OPENING UP THE LAND 233 



They, too, desired to end the alien and speculative 

 ownership of land which was retarding the growth 

 of the State. And one of the measures passed by 

 the farmers' majority at the session of 1917 was an 

 act materially reducing the taxes on improvements 

 and with it a permissive measure permitting cities 

 to do as they pleased in the matter of exemptions. 

 In 1916 the people of California voted at a referen- 

 dum election to collect all taxes for State and city 

 purposes from a single tax on land. Everything else 

 was eliminated from the tax system of the State. 

 And the measure received 250,000 votes. In 1909 

 Lloyd George carried through his budgetary pro- 

 posals in Great Britain which provided for a greatly 

 increased tax on land values, although this measure 

 was conj&ned for the most part to city land. In 

 Germany Adolph Wagner, the great financial ex- 

 pert, has been urging the taxation of land values, 

 and over three hundred cities have adopted what is 

 in effect a heavy tax on land values, although the 

 German land taxes are in the nature of a tax on the 

 "unearned increment" or speculative increase in 

 land values rather than a tax on the capital value 

 of the land which is here proposed. Most of the 

 provinces and cities of Australia have adopted the 

 measure in part as shown in a previous chapter. 

 And the reports from Australia indicate that it has 

 checked speculation, led to the breaking up of the 

 great landholdings, and aided the conmiunities in 



