RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 141 



lands and the greater mobility of labour, it is first necessary to prepare a 

 scheme of organization and development. 



The taxation of vacant lands recommended by the Commission 

 so that the evils ensuing from speculation in land, which contributed 

 to the recent industrial depression and makes more difficult any 

 satisfactory dealing with unemployment in industrial centres, is both 

 just and desirable if the taxation is based on a sound basis of 

 valuation and has regard to the need for encouraging the best eco- 

 nomic use of the land. Such a policy requires, however, as has 

 already been contended, first that there shall be no loose and indis- 

 criminate application of any system of taxation in the expectation 

 that that system can, by itself, remove all social evils; second that 

 safeguards will be provided to prevent the tax from increasing instead 

 of lessening the burden on production; and third that it will be com- 

 plementary to a system of laying out and regulating land development. 



CONCLUSION 



The facts and considerations set out in this chapter lead to the general 

 conclusions — That there has been a large amount of injurious specula- 

 tion in land in rural and suburban areas in Canada, causing absentee 

 landlordism, idleness of fertile and accessible areas, inflated land values — 

 representing a tax upon industry — and unhealthy living conditions; 

 that injurious speculation, accompanied by improper assessment and 

 taxation of land, has impaired real estate as an investment, caused serious 

 financial difficulties and injustice to the taxpayers, and prevented pro- 

 ductive land within and near cities from being used; that land in Canada 

 has been valued for taxation with too little regard to its earning power, 

 its economic use and its real value; that, to be sound and achieve its 

 object, a system of taxation should be based on an equitable system of 

 assessment, should secure a large share of the increment of land value on 

 the occasion of transfer or sale, should encourage agricultural use of land 

 within and near cities, and should have regard to ability to pay; that 

 mining, fishing and other rural villages are in urgent need of improve- 

 ment in regard to sanitation and living conditions; that fire risks cannot 

 be successfully combat ted without adequate regulations and control of 

 land settlement and erection of buildings; that the causes of high cost of 

 living and of unemployment largely arise from the want of more scien- 

 tific methods of land colonization; and, finally, that improvement of all 

 those conditions cannot be achieved unless on the basis of a well organized, 

 carefully planned and economically sound system of land development. 



