,500
191
350
159
138
2,760
606
4,900
I,400
3,500
287
350
63
607
4,100
1,500
2,600
203
260
- 57
608
1,800
1,300
500
189
50
139
10.7
158
2 500
43
42
840
35
700
3,160
609
4,700
1,300
3,400
410
340
70
5.4
89
1,780
610
7,000
2,500
4,500
186
450
264
227
4,540
611
4,700
1,300
3,400
350
340
ΙΟ
.8
29
580
612
3,000
2,500
500
280
50
230
9.2
267
5,340
613
3,300
1,300
2,000
251
200
51
3.9
70
1,400
614
5,900
3,400
2,500
393
250
143
4.2
193
3,860
615
14,600
9,100
5,500
924
550
374 4.I
509
10, 180
616
13,200
5,200
8,000
621
Soo
179
102
2,040
617
14,800
6,800
8,000
589
800
2II
IIO
2,200
618
11,800
5,800
6,000
533
600
- 67
19
380
619
8.700
3,200
5,500
471
550
- 79
32
640
620
6,000
1,500
4,500
I, III
450
661
44.I
683
13,660
621
13,300
4,100
9,200
1,243
920
323
7.9
384
7,680
622
11,000
2,500
8,500
713
850
137
100
2,000
623
II, 200
2,700
8,500
566 $50!
284
244
4,880
624
3,000
800
2,200
244
220
625
3,000
800
2,200
196
220
2 2
24
3.
36
720
24
12
240
626
3,500
1,700
1,800
236
180
56
3.3
81
1,620
627
1,900
900
1,000
212
ΙΟΟ
II 2
12.4
125
2.500
628
88,000
IO, 200
77,800
10,378
7,780
2,598
25.5
2,749
54,980
629
12,000
2,600
9,400
1,262
940
322
12.4
360
7,200
630
8,800
5,800
3,000
570
300
270
4.7
356
7,120
631
12,800
6,000!
6,800
2,011
680
1,331
22.2
I,420
28,400
632
16,400
5,200
II, 200
1,457
I, 120
337
6.5
414
8,280
633
III,000
13,500
97,500
16,676
9,750
6,926
51.3
7,126
142,520
634
6,700
2.400
4,300
681
430
251
10.5
287
5,740
635
5,700
1,700
4,000
576
400
176
10.4
201
4,020
636
9,000
4,400
4,600
818
460
358
8. I
423
637
8,200
4,000
4,200
1,175
420
755
19.
814
8,460
516,280
6381
3,900l
900
3,000
342
300
42
4.7
55
1,100
22
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.

A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
H.
What the
1.
Io per ct.
User pays
on Build-
Numbers.
ings for
interest,
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
Land.
Net
insurance,
Net
Per cent.
of Net
Income
on
for the
use of the
Land, i.e.,
Gross
Value
the Net
of Land,
the User's
Rental
repairs,
Income
Assessed
Ground
Rent
of
after pay- and depre.
from
Building. ing Taxes.
ing Taxes.
ciation.
Land.
Valuation Rent_plus Capitalized
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
639
$42,300
$6,300
$36,000
$5,812 $3,600
$2,212
35.I
$2,305
$46, 100
640
10,900
1,900
9,000
1,003
900
103
5.4
131
2,620
641
3,900
2,400
1,500
182
150
32
1.3
67
1,340
642
5,000
3,200
1,800
370
180
190
5.9
237
4,740
643
2,900
2,400
500
139
50
89
3.7
125
2,500
644
5,200
700
4,500
571
450
121
17.3
131
2,620
645
2 700
500
2,200
476
220
256
51.2
263
5,260
646
36,100
16,100
20,000
2,310
2,000
310
1.9
647
8,500-
1,500
7,000
694
700
-6.
4I
548
10,960
16
320
648
6,100
I,100
5,000
390
500
IIO
94
1,880
649
5,900
2,400
3,500
393
350
43
1.8
78
1,560
650
7,000
2,200
4,800
616
480
136
6.2
168
3,360.
651
3,700
900
2,800
137
280
-143
130
2,600
652
21,400
8,000
13,400
1,103
I,340
-237
119
2,380
653
10,500
6,500
4,000
709
400
309
4.8
405
8,100
654
3,000
900
2,100
366
210
156
17.3
169
3,380
655
119,000
96,600
22,400
5,359
2,240
3,119
3.2
4,549
90,980
656
11,300
4,700
6,600
1,333
660
673
14.3
743
14,860
657
658
7∞
16,300 13,500
2,800
639
280
359
2.7
559
11,180
18,100
10,100
8,000
632
800
168
19
380
659
14,000
4,700
9,300
993
930
63
1.3
660
7,900
3,200
4,700
720
470
250
7.8
3∞
133
2,660
297
5,940
661
51,000
28,000
23,000
I,945
2,300
- 355
59
1,180
662
53,000
28,000
25,000
2,816
2,500
316
I. I
730
14,600
663
36,500
17,200
19,300 1,860
1,930
- 70
185
3,700
664
11,500
5,700
5,800
930
580
350
6. I
434
8,680
665
9,700
3,700
6,000
756
600
156
4.2
211
4,220
666
8,000
5,000
3,000
602
300
302
6.
376
7,520
667
5,500
2,400
3,100
1,369
310
1,059
44. I
1,095
21,900
668
6,000
2,200
3,800
511
380
131
6.
164
3,280
669
5,500
2,000
3,500
639
350
289
670
24,000
II,500
12,500
I,245
1,250
- 5
976
14.4
319
6,380
165
3,300
671
15,500
5,800
9,700
970
970
86
1,720
672
27,000
15,500
I1,500
1,900
1,150
750
4.8
979
19,580
673
20,000
11,900
8,100
I,504
810
694
5.8
870
17,400
674 50,000
37,000
13,000 2,760
1,302
1,460
4.
2,008
40, 160
675
20,500
14,300
6,200 I,297
620
677
4.7
889
17,780
676
20,000
12,000
8,000
424
800
- 376
198
3,960
677
8,700
5,500
3,200
771
320
451
8.2
532
10,640
678
12,700
4,800
7,900
812
790
22
.4
93
1,860
679
8,700
3,900
4,800
771
480
291
7.5
349
6,980
680
I 1,000
7,700
3,300
557
330
227
2.9
34I
6,820
681
I 1,000
6,000
5,000
2,300
500
1,800
30.
1,889
37,780
682
12,500
7,500
5,000
2,300
500
1,800
24.
1,911
38,220
683
40,400
24,900
15,500 1,800
1,550
250
I.
619
12,380
684
8,100
5,300
2,800
680
280
400
7.5
478
9,560
685
6,800
3,900
2,900
679
290
389
IO.
447
8,940
686
9,400
3,900
5,500
1,061
550
511
i3.1
569
11,380
687
23,000
11,800
II, 200
1,260
1,12J
140
I.2
315
6,300
688
27,000
I 1,000
16,000
1,600
1,600
163
3,260
689
24,000
10,700
13,300
845
1,330
485
327
6,540
690
17,000
8,600
8,400
1,348
840
508 6.
691
16,000
9,200
6,800!
1,163
680
483
oin
635
12,700
5.2
619
12,380
692
4,500
2,300
2,200
934
220
714
31.
748
14.960
694 17,500
693 30,000
18,600
II,400
1,356
1,140
216
I.2
491
9,820
8,000
695 26,500 10,800
9,500!
I,244
950
294 3.7
412
8,240
15,700
2,108
1,570
538
5.
698
696
25,500
I1,200
14,300 1,323
1,430
107
591
13,960
1,180
SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE RENTALS.
23
Numbers.
Total
Assessed
Valuation.
Assessed Assessed
Valuation Valuation
of
Land.
Net
Rental
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Less
F.
G.
H.
What the
I.
Io per ct.
User pays
on Build.
ings for
interest,
Per cent.
of Net
Income
on
for the
use of the!
Gross
Value
Land, i.e.,
of Land,
the Net
the User's
Assessed
Ground
Rent
insurance,
repairs,
Net
Income
of
Building. ing Taxes.
after pay- and depre.
from
ciation.
Land.
Valuation Rent plus Capitalized
of Land. the Tax. at 5 per cent.
697
698
78
$11,800
$5,000
$6,800 $1,025
$680
$345
6.9
$419
$8,380
123,000
106,000
18,oco 19,165
1,800
7,365
6.9
8,934
178.680
699
182,000
172,000
10,000 10,000
1,000
9,000
700
64,400
38,400
26,000
3.547
2,600
947
701
71,000
52,000
19,000
3,849
1,900
1,949
5 33
5.2
2.5
3.7
702
141,000
120,800
20,200
9,113
2,020
7,093
5.9
703
165,400
151,400
14,000
9,627
1,400
704
52,500
37,500
15,000 2,723
8,227
5.4
1,500
1,223
3.3
257943
I1,546
230,920
1,515
30,300
2,719
54,380
8,881
177,620
10,468
209,360
1,778
35,560
705
30,000
21,500
8,500
2,556
850
1,706
8.
2,024
40,480
706
30,100
21,600
8,500
2,555
850
1,705
7.9
2,024
40,480
707
61,500
53,000
708
104,800
53,800
8,500 3,590
850
2,740 5.2
3,524
70,480
51,000
8,000
5,100
2,900 5.4
3,696
73,920
709
58,800
40,800
18,000 4,130
1,800
2,330
5.7
710
48,400
34,400
14,000
3,284
1,400
1,884
5-5
711
I
48,000
36,000
12,000
3,500
I, 200
2,300
6.4
754
2,934
58,680
2,393
47,860
2,833
56,66c
712
77,500
62,500
15,000
5,853
1,500
4,353
7.
5,278
105,560
713
136,800
121,800
15,000
4,725
1,500
3,225
2.6
5,028
100,560
་་་་་
714
19,500
14,500
5,000
1,351
500
851
5.9
1,066
21,320
715
47,600
29,600
18,000
9,936
1,800
8,136
27.5
8,574
171,480
716
5,100
I, 100
4,000
•
417
400
17
1.5
33
660
717
5,100
I, 100
4,000
417
400
17
J
1.5
718
5,000
1,000
4,000
418
400
18
1.8
719
5,100
I, 100
4,000
417
400
17 1.5
720
7,000
2,500
4,500
712
450
262 10.5
721
3,200
2,600
600
133
60
73
2.8
сосли сост
33
660
33
660
33
660
290
5,980
III
2,220
722
3,000
I, 100
1,900
172
190
18
2
40
723
2,800
800
2,000
151
200
49
37
740
724
4,900
1,800
3,100
263
310
47
20
400
725
7,000
3,000
4,000
544
400
144
4.8
188
3,760
726
5,800
1,300
4,500
490
450
40
3.I
59
I, 180
727
6,900
900
6,000
341
600
-259
246
4,920
728
24,500
7,500
17,000
1,857
1,700
157
2.I
268
5,360
729
22,400
6,400
16,000
1,888
1,600
288
4.5
383
7,600
730
4,600
I,200
3,400
332
340
8
ΙΟ
2CO
731
4,800
I, 200
3,600
329
360
31
13
260
732
4,600
I, 200
3,400
332
340
733
4,600
I, 200
3,400
332
340
∞∞
8
IO
200
IO
200
734
4,500
I, 100
3,400
333
340
735
4,600
I, 200
3,400
332
340
736
4,600
I, 200
3,400
332
340
737
5,400
I,400
4,000
412
400
12
7∞∞ 2
9
180
ΙΟ
200
IO
200
.8
33
738
5,100
I, 100
4,000
417
400
17
1.5
33
33
660
660
739
5,100
I, 100
4,000
417
400
17 1.5
33
660
740
5,100
1,100
4,000
417
400
741
5,100
I, 100
17 1.5
33
660
4,000
417
400
17
1.5
33
660
742
5,100
1,500
3,600
297
360
63
41
820
743
45,700
8,200
37,500
4,124
3,750
744
44,800
374 4.6
495
9,900
7,300
37,500
4,137
3,750
387
5.3
495
9,900
745
1,300
700
600
317
60
257 36.7
267
5.340
746
4,900
4,300
600
527
60
467 10.9
531
10,620
747
7,000
2,200
4,800
616
480
136
6.2
169
3,380
748
1,800
500
1,300
189
130
59 II.8
66
1,320
749
7,700
2,400
5,300
636
530
106
4.4
142
2,840
750
6,900
900
6,000
341
600 -259
246
4,920
751
1,900
400
1,500
167
150
17
4.2
23
460
T'I 35,808,800 25,067,800 10,741,000 2,277,222 1,071,800 1,205,422
4.8
1,577,425 31,548,500
24
GROSS LAND VALUE OF BOSTON.
In the above totals the net ground rent plus the tax (column H) represents
more than five per cent. of the total assessed valuation, which in the previous table
averages less than five-sixths of the selling price, and only two-thirds of the esti-
mated gross value.
In the absence of contradictory or correcting testimony, you are asked to
accept these lists of one hundred and twenty estate sales and seven hundred and
fifty-one estate rentals respectively, as an indication of what the real ground rent
of Boston is, but it is desired now to submit to you a re-calculation, based upon the
assessed valuation alone, for an estimate of the
Gross Land Value of Boston.
The assessed valuation of Boston's land for 1902 is more than
Adding to this the capitalized value of the amount of tax now
on the land ($573,000,000, at $14.80 per thousand,
$8,480,400 at 20 years' purchase)
Would give as an actual capitalized ground rental value, not
less than
Add a low estimated value of franchises, which are land values
And we should have as a basis of assessment under the land
value tax a total capitalized ground rental value of at least
$573,000,000
169,600,000
$742,600,000
100,000,000
$842,600,000
On this basis of
The rate per thousand would be
For Local Taxes less than
For National, State, and Local
•
$842,600,000
$21.50
22.50
Five per cent. upon the above estimate of $842,600,000
would give as the
Gross Ground Rent of Boston
$42,000,000
This $42,000.000 is the natural tax which the people of Boston pay for the
occupancy and use of their land. This, it is submitted, is tax enough for them to
pay. But, since only $8,480,000 of this natural tax is taken for public purposes,
while $33,600,000 is absorbed by the "private appropriation of ground rent" into
private incomes, the people of Boston have to pay an additional tax of $9,486,000
on buildings and personal property, with the result that the occupancy of their
land, with its benefits of good government and public service, costs the people of
Boston to-day in round numbers
A natural tax (ground rent) of
An unnatural tax (on buildings and personal property) of .
Total burden of taxation .
$42,000,000
9,486,000
$51,486,000
Of its ground rent, estimated as above at
Boston now takes in taxation two-tenths, or
$42,000,000
8,480,000
While Boston's whole tax is much less than five-tenths, or
18,000,000
TAXATION OF REAL ESTATE ONLY.
25
Even if $6,000,000 be deducted from this $42,000,000 for error in estimate,
there will still be left $36,000,000, or double the amount of present taxes, the ratio
that has been claimed from the first.
It is believed that sufficient reason is found for taking in taxation this five-
tenths, instead of two-tenths, in the fact that since ground rent is a SOCIAL PRODUCT
its taxation is in no way a burden upon business or industry.
A Word to the Landlords.
Having now finished the special task of trying to explain ground rent in its
leading features, it is a privilege to pay a few words of tribute and suggestion to
those landlords of Boston who are open to a discussion of this vexed question of
taxation.
Next to that of the farmer, the province and function of the landlord would
seem to be one of the greatest in its importance to his fellow-men. The farmer is
the commissary of subsistence, the landlord is quartermaster of the camp. The
farmer feeds the world. The landlord houses the world. Besides being the natural
housers and the natural tax gatherers, the landlords are also the natural assessors.
"Nobody runs after the assessor to tell him what property is worth. Everybody
runs after the landlord to tell him what his land is worth.' With this triple re-
sponsibility and privilege of housing and tax collecting and tax assessing, landlords
ought to be, as, if they paid all the taxes, they would be, the natural guardians of the
public treasury against wastefulness and misapplication, for the simple reason that
ground rent, while increased by every wise outlay is decreased by every expenditure
which is unwise.
We beg to lay before you briefly five points of special application to the land-
lord's interest.
VII. The Taxation of Real Estate only.
Every single taxer, no doubt, may be relied upon to vote for the concentration
of all taxes upon real estate (land and buildings), as a rapid transit measure toward
his preferred exemption of buildings also. Such a course would secure a basis for
honest assessment and collection, and would eliminate the possibility of evasion, but
how much of an advance would this be toward a just equalization of the burden?
The landlord of the new building would still be paying, as he does now, the taxes
of the adjoining landlord of old buildings or of none at all. He would be worse off
by his disproportionate share of those taxes transferred from personal property.
If Smith owns land and buildings in equal amount he will pay,
for each $1,000 of land, taxes upon .
If Jones owns land with worthless buildings, or none at all, he
will pay, for each $1,000 of land, taxes upon
If Brown owns his own house, worth three times as much as
his land, he will pay, for each $1,000 of land, taxes upon
$2,000
1,000
4,000
Under the theory that taxes are spent to maintain the value of the land, as
indicated by the equal or even greater price which the land often commands when
practically unimproved rather than improved, and, municipal expenditure being
practically the same for similar lots similarly situated, regardless of whether they are
improved fully or not at all- under this theory it is held that the proportion of
advantage afforded by the public outlay is fairly represented by the value of the land.
If this theory is sound, then neither Smith, who pays twice as much, nor
Brown, who pays four times as much tax as Jones, has any greater command than
he per $1,000 of the facilities afforded by society for the promotion of private
business.
26
TAXATION WHICH TIME IMPOSES.
VIII. The Tax which Time Imposes.
One of your own prophets has said that the lifetime of the best new buildings
in Boston to-day cannot be figured to exceed two score years, that with swiftly ac-
celerating changes in forty years these will have to give way to a new and better
order. Granting these facts, if during the forty years the new buildings shall
yield to the landlord interest upon their cost and two and a half per cent. annually
for depreciation, he is at no disadvantage from the necessity, at the end of forty
years, of tearing down and building greater, while both labor, which builds buildings,
and business, which uses buildings, will be greatly benefited by such a process.
Think what a Paradise Boston would be if built over new every forty years; yet the
users of the buildings can well afford to pay two and a half per cent. a year for such
à luxury.
Any sensible readjustment and equalization of taxation should, it is thought,
take directly into the account this annual depreciation as a tax imposed by time
upon all products of labor, a tax so heavy as to seem an instant excuse for exempt-
ing them from all other taxes.
On the other hand while Time is engaged in the destruction of the building
it is occupied in the construction of the land value. In the case of Boston's land
this addition happens to have been since 1888 almost exactly five per cent. a year
on its value of fifteen years ago.
The inequality of the present system is made apparent in the following calcula-
tion (based upon the above assumption of two and a half per cent. depreciation)
regarding the land and buildings of Boston for the last fifteen years, bearing
in mind that it is not the rent, either of buildings or land, that is under con-
sideration, but only the effect of taxes and depreciation upon the one, and the
opposite effects of taxes and appreciation upon the other.
