the value of the land separately from the value of the improvements thereon, as is now done in New York City and in many other municipalities, so that the taxation on the value of land becomes separate and distinct from all other taxation. Then can follow the reduction or the abolition of the more objectionable of the taxes now levied, with an increase in the land-value tax sufficient to make up the necessary revenue. This process can be made as slow or as rapid as may be deemed expedient-slow enough as in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to permit new adjustments to be easily made, or more rapidly as in Vancouver, where it is proved to be desirable.

Many of the holders of unused lots, and of lots but partly used, if compelled to pay taxes thereon as great as those imposed on fully improved lots of equal value, would at once begin to make improvements. This would give to labor increasing employment at increasing wages; business of all kinds would be stimulated, and this would cause a still further increased demand for houses by the people thus financially enabled to occupy them. This increase in buildings would go on until the market was fully supplied at prices little more than the cost of producing the buildings. Except for the natural increase in demand caused by increase in population, this newly stimulated demand for houses would eventually reach its limit and cease; but with labor fully employed at good wages such demand would not be satisfied until every industrious and deserving man had a comfortable home. And then there being more lots than would be needed for building, holders would seek purchasers, at reduced prices, among those who could put the land to other uses. The extraordinary results of the cultivation of vacant lots by the unemployed in Philadelphia and other places show that there is a steady and unsatisfied demand for such lands for various purposes.

And if land values became the one source of all public revenue (federal, state, county and local) the tax on land values would be sufficiently heavy to reduce the selling value of land to almost nothing. This has in fact been the practical result in the single tax experiment colonies at Arden, Delaware (near Philadelphia), and at Free Acres, New Jersey (near New York). For the selling value of land is but the capitalization at the current rate of interest of so much of the rental value of the land as is not taken in taxation.

This is what single-taxers mean by "free" land-not that possessions would be disturbed, nor titles invalidated; not that there would be any decrease in deeds or books of record, but that land would, under the new system of taxation, be very cheap and its use therefore easily had by whoever desired to work it.

No adequate idea of the vastness of the benefits to follow this change in taxation can be gotten by considering town lots only. It is proposed that all land be taxed at its full rental value. A very few men now own the anthracite coal deposits of the country; they permit the mining and marketing of only a limited amount of coal, withholding from use the far greater part of the coal lands to maintain an artificially high price in the coal market. But were all unused coal lands (now rated at merely nominal figures) taxed at their full rental value, and thereby forced into the market either for sale or for lease, capital would be attracted to the opportunities thus offered and new mines would be opened up. The operators of these new mines would be free, not only from the burden of interest charges on bonds issued for the purchase of surplus lands and from the cost of holding other mines and lands out of use, but also free from taxes on buildings, machinery, animals, timbering, piping and all other capital invested. To cut out these fixed charges and abolish taxes on the capital used, and to introduce free competition among coal-mining operators, would both lower the price of coal and increase the amount of coal marketed. At the same time, competition among the increased number of coal-mining operators for the services of miners would tend to raise miners' wagesa tendency that would be stimulated because the actual coal mine workers would always be free to pool their capital and form operating companies on their own account.

And when we further consider that the lands to be taxed are not only town building sites and coal fields, but the immensely valuable lands that lie in or near the large cities or border our harbors, and the millions of acres of virgin farm lands, but also railroad rights of way, vast mineral resources, etc., then we see that in land-value taxation we have an easy, simple method of forcing the hand of monopoly to relax its hold upon natural resources. This will remove the artificial barriers that we have found to be the cause of industrial and business overcrowding, the removal of which would be the means of opening more opportunities of em

ployment for both capital and labor than could be taken advantage of by increasing population for generations to come.

As a fiscal measure, practical men will see that greatly improved industrial and business conditions must result and have resulted from the proposed tax.

This "reform" has already passed the merely experimental stage. New Zealand, the Canadian northwest provinces and many other places have had it in partial operation for years. So it is sufficient for us to note, without giving a history of the development of what Thomas G. Shearman called "natural taxation," that every district that has tried a little wants more of it, and by its competition forces its rivals to adopt it also. There are no steps backwards.

It is true that nowhere, as yet, has enough of the annual rental value of land been taken to kill speculation. When some place does take enough to make it unprofitable to hold any lands idle, it will hardly be necessary to call attention to the plan; it will call world-wide and insistent attention to itself.

