Fiscal measures tending toward the Single tax have been adopted for local purposes in several countries, beginning with New Zealand. This instance dates back to a period just before the publication of Henry George's 'Progress and Poverty) but several years after the publi cation of his Our Land and Land It came about under the leadership of Sir George Grey, who subsequently declared himself to be in full sympathy with 'Progress and As with nearly all the instances that have followed it, the New Zealand reform was not called the Singletax nor adopted as what would now be so known. But it involved the same principle and in degree the same socializing purpose. This may be said also of the land value fiscal system which has been adopted for local revenue purposes by municipality after municipality in New Zealand since 1896 until they aggregate nearly a hundred, including Wellington and Christchurch. It may be said also of the municipal systems of Australia, in which taxation for local revenues varies from rising percentages on land values to land values exclusively. In the German colony at Kiao Chou, China, a system of public revenues from land values exclusively was adopted in 1899. Though crude and complex in comparison with the Singletax, this system accords with Single tax principles both fiscal and social. It is sup posed to have suggested the °unearned increments taxes of Germany and the preceding local systems of land value taxation in German municipalities that originated in 1893, both of which, also crude and complex in comparison with the Singletax, have Singletax tendencies and somewhat of the Singletax motive. Al though the British measures of 1909 for land value taxation were not Singletax measures dis tinctively, nor at all except in minor degree, they were supported by Singletax organizations, and were denounced as Singletax measures by the opposition. Some of the municipalities of Canada have made pronounced advances toward the Singletax as a fiscal reform, Vancouver tak ing the lead in 1905. Although these advances were not made in the Singletax name, they were promoted by Singletax agitation; and while the tax limits are too low to effect the socializing purposes of the Singletax, its fiscal desirability seems to have been demonstrated by the fact that the municipalities, being free to abandon the system with every recurring fiscalyear, nevertheless readopt it annually. In the Scan dinavian countries influential agitations toward the Singletax have been reported, notably in Denmark where a general small farmers' move ment, the has promoted a strong, favorable policy. In South America, especially in Argentina, the singletax appears to have the support of popular governmental influences; and much in the revolutionary proposals in Mexico indicates a drift toward Singletax ideals there.
°Local option)) or °home rules in taxation — such as is freely allowed to Canadian and Australasian municipalities, and less freely in Germany—has been a favorite method of Sin gletax agitation in the United States since 1889, when it was proposed by Thomas G. Shearman and approved by Henry George. The earliest efforts in its behalf were made in the New York legislature in the early '90's but without success. Among more recent efforts two unsuc cessful referendum campaigns in California (1912 and 1914) are notable. The issue of each was °home rules in municipal taxation, but the controversy turned upon the Singletax because it was popularly understood that if °home rules were granted it would be followed by Singletax agitations for local revenue purposes. The favorable vote was large on both occasions and larger on the second than on the first. Oregon established °home rule) in county taxation by referendum in 1910, the popular issue being Singletax; but at the election of 1912 a Single tax referendum for the State was defeated, and the °home rules measure adopted two years earlier was repealed before it had gone into practical operation. At the same election Single tax proposals under the °home rules provision of 1910 were defeated in three counties — Clack amas, Coos and Multnomah. Colorado, where
a county °home rules amendment to the con stitution was defeated in 1902, has since estab lisped a 'home rule° system under which four municipal referendums have come off —one in Denver, one in Colorado Springs and two in Pueblo. In Denver and Colorado Springs Sin gletax measures were defeated; in Pueblo one was carried in 1913 but repealed in 1914 before it had gone into practical operation. As early as 1895-96 the question was raised before the people of Delaware on a Singletax amendment to the constitution, but was defeated after an exciting campaign. The people of Missouri voted in 1912 on constitutional amendments es tablishing the Singletax by stages over a period of several years, and defeated them by an enormous majority, the favorable vote 86,647 in a total of 594,784 throughout State, and 47,583 in a total of 112,408 in the city of Saint Louis. Singletax referendums in Everett, State of Washington, have resulted fa vorably, but are as yet ineffective under con stitutional objections. Tax Commissioner Pas toriza of Houston (Texas) made Singletax innovations by common local consent, as matter of arbitrary administration; and for fiscal pur poses the system is to some extent in adminis trative operation in the State irrigation districts of California. The earliest distinctive Singletax experiment in the United States was begun at Hyattsville (Md.), a suburb of Washington, D.
C. Taking advantage of a State law permitting municipalities to attract industrial enterprises by exempting them for a time from taxation, the Hyattsville council adopted the Singletax for local revenue purposes in 1892, but its action was abrogated by the State courts in 1893 as unconstitutional. Not long after the Hyatts ville experiment a Singletax colony, or enclave, to be located in Alabama on Mobile Bay, was organized in Iowa. Out of its land values this enclave, known as Fairhope, has for nearly 25 years maintained itself and paid the general taxes levied upon its inhabitants. It is man aged more in accordance with land nationaliza tion than Singletax methods, but the principles and purposes of land nationalization and the Singletax are essentially the same. Another enclave, Arden, was established in Delaware in 1900. Since that time a third enclave, Halidon, has been 'located in Maine, and a fourth, Tahanto, in Massachusetts. There is also a fifth, Free Acres, in New Jersey. Under a class cities" law of Pennsylvania the Singletax has in limited degree been in operation in Pittsburgh and Scranton (the Pennsylvania cities of the class))) since 1912. Pursuant to this law, land is as sessed for taxation at full value, while improve ments are assessed at a descending ratio of their value, with the view of ultimately taxing improvement values only half as much as land values. A formidable movement for a similar local revenue law for the city of New York has been held in legislative check by opposition to it as a Singletax measure. In degree it is so, for if half the value of improvements were exempt, the whole value of land being taxable, the rest of the Singletax proposals, even to the extent of socializing all land values, would, in the phrasing of the Singletax agitation, be ((only a. matter of keeping The Joseph Fels fund has been.an important factor in the Singletax movement.. Beginning in 1909, the late Joseph Fels-devoted a large income, in addition to can stant personal service, to Singletax propaganda in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark and Australasia. He died in 1914, but his widow, Mary Fels, has continued the donations and given her own personal services in place of his. In Grzat Britain the Fels con tributions are adtritristired through the United Committees for the Taxation of Land Values; in the United. States through the Joseph Fels Fund Commission, the work of which is of national iiiope and fame.