Buildings.
The valuation of Boston's buildings in 1888 was
Time's annual tax or depreciation (besides the city's tax of 12%
which is paid by the owner only when he is also the tenant)
22%. For fifteen years it has been 37% % or
And the value of same buildings in 1902 is
$234,000,000
88,750,000
$146,000,000
Land.
The valuation of Boston's land in 1888 was
$328,000,000
Time's average net annual appreciation has been (after paying
city's tax of 12%) for one year 5%. For fifteen years
75%, or
245,000,000
$573,000,000
And the value of the same land in 1902 is
Thus the increase in the valuation of land in fifteen years more than equals
the valuation of all the buildings fifteen years ago.
Five per cent. on this fifteen years' increase of two hundred and forty-five
million would be more than twelve million, which added to the four million assessed
upon the land in 1888 would be sixteen million, as compared with Boston's taxes
of eighteen million in 1902.
THE SINGLE TAX AS AN INCOME TAX.
27
Those persons who agree with John Stuart Mill that it would be sound public policy
and no injustice to land owners to take for public purposes the future increase in
ground rent will be interested to note what an opportunity is shown by the above
figures to have been lost fifteen years ago for putting such a plan in operation in
Boston.
IX. Corresponding Exemptions.
In any calculation of the effect of this imposition of all taxes upon ground rent,
it must be borne in mind that the landlords, who are the owners of the ground rents
of Boston, also own buildings and other improvements upon the land, together
with a large per cent. of the personal property, so that considered as an entire class
the additional tax upon their land would be offset by the exemption of buildings
and personal property.
If the total tax of $18,000,000 for 1902 were to be paid by the landlords out of
their estimated ground rent of $42,000,000, they would still have left $24,000,000 a
year of ground rent, besides enjoying the exemption of $384,000,000 buildings, and
the exemption of all their personal property.
X. The Exemption of Assessed Values.
One reason why, under a just system of taxation, large-hearted landlords of
Boston would cheerfully offer their necks to the tax yoke is the fact that so far as
concerns their investment in land most of them are now privileged to be entirely
exempt. In other words, the present tax of $8,480,000 upon Boston land is not a
tax burden upon them, though even this fact is not to their prejudice. But while
it is true that the capitalized value of any tax on land is deducted from its selling
price, and that any purchaser, after the tax is once imposed, gets his land tax
free, the land-owners of Boston who have bought their holdings since the present.
tax rate was reached are practically exempt from taxation, it is also true that the
appreciation in the value of their land may be fairly reckoned as an offset to any
injustice in the imposition of a new tax. One simple illustration of this point, and
we leave it to your own contemplation and judgment.
If you would pay to-day $800 for a lot of land, it is because that land would
net you $40, or five per cent. on $800. If that land were relieved of a present tax
of $10 you would give $1,000, because it would net you $10 more, $50, instead of
$40, or five per cent. on $1,000.
If landlords would pay to-day $573,000,000 for the land of Boston it is because
that land would net them $28,650,000, or five per cent. on $573,000,000. If it
were relieved of the present tax of $8,480,000 they would pay $742,600,000 because
it would net them $8,480,000 more, $37,130,000, instead of $28,650,000, or five
per cent. on $742,600,000.¹
This present exemption, however, is not offered as a reason for additional taxa-
tion, but it is offered as a justification for taking the opportunity to transfer the
present load from the head and the tail to the back and shoulders of the horse. As
an anti-single-tax professor of political economy happily puts it: "The beauty, to
my mind, of a tax upon land values is that in a few years nobody pays it.”
XI. The Single Tax as an Income Tax.
An income tax has always been a favorite form of tax, because thought well cal-
culated to bear upon "each according to his ability." The taxation of ground rent
would surely be the purest possible exemplification and application of the principle
1 A tax, as a first lien, is practically a first mortgage to which any regular mortgage must be second. The
effect of the tax in the first case and the mortgage interest in the second case upon the selling value of land is
exactly the same, When the State imposed a tax of $10 upon a lot of land hitherto untaxed and worth $1,000
the effect upon the selling value was the same as though it had taken a first mortgage of $200, leaving to the
owner as the selling value an equity of $Soo.
28
THE SINGLE TAX AS AN INCOME TAX.
of the income tax, because it would fall upon all those incomes which are unearned,
and which are in their nature perpetual, and which are amply able to bear the
whole burden of taxation. Of course, such an income tax should have impartial
application, that is to say, a large unearned income should be taxed at the same rate
as a small income of the same nature and derived from the same source. If it is
right that corporations or other aggregations of capital should engage in business.
enterprises for profit upon equal terms with individuals, then it is right that an im-
partial income tax should impose at least the same rate upon the many million dollar
incomes of the railroads and the coal operators, and the United States steel com-
panies, as upon smaller unearned incomes of one, five, or ten thousand, derived
from the same source. If eight hundred and fifty industrial combinations or trusts
have a capital stock of nine billion, of which five billion is common stock, and that
common stock is water, it means that every one per cent. ($50,000,000) or every
five per cent. ($250,000,000) received in dividend on this common stock is, as an
income from rent, unearned by the people who receive it.
An income from special privilege is usually part and parcel with an income
from rent, and, as such, belongs to the class of unearned incomes. As ground rent
is a social product, its private appropriation is a special privilege, which affords large
private profit at public expense. Why not then at least tax such a privilege upon
what it is worth?
If the ground rent of Boston is.
And there is now taken in taxation only
D
The amount that is distributed annually in unearned incomes
(if rent is an unearned income) is
Or per capita for the 560,000 population
Or for each of the 117,000 families of less than five each, per year,
$42,000,000
8,500,000
い
​$33,500,000
$60
$300
Is it even apparently fair to let so much common wealth escape taxation at the
expense of individual wealth?
This forty-two million is, we submit, the "income " in very truth earned by the
city and people of Boston,- created by their actual labor and actual expenditure.
Under the single tax Boston would pay all its current expenses out of this legitimate
forty-two million income of its own, earned by itself, instead of allowing four-fifths,
or thirty-four millions, of this amount to be divided, through the channel of special
privilege, into unearned incomes, thus aggravating those inequalities in distribution
of wealth which people are wont to declaim against as partial and wrong.
While that part of the forty-two million ground rent of Boston that goes to
individuals may be said to be unearned by them, the whole forty-two million
can hardly be said to be unearned, because, having been produced by society, it
may, in common parlance, be said to be earned by society, and hence it may go
to it as its wages, just as properly as his earnings go to the individual who works
for wages.
If a railroad has the special privilege of a monopoly in the trans-
portation of coal from the Pennsylvania coal mines, or in the transportation of people
to and from Boston, why not tax the railroad in proportion to the value of its fran-
chise? The private monopoly of a natural resource is a special privilege. If the
private ownership of the two or three billion tons of unmined anthracite coal is a
special privilege, why not tax it what others would give for the privilege of mining
and marketing it to the relief of a great coal famine, thus making all the people
sharers in what is called a natural bounty?
called a natural bounty? If the private appropriation of a billion
dollars' worth of iron ore is a special privilege, would it not be "proportionate and
reasonable " for its owners to pay in taxation one half at least of the value of that
privilege?
THE SINGLE TAX AS AN INCOME TAX.
29
Almost everybody scolds about trusts and monopolies, coal barons, oil magnates,
and railroad kings, but many people do not think of the perfectly natural resort of
taxing them to the same extent even that other people are being taxed.
This bugbear of monopoly is the central point at which numberless palliations
are ineffectively aimed. Taxation, it is insisted, is the only "power to destroy" what
there is of wrong, and the only "power to build up" what is right in these com-
plained of conditions.
A Word in Closing.
Throughout this paper, as throughout the late propaganda work of the League,
the impelling aim has been to invite and promote the understanding of ground
rent, an agency clear to few, very obscure to many, but as subtle and powerful in the
social organism as is the life-blood in the human organism.
Legislatures and Congresses are prevented by inconvenient distance from
revising and improving the planetary laws, but they busy themselves with the enact-
ment of statute after statute designed to keep men and women in their natural orbits.
Discerning, as we surely do, a natural law in the material world, established by a law
giver greater than any state or nation, we urge you simply to repeal one by one all
artificial tax laws, leaving upon the statute book a single one, and that an enacting
clause to this natural law, under which Boston may begin at once to administer, in
doses, be they ever so small, the single tax remedy, and watch its effect.
We thank you, gentle sirs and ladies, for your encouraging attention and
patience, with the hope that those problems which have not been solved to your
satisfaction you will continue to study until able at some early day to solve them both
to your own satisfaction and to ours.
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
THE SINGLE TAX.
The Massachusetts Single Tax League will have as guests at the Vendome this
evening some of the landlords of Boston, with others interested, and after dinner the talk
will be about ground rent. This is in pursuance of the policy instituted, we believe, by
Mr. C. B. Fillebrown, president of the league, of education through discussion under those
most favorable conditions existing when good digestion has waited upon appetite.
At the dinner of the league last December, this subject the nature and source of
ground rent, its volume, and its adaptation to bear all the burden of taxation -
was dis-
cussed by professional economists. Its treatment at the symposium this evening will
undoubtedly have at least equal interest, as the point of view will be that of the practical
man of affairs rather than of the scholar and theorist.
But
The single tax advocates must in time make the Legislature listen to them. Every
one admits that our system of taxation in Massachusetts is faulty and unequal. No
Legislature as yet has had the courage to undertake the revision which ought to be made,
and the elaborate reports of special commissions go into the archives unacted upon.
here is a plan, indorsed by highest authority, for which it is only asked that a trial shall
be allowed in such local communities as may wish to try it. It is a modest request. It
ought to be granted.- Boston Post.
THE LANDLORDS AND THE SINGLE TAX.
The president of the Massachusetts Single Tax League proved last evening that he
possesses the courage of his convictions by expounding the single-tax proposal to a com-
pany of Boston landlords. The occasion was the seventeenth — and, it is announced, the
of the interesting series of dinners which the league has given during the past seven
years to representatives of various interests, business and professional.
The league
last
30
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
deserves only commendation for its enterprise, the gatherings have unquestionably helped
to arouse and educate the public on the subject of tax reform. The dinner of last evening
was, in one respect, a most ambitious undertaking. The single tax is commonly supposed
to be sharply opposed to the interests of the land-owning class. From their point of view
the plan to transfer the entire tax burden to the land looks, at first sight, like a scheme of
sheer confiscation. To invite representatives of this class to listen to a presentation of the
case for the single tax was, therefore, a novel and daring stroke of propagandism.
It is impossible at this time to comment upon all phases of President Fillebrown's
elaborate and encyclopædic discussion of ground rent. We shall confine ourselves to the
part of his paper which was addressed particularly to the landlords. In defending the
single tax, from the point of view of its effects on the landlords' interests, President Fille-
brown emphasizes two points. In the first place, he points out that the landlords would
get the benefit of the exemption of buildings, improvements, and personal property under
the single tax. He says:
"In any calculation of the effect of this imposition of all taxes
upon ground rent, it must be borne in mind that the landlords, who are the owners of the
ground rents of Boston, also own all the buildings and other improvements upon the land,
together with a large per cent. of the personal property, so that considered as an entire
class, the additional tax upon their land would be balanced by an exemption of buildings
and personal property to an equal amount."
This argument is overdrawn. In the case of an individual whose wealth is about
equally distributed between land and other property, the single tax would, to be sure,
involve no hardship. It would make no difference to such a man whether the amount of
his taxes were all assessed on land or were distributed between land and the other half of
his property holdings. But in the case of a man whose money is invested mainly in land,
the single tax would bring a large increase of his tax burden. Such a person would not
be benefited appreciably by the exemption of buildings, improvements, and personal prop-
erty, and would be heavily mulcted by the increased land tax. So landlords as a class
would be hard hit by the single tax, for they would have to bear the added tax burden that
would be transferred from the non-land-owning class, which would be entirely exempt from
taxation.
In the second place, Mr. Fillebrown tells the landlords that under the present system
they are entirely exempt from taxation. He says: " One reason why, under a just system
of taxation, large-hearted landlords of Boston would cheerfully offer their necks to the tax
yoke is the fact that so far as concerns their investment in land they are now privileged to
be entirely exempt. In other words, the present tax of $8,480,000 upon Boston land is
not a tax burden upon them, though even this fact is not to their prejudice."
Here again President Fillebrown's contention is too sweeping. It is true that the
capitalized value of any tax on land is deducted from its selling price, and that any pur-
chaser, after the tax is once imposed, gets his land tax free. The land-owners of Boston
who have bought their holdings since the present tax rate was reached are practically
exempt from taxation. But this does not hold true of those who have held their land for a
long period of years. Certain individual landlords may enjoy exemption, by reason of
recent purchase, but landlords as a class are not exempt. Examination of an illustration
used by President Fillebrown in this connection will make it plain that the single tax would
make a vast difference to Boston landlords. He states: If landlords would pay to-day
$573,000,000 for the land of Boston, it is because that land would net them $28,650,000,
or five per cent. on $573,000,000. If it were relieved of the present tax of $8,480,000,
they would pay $742,600,000, because it would net them $8,480,000 more, $37,130,000
instead of $28,650,000, or five per cent. on $742,600,000." But if the land were burdened
with an additional tax of $9,486,000, they would pay only $383,280,000, because it would
net them $9,486,000 less, $19,164,000, or five per cent. on $383,280,000.
It cannot be denied, then, that the single tax would inflict serious hardship on land-
lords as a class. The single taxer may admit this, however, without destroying his case.
He may still urge in justification of his plan that the increment of land values which it is
proposed to appropriate by taxation is a social product, unearned and undeserved by indi-
vidual landlords, and should go to the community. As applied to the future increase of
land values, indeed, this proposal is ethically unobjectionable. That is, if the State should
announce to-day that hereafter enough of the increase in the value of the land would be
taken to meet the expenses of government, no injustice would be done to any one. John
Stuart Mill conceded that this policy would be perfectly just. And doubtless most present-
day economists would make the same admission. Whether the policy is economically and
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
31
fiscally expedient is another question.
However this may be, we have previously expressed
an opinion that an increasing proportion of the expenses of municipal administration should
be collected by taxation of land values. Without resorting to the single tax, pure and
simple, a practical beginning in this direction could be made by assessing land for taxation
at its full selling value. Boston Transcript.
-
GROUND RENT.
The theory of the single tax had an admirable exposition in the paper read last even-
ing by Mr. C. B. Fillebrown, president of the Massachusetts Single Tax League, at the
banquet of that association, upon the subject of ground rent. Mr. Fillebrown's paper was
largely concerned with the application of the general theory to the concrete case of taxa-
tion here in Boston, and very interesting it is. Ground rent is not simply what land is
worth for use; as defined by the late Thomas G. Shearman, it is a tribute which natural
laws levy upon every occupant of land as the market price of all the social as well as nat-
ural advantages appertaining to that land, including necessarily his just share of the cost of
government.' It is calculable, not on the basis of the price paid for the land, perhaps,
several generations ago, but upon the increment due to all public and private improvements,
and to the growth of the community.
It is upon this that the single taxers propose to base taxation, as the only equitable
standard of obligation. Land value, said Mr. Fillebrown, being a social creation, and its
rent a social maintenance, equal access to the rights and privileges of the land can be pro-
moted by the taxation of ground rent alone, and by this means alone. The demonstration
of this proposition is complete in theory; the weight of scientific authority is strongly in
its favor as a principle of economics. But is it possible to readjust taxation practically to
such a system without imposing an excessive burden upon trade and industry?
In this respect the figures presented by Mr. Fillebrown, showing by actual sales and
actual rentals how much ground rent there is in the city of Boston, are most illuminating.
Nearly one thousand items are collected, forming the most vivid object lesson that has been
presented. It is a strong plea for the natural law of taxation in the place of the artificial
methods now prevailing.
Boston Post.
-
THE SINGLE-TAX ARGUMENT.
The address which Mr. C. B. Fillebrown made at the meeting on Monday night of
the Massachusetts Single Tax League contained a great deal of highly valuable statistical
information. Mr. Fillebrown, as president of the league, was endeavoring to bring to the
attention of his guests of the evening, who represented some of the large real estate inter-
ests of the city, the economic as well as social advantage which would accrue to the citizens
of Boston if our city were permitted by the Legislature to raise the money needed for pub-
lic expenditures by confining its assessments entirely to ground rents and public-service
franchises.
The basis of Henry George's doctrine, upon which the single-tax propaganda rests, is
the conviction which he entertained, and which others before him have professed, that the
absolute ownership of land by individuals is just as unnatural and wrong as would be the
control by individuals of the air which we breathe. Whatever man may do to improve
land, whether by reclaiming it, irrigating it, or building upon it, represents an outgo of
time, labor, and money, the results of which he might fairly assert to be his own; but the
value of land is something which is ordinarily beyond the control of any individual land
owner. There is a large quantity of land, even in this thickly settled State of Massachu-
setts, which can be bought for from $1 to $2 per acre, but the erection upon such land of
a building like the Exchange or the Ames buildings would not raise the value of the area
thus covered to $50, $75 or $100 per square foot. That land in this city has values even
greater than those just named is due to the fact that ours is a great community, a business
centre having tributary to it a million and a quarter of people. It is these, and the multi-
farious demands which their social and industrial conditions occasion, which make the
difference in value between a corner lot on State street or Washington street and an equal
area on Cape Cod or among the Berkshire hills.
Land values are thus created, not by the individual owner, but by his fellow-citizens,
and are based upon the rent or income which may be obtained by those who possess these
real estate monopolies. The logical deduction to be drawn from Henry George's line of
reasoning would be that those possessing these monopolies should be deprived of them for
32
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
the purpose of having the gains in value created by the community distributed among the
community. Under existing conditions such a change would be looked upon as confisca-
tion, and hence Henry George, and more particularly his successors, have confined them-
selves, as Mr. Fillebrown has, to the work of endeavoring to show that, if the income from
land values, that is, the so-called ground rent, were divided between the owner of real
estate and the community as represented by the local government, local taxes of all kinds
could be entirely abolished.
It has been sometimes said that the entire income from land values, apart from im-
provements, would not be sufficient to pay the running expenses of a city such as Boston,
and it is to the work of disproving this statement that Mr. Fillebrown has of late turned
his attention. The statistical part of his address indicated that he had spent a great deal
of time and trouble in collecting the data needed to demonstrate the correctness of his
judgment. One of these tests was made by obtaining the price at which 120 pieces of real
estate in various parts of the city had been sold, these indicating that the assessed valua-
tions were less than five-sixths of the selling price. Still another test was the collection
of 751 rentals and their subdivision for the purpose of showing the part which represented
interest, etc., upon buildings and improvements, and the part which represented an income
on land values. Mr. Fillebrown must have gone to a great deal of trouble and expense in
procuring this information, by which it appears that in these 751 cases the value of the
income from land was, taken in the aggregate, largely over a million dollars.