But to them that take a higher and a broader view of man's social relations-to them that can feel the power of a great truth and by it be lifted "above the mists of selfishness"-to them should the proposal appeal even now with greatest force. For while it is not claimed that this reform will really alter human nature, as it would not be claimed that removing a plank from the lawn would cause the grass to grow, yet, just as removing the plank would permit the expression of nature's forces in healthy, growing grass, so will the destruction of land monopoly make men economically free-free to employ themselves individually or coöperatively, each free to acquire and enjoy without encroaching on another's opportunity; free to be generous and high-minded without fear of coming to material want. This freedom of both labor and capital to work can fairly be expected to be the most complete of all cures for unemployment. Then, with superabundant production, will be realized the ideal that without bringing want upon ourselves, we may "give to him that asketh and from him that would borrow turn not away."

SOCIALISM AS A CURE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT

BY JOHN SPARGO,

Author of Socialism.

The problem of unemployment is co-extensive with the capitalist system. Wherever the capitalist economy prevails we find the problem of unemployment. Even in times of industrial expansion and prosperity there is always a surplus of available labor in some places and some occupations, though there may be a deficit in other places and other occupations. Never at any time has the capitalist economy of any country provided a job for every worker and a worker for every job.

The presence of considerable masses of unemployed workers is essential to the capitalist system. The battalions of workers out of employment constitute the reserve army of the industrial system. Without a safe margin of available unemployed labor the whole edifice of capitalist society would totter and fall. That this is true hardly needs demonstration. One has only to consider what results must inevitably follow the complete absorption of the labor supply, so that not a single worker remained unemployed. Given such a condition, there would be no effective check upon the workers. In the struggle against the employing class in which they are engaged they would no longer be at a disadvantage. They would no longer fear the competition of unemployed workers ready to take their jobs. They could and would dictate their own terms. A virtual dictatorship by the proletariat would result. It is the consciousness that other workers to take their places are available which sets definite and sharp limits to the demands of the workers under the present industrial system.

But if a certain reserve of unemployed labor is a necessary condition of capitalism, too large an amount of it is a menace. When the army of unemployed workers swells beyond the limits of safety, as it tends constantly to do, the foundations of the social order are endangered. There is an increase of poverty, of vice and of crime which threatens to engulf society. Moreover, social discontent and resentment assume alarming proportions. Then it

is that the proletariat is in danger of rising like another blind Sampson and pulling down the pillars of the entire social system. Then it is that the problem of unemployment assumes a frightful mien. Then it is that the lords of industry call upon their servitors and retainers for relief and protection. Then it is that we turn feverishly to the discussion of remedies for unemployment.

Now, it is an inherent characteristic of the capitalist system that it tends always to increase its reserve army of unemployed workers beyond the limits of safety. Inventions and improvements in industrial processes displace large numbers of workers. True, in time, adjustments are made, so that inventions and improved methods of productions are not be to opposed by enlightened workers as creators of unemployment and its attendant evils. Nevertheless, the adjustments take time and the displaced workers do become unemployed for a while, and often for a very long while.

Despite the tendency to monopoly exhibited by modern industrial society, there is still a vast amount of competition and that competition is a factor, though by no means the sole factor, in the lack of anything like a scientific organization of industry. Production is still haphazard, anarchical and unregulated. We produce certain commodities feverishly, stimulated by a rising market. Workers are overworked with lamentable ill effects, both physical and moral. Then there is a more or less sudden halt. The market is glutted. From overwork the workers pass rapidly to unemployment. From my New England garden I can look down upon the factories in the village below. Although the factories are engaged in the production of staple goods, for which the demand is more or less steady and consistent, they are subject to great fluctuations. There are periods when work is carried on night and day, when the workers are "used up" at a terrible rate; there are periods when there is very little work, when the factories are nearly silent and the workers are idle on the streets. Much of that periodic unemployment which we associate with the seasonal trades is in reality due to the same lack of scientific organization and might be averted.

Finally, capitalist industry, through its intensive exploitation of the workers, its reckless disregard of their physical well-being and its passion for "cheapness," is constantly making large numbers of workers unemployable. The excessive strain of modern industrial life, coupled with the bad conditions of life and labor, prematurely