Summary of Annual Taxes 



The following is a short summary of the average taxes 

 paid during the past year in the province of Alberta, and, 

 with minor differences, may be taken as typical of all 

 Western Canada: 



In a Municipal District the maximum municipal rate 

 is limited to ten mills on the dollar, or 1% of the assessed 

 value, or 10 cents per acre where the rate is levied on an 

 acreage basis. The rate actually levied last year, however, 

 was approximately 8 mills on the assessed value, or 7}^ 

 cents per acre on the acreage basis. If the municipal 

 district also contains a rural school district, a rate is struck 

 by the School Board to sufficiently supplement the Govern- 

 ment allowance. In 1920, this averaged about 9 mills on 

 the dollar. A Supplementary Revenue tax of one mill on 

 the dollar on the assessed value is also levied by the Pro- 

 vincial Government, which amounted to three and a half 

 cents per acre. 



The average farmer paid taxes on a quarter section 

 (160 acres) during the year 1920 as follows: 



If in a Municipal District: 



(Assessment per quarter section, say $2,000) 



Municipal Tax, at 8 mills $16.00 



School Tax "9 " 18.00 



S. Revenue Tax " 3.5c. per acre 5 . 60 



Total $39.60 



If the land is not cultivated, an amount equal to 1% 

 of the assessed value, viz., $20, will require to be added 

 to the above figures. 



If in an Improvement District and not in a School 

 District: 



Improvement Tax, at 5c. 

 Educational Tax " 1J 

 S. Revenue Tax " 2^ 



per acre $ 8 . 00 



" " ... 2.00 

 . " " ... 4.00 



$14.00 



If the land is located in a school district, another lOc. 

 an acre will be added. The Wild Lands' Tax of 1% will 

 also be charged if the land is not under cultivation. 



In agricultural districts, taxes may also be levied for 

 special purposes indicated by local necessity, such as the 

 destruction of gophers and noxious weeds, hail insurance, 

 construction of rural hospitals, etc. 



The only other charge to which the farmer may be 

 subject is the Income Tax, put into force by the Dominion 

 Government since the war. However, no married man 

 with a net income of less than $2,000 is affected by this, 

 and allowances are made for children. 



While this system is not believed by anyone to be 

 perfect, it has several marked advantages. Disregarding 

 the Income Tax, the tax-payer practically taxes himself. 

 He has only one set of taxes to pay. Simply because he 

 improves his farm and makes his living from it, he does 

 not have to pay more than his next-door neighbor who 

 is holding the land in the virgin state against an increase 

 in valuation. Rather, the reverse is true; the speculative 

 owner is penalized for holding land which is not productive, 

 but immediately such land is broken under the plow his 

 taxes become less. 



" God's Country " 



By Frederick Niren 

 (Copyright in Canada) (Written at Kootenay Lake, British Columbia) 



Seriously and soberly I sit down to attempt the task 

 of discovering what precisely is this charm of the West 

 that many feel. For some it is the Orient that calls 



"Ship me somewheres east of Suez "; for others the 



gateway to content is Canada, the St. Lawrence river; 



Lake Superior is in their earthly paradise; and west of 

 Medicine Hat is their well at the world's end. 



As one greatly moved by the charm of the Canadian 

 West I am competent to speak of it though to explain is 

 another matter! Yet, by the same token, must I go 

 warily in this enquiry lest I remark only the sunlight upon 

 the scene. So let me consider first an Englishman I know 

 out here who, in course of a talk on Canada and the Old 

 Country, told me he had not "made good." 



"Still," said he, "I don't suppose I would have 'made 

 good' in the Old Country; and I would a hundred times 

 rather be poor here than poor in England." 



Another, a cheerful girl to be sure, not looking for 

 troubles or occasion to "grouch," but of the kind, I think, 

 to " see life sanely and see it whole," said: 



"Some people here have a hard time; but in England 

 it would be a sordid time as well. It's not sordid here, 

 even when it's hard." 



A poor man in England can't take down his rifle, 

 borrow half-a-dozen cartridges from a neighbor, and go 

 out and shoot a prairie chicken for lunch. A poor man in 

 England has not his boat drawn tip on the shore, with 

 trolling tackle in it, and a meal awaiting him in the water 

 before his door, without payment of a license to procure it 

 with little effort and no more work than many men seek 

 out as relaxation. In some of the big cities there is occa- 

 sional hardship. Too many people will flock to towns. 

 But outside of Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, 

 organized charity is not needed, and the length of occa- 

 sional bread-queues in these places, in some seasons of 

 "hard times," is as nothing compared with the length of 

 like, and chronic, queues in the big cities of the Old Country 

 and Europe. Further, it is amusing to one who gauges 

 the word "poor" by English standards to hear from some 

 westerner of his "poverty," and then be invited to go for a 

 spin in his motor-car or in his motor-boat ! There is no 

 doubt that poverty out West is different from poverty in 

 the East. 



Wherein Lies the Spell ? 



But the spell ? What of it ? I do not think it is only 

 from the scenery. The bigness of the land, the large 

 manifestations of nature have their appeal and influence. 

 Although Mr. G. K. Chesterton has wittily told us (chant- 

 ing his love for one corner of fenced and field-patterned 

 earth, and Patriotism; and vociferating his dislike for 

 those who can say from their hearts, "This is my own, my 

 native star ") that what are called the spacious places of 

 the earth are but vacant tracts, that suggestive writer is 

 sometimes witty without being accurate. 



There is a shrub called the tumble-weed which, in 

 the late spring, becomes very brittle. When winds come 

 they snap the stems, and the bush, released from its roots, 

 goes bobbing off like a live thing. Looking across miles of 

 plain, from horizon to horizon, one can see these bushes, 

 sometimes a whole patch of them nipped off at the same 

 moment, bouncing along before the breeze. It is nature's 

 way of scattering the seed. On they go, looking, at a short 

 distance, for all the world like a loping bunch of coyotes. 

 To see the tumble-weed thus bouncing over long fenceless 

 miles is a great experience. 



Let a man leave the plains and go to some great city 

 and he will find out what an effect such scenes had on him. 

 Between the canon walls of skyscrapers he will almost 

 inevitably long, with a longing hardly to be thwarted, to 

 see the tumble-weed again, flying before the Chinook wind, 

 over the long leisurely tolls of the Alberta prairies. There 

 is something deeper than scenery in this. 



Consider the Mountains 



Or consider the mountains. These great slopes of a 

 million fir-trees, out of which, above timber-line, the bald 

 peaks soar up, ragged, to shine in the sun and hold in their 

 crevices veins of snow, or in their long high valleys the 

 great fields of glaciers, are not easily forgotten. Even 

 those whose travels among such peaks are undertaken in 



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