Taking the city as a whole, his estimate is, based on the proportions established in
the instances referred to, that the gross ground rent of Boston is fully $42,000,000 a year;
in other words, that this is the natural tax which the people of Boston pay for the use and
occupancy of land upon which the city is built. At the present time, from this large
annual payment, the city takes about $8,500,000 in taxes; and, if the entire tax were
collected from this source, it would take instead about $18,000,000. But in this way the
improvements that have been made in the way of buildings and the like, together with all
personal property, would be exempted from taxation. If such a division of land rent were
made, it appears to be Mr. Fillebrown's opinion that the landlord who improved his
property would not lose by the division. There would then be a new incentive to carry on
business of all kinds in Boston, as such operations would be free from tax burdens, while
this exemption from taxation would apply to all buildings that were put up for the purpose
of utilizing the land which they covered. It is, we believe, a conceded fact that a large
number of economists are of the opinion that a change in our tax system, analogous in a
number of respects with that which Mr. Fillebrown proposes, would be of great general
advantage. Some of our citizens, representing large real estate interests, have been of
the opinion that the value of their property would be materially increased if the system of
taxing personal property was brought to an end and all taxes were levied upon real estate,
in this case including buildings as well as land. Those taking this ground have urged
that, while the contributions of those owning real estate would under such circumstances
be increased, there could be no evasion of taxation, while the knowledge that business of
all kinds could be carried on in Boston with no tax burden, except such as was assessed on
the real estate, would act as an inducement to bring to this city a large number of new
industries. But in spite of these advantages, it has not yet been possible to induce our
Legislature to take the least step in the direction of this reform, and we fear, considering
the opposition of local assessors all over the State, that Mr. Fillebrown's more radical
measure of change is even more difficult of accomplishment.- Boston Herald.
SINGLE TAX EDUCATION.
The Massachusetts Single Tax League is now preparing to send copies of its pamphlet
report of last Monday evening's Hotel Vendome banquet to the presidents and professors
connected with colleges and universities. This report will contain the address of Presi-
dent Fillebrown, together with newspaper editorials treating of the occasion.
The extent to which the teachers of political economy in educational institutions have
lately shown a lively interest in the question of the single tax is very notable. We under-
stand that the report of last Monday evening's dinner is to be sent as a supplement to that
of the last previous one, the two reports being intended to form a fairly complete presenta-
tion of the doctrine of "ground rent," which doctrine is fundamental in the single tax
system.
Some idea as to what this campaign of education" is likely to amount to may be
gathered from the number of copies of these reports which have already been asked for,
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
33
and the sources from which the requests nave come. For instance, 112 copies have been
requested by two professors in Harvard, presumably for class-room use. Boston University
comes second, 100; while Tufts, Amherst, Williams, and Mt. Holyoke follow in due pro-
portion. In all parts of the United States it is apparent that interest in this question has
been keenly aroused among leading educators. Prof. R. T. Ely, University of Wisconsin,
celebrated as an author of works on sociology, calls for 100 copies, and 25 are to go to the
University of California. It appears that no fewer than 1,268 copies of each of the two
reports of the "ground-rent " discussion will have been distributed among teachers in 44
colleges and universities, two of which institutions are Oxford and Cambridge in England.
We cannot wonder that the members of the league have been a good deal encouraged
by a note from Prof. Alfred Marshall, of Cambridge University, in which that foremost, or
certainly one of the foremost, of English economists expresses his appreciation of the
“considerable historical value" of these discussions, and his intention of "putting gradu-
ally into the hands of students" the additional copies for which he writes.
""
Mr. C. F. Adams, whose statement that "the single tax would make Massachusetts
the paradise of manufacturers was the first clear indication that the class which Mr.
Adams represents was thinking sympathetically along this line, has lately said that it must
be the work of the Massachusetts Single Tax League
“to teach the teachers." It appears
that it is endeavoring to do it.
Since the banquet last Monday evening, which was announced as the closing one in a
series of seventeen begun seven years ago, there has been a good deal of regret expressed that
there are, seemingly, to be no more of them. is highly suggestive of what they have
accomplished that some of the keenest regrets are expressed by men who have been the
sharpest critics of the single tax idea. It is not to be expected that another series will be
planned if the burden of labor and expense must fall upon those who have heretofore
chiefly borne it, particularly as that means, in great degree, a single individual, as is pretty
well known to those who are at all in the secret. But why may there not be something
done by voluntary coöperation among people who are interested, quite regardless of their
being or not being single taxers, to secure in the future an occasional event of a kind such
as has been, by universal judgment, so very enlightening as well as delightful? — Daily
Advertiser.
AN EFFECTIVE SENTENCE.
The most effective single sentence of the single taxers at their latest appeal declares
that if Boston's tax of $18,000,000 for 1902 were to be paid by the landlords out of their
estimated ground rent of $42,000,000, they would still have left $24,000,000 a year of
ground rent, besides the exemption of $384,000,000 on buildings, and the exemption of all
their personal property. None of the Boston landlords present when Chief Priest Fille-
brown made them this generous offer were moved to agree to settle as proposed. Instead,
R. T. Paine replied: I am going to ask the chairman if he thinks single tax will work.
Are you ready to have it tried now?" "I live in Newton," smilingly replied Mr. Fille-
brown, "and I am ready to have its operation begun in Boston at once." The applause
was hearty and unrestrained. If single tax could be coaxed along by a gentle sense of
humor it would have invaded the city, to stay, long ago. Boston Record.
THE SINGLE TAX SYSTEM.
At the single tax dinner in Boston last evening the volley of questions fired at the
president of the league, Charles B. Fillebrown, would have disconcerted either a less able
defender of that theory of taxation or him who undertook to answer for a weaker doctrine.
Present methods of taxation are undeniably unjust and there is a universal groping for
something fairer and better, but so long as human avarice exists so long will advantage be
taken by some members of society over others. The single tax method is in line with the
socialistic schemes that are to-day so popular in many quarters, but under its operation in-
dividual thrift and enterprise would still earn their reward.
Permission to enjoy that system of taxation, if a town or city so desires, it would seem,
should now be granted. Complete proof of its advantages or disadvantages would not, of
course, be obtainable so long as the consumer was burdened by a tariff and the state tax
would also be levied in the ordinary way, but the ground rent system seems so much better
in many respects than the methods now in vogue that it should have a chance to win its
In those isolated cases where it has been tried it has succeeded. Why may it not
succeed on a larger scale? The theory has been gaining recruits for years and there have
way.
34
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
been no backsliders. Like an avalanche, steadily increasing in force, it seems as if it
would one day sweep all before it. If it would accomplish half of the good claimed for it,
it would be a boon to humanity.
Worcester Post.
THE LAND TAX IN BOSTON.
The president of the Massachusetts Single Tax League, C. B. Fillebrown, recently
addressed a company of Boston landlords on the nature of ground rent, and more particu-
larly the volume of such rent existing in the city of Boston at present. As a basis of cal-
culation he secured the records of 120 sales of real estate and 751 rentals of estates; from
which pretty broad groundwork he reached the conclusion that Boston land values (or capi-
talized ground rental values) aggregate $842,600,000, 5 per cent. of which would give
about $42,000,000 as the gross ground rent of the city.
Accepting this calculation as approximately correct, then it would follow that the
people of the city pay $42,000,000 annually for the use of the land. Of this sum going to
- on
the land-owners, about $8,480,000 is given back to the public in taxes as now levied, and
the rest is retained. Additional to this present tax on land, there is annually collected in
taxes on buildings and personal property the sum of about $9,486,000, making a total
present tax on land, buildings, and personality of about $18,000,000, or considerably less
than five-tenths of the estimated yearly yield of land values alone to the landlords of the
city. Mr. Fillebrown advocates the centralization of taxes upon ground rent, which would
mean, in the case of Boston, that the landlords be required to give up to the public
the basis of present public expenditure less than five-tenths of their ground rent instead
of the two-tenths ($8,480,000) now taken. As ground rent is a value created by the
community as a whole, and not by the land-owners, he bases his demand on grounds of
simple justice; but presumes to be dealing gently with the landlords in still leaving to
them over one-half their ground rent and in exempting their buildings and personal prop-
erty from further taxation. We are not told that the company of landlords present were
so far impressed as to be willing to accede to this proposal.
There is much to be said in favor of this disposal of the tax question, or the appropri-
ation to the State of so much of the annual yield of land values (ground apart from
improvements) as is needed to meet public expenses. As Henry George has required a
whole book to present these favorable considerations, we shall not undertake even to sum-
marize them. Granting their general soundness, the question still remains: Can the land-
owner ever be brought voluntarily to consent to the arrangement? and should it be forced
upon him without his consent supposing that were possible?
Both of these questions must be answered in the negative; and the impossibility, in
this country, where the land-owner forms so large a part of the electorate, of forcing the
arrangement upon him is recognized by the land-taxers themselves. Their task is now to
convince the landlords of the desirability of the changes from their standpoint, which is an
uphill undertaking. That it can ever succeed is to be doubted. It is idle to urge as full
compensation the relief to the land-owner from other taxes. In some cases he might gain
from exemption on buildings, other improvements and personal property what he would
lose in increased land taxes; but in most cases probably he would not; and the State, in
taxing land values alone, has put itself in the way of appropriating the whole unearned
increment, which is the one thing in real estate investment that attracts and enriches.
The single taxers are fighting from high motives, on strong economic grounds, and
with a persistence that excites admiration. But so deeply is private land-ownership im-
bedded in the industrial establishment of the country, and so widespread is it among the
people, that practical considerations alone, apart from a question of right and justice, must
bring into the land-tax campaign the matter of a more or less full compensation to land-
owners, if it is ever to make great headway. - Springfield Republican.
AN EQUITABLE TAX.
Questions of economics are of far more importance than the public generally realizes.
The average man is apt to turn aside from a bit of abstract economic reasoning, yet when,
in a presidential campaign, he meets an economic question, as the tariff or the silver
question, draped in a political form, it appeals to him as of the utmost practicability. In
national affairs economic questions have always been of great public interest. To-day,
besides the tariff and monetary questions, there is another problem which is fully as wide
in scope as either. It is the question of taxation.
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
35
At the dinner of the Massachusetts Single Tax League, held last Monday evening at
the Hotel Vendome, President Fillebrown discussed the question of land taxation from a
local point of view. In general the single tax theory is based on the unearned increment
theory" of the economists. A popular, though perhaps not a strictly scientific, illustration
of what an unearned increment is may be gathered from the following illustration: Powder-
horn Hill, in Chelsea, the most beautiful situation in that city, from whose crest the whole
surrounding country, the harbor and islands and beaches, lay spread out like a panorama,
was bought from the Indians, we are told, for a paltry horn of powder. To-day its land
value is immense. The difference between the value of a horn of powder and the present
value, exclusive of the improvement made there by buildings, is the unearned increment."
This enhanced value comes chiefly because people have gathered around this spot of land,
and have, merely because of their presence, increased its value. The labor of the original
owner and his successors have done little or nothing to make the land so much more valu-
able. Human society and the public, the presence of neighboring communities and modern
improvements, have made it worth what it is to-day, All this unearned increase of valua-
tion goes into the pockets of private owners. Those believing that a single tax on land
should be the basis of all taxation pertinently ask: Why should not this increased valua-
tion, due solely to the public, be the basis of present taxation? In other words, what the
public has made valuable should yield the public revenue.
Such a large question cannot well be discussed in a column. A proper consideration
of it would require, not only pages, but volumes. At the dinner, however, President
Fillebrown presented such facts regarding the past and present valuation of real estate in
Boston, as to show the local advantages of a single land tax.
Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," defined the perfect tax as follows: First,
it must be equitable; second, it must be certain; third, it must be convenient and throw
as slight a burden as possible on the citizens; fourth, it should be of such a nature as to
be easily levied and collected. The single tax theory, as expounded by President Fille-
brown, possesses these advantages in a marked degree. It is equitably levied on the
assessed valuation of land; it is a certain tax; it is not burdensome; and it is easy and
sure of collection.
Perhaps the chief benefit of this tax is that it exempts such things from taxation as
would tend to develop the business of the country. As buildings would not be taxed,—
since the levy would be made wholly on the ground valuation,— this would be an incentive
for land owners to build structures commensurate with the value of their land. On Wash-
ington street, for example, instead of a line of dingy blocks on valuable land, we should
soon find a row of modern buildings.
The theory of this tax is interesting, and it has so much to recommend it that a single
tax bill was recently favored by a large number of legislators. With a local option feature,
as the proposed bill had, there is every prospect that within a few years this form of taxa-
tion will be given a practical test in Massachusetts. Under the leadership of President
Fillebrown who has gone into the matter in a business-like way, and whose influence is
opposed to annexing any Socialistic fallacies, such as the undesirability of private owner-
ship to the single tax theory — there is every prospect that it will grow in popular favor.
The only serious danger to its popularity can come from its too eager supporters who tend
toward Socialistic views. At present the influence of these is in the minority. Their
opinions bear little weight when compared with the host of sound thinking economists,
many of them professors in the leading universities of the country, who favor a temperate
practical test. It is fortunate for the Massachusetts Single Tax League that its leader
represents this class of men, and that his plans are sound and business-like. Everett
Republican.
GROUND RENT AS A SOCIAL PRODUCT.
Rarely if ever has the subject of ground rent as a social product been treated in so
luminous a way as by President Fillebrown of the Massachusetts Single Tax League at the
banquet to some of the landlords of Boston last Monday evening. For seven years Mr.
Fillebrown has been conducting an active propaganda in behalf of the single tax, and this
banquet was the seventeenth in a series of symposiums that have been productive in the
economical sense of a great deal of good. Mr. Fillebrown at this last meeting was armed
with an abundance of carefully compiled statistics to uphold his assertion that "the true
office of ground rent is that of equalization of taxation, of distribution and of opportunity;
and that land value, being a social creation, and its rent a social maintenance, equal
access to the rights and privileges pertaining to the land can be promoted by the taxation
36
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
of ground rent alone." Of perhaps more immediate practical interest is Mr. Fillebrown's
estimate of the gross ground rent of Boston at $42,000,000, and his argument that if taxes
were laid upon ground rent alone the landlords of Boston would benefit largely through the
exemption of buildings and personal property. Putting this point aside, Mr. Fillebrown's
address is important because it shows in a very conclusive way the unused power of taxa-
tion in restricting special privileges. "Almost everybody," says Mr. Fillebrown, "scolds
about trusts and monopolies, coal barons, oil magnates, and railroad kings, but they seldom
think of the perfectly natural resort of taxing them to the same extent even that other
people are being taxed." One of the greatest problems — perhaps the greatest problem –
now confronting the people of Massachusetts is the devising of an equitable system of taxa-
tion, and in the task of arriving at a right solution the principles formulated and illustrated
by Mr. Fillebrown are at least deserving of very careful consideration. Boston Beacon.
GROUND RENTS AND THE PEOPLE.
Many people complain of increasing land rent. It is useless. Such increase is one
of the logical necessities of an ever-increasing population. Every decade makes land
prices higher, because while the land does not increase in amount, the number of people
who must live off from it is constantly growing larger.
Many people who make no complaints about land rents do make complaints about
land prices. They say the price of (some) land is enormously high. They cite whole
tracts of land that were bought a few generations ago for, say, $5, but are now selling at
a million times that sum. By the term "price
price" they really mean rent. Land can't be
sold. It is a fixture. It is like air and water a natural agent, subject to man's use to
sustain life, but not subject to bargain and sale.
י
What people can buy is a certain right to use the soil for foundations of buildings, or
roadways, and its properties for the raising of food products. This is rent, but there is no
just sense in which they can be regarded as buying and owning the land. How could this
generation be regarded as the absolute owners of that on which coming generations must
live and have their being?
-
If there be any such thing as real ownership of land, then the title is vested in every-
body. That is to say, there is no real ownership, but the public the State is the trustee
of the land and is bound to hold and administer it for the public use and welfare.
If the
public sells the use of a piece of land to individuals or corporations rents it to them
for private use, that is right. The rental in such cases, since it belongs to the public,
should be used to defray necessary public expenses, like the maintaining of roads, postal
facilities, schools, etc., in whose benefits everybody can share. In proportion as this
income from land rents relieved people from the necessity of contributing to the support of
the public, or of the State, in other forms, the land would be doing its legitimate part
along with air and water in supporting all life, and we would have the "single tax in
operation without any jar.
יי
Increasing ground rent is a necessity, because population is always increasing, and man
is always doing things, and it is both the increase and the doing that increase the rent.
The speculator is always in a sense a prophet. He foresees both the swarming human.
hosts and the things that they are bound to do, and he knows that the increasing demand
will stand for higher rentals. We sometimes think he over-exercises the prophetic instinct
and places his rents too high, but when the habitable land is as full of people as one of our
elevated trains at eight o'clock in the morning, individuals will be glad to pay still higher
ground rents for room to stand on. Park-Street Church and the Old South will both have
to go before that time.
A piece of land fronting sixty feet on Broadway, New York, has been sold for $1,030-
ooo, being at the rate of $17,333.33 per foot. It originally cost three cents a foot, and
before squirrels and Indians had multiplied very much it was worth less than that. Now
this increased value has been created by what man has done, as well as because there was
more and more of him. Good streets, good transportation facilities, good schools and
churches, good business blocks, a good water supply, a good fire department, all these
put a premium on the land and increase its rental value. These are what ground rents
pay for.
As the drama of population develops we must
ground rents or to such checks — whether in the form
war, epidemic, or suppression of the social instinct
The Morning Star.
submit either to higher and higher
of famine, pestilence, earthquakes,
as will reduce the demand for land.
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
37
The delightful dinners given by the Single Tax League in Boston have come to an
end The last banquet was held at Hotel Vendome in Boston, with President Fillebrown
in the chair. No social and political propagandism has been more genial and persuasive
than this. The method has been to invite on each occasion some selected class of ladies
and gentlemen, to give them an hour or two of pleasant social intercourse, including a
good dinner, then to submit to them the propositions which the League is prepared to
defend, asking for questions, corrections, and general discussion. Seventeen dinners have
been given in this way, of which the total effect, if one were to judge by the apparent dis-
position of those in attendance at this final banquet, was to bring them to the place where,
without being certain what the result would be, they were entirely willing to see the experi-
ment tried in the gradual way proposed by the president of the league. That is, let there
be a slight reduction in all other taxes, and a slight yearly increase in the land tax, noting
results year by year, and changing the proportions according to the working of the plan.
The lamp of experience must be lighted before we know whether the path before us shall
turn in this direction or that, or be safe for all travellers. The Christian Register.
A SINGLE TAX ARGUMENT.
Mr. Fillebrown, who is the president of the Single Tax League of Massachusetts, has
been trying to convert the Boston landlords to his views of the proper way to levy taxes.
