118 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



who will take this undue risk with his own capital there must be 

 many who will take it with capital provided by a local authority. 



The important connection between taxation and land specula- 

 tion is shown by the large areas of lands that are being sold every 

 year for non-payment of taxes. Railway companies, private corpor- 

 ations and even governments have taken part in the booming and 

 selling of thousands of lots which had no building value at the time 

 they were sub-divided ; and had no prospect of ever having a building 

 value. Many thousands of families have lost all they invested in 

 these wild-cat schemes, while those who engineered them have been 

 permitted to enjoy the profits of transactions which should never 

 have been permitted by law. 



In 1916 the county of Simcoe offered 300 lots at its annual tax 

 sale, the large majority of which were lands in the village of Port 

 McNicoll. At the time of the sale it was stated that " Port McNicoll 

 was exploited as the coming inland lake port of Canada, a town that 

 would be unrivalled as a railway shipping centre. Farms were sur- 

 veyed into lots, streets laid out and cement walks built. The pro- 

 bability is that much of the land will go back into farms." 



Port McNicoll is typical of scores of instances that could be 

 quoted — and which, in the aggregate, have resulted in an enormous 

 waste of wealth, of human effort and of natural resources in the 

 Dominion. These material losses are serious enough, but the bad 

 moral effects are still more injurious to the national life. 



Increment Value Tax of Great Britain 



When Mr. Lloyd George was Chancellor of the Exchequer of 

 Great Britain, in 1909, he was responsible for the passage of the Fin- 

 ance Act of that year. This Act introduced entirely new principles in 

 the system of land taxation in England, and aimed at securing for the 

 community a portion of the increase of future values created by the 

 community. It followed the principle advocated by John Stuart Mill, 

 rather than that of Henry George, in that it was designed to avoid the 

 confiscation of any values created in the past. Under the Act the duties 

 or taxes levied on the capital of freehold land were two in number, 

 one called the increment value duty, and the other, the undeveloped 

 land duty. The increment value duty is charged at the rate of $5.00 

 for every full $25.00 of the increment value (profit) accrued in respect 

 of any land, on the occasion of any transfer or sale of the land, or grant 

 of lease of a certain length or on the occasion of death. The incre- 

 ment value represents the difference between the value of land at 

 the time the valuation is made and the sale value of the same land 



