Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/518

498 similar to the one made in Minnesota. The same general principles of investigation were followed, although the Kansas report, in its tabulation, presents its figures in a way which shows even better than that of the Minnesota the principle which lies at the basis of this unjust assessment of acre property. A number of the newer counties, notably Ford, furnish illustration of almost perfectly level assessment. Improved and unimproved acres, though selling for widely differing prices, were assessed at practically the same amount per acre. The discrimination thus affected in Ford county, Kansas, between the poor owner of cheap land and the rich owner of highly improved land is greater than was found in any Minnesota county. Wyandotte county in Kansas, like the older counties in Minnesota, furnishes an illustration of a practically just assessment of land, since there are in it no wide disparity in the relative taxes paid by the cheaper and the dearer lands.

The level assessment of acre property, which has its fullest application in such counties as those of Cottonwood and Otter Tail in Minnesota, is a practical exemplification of the results that would everywhere follow the general introduction of that first step toward single tax which has been advocated by some of Henry George's disciples. It raises the present tax upon real property by an assessment primarily upon land in the state of nature, and takes but a small and incidental notice of the improvements made thereupon by man. Its practical results, as has been pointed out above, is to lay additional and seemingly unjust burdens upon the poor landowner to the benefit of the richer. This is all wrong, unless there is, incidental to this seeming injustice, some benefit gained for the poor which more than balances this loss by over-assessment.

In this connection it may be said that no one has stated the principles in accordance with which all systems of raising public revenue must finally be judged better than Mr. Henry George. He tells us very forcibly and correctly that systems of taxation should be fostered which lay the lightest relative burden upon the man struggling on a basis of slender resources to win an industrial and economic independence. Applying this principle