In a recent address to them he submitted an elaborate calculation intended to show the
practical working of his favorite system.
Mr. Fillebrown's calculations are somewhat complicated, and it is not necessary to
trouble the reader with the details. His object was to get at the rental value of the
ground as distinguished from that of the improvements put upon it. A very little reflec-
tion will indicate how difficult a matter this must be. A piece of city property is rented
for a gross sum, the largest which the owner can get, and little attention is paid to the
amount received for the ground, and that for the improvements upon it. However, a
number of sales of real estate and a still larger number of rentals were taken as a basis, and
from this a calculation was made as to the total land values of the city of Boston. This
was put at $842,600,000, 5 per cent. of which gives an annual rental value of about
$42,000,000.
According to the reasoning of the single taxers this great value of the land is due to
the community and not to the owner. More than a million people have made their homes.
in Boston or within territory tributary to it, and to their action is to be attributed most of
the value which attaches to this land. There is still land in Massachusetts that can be
bought for one or two dollars an acre, and that upon which Boston is built might not be
worth a great deal more but for the value imparted to it by the community which has made
it the centre of a vast trade. Some of the rent of this land is taken from the owners in
the way of taxes, but how much? Mr. Fillebrown figures it at eight and a half million dol-
lars, while the total taxation of the city is $18,000,000. Thus the land pays but two-
tenths of the rental value. If the entire taxation of the city was on the land, it would still
pay less than five-tenths of the rental value. The effect of the single tax would be not only
to exempt all other property from taxation, but the land-owners themselves would be re-
leased from paying taxes on their improvements and their personal property.
It is not recorded that Mr. Fillebrown succeeded in convincing many of the land-
owners that the entire burden of taxation ought to be put on the land. It is well known
that many of the owners of real estate are in a chronic state of discontent because so much
of the burden of taxation falls upon them, as they believe. Undeniably they shift all of
this burden upon their tenants whenever they can, so that other classes are not exempt.
But it is not to be expected that they should give their assent to a proposition that they
shall assume the entire burden.
In practice, the owners of real estate must pay the bulk of the taxes in the first instance,
and take their chances of shifting it to others. Their property cannot be concealed, and
can scarcely escape the notice of the assessor, so that it is sure to come in for its share of
the public burdens. Efforts to make personal property pay a corresponding share have
not been very successful, and from the nature of the case cannot be. A great deal of per-
sonal property escapes taxation, but much of it belongs to the owners of real estate. The
theory of taxation is that it is the man and not the property that is taxed. Every man is
expected to pay in proportion to his ability for the support of our various governments.
That this is not done in direct payment of taxes is well known, and it is equally true that
38
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
the incidence of indirect taxation often fails to conform to this rule. Taxation is the most
difficult of all subjects, and no system was ever devised that worked with absolute fairness
in all cases.
As to the correctness of Mr. Fillebrown's calculations, there may be differences of
opinion. But conceding them to be correct, we must still insist that his system is wholly
impracticable. It is virtual confiscation of land values, in whole or in part, and the influ-
ence of the land-owners is too great to permit this to be done. Louisville Courier
Journal.
Single-taxers in Boston are making a reputation for hospitality by their banquets.
Everybody says the dinners are delightful, and we may yet hear of some epicure joining
the party and upholding the creed just for the sake of dallying with the viands. San
Francisco Call, May 6, 1903.

NOTE 1. As many copies of this pamphlet as professors would like
for use will be sent them free of expense.
NOTE 2. Through the kind co-operation of the publishers, Messrs.
Doubleday, Page & Co., Mr. Thomas G. Shearman's book, "Natural Tax-
ation," will also be sent to those professors who desire it, free of expense.

1
}
DISCUSSION BY
Professional
Economists
J
ދ
•
$
OF THE TOPIC
{
}
}
$
GROUND RENT:
WHAT IS ITS NATURE, OPERATION AND OFFICE?
WHAT CAUSES IT? WHAT MAINTAINS IT?
HOW MUCH IS THERE OF IT?
t
ADDRESSES BY
I. PROF. CHARLÈS J. BULLOCK, WILLIAMS COLLEGE
2.
PROF. G. S. CALLENDER, BOWDOIN COLLEGE
3. `
`PROF. WILLARD C. FISHER, WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
4. DR. C. W. MIXTER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
5. - PROF. WM. M. BURKE, ALBION COLLEGE
1
6. PROF. CARL C. PLEHN, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
7. PROF. F. S. BALDWIN, BOSTON UNIVERSITY
8. PROF. T. N. CARVER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
}
}
WITH
NEWSPAPER EDITORIALS
ORIALS
BOSTON, MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 8th, 1902
1
$
1
J
Massachusetts Single Tax League
f

PROF
al CJ.BULLOCK
ெ
PROF.
S.BALDWIN
PROF.
CARE C. PLEHN
PROF.
W.M.BURKE
19
PROF.
GS CALLENDER
PROF.
TN-CARVER
SPEAKERS AT THE MASSACHUSETTS LEAGUE'S DINNER
BANQUET
OF THE
MASSACHUSETTS SINGLE TAX LEAGUE
BOSTON, MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 8th, 1902
DISCUSSION BY
PROFESSIONAL ECONOMISTS
OF THE TOPIC
GROUND RENT: WHAT IS ITS NATURE, OPERATION AND OFFICE?
WHAT CAUSES IT? WHAT MAINTAINS IT?
HOW MUCH IS THERE OF IT?
WITH
NEWSPAPER EDI RIALS
PRES, FILLEBROWN'S INTRODUCTION.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :
The Massachusetts Single Tax League is to-night happier than ever in
welcoming you as guests at its sixteenth frugal banquet. One year ago, this
League sought, from the six hundred and sixty-eight members of the Amer-
ican Economic Association, expressions of opinion upon eight points of Pos-
sible Agreement in Political Economy.
The one hundred and thirty-five respondents all practically and substan-
tially agreed to the statement, that "Ground rent is what land is worth for
use."
Among those who responded, there were in all thirty-five regular pro-
fessors of political economy, and twenty-five of these appeared to be in sub-
stantial agreement upon five of the eight points, as follows:
I.
"Ground rent" is what land is worth for use.
2. "Public franchises" are privileges granted to one or several per-
sons incorporated, and from which the mass of citizens are excluded. These
franchises usually pertain to land, including, as they do (to use the language
of the New York Legislative Ford Bill,) all "rights, authority or permission
to construct, maintain or operate, in, under above, upon or through, any
streets, highways, or public places, any mains, pipes, tanks, conduits, or wires,
with their appurtenances, for conducting water, heat, light, power, gas, oil,
These pages are sent to the 295 professors of Political Economy in all the Colleges and Universi-
ties of the United States who were invited to the dinner, with the hope that the bread thus cast
upon the waters may be returned in the form of practical and profitable suggestion.
2
AGRICULTURAL RENTS.
""
or other substance, or electricity for telegraphic, telephonic or other purposes.
Hence their classification, by the above Act, as "land values" may be confirmed
as correct, and their annual values properly classed as ground rent.
3. A tax upon ground rent is a direct tax and cannot be shifted.
4.
The selling value of land is, under present conditions in most of
the American States, reduced by the capitalized tax that is laid upon it.
5. Hence the selling value of land is, to the same extent, an untaxed
value, so far as any purchaser, subsequent to the imposition of the tax, is
concerned.
In a continued effort to dispel differences by the magnifying of agree-
ments, the suggestion has been availed of to forge ahead one step farther,
if possible, along this line of greatest agreement and to seek the right an-
swers to some of the perplexing questions which beset the subject from our
peculiar point of view;-such questions for instance, as:
1. To what extent does ground rent express the value of public, and
quasi public, service? Is it, or is it not, clear that the continuous cost of
this service is what maintains the value of land?
2. Inasmuch as Ricardo's law of rent was specifically expressed and
illustrated in agricultural terms, has not agricultural rent, as a somewhat
natural result, received undue attention from the schools, to the neglect of
urban or city rent in its more acute forms?
THE MAJOR IREATMENT OF AGRICULTURAL RENTS.
Out of a curiosity to ascertain the actual preponderance accorded to
agricultural over urban rent in standard economic treatises, careful com-
parisons have been made of the space devoted by the authorities to agricul-
tural land, and to urban land in treating questions bearing on land values and
land rent. The result shows that in thirty-nine leading works of thirty-four
authors, forty-two thousand and ninety-four lines were given to agricultural
rents, and three thousand and thirty-nine lines to urban rent, or in the ratio
of fourteen to one.
Following is the list complete:
AUTHOR AND WORK.
AGRICULTURAL,
URBAN.
Text Notes Total Text Notes Total
lines lines lines lines lines lines
ADAMS, H. C., The Science of Finance, 1887.
ANDREWS, E. B., Institutes of Economics, 1889.
BULLOCK, C. J., Introduction to Study of Economics,
1897
803
6 809 36
36
30
26
56 15 24 39
570
3 573
81
7
88
CAIRNES, J. E., Some Leading Principles of Political
Economy, 1874
1871
CAREY, H. C., Principles of Political Economy, 1840..
CHALMERS, Thos., Political Economy, 1882.
CLARK, J. B., The Distribution of Wealth, 1899..
ELY, R. T., Socialism, 1894. .
ELY, R. T., Introduction to Political Economy, 1889..
Land, Labor & Taxation, 1882....
FAWCETT, H., Manual of Political Economy, 1874.
GIDE, Chas., Principles of Political Economy, 1896..
HADLEY, A. T., Economics, 1896...
JEVONS, W. S., The Theory of Political Economy,
JEVONS, W. S., Money and Mechanism of
Exchange, 1882
LAUGHLIN, J. L., Elements of Political
IIO
135 26 161
542
3312 205
64
606 118
3517
118
1148
69 1217
12
12
84
84 84
84
ΙΙΟ 48
48
288
288 192
192
..
1835
5
1840 274
274
•
907 16
923 117
117
240 5
245 70
70
301
301
Economy, 1896
•
579
579
19
19
AGRICULTURAL RENTS.
3
URBAN.
AUTHOR AND WORK.
MALTHUS, Nature and Progress of Rent, 1815...
MACCULLOCH, Principles of Political Economy, 1849.
MACLEOD, H. D., The Elements of Economics, 1886..
MACVANE, S. M., The Working Principles of
Political Economy, 1890...
MARSHALL, Alfred, First Principles of Economics,
1898
MILL, J. S., Principles of Political Economy, 1864. .
NICHOLSON, J. S., Principles of Political Economy,
1901
• •
AGRICULTURAL.
Text Notes Total Text Notes Total
lines lines lines lines lines lines
1705 45 1750
1378 60 1438
1257
•
1257
109
109
492 5
497 78
17 95
3557 343 3900
40 180 220
•
782
782
20
20
•
2622 203 2825 355
9 364
·
920
2859 112
920
2
2
297I
ΙΟΙΟ
ΙΟΙΟ
20
20
562
442 ΙΙ
562 207
207
453
114
114
1365
451
1365 500
451
6 506
RAE, John, Contemporary Socialism, 1884.
RICARDO, Principles of Political Economy, 1819.
ROGERS, Thorold, A Manual of Political Economy,
1868
ROGERS, Thorold, Six Centuries of Work & Wages,
1884
•
SAY, J. B., Political Economy, 1821.
SELIGMAN, E. R. A., The Shifting & Incidence of
Taxation, 1892
•
SENIOR, N. W., Political Economy, 1863.
SIDGWICK, H. I., Principles of Political Economy,
1883
•
· •
SMITH, Adam, Wealth of Nations, 1818.
TAUSSIG, F. W., Wages and Capital, 1895.
WALKER, F. A. Land and Rent, 1888……..
WALKER, F. A., Political Economy, 1888.
WALKER, Amasa, The Science of Wealth, 1872.
Total...
371 35 406 3
2755 22
3
22
2755
• •
4648 254 4902
2228 85 2313
228
19 12
31
58
228 38
13
71
38
•
40,516 1,578 42,094 2,611 288 2,919
NOTE: Where agriculture has been considered for other purposes than value and
rent of land, it has been omitted from the comparison. The line of distinction is some-
times drawn with difficulty, and in one or two cases where the argument has seemed to
bear equally on agricultural and urban land, it has been included under both heads. In
view of the liability to error in such a comparison, this list is circulated in the hope that
interested parties may supply any authorities which ought not to be omitted, and note any
corrections in the readings for future publication and reference.
THE MINOR IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURAL RENT.
In contrast with the foregoing theoretical treatment, Massachusetts valua-
tions for 1901 offer a marked illustration of the inverse proportions which
obtain in actual conditions.
ASSESSED VALUATIONS.
33 Cities
37 Large Towns
70 Cities and Towns.
283 Small Towns
353 Cities and Towns
•
•
•
BUILDINGS.
LAND.
TOTAL.
$871,348,922 $932,479,395 $1,803,828,317
$142,803,258 115,529,728 258,332,986
$1,014,152,180 $1,048,009,123 $2,062,161,303
115,605,594
-
185,782,899
301,388,493
$1,199,935,079 $1,163,614,717 $2,363,549,796
The land valuations of 283 small towns, $115,605,594, and of the 70 cities
and large towns, $1,048,009,123, are about in the ratio of one to ten, and the
state census, which gives farm land values by themselves, corroborates the
estimate that the Massachusetts farm land value left for the agricultural
illustration of Ricardo's law of rent does not exceed one-tenth of the land
value of the whole state.
Putting the foregoing statements together, that is, considering at once
the relative weight of the authorities and the relative importance of the sub-
4
ADDRESS OF PROF. BULLOCK.
jects, we are confronted with the spectacle of fourteen times too much at-
tention given for a hundred years to ten times too small a matter. Pro-
ceeding now to the multiplication of fourteen by ten, we are brought face
to face with the mathematical conclusion that in order to restore a lost
equilibrium, the schools might reasonably from now on give one hundred and
forty times more study to the subject of urban or city rent than they have
been in the habit of doing in the past.
This extravagant conclusion is set forth in the hope that it may prove
a magnet which shall draw present attention away from agricultural ground
rent which may almost be ignored, and fix it upon the forty-five million ground
rent of Boston, which the people pay yearly for the use of its land; upon
the one hundred and fifty or two hundred million ground rent of Greater
New York; upon the two or three thousand million ground rent of the United
States, and upon so much of ground rent as exists in the coal mines of Penn-
sylvania, and in the billions of franchise values that are springing up all
around us like gourds in the night.
Confronted, as we are to-day, by such acute conditions, we ask you
to pardon whatever may seem like impatience with a theory which has dealt
so laboriously with the cuticle, the margin of production, instead of with
the heart of production.
We seek a proper understanding and economic treatment of this vast
river of rent, which, like a great Mississippi, drains every field of industry,
labor and capital, wages and interest, in the whole country around. Our ear-
nest contention is that to such wise treatment we are to look for the correction
of most that it now wrong in the distribution of wealth. Out of this vast
current of ground rent, we would provide for all public need.
By way of help to a better every-day understanding, not of any theory,
but of this great fundamental fact of ground rent, college professors from
Maine to California have royally lent themselves to a voluminous corres-
pondence, and a select number, representatives of leading institutions, have
generously consented to participate in a public consideration of the topic.
GROUND RENT: WHAT IS ITS NATURE, OPERATION AND OF-
FICE? WHAT CAUSES IT? WHAT MAINTAINS IT?
HOW MUCH IS THERE OF IT?
It gives us pleasure to present to you these gentlemen, beginning with
Professor Charles J. Bullock, of Williams College, who has kindly consented
to open the discussion.
PROFESSOR BULLOCK'S ADDRESS.
THE NATURE OF GROUND RENT.
Ground rent, or the income received by the owner of land, is a concept
that is sufficiently broad to include all income that is derived from the con-
trol of natural agents of production. He who would utilize a water power
or draw from beneath the surface of the earth the mineral treasures de-
posited there in bygone ages, must, no less than the farmer, the manufac-
turer, or the merchant, enjoy access to some particular tract of land. For
this reason, I suppose, the definition formulated as the outcome of the cor-
respondence conducted by the Single Tax League during the past year, de-
clares that land value is "The value of situation, with its natural gifts, and
with all the rights and privileges pertaining to the occupancy thereof." With
this brief statement of the connotation of the term, I venture to present my
ADDRESS OF PROF. BULLOCK.
5
views concerning the nature of the income that flows from the ownership
of land; and at the outset will expressly warn you that I shall pay no atten-
tion to any theories of taxation and social reform that may or may not fol-
low from the conclusions that I shall reach.
In the tangle of conflicting theories that enmesh the student of this prob-
lem, two opposing tendencies of thought are clearly discernible. Accord-
ing to one view of the matter, land is a simple agent of production that
resembles, at least, in those respects which are of most importance to the
economist, all other instruments of production. Land, like tools and ma-
chines and buildings, is supposed to contribute its share to the production
of wealth; and it is held that the income derived from land differs in no
important particular from the income that accrues to the owner of any other
instrument of production. In the opposing view of the problem, a vital dis-
tinction exists between land and the other agents of production; and it is
declared that rent is a form of income that differs very widely from the
interest received by the owner of the improvements which man places upon
the land. According to the first theory, land is merely one form of product-
ive capital; and there is no vital difference between rent and interest; ac-
cording to the second, capital is something distinct from land, and inter-
est is something of a different genus from rent. The first view is often
held by that economic Philistine known as "the practical man," but is not
without its advocates among professional economists; the second has be-
come a classical theory in economic science.
In the time at my disposal it will be impossible to consider many of
the questions at issue between the parties to this interesting controversy.
I shall, therefore, content myself with presenting what I believe to be a
satisfactory method of approaching the problem, and stating the chief con-
siderations that have led me to accept the classical theory of rent.
The income which a land-owner receives in any year may be called the
annual value of his property, and he may begin bv inquiring what the cir-
cumstances are upon which that value depends. The solution of our proh-
lem would seem to involve merely a particular application of a general the-
ory of value, upon the essential of which it would seem that an agreement
can be secured. Into the metaphysics of the question of value we shall find
it unnecessary to enter, and it will suffice for present purposes to appeal to
familiar principles that are well established, both by reason and common
experience. If the supply of any commodity, such as a Cremona violin is a
fixed quantity, then its value will depend simply upon the conditions of de-
inand. If, however, articles can be multiplied by the expenditure of human
labor their value will be influenced by the fact that the supply can be in-
creased just as long as the price remains high enough to induce people to
furnish additional amounts. If a commodity is controlled by a single body
of producers, the supply will be limited at the point that will secure the
largest net return upon the investment of labor and capital; but if it is pro-
duced under competitive conditions, the output will generally increase until
a progressive fall in the market price makes further production unprofit-
able. In the actual world of business, mistakes constantly occur, and eco-
nomic friction at various points frequently produces results that are not con-
templated by this imperfect statement of the theory; but in the long run, things
are subjected to a process of valuation that roughly corresponds to that
which has been described.
