CHAPTER V 



Rural Problems that Arise in Connection with Land 



Development 



Land speculation in rural areas. Absentee ownership. The spirit of 

 gambling. Speculation in western lands. Speculation worst in 

 fertile areas. Why farmers have been indifferent. Speculation in 

 other countries. Building sub-division problems of rural areas. 

 New settlers and speculation. Does speculation pay? Taxation 

 and assessment. Taxation of agricultural land in urban areas. 

 Increment value tax of Great Britain. Proposals for common ownership 

 of land. Other systems of taxing land values. Some conclusions re- 

 garding land taxation. Defects of rural sanitation. Keeping young 

 people on the farm. Sanitary problems in fishing and mining 

 villages. Mining villages in Great Britain. Water supplies and 

 sewerage in small towns. Economic loss from sickness. By-law 

 administration. Lack of co-operation between municipal authorities. 

 Fire prevention in rural areas. Forest fires. Fire safeguards and 

 regulations. Development schemes and fire prevention. Problem 

 of high cost of living. Unemployment and land development. 



Land Speculation in Rural Areas 



IN a new country a certain amount of speculation is inevitable, 

 and is not an unmixed evil. It draws out and stimulates energy 

 and enterprise that might otherwise lie dormant; it accompanies 

 a spirit of optimism that is needed to blaze trails into new regions 

 and overcome the obstacles that confront pioneers. Canada has been 

 largely developed by speculators of the right type. Men have left 

 the comforts of refined homes in older civilizations and have gone 

 into the prairie and the bush to endure hardship in the hope of earn- 

 ing big rewards in return for their sacrifices. They have gone forth to 

 conquer nature and have expected the homage and the dues which 

 are usually rendered to the conqueror. But, when the pioneer stage 

 is over and the building up of the social life of a new community 

 begins, speculation takes on new and injurious forms. Socially 

 created values are inflated and exploited and monopolies in natural 



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