Now I shall endeavor to explain the nature of ground rent by refer-
ence to the conditions that govern the demand for land and the supply of
that agent of production. And we may first examine the conditions that de-
termine the demand. The demand for land comes from persons who desire
6
ADDRESS OF PROF. BULLOCK.
to use it in production, and the annual rental offered for any tract will de-
pend upon the advantages which that particular situation offers for the pur-
poses to which it is to be devoted. If a location on Summer Street enables
a merchant to do a very large retail trade, and to realize large aggregate
returns from this enterprise, a large demand price will be offered for that
location. If a farm of superior fertility enables a producer to raise wheat
at a small cost per bushel, the demand price for that farm will be the an-
nual saving in the cost of raising the number of bushels produced. In gen-
eral, an increase of population, by increasing the need for the things produced
from the land, will tend to raise the demand price; while a decline in num-
bers will have the contrary effect.
Turning now to the conditions governing the supply of land, we find
that here we have to deal with an object that is not the product of human
labor, and of which the value is not influenced by the cost of production.
At this point controversy sometimes arises, and it is asked whether a por-
tion of the land upon which Boston stands is not "made land," and whether
a large part of Holland was not reclaimed from the sea. And the further
suggestion is made that the discovery of new continents has increased the
supply of land in past ages; that the development of regions now practically
uninhabited will furnish additional land as fast as there is a demand for
it; and, that improvements in transportation are constantly bringing more.
fand into the market. For all practical intents and purposes, it is argued,
the supply of land can be increased by the appropriate sort of human effort;
so that it may be said that land does not differ from tools and machines
and buildings in the respect that has just been mentioned.
In reply, however, it may be safely contended that the additions which
nian can make to the land surface of the globe, are so small, as to be a neg-
ligible quantity when we compare land with the things that human labor
places upon it. As Professor Cairnes has reminded us, outside of the math-
ematical sciences, few definitions and distinctions can be formulated that
are not founded upon differences of degree; so that the fact that at the
boundary lines some slight exceptions can be discovered, is not necessarily
a valid objection to any scheme of classification. Would any one seriously
contend that there is any similarity between the annual rate of increase
of this country's stock of capital and the annual additions that human labor
makes to the land surface of North America?
And what shall be said of the contention that the occupation of unin-
habited regions, and the improvement of means of transportation enable
us to increase the supply of available land as fast as occasion may demand?
I believe that the essential facts which are emphasized in this contention, can
be conceded without removing the basis for our distinction between land
and capital. When we say that capital is the product of human effort, and
that land is not, we we do not mean that the supply of land now available
for man's use is an absolutely fixed quantity; or that it is impossible, by
developing means of transportation, to bring more land into the market.
Obviously, the quantity of land in the market is not fixed; but it is true that
when an addition is made to the supply of available land, that addition is
in the market to stay as long as there is a demand for it, because it does
not need to be renewed by the continuous expenditure of human labor, as is
the case with a country's supply of capital. The cost of supplying capital
exerts an influence upon the interest which capital can command, not merely
or chiefly because the capital now in the market represents some sacrifice on
the part of the capitalist, but because the existing supply of tools, or ma-
chines, or buildings, will not be kept up unless the sacrifices incurred in produc-
tion are suitably rewarded. In this fact we find sufficient justification for
ADDRESS OF PROF. CALLENDER.
77
discriminating between land and capital, and for differentiating rent from
interest.
Permit me, by way of conclusion, to present a brief summary of the
results of the preceding discussion. The annual value of land depends upon
the conditions of demand and supply. The demand price varies according
to the advantages which land offers for production, and will tend to in-
crease with every increase of population. The supply of land is not produced
by man and does not need to be renewed by a constant expenditure of hu-
nian labor. The quantity of land in the market is not, however, always a
fixed quantity; since, if the prospective demand warrants it, regions now
unoccupied can, for some time to come, be made available for human uses.
But land once brought into the market will command such prices as its nat-
ural resources or situation will induce producers to pay. Unlike capital,
its value will not be influenced by the cost of keeping up the existing stock.
For this reason I contend that rent is widely different from interest, and
that the ground of difference is to be found in the peculiar conditions that
govern the supply of land.
COMMENTARY BY PROFESSOR G. S. CALLENDER, BOWDOIN
COLLEGE.
THE NATURE OF GROUND RENT.
There are two questions involved in the subject we are considering to-
night. The first is whether or no an income derived from the ownership of
the natural agents of production is the same kind of income as that derived
from the ownership of capital. In other words, is ground rent the same
thing as interest? The second question is whether an income derived from
the ownership of the natural agents of production is an earned or an un-
earned income? That is to say, does the person who derives an income from
such a source perform any service in production, such as is performed, for
instance, by those who supply by means of saving the capital of the com-
munity? It is this second question which alone gives practical interest and
importance to our subject. The first is important only so far as it helps to
answer the second. To show that rent and interest are the same is to prove
that the income derived from the one is no more unearned than that de-
rived from the other.
To my mind, Professor Bullock has answered the first question satis-
factorily. Barring the inevitable exceptions, it seems to me impossible to
deny these propositions: first, that the supply of the natural agents is lim-
ited, and cannot be increased by man's efforts; second, that the demand
for the natural agents increases along with the increase of population. It
follows from this that the value of the natural agents of production is de-
termined in a different way from that of capital,and the income derived from
their ownership is a different kind of income from that derived from the
possession of capital. Accepting this conclusion, however, does not help
us very much in answering the second, and more important question, of
whether the landlord's income is an earned or unearned one. It proves that
the rent receivers as a class do not perform the same kind of service in
production on that is performed by the savers of capital; but it does not prove
that they perform no service whatever. To those of us, therefore, who be-
lieve with Professor Bullock that land is not capital, and that rent and interest
are distinct and different kinds of income, the important thing to find out
about ground rent is not so much its origin or the forces which give rise
8
ADDRESS OF PROF. CALLENDER.
to it, as the nature of the services to production, if there are any, which
are rendered by those who receive it as income.
Looking at the matter from this point of view, there is one remark
which I wish to make concerning rent in relation to taxation.
It is prac-
tically impossible to make any general statements concerning the justice of
expediency of public appropriation of ground rent, which shall be applicable
to the rent of all kinds of natural agents in all situations. Whether or
no an income based upon ground rent be an earned or unearned income,
that is, whether the person receiving it performs any service in production
in return for it, depends entirely upon the nature of the natural resource
of agent from which the rent is drawn. Each separate case has to be con-
sidered on its own merits, and the conclusion reached regarding one case
is not necessarily applicable to any other. Thus it may not be difficult to
show that certain kinds of natural agents in certain situations can be made
to yield the largest return to the community, when private individuals are
allowed to possess them and to appropriate their value. It is easy to see,
that in case of the mines of the precious metals which a country may pos-
sess, the best way of securing their discovery and exploitation is to allow
private individuals to appropriate their value. Only by allowing the great
prizes, when discovered, to be appropriated can men be induced to incur the
risks necessary to discover and develop them. There is good ground also
for thinking that the agricultural lands of a country will be made to yield
their largest returns to the community if individuals are allowed to ap-
propriate the rent of them. President Hadley pointed out that the private
ownership of the oyster beds of Chesapeake Bay caused them to be much
more productive to the community than they were before private ownership
was introduced. In all these cases and in many more it may doubtless be
shown that private appropriation of ground rent is not an unearned income.
When, however, we turn to such cases as the water front of a great city
like New York, or Chicago, or Boston, or to the building sites along the prin-
cipal business streets of those cities, or to the right of running street cars
through their principal streets, it is not obvious, to say the least, that the
utility of these particular natural resources to the community is rendered.
greater by allowing private individuals to appropriate the value which con-
tinually increases with the growth of population; and the fact that such a
policy has proven beneficial in the case of mines and agricultural lands and
certain kinds of fisheries, furnishes no ground for concluding that it is
beneficial in these cases. The payments made for the use of a mine or a
farm or of a piece of water front or a building lot on Tremont St. are all
rent; they may all arise in the same way, and be determined by the same law;
but the question of whether or not they are earned by those who received
them must be determined from the conditions existing in each industry and
these may vary in every case. What we need, therefore, as a guide in tax-
ing incomes derived from ground rent is, not so much a study of the na-
ture of rent in general, as a study of particular kinds of rent with a view
of showing the effect of its private appropriation upon production in each
industry. It is not in my opinion the fact that the value of land and other
natural agents is determined in a somewhat different way from most other
commodities, that is to justify the public appropriation, though taxation, of
ground rent. If such appropriation is to be made its expediency will have
to be determined separately for each different kind of natural agent in the
way I have indicated. Already the public has come to recognize that cer-
tain rights, such as those granted to street-car, gas and electric light com-
panies, acquire additional value simply by the increase of population in the
cities where they are situated, and it is beginning to be a wise policy to
COMMENTARY BY PROF. FISHER.
9
secure for the public a part at least of this increase of value. If this policy
proves to have
no bad effects upon the industries concerned, it may be ex-
tended to others and the same test applied. It is not easy to see why the
right to occupy the space along the streets of a city, which must inevitably
become more valuable as the population of the city increases, may not wisely
be dealt with in the same way as the right to run cars through the streets
or to lay gas mains along them. At any rate, the nature of the rent of agri-
cultural lands, or of mines of the precious metals, affords us no aid what-
ever in determining whether it should be so dealt with or not.
COMMENTARY BY PROFESSOR WILLARD C. FISHER OF WES-
LEYAN UNIVERSITY.
For the most part, I should accept Mr. Bullock's statements as to the
nature of ground rent. Indeed, it is probably true that we differ in no im-
portant particular. Only at some few points should I be inclined to modify
or develop what he has said.
It might, perhaps, even be worth while to make formal note of the
truth that rent comes not alone from "natural agents of production," but
from any unproduced or nature-given good, whether it be used productively
or in unproductive consumption. But with this much once expressly under-
stood, it may be more convenient to discuss the rents as if they arose only
from agents of production.
If there is one part of the topic in which Mr. Bullock's exposition really
needs a closer statement than he has had time to give, I should say that
it is, after all, in the direct, formal definition of rent. Rent is not exactly
the income from nature-given agents of production, or payment for the
use of such agents, for it does not arise from all such agents. Rent is.
rather, income from natural agents superior to the poorest which are ac-
tually forced into use in order to meet the demand of the market; or, more
briefly, it is income from superiority of indestructible natural agents.
And in this alternative form of statement it appears more clearly why
the adverse criticisms of the classical theory of rent are, after all, of only
minor importance. It is, no doubt, true that "land" can be produced." It
is true that by filling and blasting building sites may be prepared; as it is
true that by clearing and draining farm lands may be made ready for tillage.
But it is also true, as Mr. Bullock has pointed out, that such additions to
the supply of land are, comparatively, very small indeed. And, in my view,
far more pertinent for the defense of the Ricardian theory is the obvious.
truth that superior land is not so produced; indeed, I think we may say that,
in the nature of the case, it cannot be produced thus, at least in amounts
large enough to affect the classical theory. When land is thus "produced,"
we must start either with or without an original, unproduced value in the
area under treatment. If we assume an original, nature-given value, to
which the capital used in the "production" of the land merely adds more
value, the case of the Ricardians is won, or rather it is conceded at the start.
And, on the other hand, if there be no original value in the area, capital will,
under competition at once free and intelligent, work itself into the area just
as rapidly and just as far as the yield from the new land can be made to
equal the yield from the poorest of the lands already in use. In the technical
phraseology of our discussion, produced lands regularly appear first upon
the margin of cultivation, and only as the margin moves out, do they yield
a true rent. They may, to be sure, after they are once successfully pro-
duced, yield a return greater than the amount of normal interest upon the
capital used in producing them, but not, as I think, a return greater than is
10
COMMENTARY BY PROF. MIXTER.
properly to be accounted for by a reference to the capital and the labors,
hardships, and risks of the production.
No reference, therefore, to the phenomena of "produced" land can affect
the truth that there are differences in the productivity of the lands of va-
rious sorts upon which society depends. And it is upon this great and sim-
ple truth-obvious enough, too, in the facts of every-day life-that the whole
Ricardian theory depends.
The narrow limits which have been so properly set upon our time by the
Single Tax League, and which I have already transgressed, has made it
necessary for me to take for granted a great deal in my statements. I as-
sume, what we always assume in economic discussion, the possibility of mis-
calculations, the occasional, perhaps the frequent operation of other than
the narrowest economic motives, the possibility of temporary reactions from
the normal tendency of forces, and the possibility of a great many other
things. Moreover, I have expressed myself very briefly, even elliptically.
But all that will be understood here; and here a speaker is as certain as
anywhere to be interpreted reasonably, even charitably.
COMMENTARY BY DR. C. W. MIXTER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
GROUND
Ground rENT-HOW MUCH IS THERE OF IT?
means
Men form instruments from materials with which they control the forces
of nature to the end of supplying their wants. For example, agricultural
land is one of the materials necessary for the formation of a farm, and,
through that, the attainment of food. In other words, all production is
instrumental, and land being a material doesn't produce anything. Man
and the instrument (capital) produce all wealth. Under the existing high
development of successive division of employments, moreover, each individual
producer is commonly under the necessity of marketing his product. Those
who produce and market in any industry, (the marketing being a contin-
uation of the process of production), are again divided into economic classes
receiving profits proper, interest, and wages, according to the nature of the
part they play. But this does not exhaust the list of classes of participants
and sorts of income. There are those who own the means of access to mate-
rials for the purpose of forming instruments, and those who own
of access to society to the general concourse of people for the purpose
of marketing products; and both these sorts of owners receive, according
to the classic theory, when their "means of access" is superior to the mar-
ginal means in competition, an income called the rent of land (or ground
rent) for simply' allowing others to enter into possession and use of their
property. The typical bonus paid to landlords for access to materials is agri-
cultural rent; and the typical bonus paid for access to society, is situation rent
in the trade centre of a city. In short, according to the received concept, the
rent of land is a matter of distribution on the basis of legal institutions,
not a matter of production on the basis of the economic nature of things.
The landlord, as such, whether simply owner, or owner and occupier, it is
held, participates in the sharing of wealth, but not in the creation of it.
Therefore, though expressing myself differently, I am at one with Pro-
fessor Bullock in his statement of the nature of rent.
Now let us pass to the discussion of its quantity.
If we had what may be called a "static" world, that is, a state of so-
ciety in which population increased and capital increased, but there was
no advance of the arts, no new ways of doing business, and consequently, the
economic corpus grew simply, as a pile of brick grows through the addi-
COMMENTARY BY PROF. MIXTER.
11
tion of more bricks of the same sort as were in the pile before, then, indeed,
there would be a steady pushing forward of the margin of labor and wait-
ing in every branch of industry and 'commerce, and back of this margin would
rise a regular series of differential gains (rents) like the steps of a flight
of stairs, each corresponding to the natural advantage which that grade
of land had over the no-rent, marginal land. Such was Ricardo's world-
agricultural England during the Napoleonic wars-which furnished the basis
of his one-sided theory of rent. But we have, in fact, a "dynamic" world,
a world in which there are epoch making inventions and new ways of do-
ing business; a world where, in consequence, some men and trades, and
some of the different localities of a given trade, are rising and others fall-
ing; in short, we live in a world of change and progress, and this immensely
complicates the task of ascertaining how much there is of ground rent. There
are differential losses to be taken account of as well as differential gains; the
margin of an industry is here to-day, and there to-morrow. It is impos-
sible to calculate rent-impossible for the landlords themselves to do so
without reference to the margin; and if the margin is variable, the rent accord-
ingly becomes highly indeterminate, and in practice under a landlord and tenant
system land is "over" or under-rented."
Not only is it difficult, because of progress, to determine the quantity of
rent in any particular instance when, apparently beyond doubt, we are deal-
ing with pure rent; but also, when we take account of the causes of prog-
ress, it is difficult to know, in respect to apparent rents in general, whether
or not they are really rents, according to the classic definition, which sharply
distinguishes them from profits and those who receive them from capital-
ists (entrepreneurs). If progress made itself-if society in general simply
secreted the things which constitute progress-this difficulty would not arise.
And again it would not present itself if the comparatively few individuals who
make progress were sufficiently rewarded in their own estimation by a diplo-
ma and a blue ribbon. But those who make progress are not content with
a diploma and blue ribbon; they demand the winning of large pecuniary
prizes, or, at least, the chance of winning them. And this is not the whole.
All their operations are bound up with and inseparable from the institution
of private property; they demand that their efforts shall be embodied in and
guaranteed by property, "real" as well as "personal," with its full speculative
rights, for at least a long term of years. To a very considerable extent,
therefore, ownership of land is an economic category, not a mere legal cate-
gory, and landlords are merged with capitalists. So far forth the detached
form of income we have been in the habit of discussing under the name of
ground rent does not exist; it is coalesced with profits; it is one and the
same thing as the price we must pay for getting things done-especially for
getting important speculative things done.
Now a few words on that special aspect of the rent theory which is, that
the surplus earnings of a public service corporation, conceived of as attach-
ing to the land (or rights in land) used under its franchise, is, therefore,
in the nature of ground rent. An economist, well acquainted with Eng-
land, recently said to me that he doubted if they would ever have first-class
rapid transit in London: the masses of the people, imbued with modern so-
cialistic notions, were "so desperately afraid of somebody's making some-
thing." How much, in fact, would it be worth to the people of London and
vicinity to save from half an hour to an hour going and coming from work
each day? I am tempted to reply all that anybody who would bring the
thing to pass could possibly make out of it. At present, the only persons who
can bring it to pass are not offered terms which they are willing to accept,
and so it is not brought to pass. Neither is efficient rapid transit nor elec-
12
COMMENTARY BY PROF. BURKE.
tric lighting, generally speaking, anywhere in England brought to pass. The
whole electrical industry in England is in consequence far behind that of the
United States, Germany, and even Italy. How does one know that there
are any "surplus earnings" of a public service corporation: that is, earn-
ings above what is payment for work done and risks run-payment above
the necessary cost-price of progress?
મ
But supposing that it is determined, in the case of a street railway com-
pany, for example, that there is a surplus gain above any necessary profit,
even then I do not admit that it is ground rent or an analogue of ground
rent, as that term has been commonly understood. It is no differential
gain fixed competitively and independently by the conditions of marginal pro-
duction, on the one side, and free offerings of buyers on the other side,
as the pure economic rent of wheat lands, used as the basis of the contract-
ural rent of a tenant, is fixed by supply and demand for marginal wheat.
The supply in the case of the street railway is a monopolized supply, the
demand is largely created by the company itself through the ways and means.
it employs to serve the public, and the price is a matter of custom or leg-
islative control. There is no surplus gain of any sort in connection with a
Fublic service franchise irrespective of the service rendered for the price
charged. By extending its service into the suburbs, and by increasing the
number of transfers, our own Elevated Company is virtually reducing its
fares materially year by year. Its object is to increase its business; but
the increase of its business means a larger and a better Boston. Whatever
this company makes (if anything) above bank interest, reward for business.
management, and compensation for the risks it has taken, is not ground
rent, but a pure monopoly gain.
In conclusion, I desire to state that I do not wish to be understood as
agreeing in the least with those who are opposed to Professor Bullock's
statement of the nature of pure rent. Land is not a thing whose supply costs
efforts and sacrifices, and, therefore, the income derived from its ownership,
socially considered, is not of the same sort as the interest of capital. My
position is that in many instances, those who own land and apparently ob-
tain a pure economic rent, are in fact, merely taking with one hand what they
have made with the other; they are getting in connection with a piece of land
the profits of their business management. Especially does this idea hold
true, when we take into account that often when one enterpreneur-land-
lord, obtains what is undoubtedly rent, to him-a windfall coming out of
the wealth created by another entrepreneur-landlord-the same happens
to that other, and so, for the class as a whole, it is a set-off. In short, in the
case of any specific income obtained in connection with land (the land it-
self makes nothing), it is desirable that we examine closely, to see if any
part of it corresponds, in view of the whole industrial situation, with Pro-
fessor Bullock's concept of rent, which is the true one. And this is of special
importance to Single Taxers. Before catching your hare-to say nothing of
the cooking-first see that it is a hare.
COMMENTARY BY PROFESSOR WM. M. BURKE, ALBION COL-
LEGE, ALBION, MICH.
In the few comments I shall make on the very able paper presented by
Professor Bullock, I want first to insist on the great importance of urban land
values as compared with that of rural lands and to lay more stress on the part
played by society in the production of this value. I agree with Professor
Bullock as he agrees with the classical economists in making the income from
land different in nature from the income from capital.
0
COMMENTARY BY PROF. BURKE.
13
I believe, however, that he, together with the classical economists, em-
phasizes the rent of agricultural land until the more important facts of urban
land rents are well nigh lost sight of.
Rent of land is a price paid for something, and like every other price, is
controlled by the demand for, and the supply of the commodity or service.
This something which commands a price called rent is really "access to oppor-
tunity." Any piece of land which commands no rent has this attribute in such
small measure that it does not compete with land already in use, and the lands
which command the highest rents have this attribute in largest measure.
The supply of this access to opportunity is coextensive with the supply
of land, and this supply can be increased in such small quantity as to cut
little figure in the discussion. If the supply cannot be increased indefinitely
any increase in demand will make the present stock more valuable, that is, a
higher rent will accrue to the owners.
All lands collectively cannot be considered monopolized, for in a sense
all tracts compete with each other, but each tract of land is monopolized inas-
much as no other piece of land is equally fitted for just the uses that make
this particular piece valuable.
The value of agricultural land is governed in very much the same way
as value of urban lands. Improved facilities for transportation allow poorer
lands to compete more easily with better grades and thus lower the rent all
along the line. There is moreover to a certain extent, in these days of rapid
transit, some competition between so-called rural land and city land.
Certainly almost all land is increasing in value, the exceptions are com-
paratively trifling as worked out mines and changes as to desirable parts of
a city. When a commodity rises in value we can almost always trace the
cause to the labor of an individual or group of individuals who have added to
its utility. Can we do in the case of land? In some cases, yes, but the value
of most commodities is created by a conscious effort on the part of him who
hopes to profit by it. The value of land increases without this conscious effort
except in a comparatively few cases. The man who takes up new agricul-
tural land and counts as part of his profit its rise in value, or the manufacturer
who establishes a plant where he can control the surrounding property, if the
plant would not be established without the prospect of the added land value
are examples of conscious effort to increase land values and to obtain an
economic rent.
Something also is due to the foresight of the individual who buys land in
a city and simply holds it for a rise, without improving it because of the slight
risk he runs that land values will decrease instead of increasing. A moderate
percentage of the investment would be allowed for his ability in this direction.
Beyond this we must look to outside influences for the immense difference in
productivity of different tracts of land. It is due to the intense demand for
favored situations which is caused by the growth of a civilized population.
For a large population of this kind makes a city a desirable place to live in
both for pleasure and profit. A lot on lower Broadway is very valuable, not
because any owner has made a sacrifice nor indeed that society has sacrificed
anything, but that lower New York is a favored spot in which many desire to
do business, and it was made so partly by nature and in large measure by the
great number of intelligent people who desire to live in New York City and
vicinity. In other words a very large part of the ground rent is a product of
society and nothing else. So far as this is true, then, no individual should be
allowed to claim such product, but it should go to the community which
created it.
14
COMMENTARY BY PROF. PLEHN.
COMMENTARY BY PROFESSOR CARL C. PLEHN, UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA.
THE NATURE OF GROUND RENT.
As the space allotted to each of the six critics of Dr. Bullock's paper is
necessarily small, I feel that I must resist the temptation to give full expres-
sion to my admiration of the clearness and force, as well as the subtlety, with
which he has presented his argument., Dr. Bullock correctly recognizes two
opposing tendencies of thought in regard to the nature of ground rent. He
has espoused the cause of one set of views, which he well calls the classical,
and has defended it with all his customary vigor and ability.
Nevertheless that view, so frankly and clearly set forth, seems to me
not only classical, but antiquated and I wish to speak for the opposing theory.
Briefly stated, I hold that, to-day, in the United States, land when appropriated,
and in use, is simply one form of capital; and ground rent, the regular and
customary income from such land, is in every essential particular a form of
interest, the general income from capital.
""
There is one misunderstanding against which we must be particularly on
our guard, and that arises from the paucity of the English language which
compels us to use "rent" in many distinct senses. What is sometimes called
economic rent, pure and simple, sometimes "profits," "differential gains,
"unearned increment," etc., i.e., the increment in the value of a given piece of
property during any interval of time, or what is correlative therewith, the
increase, during such interval, in the revenue which such property may
afford, is very different from the "ground rent" which we are discussing.
These two conceptions are as distinct from one another as the increase in
the speed of a falling body during a given interval of time is distinct from its
speed at any instant during that interval. An "unimproved" or unused piece
of land, even if appropriated and held for speculative purposes, will, so long
as it remains unused and unimproved, yield no ground rent, although it may
be gradually increasing in value, or accumulating economic rent.
There have been times and places, there are still such places-where
the laws and customs in relation to property in land were different from those
in regard to property in other things and for these times and places a distinc-
tion might properly be drawn between ground rent and house rent or any
other form of interest. But, in the United States, to-day, an owner's title to
his land is as good, and is in every respect of the same character, as his title
to anything else. He is as free to sell or lend his land as he is to sell or lend
anything else. He does so in the same manner. Hence the classical distinc-
tion between ground rent and other forms of interest, which rested on the
old laws and customs is antiquated and should be allowed to become obsolete.
Dr. Bullock correctly states that the best method of approach is to
regard the problem as one in value. We take no exception to his statement
of the demand side of the problem. There is, of course, nothing in the nature
of the demand for land that differs in kind from the demand for any other
sort of wealth.
We find, however, serious difficulties in his statement of the elements of
the supply. In the first place his presentation of our position is inadequate.
When we say that the supply of land is not limited in the economic sense, any
more than the supply of other forms of capital may be, and of some forms is,
limited, we do not refer merely to such things as "made land,” not to acre-
age reclaimed from the sea or from swamps; nor to artificial terraces on the
rocks as in Japan; nor to the multiplication of surfaces, one above the other;
COMMENTARY BY PROF. BALDWIN.
15
nor to multiple cropping as practiced in China. Nor do we refer to the obvious
fact that with every advance in the methods of utilizing land (improved culti-
vation, improved building) each unit of area serves more people or serves the
same people better. These forms of actual or possible surface increase are
more important than Dr. Bullock would have us believe; but it is not necessary
to consider them in our analysis of the supply.
What we mean is this, that "land capital" is produced or fashioned by
human labor out of land surface (and other things which nature affords)
just in the same manner as other forms of capital are produced by human labor
out of other materials nature affords. Land surface as such never enters the
economic realm at all, never becomes wealth, nor yields an income, until
appropriated and usually not until still further transformed by labor, drained,
graded, fenced, artificially fertilized, etc.; and when the labor of maintain-
ing possession ceases-or, in other words, when a farm, a building lot or a
mine, is "abandoned"-it ceases to be wealth or capital and becomes once more
mere land surface. The same thing is equally true of a lump of iron ore made
into a tool. To paraphrase Dr. Bullock's statement concerning capital, if the
sacrifices incurred in keeping land in the market are not suitably rewarded' it
will be withdrawn.
Dr. Bullock seems to us to identify, in this connection, a geographical
conception with an economic one, land surface with land supply. Let us
admit that the land surface of the earth may be but slightly increased; what
then? The supply of land in the market is not thereby limited, at least not
yet, nor will it be, so far as we can foresee, for some years to come. Is the
time honored distinction between stock or store on hand and economic supply
to be ignored for land and enforced for all other forms of capital? When
has the fact that ten generations, or even one, hence, the stock of something
now on earth may be exhausted, or entirely appropriated (whalebone, certain
woods, coal, etc.) ever affected the value of any such commodity, or restrained
men of any generation from using their present stock as freely as the cost of
getting it in the market would permit? When the entire stock becomes supply,
then, if ever, and not until then, will the geographical limitation of land have
an economic significance.
Possibly the labor cost of keeping up the supply of land, once it is in
the market, is slight as compared with that of keeping up some other forms.
of capital, but the difference is one of degree, not of kind. Possibly the extent
to which the original qualities of the materials enter into the utility of a
piece of appropriated, improved and used land is great, and the extent to
which labor adds to those utilities is small by comparison, and possibly the
reverse is true of other capital in certain forms. This, too, is all a question of
degree and not of kind, and certainly does not permit us to say that “land is
not a product of human labor," while capital is.
"Cost of production" rules here as elsewhere. Some pieces of land have
qualities which can be duplicated in other pieces out of the present stock as
readily as anyl tool; others, again, like some tools, have qualities that cannot.
be duplicated. Lucky is the owner of such a piece of land, and so is the
owner of such a tool; both are the recipients of economic rent as well as
of interest, and they should, perhaps, be willing to pay taxes in proportion
to their exceptional good fortune.
COMMENTARY BY PROFESSOR F. S. BALDWIN, BOSTON
UNIVERSITY.
The main purpose of this discussion, I take it, is to secure from the par-
ticipants expressions of agreement or disagreement with the statement of the
value of economic rent formulated in Professor Bullock's introductory paper.
16
COMMENTARY BY PROF. BALDWIN.
is in
Indeed, the time at the disposal of each critic is hardly sufficient to permit
much more than a mere word of assent or dissent. Personally I find that Pro-
fessor Bullock has made my task an easy one. I am prepared to file a simple
"me, too." I might voice my approval of his position in the words of the
comment made by the late Henry Dunning McLeod in his "History of Econo-
mics," upon the work of a certain American economist: "Professor
agreement with me on all points with the exception of a few trifling dissi-
dences. His work is an excellent outline of economics." Although I should
wish to amend and qualify Professor Bullock's exposition in some points of
minor detail, I agree with his main proposition that there is a vital distinction
between land and capital, and a wide difference between rent and interest.
So far as the function of land and of capital in production is concerned,
the two instruments seem to me to play essentially the same role. They are
both passive elements, employed by man in creating utilities. They con-
tribute to the total product in identical fashion. There is nothing magical
and unusual about the share of land in the productive process, as compared
with that of capital. But in the distributive process the return accruing to the
landholder is governed by a law radically different from that which deter-
mines the earnings of the capitalist. The fact that land is limited in supply
confers upon its owner the power to command a differential return in
form of ground rent. There is nothing analogous to this in the case of cap-
ital. The law of rent holds not only of land employed in agriculture, but also
of land used for manufacturing and mercantile purposes; it applies univer-
sally throughout the industrial world.
the
The attempt of certain writers to refine away this traditional distinction
between land and capital, rent and interest, impresses me as a subtle obscuration
of plain facts. Professor Plehn's defense of the new theory is ingenious, but
not convincing. He admits that for times and places where the laws and cus-
toms in relation to property in land were different from those in regard
tc property in other things, a distinction might properly be drawn between
ground rent and other forms of interest, but beholds that in a country! like the
United States, where property in land is on the same legal footing as property
in other forms of wealth, this distinction no longer holds. But the distinction
in question does not rest, as Professor Plehn represents, upon laws and cus-
toms in relation to property. Land and other forms of wealth held the same
position in respect to property laws and customs in England when Ricardo
first formulated the economic law of rent which they hold to-day in this
country. The distinction rests in fact upon the manifest difference in condi-
tions of supply between land and' capital; and that difference is as real to-day
as it has ever been. Again, Professor Plehn argues that the fact that land
surface is geographically limited has nothing to do with the economic supply
of land in the market. The economic supply of land, he contends, is not on
this account limited, any more than the supply of other forms of capital may
be; land capital is produced or fashioned by human labor out of land surface,
and other things which nature affords, just in the same manner as other forms
of capital are produced out of other materials nature affords. In this specious
argument Professor Plelin jumps lightly over the inconvenient fact that the
economic supply of "land capital"-to use his terminology-is at all times and
in all places inseparably bound up with the geographical supply of land sur-
face, which is unalterably fixed in quantity. It is this concrete condition and
not any speculative theory resting, on temporal and local circumstances of
law and custom which confronts Professor Plehn and his fellow critics of the
classical doctrine of rent. And until the plain fact of the limited supply of
land can be conjured away, that doctrine, as set forth to-night in Professor
Bullock's paper, will still hold possession of the field.
SUMMARY BY PROF. CARVER.
17
SUMMARY BY PROFESSOR T. N. CARVER, HARVARD
UNIVERSITY.
The discussion seems to have centred about three questions:
I.
How does ground rent differ, if at all, from the income derived from
other agents of production? (Bullock, Plehn, Callender, Fisher, Mixter).
How does urban rent compare in importance with agricultural rent?
2.
(Burke).
3. How does ground rent differ, if at all, from the annual value of fran-
chises? (Mixter).
In the limited space allotted to me I cannot make as full an analysis of
each man's paper as I should like to, but must proceed directly to a statement
of the general results of the discussion as they appear to me. However, I
should like to pay general tribute to the ability and fairness thus far shown
in the discussion.
Upon the first question I find substantial agreement, among all but one
of the participants, that ground rent differs materially from the income from
other agents of production, Mr. Plehn alone maintaining the contrary. My
own opinion is that there are many strong points of resemblance, but that
these points are of minor importance when looked at from the standpoint of
taxation, while the points of difference are of major importance from the
same standpoint. Following Mills' rule of classification, therefore, we should
be compelled to place ground rent in a class apart from other forms of
income.
As to the resemblances: Accepting the definition of ground rent as "what
land is worth for use," I should claim that an exact paraphrase would define
equally well the income from the use of any other agent of production. It
is what the agent is worth for use, and it amounts practically to what the
community would lose if the particular agent in question were withheld from
use, or what the community would gain if it were put back into use.
Rent, according to the classical doctrine, is a differential gain. What a
particular piece of land is worth for use is equal to the difference between
what can be produced upon it and what an equal amount of labor and capital
could produce upon land which may be had free, but this will apply equally
well to other agents of production. What any instrument is worth for use is the
difference between what can be produced with it and what could be produced
with other instruments so poor that they could be had for nothing. For, let it
be remembered, there are no-rent houses, no-rent machines, no-rent horses,
etc. The most that the owner of any instrument, whether land or not, can col-
lect is that difference. It is the superiority of a good instrument over a no-rent
instrument which determines its value as truly as it is the superiority of a
good piece of land over no-rent land which determines its value. If this value
is enough to induce men to try to reproduce the good instrument, they will
do so, otherwise not. That is the way that cost of production figures in the
price of things.
To the oft repeated assertion that land is a free gift of nature while other
agents are the products of industry, I must, in agreement with Mr. Plehn,
reply that other agents, in their original form, are as much free gifts of na-
ture as land is. The only basis of a man's claim to them is that he appro-
priated a free gift of nature and changed its form to suit his own purpose.
The same is true of land, and it is this aspect of the case which would natur-
ally appeal, and did appeal, to the first settlers in a new community. If one
settler saw a tree which seemed to contain possibilities and chopped it down
and worked it up into a wagon, it would be universally agreed that the wagon
18
SUMMARY BY PROF. CARVER.
was his. If another settler saw a piece of land which seemed to contain possi-
bilities and cleared it and plowed it and reduced it to cultivation, it would be
agreed on the same reasoning that the land was his. Each man had found a
natural product, each had appropriated it, each had worked upon it and each
had changed its form from the raw state in which he found it to a form which
would serve his purpose better. The fact that one was a farm and the other
a wagon would not appear to be a real difference. I venture to say that, under
those conditions, not one of you would have thought of making a difference.
If any one had come to you and told you that you had less right to the farm,
with all the advantages belonging to it, including a possible rise in value, than
he had to the wagon which he had made, including all the advantages which
come with it, you would have thought him somewhat unreasonable to say the
least, and in my opinion, you would have been right. This is the aspect of the
case which I would like to commend to the consideration of those who believe
that the private ownership of land is forbidden by a moral law ordained from
the foundation of the world.
If, however, the above community should continue to grow, it would
gradually dawn upon certain minds that there was a difference, and that dif-
ference is precisely where Mr. Bullock and several others have located it. The
supply of land being relatively fixed, those who are so fortunate as to possess
it begin to reap a kind of monopoly gain, whereas the owners of other instru-
ments are not only without any such monopoly gains but compelled to pay the
landowners for permission to renew their worn out instruments. This aspect
of the case comes so slowly that, to the average individual, the time never seems
just right for making a legal difference. It is especially slow in appealing to
the legal mind which is of necessity very largely bound by the traditional
ways of looking at things. That is inherent in the nature of law and a necessary
condition of social stability. If one of the conditions of social stability and
order is that customary ways of looking at things should have great weight,
and if this customary way of looking at things makes the legal mind slow to
see what scientific minds have seen, why it is simply one of the prices which
we have to pay for social order, and we must pay it, though, of course, we can
grumble about the price if we want to.
Is rent, then, as Mr. Plehn implies, merely another name for interest?
Rent is used in three distinct senses. In the world at large it means that which
is received for the use of any kind of property except, perhaps, money. Econo-
mists have narrowed it down to that which is received for the use of land, plac-
ing this form of income in a class by itself because it is a surplus or "net in-
come." Some have taken this idea of a surplus or "net income" as the char-
acteristic of rent, and have extended the use of the term so as to cover any
form of surplus or "net income" whether derived from the use of land or not.
This use of the term is involved in the question of the relation of rent to the
annual value of franchises and will be discussed under that head.
What is the real distinction between rent and interest?
If you
will notice closely you will find that whenever a person has in mind
the income from a definite piece of property, he invariably speaks of it as rent;
but when he thinks of the same income as the income from a quantity of
wealth, he invariably speaks of it as interest. This will be true whether the
property in question be land or not. The very idea of interest involves the
idea of a rate, or a ratio. There can be no ratio between dollars and houses
or dollars and land, unless both are reduced to a common basis for measure-
ment and quantitative expression. Reduce dollars and houses to ounces or
cubic inches and you can get a ratio. The number of dollars which the
house earns in a year would then be a rate. Reduce both dollars and land to
superficial area, and one will be a ratio of the other.
SUMMARY BY PROF. CARVER.
19
How is wealth measured and quantitatively expressed? Not, as the
foregoing illustration rather whimsically supposes, on the basis of weight, or
cubic contents, or superficial area, but on the basis of value. In order to
measure anything you must abstract some quality or property of that thing,
and compare it with something else on the basis of that property. Its quantity
can then be expressed in terms of that property, whether that property be
weight, cubic contents, potential energy, or what not, provided only it be
sufficiently definite and well known to permit of comparison. Our quantitative
notion will vary considerably according to the property taken as the basis of
measurement. If, for example, we take a piece of cork weighing one pound,
and a piece of lead weighing two, and if we measure and express quantity
in terms of weight, we will have twice as much lead as cork; but if we measure
and express quantity in terms of cubic contents, we would have several times
as much cork as lead.
When wealth consisted mainly of flocks and herds it was customary for
the primitive herdsman to reckon the quantity of his wealth numerically as
sc many head, from which we get our words capital and cattle. But as the
forms of wealth increased it was no longer possible to express their quantity
in terms of mere number. The property holder then tried to reduce other
forms of property to cattle, by saying that each other article was equal to so
many head of cattle. Then he could say that his wealth was so many cattle,
not meaning that he had that many real animals, but that he had as much
wealth as that many animals would amount to. Now just what did that mean
Not that his other wealth weighed as much, or contained as many cubic feet
as that number of cattle, but that they were worth as much. In other words,
he had adopted value as his basis of measurement and quantitative expression.
And this is the basis which is still universally used, though the unit of
measurement has undergone various changes, being now in this country a
piece of gold nine-tenths fine, and weighing 25.8 grains.
Now let us apply this to the concept of capital. When the primitive
herdsman thought of his individual animals, he had not the concept of capital,
but when he thought of the number of his animals, he had the concept of
capital. When, a little later the man of property thought of the individual
animals and the particular parcel of land, the particular plows, wagons, etc.,
he had not the concept of capital; but when he reduced them all to value and
expressed their amount in cattle, he had the concept of capital. When the
man of wealth of to-day thinks of the particular things which he owns, he
has not the concept of a capital, but when he reduces them all to value and
expresses their amount in dollars, he has the concept of capital.
My own conclusion, therefore, is that between rent, as that term is
commonly used, and interest, there is no objective difference, the difference
being a subjective one due to our different ways of looking at the same thing.
From this standpoint, rent is the income derived from the use of any indi-
vidual piece of property, interest is the same income compared in amount
with its source and expressed as a ratio, value being the common basis of
measurement and quantitative expression. And this is true whether the
piece of property in question be land or not.
So much for rent in general and interest. The next question is, how
does the rent of land differ from that derived from other agents of produc-
tion? I am in full agreement with Mr. Bullock, and most of the others, who
maintain that the difference is wholly in the factors which determine the
supply. Other agents of production seldom have a value greatly in excess
of their cost of production because any excess value of this kind is a special
inducement to increase their production, and the consequent increase in the
supply brings down their value. But in the case of land, there. is scarcely
20
SUMMARY BY PROF. CARVER.
any limit to this excess of value, because, however great this excess might
be, and however much it might excite other men's cupidity, it cannot lead to
a material increase in the amount of land. On the other hand, I must agree
with Mr. Mixter in the position that the value of land sometimes figures as
profits. For example, I know of more than one factory which was located
away from a business center because land could be had at a low figure and
would inevitably rise in value when a laboring population gathered about
the factory. The profits on the sale of lots were a part of the profits of the
undertaking, and one of the inducements which led to its establishment.
Again the expected rise in the value of the land was one of the chief induce-
ments to the settlement of new lands. The settlers usually worked for several
years for less than they could have made by remaining in settled communities,
the expected rise in the value of the land balancing this loss. (While land is
not created, its value sometimes is.)
What then is the bearing of these facts on the problem of taxation? One
of the two evils of taxation is the repressive effect of a tax. A license is a
good illustration of what this means. The purpose of a license tax is to con-
trol or to repress an industry. A tariff duty is supposed to repress the busi-
ness of importation. In some such manner, every kind of a property tax is
likely, in one way or another, to repress some industry, or some line of busi-
ness activity. When the payment or the non-payment of a tax depends upon
whether a certain thing is done or not, the tendency of the tax is to dis-
courage the doing of that thing; but when the payment or non-payment of the
tax is not conditioned upon the doing of anything, the tax does not repress.
any kind of business activity. A tax on the products of industry will tend to
discourage the production. A tax on land will have comparatively little re-
pressive effect. In a few cases where the rise in the value of the land is one
of the inducements to the starting of a new enterprise, any tax on that value
would have the effect of discouraging that enterprise more or less. But if any
one thinks that the repressive effect of a tax on land is at all to be compared
with the repressive effect of a tax on the products of industry, I can only say
that I think he is mistaken. The cases where the expected rise in the value
of one's land is the chief inducement to a business undertaking, are the ex-
ceptional cases. These exceptional cases may attract one's attention and keep
him from seeing the general facts, in which case he is in the position of a
certain senator of whom it was said that he could see a fly on a barn door
without being able to see the barn or the door either.
Though it may be true, as Mr. Plehn contends, that the difference between
land and other agents of production is only a difference of degree, I should
be inclined to accept Mr. Bullock's suggestion that a difference of degree may
amount to a difference in kind. In one sense, all scientific distinctions are
differences of degree. The difference between a man and a monkey is only
a difference of degree, but it is considered sufficient to warrant a different kind
of treatment. In this case it is the degree that counts. Certain taxes must be
raised, and (granting that) wherever raised they will have something of a
repressive tendency; but if the repressive tendency of a tax on ground rent is
much less than that of a tax on other kinds of property, that alone will make
ground rent a better subject of taxation.
How does urban rent compare in importance with agricultural rent?
What was said a moment ago about the gradual development of a distinction
between land and other forms of property will, in part, answer this question.
The distinction shows itself first, and always most acutely, in cities where
the scarcity value of land is greatest. In many of the newer and less advanced
agricultural districts the distinction has scarcely yet amounted to a difference.
The land is of so little value above the cost of improving it that it would
SUMMARY BY PROF. CARVER.
21
scarcely occur to any one to make a difference. But in some of the more
valuable urban property the monopolistic element is so pronounced as to put
its owner in the same class with the medieval baron who took possession of
a ford or a mountain pass and collected toll of all who went that way. Both
are in control of access to certain utilities; both charge for access to them, and
their charges are what the traffic or the business will stand. The baron could
charge no more than the difference between the advantage of his route and
some other route where travelers and merchants might go free. So far as their
strictly economic functions are concerned there is not a particle of difference.
The only difference is in the method of getting possession, the baron taking
possession by force, the owner of a modern building site getting possession
by legal methods.
How does ground rent differ from the annual value of franchises? Upon
this question I am inclined to agree in the main with Mr. Mixter's position,
but I should like to dissent from a position which seems to be implied in his
statement of the case, though I do not believe that he meant to imply it. It
seems to be implied that the public has no business trying to drive a good
bargain with a private corporation which is offering to furnish a public
utility, like transportation, street lighting, etc., I should be inclined to say
explicitly that if the public can get these utilities on good terms for itself
rather than on poor terms, it is perfectly proper for it to do so. It may be
true that there are many people, both in England and America, who are
awfully afraid somebody will make something; but it is equally true that
there are some people who are awfully afraid that the public will drive a good
bargain and make something for itself out of its franchises.
Again, I doubt if the prevalence of socialism in England can alone account
for their backwardness in the matter of street transportation. That certainly
could not account for England's being behind Germany, where there is more
socialism to the square inch than anywhere else. In the first place, London
is not far behind New York, where socialistic tendencies are not strong, and
New York is decidedly behind Berlin, where socialism is rampant, and where
they have municipal ownership. Again, the English steam railways are quite
as far behind the German and American, at least so far as the accommodation
of the public is concerned, as their street transportation systems are, though
there has been very little interference with the steam railways. One among
the several things which must account for this backward state is the natural
conservatism of the English people. It is not what you or I think that rapid
transit would be worth to the Londoners, but what they think it would be
worth, that counts. So long as the average Londoner would rather ride on a
'bus or in a cab, the demand for the trolley is not great. If they really
wanted rapid transit as much as we would want it, their socialistic sentiments
would not long stand in the way.
Whether there is any surplus value analogous to rent in franchises may
possibly be open to question-but it could only be disputed by quibbling
over definitions. I should say that the most that any company would be will-
ing to pay for a franchise would not be in excess of that surplus value. It
would be a good thing for the public to charge that amount, for then it would
get the money and the service besides. This is a perfectly cold-blooded busi-
ness proposition. No business man makes a practice of offering better terms
for labor or raw materials than is necessary to get the kind of labor and raw
materials which he wants. If any one can think of a reason why the public
should offer better terms for transportation or lighting than enough to secure.
the kind of transportation and lighting it wants, I should be glad to hear it.
22
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
EDITORIAL COMMENTS OF BOSTON
PAPERS ON THE FOREGOING SPEECHES
GROUND RENT AND SINGLE TAX.
(Boston Transcript.)
The second dinner to professional economists, given last evening by the
Massachusetts Single Tax League, brought together a noteworthy group of
speakers representing leading universities from Maine to California. The
primary object of these gatherings is, of course, to advertise the Single Tax;
but this particular method of advertising is broadly educational. It is the
hope of President Fillebrown of the League, in arranging these gatherings,
to promote agreement among leading teachers of political economy regarding
definitions and principles that bear on the problem of taxation. The discus-
sions may also be expected to have the desirable effect of leading the econo-
mists to give more attention to urban rents and land taxation in their text-
books and college lectures. In contributing toward these ends the Single
Tax League is performing a real public service.
Upon the subject of discussion at last evening's dinner, "The Nature of
Ground Rent," the participants seemed to be in substantial agreement. The
statement of the nature of ground rent formulated by Professor Bullock com-
manded general assent. According to this commonly accepted view, ground
rent, "what land is worth for use," differs essentially from interest on capital.
The fact that the supply of land is practically fixed once for all and cannot be
increased at will by human effort confers on the owner of land the power to
command for its use a differential return. This return, moreover, goes on
increasing as the community advances in population and wealth. The owner-
ship of capital confers no such power. A vital distinction is thus to be drawn
between land and capital, rent and interest.
This view of ground rent is not, to be sure, accepted by all economists.
In last evening's discussion Professor Plehn contended that "Land when ap-
propriated and in use is simply one form of capital, and ground rent is in
every essential particular a form of interest." He argued that the fact that
land surface is geographically limited has nothing to do with the economic
supply of land in the market. "The economic supply of land," he maintained,
"is not on this account limited any more than the supply of other forms of
capital may be; land capital is produced or fashioned by human labor out of
land surface and other things which nature affords, just in the same manner
as other forms of capital are produced out of other materials nature affords."
But in this argument, as was pointed out by another speaker, Professor Plehn
overlooks the inconvenient fact that the economic supply of "land capital," as
he puts it, is at all times and in all places inseparably bound up with the geo-
graphical supply of land surface, which is practically fixed in quantity. In
other words, land capital stays put in land surface. It cannot be torn loose.
split up and carted about at will. It is upon this concrete condition of limited
supply of land that the classical doctrine of ground rent as a differential gain,
unlike interest, rests.
When it comes to the practical application of this doctrine of ground rent,
a difficulty arises. The crucial question whether ground rent is an unearned
of undeserved income cannot be answered offhand for all cases. In the first
place, it is to be observed that ground rent, interest on capital and profits of
management are often inextricably entangled in the actual earnings of business.
men. Profits and interest are commonly earned in connection with the rent
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
23
of land. As Dr. Mixter observed in his comments on the practical bearing of
the rent doctrine, "In many instances those who own land and apparently
obtain a pure economic rent are in fact merely taking with one hand what
they have made with the other; they are getting in connection with a piece of
land the profits of their business management. In short, in the case of any
specific income obtained in connection with land (the land itself makes noth-
ing) it is desirable that we examine closely to see if any part of it corre-
sponds, in view of the whole industrial situation, with the concept of rent."
Furthermore, whether ground rent, considered entirely apart from inter-
est and profits, be an unearned income, depends, as Professor Callender well
showed, entirely upon the nature of the natural resource or agent from which
the rent is drawn. Each case has to be considered on its own merits. It is
not difficult to show that certain kinds of natural agents in certain situations
can be made to yield the largest returns to the community when private indi-
viduals are allowed to possess them and to appropriate their value; for ex-
ample, mines, fisheries and agricultural lands. The private appropriation of
ground rent is in some cases clearly justifiable, as on the whole socially bene-
ficial.
But although not all income based on ground rent is to be regarded as
unearned, it is tolerably clear that income accruing to the owners of city build-
ing sites is largely of this character. Urban growth unquestionably creates
enormous land values which individual owners have no claim to appropriate
in full. That is, rising land values represent in large part a social product
which may rightly be levied upon by the community to meet the increasing
expenses of municipal administration. A land tax, moreover, has the espe-
cial advantage that it exerts little, if any, repressive effect on industry. It
seems, accordingly, equitable and expedient that an increasing share of the
burden of taxation in cities should be placed upon land. So much would
probably be conceded by nearly all economists. The same policy applied to
franchise values would also be approved. But economists dissent from a
proposal that all expenses of government should be met by a single tax on
land, chiefly for the reason that any single tax is inevitably unjust. Single
Taxers are right in pointing to land values, including franchises, as the main
source to which municipalities should look for the additional revenues neces-
sitated by urban growth; they are wrong in denying the necessity and the
expediency of preserving other forms of taxation.
TAXES ON LAND VALUES.
(Boston Herald.)
The recent meeting of the Massachusetts Single Tax League, at which
the question of the nature, operation and office of ground rent was discussed
by several professors of political economy. from different colleges and univer-
sities, furnished an illustration of the value of an organization such as the
league as a means by which professional opinion can be concentrated, crystal-
lized and, to some extent at least, popularized. Of course no one needs to
be told that the laws bearing upon questions of trade, finance and taxation
are rarely, if ever, the direct outcome of professional, scientific advice. The
owner of a mining property if he possesses sound business sagacity, employs.
the ablest talent he can find in the work of developing his property. A rail-
road company intending to build a line of track through a country presenting
many topographical difficulties will employ the ablest civil engineers to advise
on the best means of overcoming the difficulties that have to be encountered.
But a government, whether of city, state or nation, at least under a democratic
24
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
form of control, and not infrequently when autocratic or oligarchic, is indis-
posed to leave questions of trade, currency and taxation to the judgment of
professional experts in economics.
It seems to be taken for granted that problems of this kind, which, as a
matter of fact, are some of the most difficult and intricate that can be pre-
sented, are questions upon which every man is fully qualified in having a
clear-cut opinion, and that the opinions on such a subject of a majority of
citizens expressed by their votes, or by the votes of those whom they elect to
represent them, constitute the last word that needs to be said on these sub-
jects. It may be conceded that professional economic opinion has not been
as clearly settled in the past as it might have been, and, what is more, is not
at the present time entirely a unit in the conclusions reached. Thus at the
recent meeting of the Massachusetts Single Tax League, at which the ques-
tion of rent was discussed, while the majority of the economists were of the
opinion that rent was a form of income which departed widely from interest
received by the use of improvements which man places upon the land, there
was a minority who held to what is probably the older idea, that land capital
is produced or fashioned by human labor out of land surface, just as in the
same manner other forms of capital are produced by human labor out of other
materials which nature affords. On the whole, however, the tendency of.the
times is toward considering land as something apart from that which may be
produced by its use, and hence in the question of taxation, which is the sub-
ject toward which the league turns its attention, land might be fairly expected
to pay something that would be in the nature of a franchise tax as it is a
monopoly, from the fact that while all must make use of it to a greater or less
extent, it is limited in its quantity.
But while the Single Tax League may succeed in thus enlisting in a gen-
eral way the support of professional opinion, it does not follow that it can
thereby induce the Legislature of this or any other state to enact statutes in
harmony with the economic opinions that it entertains and advances. Any
number of objections of an exceedingly practical character could be raised
by those who would be likely to find their taxes increased, or their possible
source of income curtailed. If, on the other hand, it was urged that a reform
in our system of taxation along the lines advocated by Mr. Henry George
would be productive of great public advantage; that certain unearned incre-
ments that now go to swell the wealth of favored individuals would then be
enjoyed by the community, the reply would be that such gains were alto-
gether too problematical to be seriously taken into account. The fact that
Smith, Jones and Robinson would lose more or less would be a circumstance
which would loom so large in the imagination of the legislators as to entirely
obscure the sight of any possible gain that the community as a whole might
achieve.
We admit it is only by persistent agitation that great changes are brought
about, and we foresee a long path, involving much hard work, which must be
passed over before the tax changes which Henry George advocated can be
given an application on a broad scale. It has always seemed to us, and we
have found no recent reason for changing our opinion, that if by any possi-
bility the state of Massachusetts could be persuaded to grant to its various
municipalities local option in the matter of local taxation, the opportunity
would then be afforded of experimenting on this subject in a practical man-
ner, and we are decidedly of the opinion that under such circumstances it
would be found that those municipalities which introduced a system of taxa-
tion limited to real estate would discover that they had adopted a plan which
would greatly inure to both public and private advantage.
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
25
ECONOMISTS' AGREEMENT.
(Boston Morning Advertiser.)
The most notable thing about the speeches which followed the banquet
given to prominent political economists at the Copley Square Hotel last even-
ing, by the Massachusetts Single Tax League, was their nearly unanimous
agreement in answering affirmatively the first of the three principal questions
submitted to them as the basis of discussion. That question was whether there
is, or is not, a fundamental difference between incomes derived from ground
rent and incomes derived from other sources, such as the interest on invested
capital and the products of human labor.
Of the seven other professors of political economy in well-known insti-
tutions of learning, who delivered carefully prepared addresses, six expressed
themselves in substantial accord with Prof. Ĉ. J. Bullock of Williams College,
the first speaker following the president of the league. Prof. Bullock declared
himself a believer in what is called "the classic theory of rent," viz., that
capital is something distinct from land, and interest is something of a differ-
ent genus from rent. "The ground of this difference," said Prof. Bullock, "is
found in the peculiar conditions that govern the supply of land."
•
Prof. G. S. Callender of Bowdoin College, Prof. W. C. Fisher of Wes-
leyan University, Dr. C. W. Mixter of Harvard University, Prof. W. M.
Burke of Albion College, Prof. F. S. Baldwin of Boston University, and Prof.
I. N. Carver of Harvard University, speaking in the order named, all agreed
with Prof. Bullock, on that question, substantially; although some of them?
notably Profs. Fisher, Mixter, and Carver, thought there might well be some
modifications in forms of statement, or with reference to exceptional circum-
stances.
The only radical dissent was expressed by Prof. C. C. Plehn, of the Uni-
versity of California. Prof. Plehn's contention was that to-day, in the United
States, land, when appropriated and in use, is simply one form of capital;
and ground rent is in every essential particular a form of interest.
The value to students of economic science of last night's discussions is
all the greater because the addresses, or papers, had been not only carefully
prepared, but copies had been furnished some time in advance to the different.
speakers, so that each one knew substantially what the others intended to say.
Thus the points of agreement, of disagreement, and of suggested modification,
were stated last evening with all the accuracy that could come from mature
reflection.
Some of the statements of this fundamental difference between ground
rent and other forms of income, though there was little or no direct mention
of the single tax by the speakers, have a bearing on that question which is
instantly obvious to those who are familiar with Henry George's writings,
and with the more recent of authoritative utterances by leading single taxers.
Thus, Prof. Bullock pointed out that the demand for land comes from
persons who desire to use it in production, and the annual rental offered for
any tract will depend upon the advantages which that particular situation
offers for the purposes to which it is to be devoted. "If a location on Summer
street enables a merchant to do a very large retail trade," said Prof. Bullock,
"and to realize large aggressive returns from his enterprise, a large demand
price will be offered for that location." This fact is so familiar that it seems
like a truism, yet it will perhaps be remembered that Prof. Bullock's state
ment is identical, to all intents and purposes, with the essence of those facts
and figures, which were presented at a previous single tax banquet, relating to
the land, improvements, rental, and increase of value of the land regardless of
improvements, at the corner of Washington and Winter streets.
26
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
Prof. Callender came a little nearer in form, if not in fact, to the direct
question of the ethics of the single tax on ground rent, when he said:
"When we turn to such cases as the water front of a great city like New
York, or Chicago, or Boston, or to the building sites along the principal busi-
ness streets of those cities, or to the right of running street cars through their
principal streets, it is not obvious, to say the least, that the utility of these
particular natural resources to the community is rendered greater by allowing
private individuals to appropriate the value which continually increases with
the growth of population.'
""
Quite irrespective of the merits or demerits of the single tax doctrine,
congratulations are certainly due to the league for this latest example, of the
many which it has furnished, showing how a radical movement, conceived in
an enthusiasm for humanity, but opposed to widespread, and deep-rooted cus-
toms and ideas, may be carried on in a spirit of perfect good fellowship be-
tween the friends and foes of the movement.
THE SINGLE TAX.
(Boston Post.)
The campaign of education on which the Massachusetts Single Tax League
entered several years ago was advanced by the discussion following the dinner
last evening at which a number of professional economists expressed their
views of the nature, operation and office of ground rent. The paper of Pro-
fessor Bullock of Williams College and the remarks which followed are en-
lightening as to the scientific basis of the scheme of taxation which this asso-
ciation presents and which is coming more strongly to command the approval
of practical men.
We do not agree with the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, in the opinion
expressed in his letter which was read at this meeting, that it is impossible to
make the present generation understand the fundamental principles of taxa-
tion and see the true method of tax reform. Mr. Adams despairs of it within
his lifetime, and says we "have got to look to the next generation." So far
from this, the need of tax reform is already widely recognized, the protest is
loud against the continuance of a system which is manifestly oppressive and
unequal, and the search for a better method is earnest.
What is needed, we believe, is simply the authority to try the experiment
here in Massachusetts of the method which the Single Tax League advises.
This can be done by separate communities on their own account, and the Com-
monwealth can profit by their experience.
WHAT IS GROUND RENT?
(Boston Globe.)
What is ground rent? Is it rent ground out of an unwilling tenant, or is
it not? It looks easy to answer, and yet it required the combined wisdom of
eight college professors Monday night at the Copley square hotel dinner of
the Massachusetts single tax league to dynamite that naughty problem.
When is rent rent and when is it not rent? Not only was this question
raised by Prof. Bullock of Williams College, but even the harder one, what is
the difference between rent and interest?
&
Prof. Callender of Bowdoin then put up the 200-pound economic weight,
labeled, What is the unearned increment? Before the discussion was closed
there had been asked and answered enough intricate questions to tax all the
gray matter that one might suppose to exist even in eight college professors.
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
27
Some men will say that it is easy enough to tell what ground rent is by
consulting their ledgers. As to whether rent is an earned or an unearned
increment it matters little to those who pay none, though it may be interesting
to economists.
As for the question raised by Prof. Carver, How does urban rent differ
from agricultural? it would seem to be a matter to be settled between city and
country landlords.
In fact, the whole range of problems growing out of the single tax ques-
tion is too intricate for the lay mind. They will ultimately, have to be settled
by the college economists. Meanwhile all success to their endeavors.
MASSACHUSETTS SINGLE TAX LEAGUE.
(Springfield Republican.)
The New England Single Tax League, under the direction of C. B. Fille-
brown, is still hammering away at the problem of bringing its aims within
reach of the popular understanding. Its dinner at Boston last evening is note-
worthy for the number of scholars in economics brought together for an ex-
change of views on the disputed question in economic theory of the nature of
ground rent. The discussion constitutes a real contribution to the science as
it is now being developed, and the substance of the papers is accordingly
given in other columns. They merit attention from the general reader who
would inform himself on what is to become in the length of years a far more
practical question than it has so far come to be considered.
(New Bedford Mercury.)
In the course of a discussion of the difference between ground rent and
the annual value of franchises at the dinner of the Massachusetts Single Tax
League the other evening Dr. C. W. Mixter of Harvard made an isolated
statement which we deem worthy of attention in view of a discussion which
has prevailed from time to time in these columns. Dr. Mixter attributed the
lack of progress with rapid transit in London to the socialistic tendencies of
the people, which, he said, made the masses in London desperately afraid of
somebody's making something. Professor Carver, likewise of Harvard, was
loth to permit this suggestion to pass unchallenged, and doubted if socialism
in England can account for the lack of progress in matters of street transpor-
tation. He pointed out the situation in Berlin, where transportation is farther
advanced than in our own large cities, and where socialism is especially
rampant, as a refutation of the theory quoted by Dr. Mixter. Dr. Mixter
farther defended the practice of public utility corporations in taking big divi-
dends out of the people.
It seems strange to hear a university professor emphasizing material
gains as essential to progress, since it is a fact that no college or university
conducted as a private institution aiming at pecuniary returns amounts to much.
We can doubtless get along very well without the inducement of pecuniary
gain, substituting that emulation which leads Hobson to do brave deeds,
which inspires John Jacob Astor to devote time and effort to an invention
which he gives to the world-the ambition which inspires the soldier to fight
for a ribbon, the motive which led the athletes of old to devote their lives to
secure the crown of wild olives—the inspiration which led Dr. Mixter to apply
himself to the preparation of a paper to be read before the Massachusetts
Single Tax League without compensation in money. This motive, which has
inspired the men of all ages, is the desire for what the professors call “social
esteem" the aspiration for approbation and honor. Pecuniary inducement is
28
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
not the sine qua non. In comparison with the impulse of social esteem, it is
mean.
GROUND RENT AND THE SINGLE TAX.
(The Boston Beacon.)
It is rare that one finds in this country a band of reformers so persistent
and enthusiastic in their advocacy of an idea and yet so uniformly broad
minded and good tempered in carrying on their agitation as the members of
the Massachusetts Single Tax League. One rather fancies that this agreeable
combination of earnestness and optimism arises very largely from the mental
attitude of the president of the league, Mr. C. B. Fillebrown, who has been for
years a pioneer in economic reform and who has won to his side a group of
vigorous thinkers made up of men of quite varied callings. The methods of
the Single Tax League are educational and not revolutionary. Its members
are sincere believers in the mechanical power of the wedge as being in the long
run superior to dynamite, and they believe in getting in the small end of the
wedge first. Notwithstanding the tendency of college professors to lend their
support to the single tax idea, it will not do to call the movement academic.
As far as it appeals to thinking men at all it appeals on the basis of common
sense. At the conference of last Monday night, in which eight professional
economists took part, the discussion turned on the question of ground rent and.
much that was illuminating was said on the possible distinctions between land
and other forms of capital, and between rent and interest. All this was inter-
esting, instructive and suggestive,but in the end we come back to the basic
fact that land is the one form of capital which may lie utterly idle and yet
enhance in value to the benefit of the individual owner simply through the
co-operative activities of the entire community. It is this unearned increment
in the value of land that is the disturbing element in the theories of the econo-
mists, and although numerous efforts have been made to account for it and
at the same time to class land as productive capital, the attempts have not on
the whole been successful. Once grant the premise of the advocates of the
single tax, that land, like air and sunshine, is the common inheritance of the
human race, and that land has been made a monopoly simply because of its
tangible quality and through the ability of the strongest to seize and hold it,—
once grant this, and the logic of the single tax irresistibly follows. Upon this
much at least every reasonable person is agreed, that our existing tax system
is about as bad as it can be and that almost any kind of a change would be a
change for the better. The suggestion made some time ago that the General
Court grant to all towns and cities in the Commonwealth the privilege of local
option in matters of taxation is still worth considering. It is barely possible
that if this privilege were granted some community would experiment with the
single tax as a relief from existing extortions and inequalities, and in that case
we should get some very significant data for legislators as well as economists
to consider.
In the past our great and all inclusive economic problems have been studied
in the light of certain theories which have maintained their sway in part because
very few practical people gave them any attention, and in part because those
who have tried to cope with the complex and knotty questions involved failed
to reach a surety of conviction which made them venture to break away from
the thrall of well grounded opinions. To study conditions in the light of long
accepted theories is not the most progressive and scientific way of getting at
things, and this habit may have contributed to that confused and unsatisfiying
thought regarding this subject which has won for it the name of the Dismal
Science. And yet this same subject is bound up with all our most important
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
29
everyday interests, and it is evident that until the counsels of the teachers and
leaders of economic thought shall be clarified there will be little prospect of prac-
tical advance in securing a tangible basis for legislation and experiment. It is
pleasant, therefore, to discover in the interesting papers read at last Monday's
conference indications of a growing unity of thought respecting economic
definitions and principles. This, as we understand it, has been the purpose of
Mr. Fillebrown and his associates of the Single Tax League, to secure through
friendly discussion such an elimination of unessential differences and such an
emphasis of essential agreements as will bring something like harmony out of
confusion and secure a generally conceded basis of thought and action. For
this worthy endeavor, which seems to have been very successfully carried out,
the league deserves the thanks and indorsement of all those who realize the
importance of an early and scientific solution of our economic problems.
AFTER DINNER WITH THE ECONOMISTS.
(The Social Settler in the Boston Transcript.)
President Fillebrown of the Massachusetts Single Tax League played the
host again Monday evening in his usual hospitable fashion, the lions of the
occasion being certain "professional economists." The latter held the boards
at the postprandial entertainment, and dealt out three hours' worth of cut-and-
dried wisdom on the subject of "Ground Rent." The subject was not a juicy
one, and the treatment that it received was appropriate. No speaker is to be
blamed, however, for failing to extract after-dinner sunbeams from an eco-
nomic cucumber. The Settler is proud to say that he was among the few inde-
fatigables who were in at the finish. When President Fillebrown finally called
upon one of the chief performers to wind up the discussion, the Settler thought
of the Memorial Day orator who was introduced to the patriotic celebrants
gathered in the cemetery, as follows: "We will now listen to some closing
remarks by the orator of the day, after which a salute will be fired over the
dead." Seriously, however, President Fillebrown is to be congratulated upon
his success in getting representative economists to express substantial agree-
ment concerning a number of important points and principles. This in itself
is no mean achievement. Whether the agreements will directly help the single
tax cause is another story. But, however this may be, the results thus far
reached in the agreement business testify eloquently to the diplomatic strategy
of the tactful propagandist who directs the policy of the Massachusetts single
taxers.
THE SINGLE TAX.
(Congregationalist.)
The best way to promote any particular reform is to bring light from all
quarters on the conditions to be remedied. Mr. C. B. Fillebrown, president of
the Single Tax League, appears to be the kind of reformer who welcomes all
available help in the work to which he devotes himself. At the annual dinner
of the league, held at Copley Square Hotel last week, which was attended by a
large number of educators and business men he secured addresses from half a
dozen instructors and professors of economics from Harvard and other uni-
versities, bringing one as far as from the University of California. The
program was carefully arranged and the papers read were prepared after op-
portunity to see the outlines of arguments of the other speakers. If those who
Îistened to them did not learn something valuable concerning the nature of
ground rent and the reasons for and against raising all public revenues from
taxes on land, it is not for lack of a systematic effort for their enlightenment.
30
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
THE SINGLE TAX.
(The Morning Star.)
The Massachusetts Single Tax League is looking after "the cause" with
much graciousness and persistence. Banquets are a favorite method of propa-
ganda. One was held at Copley Square Hotel in Boston, December 8, at which
the professors of economics in the colleges and universities were guests of the
league, and did the principal part of the after-dinner speaking. Leading col-
leges from Maine to California were represented, and the addresses were
thoughtful and interesting. The most of the speakers held to the "classical"
theory of rent, to the effect that it is as different from interest as land is differ-
ent from capital-that land, in fact, is a natural agent like air and water, and
is not capable of production or increase by human labor, and therefore should
not be subject to individual ownership. It follows that rent represents might
and custom instead of right and principle, and that it, as well as the land, really
belongs to society instead of to individuals.,
Several years ago-call it a good many years ago—a man bought a farm
near the Mississippi River, in what is now the State of Minnesota. There were
160 acres of it, and he paid $320 for it. He was Dutch and industrious. He
just wanted to be a farmer and landowner, both of which he couldn't be in
his native country. He built a log house, and loved his wife and children,
and raised many bushels of wheat.
Other farmers settled on adjoining land. Somebody built a mill at the
fall in the river, and other industries sprang up. Population increased. The
Dutchman worked no harder than ever, but he raised larger crops because the
people around him wanted them to live on. This increased the value of his
land. In ten years it was worth $1,500, almost against his will, because he
was the kind of man who didn't like neighbors. He was not a Samaritan,
and was a Christian only by virtue of his citizenship. He now felt rich and
prosperous. But still he did not reflect that if all his neighbors moved away
his farm would be worth no more than it was when he first settled on it.
Later something else happened. The settlement at the falls grew into a
city. It expanded in the direction of this man's farm. The people in the city
wanted improvements. They laid sewers, put in water mains, paved the
streets, built car lines, and stretched electric light wires. This troubled our
Dutch friend. It made his taxes higher. When they proposed to extend the
"improvements" past his farm he objected. When they took some of his
roadside for sidewalks he fought them. He took the case to court, and in five
years had paid out all his hard-earned savings in lawyers' fees. But the im-
provements went steadily on, and the next year, after he had been heavily
fined for obstructing the street car line past his premises, he was offered
$100,000 for three-quarters of his farm. That bewildered him. It made a
Christian of him to the extent that he began to love his enemies. In due time
he died reconciled to the progress that he had so steadily opposed.
The point of this parable is that the increased value of this farm was due
not to its owner, but to the increase of population with its varied demands. Its
owner had opposed this movement of society which made him rich. Why,
then, should not this increased value of the farm belong to the public which
promoted it, instead of to the individual who opposed it?
Now this is in a way the elementary principle that underlies the single tax
movement. Land is a natural agent like air or water. It cannot be increased
or diminished by human effort. Its growing value from year to year is due
to the growing public demand. Why, then, should not the public be the real
beneficiary of this increase in value? Why should not private ownership be
abolished, and the people-that is, the State-own all the land and derive all
EDITORIAL COMMENTS.
31
its revenues from renting to individuals, thus doing away with other forms
of taxation?
There is not enough difference between this portion of land value which
the public and not the individual has created the so-called unearned incre-
ment-and the money that could be gathered by a direct and inclusive assess-
ment on land to call for special treatment. It is perhaps the compromise
which the single taxer of the John Stuart Mill type, who would seize only this
unearned increment for the public, would make with those of the Henry
George type, who would seize all land in the name of the State, and then
use the rentals to pay public expenses.
There can be little doubt that if society had begun with that theory of
land ownership or rather if it had never yielded the policy of public own-
ership with which it probably did begin-it would be better for all alike to-day,
so far as a just and visible and equitable source of revenue is concerned. But
to re-enact the old policy would mean a revolution such as these generations
have never seen. That this revolution might be brought about peaceably in
the course of time is perhaps the thought of the league in inviting the teachers.
of economics to be its guests. If the generations of their students can be won
to the theory much will have been gained. This was Charles Francis Adams's
theory in a letter read at the banquet. "I feel well satisfied," he said, "that
the result will not be accomplished in my day, or by men of my generation.
The appeal must be to the college professors and to the graduates of the
future." Only one kind of tax, and that solely a land tax, would not be so
great a discrimination in favor of owners of other kinds of wealth as one
might at first think. But we have not space to deal with that question now.
(N. E. Farmer.)
We have received many invitations to attend the meetings of the Massa-
chusetts Single Tax League. Mr. C. B. Fillebrown, the president, has been
for years a pioneer in economic reform and these people are persistent and
enthusiastic in their advocacy of an idea and yet uniformly broad minded
and good tempered in carrying on their agitation. Once grant the premise of
the advocates of the single tax, that land, like air and sunshine, is the com-
mon inheritance of the human race, and that land has been made a monopoly
simply because of its tangible quality and through the ability of the strongest
to seize and hold it—once grant this, and the logic of the single tax irresistibly
follows.
(N. E. Grocer.)
The Single Tax League, under the direction of C. B. Fillebrown, shows
more intelligent skill and persistency in pushing its course than any other asso-
ciation with which we are familiar. It is continuously hammering away at
the problem of bringing its aims within reach of the popular understanding.
Its dinner at Boston Monday evening was noteworthy for the number of
scholars in economics brought together for an exchange of views on the dis-
puted question in economic theory of the nature of ground rent. The dis-
cussion constitutes a real contribution to the science.
(Boston Herald.)
In
And yet we suppose the land value reformers would say that the Park
Street Church is not entitled to the difference between the $50,000 it paid for
its property ninety years ago and the $1,250,000 it is to get for it now.
that case, it couldn't build a new church in the Back Bay. This would com-
plicate matters, were it not for the fact that land value reform has not yet
arrived,


UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
wils
336.211 M38
Massachusetts Single Tax League.
Seventeenth banquet, April 13, 1903, to
3 1951 002 098 982 B